A/N: So for those of you who've read my Rucas Week Day 8 Story, this is the first chapter with Riley and Lucas as two of the four main characters. The story is also pre-slash with a relationship between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers
A/N #2: Because the MCU timeline shifted with Spiderman Homecoming, Infinity war would have happened while Riley was fifteen or sixteen. Or at least that's my theory, seriously the timelines are more confusing now.
A/N #3: This is the first time I'm writing Steve/Tony so please be kind.
Chapter One – Memories
For as long as Riley could remember, her life has been a lie. Her parents are stand-ins; her siblings don't really know her, in reality they're not her siblings to begin with. To the world her name is Riley Matthews, average everyday normal sixteen-year-old girl, well as average as you can get when you're carrying around a secret bigger than any normal person. Her life was an elaborate lie. In reality her name is Riley Maria Stark, heir to the Stark Industries fortune, and hidden from the rest of the world. Only a handful of people, and one android knew she existed, they were sworn to secrecy, and not even her father's superhero co-workers knew of her existence. The only reason Vision knew about her was because he was once a part of JARVIS, and the memories that were a part of the AI transferred over to the android.
She was hidden from the press, but that didn't stop her from reacting to what was happening in her own world, her father swore that he would do anything to protect her, including building her a suit that she wasn't allowed to use unless it was an emergency. Her life was filled with moments where she would disappear from her New York home just to be with her father, and those memories sometimes haunted her in the same ways that they haunted her father. Her mother is his one-time love interest, and one-time assistant the now CEO of Stark Industries, Virginia "Pepper" Potts. When it was suggested to him that he should have an heir her mother stepped in and became a surrogate. This was before their relationship, before Afghanistan, before New York, when her father's life was simple in the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist kind of way.
Riley always knew that her father was different, and at first he spent as much time as he could with her before he fell into old habits. He always made sure that she could talk to him, that she knew he was her father, but she had also known that he was afraid of losing her so she played along and joined the Matthews family when she was five. She spent her weekends with her father, hiding in the lab, fixing cars, doing things that no normal child should be doing but they did it anyway. On the nights he had to be at a party or the holiday's he couldn't spend with Riley she spent them with her Uncle Rhodey, or her mother. The only person she hated spending any time with was her Uncle Obie, she remembered whenever he came over and she was there the first thing she would do was hide somewhere he wouldn't see her.
When Afghanistan happened, Riley had been in New York with the Matthews, they hadn't told her a thing. They tried to shield her from the news as much as possible because she was so young, but she saw the newspaper headline on the way to school and started calling her father's phone constantly. She left him messages, she asked JARVIS to playback home videos that they had done together, stupid jokes they had with one another. She remembered crying constantly for her father to the point that the Matthews kept her at home, with the help of her mother they had said that Riley was very sick and couldn't go to school because they feared that if the other kids had caught something and gave it to her that it would compromise her immune system. It was a well fabricated lie, just like her life with the Matthews family. She was seven at the time, but she knew that if her father died the whole world would know who she was and she wasn't ready to give up the special days they shared.
Her Uncle Obie didn't say anything to the world, even though her father's will had a stipulation that Riley was the sole heir to Stark Industries. He kept it quiet, and her guardian would be her mother, or her Uncle Rhodey, because they were her family. So when he came back Riley made sure that she would be able to stay with him for a while. The school thought that she had only gone away to a specialized hospital, but she was actually at the mansion in Malibu. When she first saw the circle of light on her father's chest it scared her, but he just smiled like nothing was wrong.
"But daddy, what is it?" she had asked him.
"It's an electromagnet, it's keeping me alive so that I can be with you my little angel," he said holding her close.
"Don't ever go away again daddy."
"I won't sweetheart… I won't."
She watched as he built the mark II of the suit, laughing whenever he got sprayed by DUM-E, because it was funny. She watched every time he made a new discovery, when he flew for the first time. After he had perfected the suit he held her, while she was wrapped in a blanket, and flew high enough that she could see the city lights. But after a party one night, he was angry at someone, and the suit had officially become Iron Man after he went overseas. Her father had become a hero in her eyes after she saw that he had saved a village full of people. That happiness was short lived, one night when her Uncle Obie came over, and she hid in the closet, and watched as the man who her father had once considered family try to kill him. Riley sat there scared out of her mind trying not to make a sound as the little circle of life that kept her father alive was ripped from his chest. When she was certain that he had left, she rushed to her father and asked him what to do but he didn't answer right away. She got him water, and a blanket before trying to call her mother, but the lines were down, and JARVIS wasn't working. She felt so helpless, he finally asked for help and she slowly helped him down the stairs to his lab. DUM-E handed them the old reactor and she waited for the color to come back to his face. Uncle Rhodey had shown up soon afterwards and helped her father stand, and suit up as Riley watched.
"Take care of my girl Rhodey," her father had said before leaving her to fight the man he had once considered family.
That night she spent with her Uncle and his son Isaiah, who she's called Zay since they met at her third birthday. He was the only other person who knew who she was and he was sworn to secrecy because his father was as much of a private person as hers was. Both of Zay's parents, although not together, were good people and in the armed services, so they knew that keeping who Riley was a secret was as much of a priority. Especially with what was happening across town.
She almost lost both of her parents that night, all because her Obadiah Stane's want for power. Her father told the world that he was Iron Man the next day, and she was proud of him, but now she was also scared for him. So he made Riley a promise that even though the world knew that he was Iron Man, no one would know about the reactor in his chest.
When she was nine, she was the happiest she had ever been in her entire life, her father had brought the Stark Expo to New York, and he would be spending as much time there as possible because he had plans to build a tower in the middle of Manhattan. He wanted to be closer to her, but soon after the start of the Expo, he left. Riley knew something was wrong because soon after her mother was named CEO of Stark Industries, and her father was off racing formula one cars in Monaco. She hacked into the cameras in their Malibu home only to have a short glimpse of something around her father's chest before JARVIS kicked her off the servers. He later told her that he was slowly being poisoned by the reactor, but he fixed it, he swore he would never leave her.
That year her parents started dating, and as weird as it was for them to all of a sudden realize their feelings for one another, and to Riley it was weird, she was happy for them. For the first time in her life she had both of her parents in the same place at the same time. Her father began construction on the Stark Tower, and her mother was running the company. Riley spent her weekends with them both at the Stark mansion in New York, away from the eyes of the workers at the tower. Riley was spending less time with the Matthews and more time with her own parents and so their little family was born. Riley transferred to a private school closer to her home, and her Uncle Rhodey moved nearby with Zay so that the two could go to school together and have a normal life. She was still a Matthews to the world, but at home she was a Stark and it was perfect.
Two years later, Captain America was found, her father was excited at seeing his old hero come back to life, and although his first reaction was to be snarky she knew that he would do anything for the man out of time. The Avengers were formed soon after, and although they didn't know about her, she knew everything about them. She gained her Uncle Nick, and lost her Uncle Phil, but her life was still whole in several ways. She watched as her father's tower was destroyed, and the Chitari invaded, she was safe they couldn't get to her. But as she watched her father fly a missile into the sky, the same dread that she got twice before came back. Would he ever come back home?
He did but he was a changed man once again, now he couldn't sleep as well as he had before. She had nightmares as well thinking of days were he would go missing and never come back, that someone would blow him up with that missile that was headed towards the city. So he rebuilt the tower in the sky, he said it was for the Avengers now, but he moved back and forth between New York and Malibu. She saw him less and less the busier he got, but she knew he was trying to hide his weaknesses from her. He wanted her to think that her father was stronger than he was, because he feared what he had seen.
Just before Christmas, after her twelfth birthday, the headlines were once again riddled with word of his death, after her Uncle Happy had been injured in a bombing. She was shocked, and her mother called her constantly, but then she went missing as well and all of a sudden Riley feared the worse, that she would lose both of her parents and not be able to say goodbye to them. Of course her father didn't die and her mother was saved, but their relationship suffered from what had happened. He had destroyed his suits and tried to become who he though her mother wanted, but Riley learned a long time ago that her father was Iron Man as much as he was Tony Stark. Her mother hadn't understood that lesson at all, right after he fixed her problem with the extremis, but before he could take out the arc reactor from his chest, the two of them broke it off.
As the helicarriers fell into the Potomac, Riley began living with her father full-time, she worried about him more than her mother. The Matthews didn't mind as long as she kept going to school and didn't get into any trouble. Sometimes Riley realized that they forgot who her father was, and sometimes trouble was a part of the equation. At first it was only the little things, but Riley would always challenge herself and the school was paid well for anything she blew up. Her father laughed at her constantly but would always help her with her projects, so while they lived in the New York house he had built her a lab next to his own. Riley's records were never on the SHIELD databases, but her name was one of those that Hydra targeted. She found this out later, after she heard from JARVIS about it she had called her father while he was at the tower. He confirmed it but was glad that nothing had happened.
The Avengers were back together soon afterwards, and her father was going on missions to take out Hydra bases around the world. He would call her sometimes while on a mission just to check up on her, and JARVIS would constantly send her updates to her Stark Phone. When she was alone in the mansion one night she asked JARVIS when her father would be back, they had just come back from the final mission so he would be spending more time with her. But when JARVIS didn't answer Riley felt like something had gone wrong and called her father immediately. He didn't answer, which was strange because he always had his phone nearby in case she called. When he had called her the next morning to explain what happened, he asked her to stay in her lab and lock it down in case Ultron came after her. JARVIS for the longest time had been her friend and she mourned him, but also got to work on creating another A.I. most of the ones her father had as back-ups were his own, except for one, FRIDAY was Riley's A.I. and when he told her he was going to use her as his own she was proud. It was their version of a perfect grade on the refrigerator, and it made her ecstatic. He kept her updated, until he went off the grid after the events in Sokovia.
When everything was fixed and Ultron was gone, Riley had gained another family member, Vision the android, she didn't know how she felt about him. The only reason he knew who she was, was because he had JARVIS inside of him and the memories that had come from the A.I. Her father had given the Avengers the upstate facility and he came home, retired for the first time. For the first time in her life she had a full time parent, her father was always around, telling her stories of Captain America, or the other Avengers, but mostly he spoke of the Captain. Riley knew that he was very fond of the man, and every so often he would go to the New Avengers facility just to talk to him or help with the gear upgrades for the team. Riley commuted from school to their house, just like her father did for his work with Stark Industries and the Avengers. They had dinner every night, and watched movies like a normal family.
A year later the Accords were being discussed, and her father was working on getting the Avengers to sign, but everything changed in an instant, when former Sergeant James Buchannan Barnes came into the picture. He had always been there in the background, but her father never mentioned him. The news took care of that, and the fight between the Avengers was broadcasted to the world. She wondered if the Captain was right about what he was doing, because she knew her father harbored some kind of feeling for him. After the airport battle Zay came to stay with her, as they tried to figure out how to get to his father who had been injured in the fight. Riley also learned that one of the allies her father had was a teenage boy named Peter, she only found out because she checked the files FRIDAY had from the fight to find out more on her Uncle Rhodey. Her father wouldn't let her fight but had been mentoring Peter which made her sad.
She called him, asking him to come home and forget about the Avengers, because she didn't want him to get hurt, but instead he went to help the Captain. When she got a call from her mother telling her that her father had been injured Riley cried, she didn't want anything to happen to him, she wanted to help him. He came back a week later, and for the first time he looked broken to her. He had fought his friends, and although he was within the boundaries of the law, he had lost his family because of it. That first night he sat in the living room staring out at the darkness, she walked in and sat next to him as she wrapped her arms around his and held him close. He was bruised, and broken, but she knew that he would still try to save the world. The guilt would consume him if he didn't. Riley was angry at the Avengers, even though they didn't know she existed she knew everything that had happened. They had broken the man who had been there for them, had given them a home, he had given them everything because he had nothing outside of his daughter. It hurt her to see him like this, but she knew that he would rebuild it all.
The nightmares returned in full force after that, she would crawl into his bed like she did when she was a little girl seeking his comfort from a bad dream. She would rub his back and tell him stories about school, she would wait until he calmed down in his sleep and stayed with him until morning. Her mother would come over and try to get him to work, they still loved each other, they were family, but their relationship was platonic.
Riley met Peter soon afterwards, and a new friendship was born. Peter thought that Riley was just someone who interned for her father, no one was allowed to know the truth about her. They didn't have as many allies as they had before and the truth would only make her a bigger target. So she made friends with Peter, they worked together on a number of things, she made friends with his friends, and Peter made friends with Zay. They had a little group, and would sometimes hang out at the tower while her father worked, watching movies, or just playing around. She knew Peter was Spiderman, but she never told him that she knew, and in the end he became her brother in a way. Her father was rebuilding his family with new people, and giving her these friends as well. Riley split her time with helping her father, and her Uncle Rhodey. Vision went off on quest looking to understand the world more, and Peter came over every so often to have a movie night. Her father sold the tower and they stayed in the New York mansion close to the New Avenger's Facility.
When she was sixteen, Thanos came, and the wayward Avengers were brought back together, they fought and almost died, while Riley stayed put in her lab just like every other fight. At the time she started building her first suit based on her father's original schematics, she had FRIDAY put it in a secure folder, away from even her father. Because a girl has to have her secrets.
To say that Tony Stark was an overprotective father, was an understatement. If her was overprotective it was only towards the identity of his little girl. When it was suggested that he have an heir in case of his demise he thought they were crazy. The suggestion had come from one of his father's advisors after the man's death. Tony was alone at the age of twenty and he didn't think to listen to anyone. Pepper brought it up again years later after a memo had surfaced, and she offered to be the surrogate mother if that's what he needed. After a lot of debates, he had agreed to have a child, when his daughter was born he had fallen head over heels in love with the little bundle of joy. He wanted to be there for her, so while the world saw him as a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, they didn't know that he was also a father of one little bouncing baby girl.
They created an identity for Riley outside of the Stark name, only a handful of people knew that she had even existed, and that Pepper was her mother. Pepper was there as much as possible, and Riley called her mom, but the little brunette was attached to her father more than anyone. When she was with him, he didn't drink, he taught her how to build things, how to fix a car, how to be a Stark without the Daddy issues. He saw a part of himself that no one else got to see, the only other person her age who knew her true identity was Rhodey's son, Isaiah, who had been born the year before Riley. The two of them grew up together, and like him and Rhodey, they were the closest of friends.
The playboy life slowly started to fade into the background, every once and a while when Riley wasn't around he had a one night stand but outside of that he was the best he could be. Then Afghanistan happened, and the whole time he was in that cave he feared for his little girl, she was still so young and he didn't want to leave her behind. Iron Man Mark I was born in that cave, mostly because he wanted to go back to his little girl. His life was changed in that cave, and he wanted to do right by her beyond what he already did. No more weapons for Stark Industries, only a good legacy for Riley's future.
The years went by, and he hid as much as he could from her, the palladium poisoning, the fact that he had been dying, the fact that he had almost died trying to save the world. His work with the Avengers, and even his crush on the good Captain. His relationship with Pepper was great and it gave him the chance to give his little girl a family, a real family, but like everything else it fell apart. Ultron happened and the guilt over his legacy came back in full force, not just for what he was leaving behind for his little girl, but what it had caused. So he retired and worked full-time for Stark Industries while taking care of Riley. She lived with him full-time, while keeping her cover, but he was grateful to have her around.
When the Civil War had happened his heart broke into a million pieces, he was lucky that the arc reactor had held even after Captain America had pierced his armor. This is what happens when he tried to do something good, it blew up in his face. The people he had thought of as family left him as if he were something they could throw aside when it was fit to do so. He had so many trust issues from his parents, from Obie, and now from the people he thought he could trust the most. He didn't hate James Barnes, but his rage came out in full force, the real problem was the lies from the one person he loved more than his own kid. Someone who he had pined for, someone who he had looked up to, someone who yelled at him for keeping a secret but in the end kept the biggest secret of them all.
When he had gotten home after all of that Riley was there to make sure he didn't go down the same road he had after his parents' deaths. She kept him going every single day, and although he knew that she wanted to help and become the next phase of the Avengers, he was afraid of giving that to her. So he helped Peter, and they fought over that, but he knew that she would understand how much he didn't want to lose another member of his family. Riley befriended Peter, and brought him into her small circle and Peter brought his friend Ned into hers. Peter didn't know she was a Stark, it was the one secret that Riley had kept from him.
Thanos happened soon after that, and Tony got a whole group of new friends, and his old family as well, but their relationship was strained and Tony didn't know how to talk to them. Bruce came back from where ever he had been, and they stayed close to one another, Rhodey got better, and it made everything bearable. He saw how much the split had affected the Avengers, how everything had affected his old family. So when everything was said and done, Tony helped recreate SHIELD and he became the director, but he didn't want anyone to know so Fury came back as the Shadow Director, everyone thought Fury was at the helm once again but Tony was the one who called all of the shots. Fury knew about Riley, he had known since the beginning of his Iron Man days, because when he had first met Fury, Riley had also met him. Like Barton's family, Riley was kept out of all of SHIELD's files, but it still didn't keep her off of Hydra's radar. Luckily she was safe, and now he was going to keep it that way.
Fury set up the Avengers Academy, for future heroes, those who SHIELD thought were worth the time to look at and train from an early age. He ran the school while Tony ran SHIELD. The system worked, but his relationship with the Avengers was still hanging on a wire, and he didn't know how to fix it at all.
That's how he found himself with Fury standing in his house, just outside of his home office where he worked on everything related to SHIELD, or Stark Industries. When Nick Fury walked into a room he commanded everyone's attention. That wasn't the same in the Stalk household. Most of the time Tony couldn't be bothered. So of course when Fury walked into the Stark mansion and strode into Tony's office, he rolled his eyes.
"What do you want Fury?" Tony said as he looked through the papers he was signing. The paperwork was over the new helicarrier designs and how they would be different from the ones that had been blown up over the Potomac so many years before.
Tony made sure that his entire life ran smoothly, he promised Pepper but he also promised himself to be there for his daughter. There was no time to be a hero lately, he was too busy, and while he still worked on small projects for Fury under the guise that he was the Director, he didn't fight as much anymore. He didn't want to be reminded about what had happened so long ago, so he stayed away as much as he could.
"Your kid is a handful," Nick said as he sat down. "I know the world doesn't know that she's yours Stark but I'm pretty sure she's turning heads out there. Considering she blew up the science lab."
Tony couldn't help but wonder what Fury was up to or his motives for being there were but his daughter had something to do with it.
"Riley," he yelled out wondering why he hadn't just asked Friday to get Riley for him. He was a dad in that way, calling out to her, being home for dinner, small things he had never thought about before he had a kid.
Not too long afterwards the brunette ran down and slid into the room. She smiled when she saw Fury and gave the man a quick hug before walking over to Tony and sitting down next to him.
"What's up?" she said as she looked at her father, "Hey Uncle Nick?" she smiled. Fury was the only person outside of the Matthews Family who knew that Riley was his daughter. She had an alternative life, so that the press wouldn't know, but she was a Stark through and through.
"You blew up the science lab?" Tony asked getting a knowing smile from his daughter.
"Well," she said looking down at her hands. "I was attempting to create this compound for you to use to make that line of drug detectors you know the ones we talked about, that way someone knew if they were getting drugged and I think the chemical compound I used well... it sorta exploded."
Tony couldn't help but laugh as Riley looked at him with a I'm not really guilty face, he knew she was always trying something new but when it came to school he always told her to hold back.
"I guess you forgot the rules of the house," Tony said to her trying to be serious.
"No but I was so close to a breakthrough that I sort of let it get away from me, because it's for the greater good."
Tony didn't know what to do, she was so much like him with the sassiness of her mother, but he also knew that Fury came over for a reason so he sent Riley away before turning back to the man in front of him.
"Why does her little experiment scare you so much Nick?" he asked honestly curious about why the man had shown up just because she had blown the science lab.
Fury smiled at him, like all the other times before Tony knew this had something to do with the Avengers. "Well I just wanted to say that maybe she should come to the Avenger's School we've set up. And before you argue against it, I know that she already knows about Iron Man and the Avengers, you just don't want her exposed to all of that because then she would have to deal with the fact that she's Tony Stark's daughter."
"That's not why… well mostly," he said thinking back to the last time he had actually interacted with his one-time friends. I hadn't ended so well, and even though they had worked together to defeat that other worldly power hungry jack-ass Thanos, he wanted something better for his daughter.
"Tony no one knows who she is, for the most part she could just be an asset to us, and you can teach there if it would make you feel better. They don't have to know that you're the director, or you could put together the tech lab, since it's on the same land as the Avenger's facility."
He sighed thinking that he needed a break from Stark Industries from being the Director of SHIELD without anyone knowing it was him, he missed the overall aspect of starting something new. He missed his one-time friends.
"I'll talk to her about it," he said which earned him a nod from Fury before the man walked out of the house. "Maybe it will be different now, maybe I can deal with seeing them all there again."
Riley had FRIDAY playing her workshop playlist while working on a new project, she didn't want to deal with chemicals for a while since she nearly blew off her eyebrows when the science lab exploded. She knew that the Matthews would be called in the next day to deal with it, and her father was probably trying to keep her from being kicked out of another school just because she was trying to make it easier for girls to be able to detect date rape drugs.
"Riley," she heard her father call out over the music, which only caused her to drop the soldering iron and jump away before it landed on her jeans.
"Damn it dad," she said as she picked it up and laid it on her work table.
"What have I told you about playing music in the workshop?"
"That it should be louder, and probably AC/DC."
"That's my girl," he said kissing her on the head.
Riley laughed, she knew him too well. "So what did Uncle Nick want today?"
"For you to go to the Avenger's School," he said.
She couldn't believe it, she knew about her father's other life long before she was born, now at sixteen someone wanted to bring her into that world. But she also remembered the ramifications of his life in that world. Her mother died because of the constant danger, and she knew that something had happened between him and Captain America, and whatever that was it had caused a rift so bad the two haven't spoken to one another and the small conversations they did have were strained and short.
"I don't know," she said wondering if it was a good idea especially since no one knew who she was. "Wouldn't it bring problems to what we are?"
"Riley regardless of anything you are the heir of the Stark fortune, but you are also one smart ass kid, and even though I wanted you to be more than I was, I also want you to reach your full potential. Peter's going to study there so it should be alright for the both of you to hang out more, and if I ask Rhodey, Zay would go to so you would have friends there."
"Okay, and it's closer than the school I was going to so I wouldn't need to take a nearly two-hour train ride to get there," she said smiling. "More family dinners, and more time for us to do stuff together."
"Well," her father hesitated. "He asked me to come and teach at the school as well."
"So we can be home at the same time for once?"
"Yes we will be," he smiled at her. She was something else, and he was proud of her. "Your mom can handle Stark Industries better than I can, and I can do my Director duties while I'm there."
"So does that mean that you're going to come out as the Director of SHIELD?" she asked knowing how he has kept it from everyone.
"I guess it's time to come out, considering I approve all of their missions, are you alright with that?"
"I will be, but under one condition."
"What's that baby girl?"
"I want to tell everyone that I'm a Stark," she's wanted to for a while now, the reason being her armor, but also she wants to be there for him when everyone found out the truth.
"How about I make you a deal," he said looking at her. "Give me six months, you go to school there, I work out the kinks of everyone knowing the truth about me being the Director, and we'll work with your mother on you coming out to the world as a Stark."
"You have yourself a deal," she said jumping into his arms and hugging him as hard as possible.
If there is something that Steve Rogers regrets in his life, it would be what happened during the Accords. Everything afterwards went to hell all because he wanted to save his best friend, someone from his time, someone who knew Steve before the war, before the serum, before everything. Except that choice cost him the friendship he had with Tony, he made sure that Steve could survive the future he had been dropped into, he gave him his trust and a home. In one moment of weakness, because he was afraid of the truth, he lost everything. His friends followed him, but in doing so they had left Tony behind, and the guilt of splitting their family ate him from the inside. Natasha helped him, and he was grateful, but because of his decisions she was being hunted as well, Clint couldn't see his family, Sam couldn't go home, Wanda lost Vision, and Scott who he barely knew lost his chance to be a good father to his daughter.
Regret was written all over his face, and it haunted him in his dreams. The sight of Tony under him as he drove the shield into the reactor, the scared look in his friend's eyes, the pain. It all haunted him. It was his burden no one else's and even though T'Challa had given them a sanctuary, it didn't feel like home. He was once again misplaced in his life, so he worked for the King, he adopted a new name, and he refused to think of home. He felt like he was wandering through life, Clint made comments about hating Tony, Natasha kicked him every time, Scott disappeared, Sam helped him get through each mission, and Bucky was a frozen man once again. He visited his friend, but he couldn't do anything for him. He was helpless without Tony, but he pushed the thoughts aside and kept moving forward. Wanda had disappeared at some point refusing to do anything until she got a handle on who she was. He felt guilty for making her leave New York.
Wanda had told him something before she had disappeared, something no one had known, and that was what she had shown Tony when they had first met. She told him that she was sorry for causing the rift that had torn apart the Avengers in the first place. She told him that if it hadn't been for her, then her brother wouldn't have died, that Tony would never have created Ultron, and maybe the Accords would have never torn apart their family.
"What did you show him Wanda?" he had asked that day.
"I showed him his greatest fear, I showed him a war where his friends, his family had died all around him, where you were the last one still alive. I made him feel guilt for not doing more, I gave him the fear that if he didn't save you he would lose you," she said hugging herself.
"It didn't make a difference, in the end we were still torn apart."
"This can be fixed one day Steve, you can tell him your feelings, and everything will be better, you just need to be honest with yourself, and with him.'
Everything inside of him was filled with nothing but guilt.
Wanda wasn't the only one who cornered him, after a particularly hard mission while they were on their way back to their hideout, Natasha cornered him. He hadn't slept in nearly a week, and always told her that it was because of the mission. She had pushed him into a corner and made him sit down.
"If you can't sleep you have to talk about it so pick your poison," she said looking at him as her now blonde hair was tied into a ponytail.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said trying to get up again but she took out her cuffs and tied him to the wall.
"Well then you're staying put and you're going to listen to me Rogers," she said her voice fierce with determination. "We all made mistakes, I made several, we all turned our backs on Tony and I don't know if he'll ever forgive us for that, but you need to admit you were as wrong as he was in all of this, maybe even take the most of the blame for how it all turned out. If we had told him the truth earlier, if we had sat down and talked, if we had done a million things differently maybe we would have all been together when it came to the Accords. But sitting around feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to change a damn thing."
She walked away soon after, leaving him tied to the wall and he didn't think to free himself, instead he sat there and thought about a million different things. They were mostly stupid little things that had once been normal, like movie nights and dinners. How Tony would always sit next to him and explain things he didn't understand, or talk about a new idea he had. He thought about living in the tower and how they would watch the sun rise, Tony would be headed off to bed, while Steve was going out for a run. He turned his body to face the wall to hide the fact that he had been crying, he missed his friend.
When the news hit that Tony had sold off the tower it felt like a kick to his gut, it was as if a chapter of his life had been closed and he hadn't been able to say goodbye to it. The tower had been there for so much of his new life, and it was a beacon to the Avengers whenever they were on their way home. His home was gone.
Thanos came and destroyed everything, and the wayward Avengers were back together, but the rift was there, and he knew that there was nothing short of death that would get them to admit that they all did something wrong. It was close very close, but he couldn't bring himself to admit his wrongs, and when he almost died on that battlefield, he regretted everything that had happened. Bucky came back during this time he was still jittery after getting out of cryo but he worked with everyone and they made sure to survive the battle and live for another day. After that everyone moved to New York, they were Avengers once again. But Tony stayed away, and the guilt kept eating away in his heart.
SHIELD was reestablished, Fury was back at the helm, everyone was vetted, and the Avenger's school was created so that they could get the best and brightest no matter what age, and train them to change the face of SHIELD. He worked himself to the bone, he watched as Bucky became more human as his friend started flirting with agents and acted like he normally had in a time long before. Natasha helped him, and soon they started a relationship that Steve didn't want to understand.
Sharon was there, but whatever they had didn't last, it would never last, she was just a connection to a life he had once had, and the loss of Peggy had only solidified that. They stayed friends, it was the only way they could be because they couldn't be anything more than that. Sam had made fun of him for the kiss they had share, it was awkward in every way possible and he knew it. In the end he had been trying to hold onto a past they should just remain in the past, but he's still living in the mistakes of those days on the run, those days just trying to figure out how to keep his best friend alive.
Every day since he came back to the states, since after the big battle over the infinity stones, he looked out for Tony, but the man was missing, constantly missing. He missed his friend. He thought back to his conversation with Wanda, and what his feelings were towards Tony, he thought it was just friendship but in the end he was lying to himself, because he knew there was something more and he had torn it apart.
"I'm sorry," he said to no one in particular, and to the person he wanted most to hear it. He was sorry for everything that he had done, and the cost of it all, because he lost the one person he had been so close to ever since he had woken up. "I'm sorry Tony."
Lucas Friar grew up hearing stories about the great Captain America, it was normal when you grew up with Peggy Carter as your great aunt, he was the youngest member of his family and knew about everything when it came to the legacy of the Carter family name. He sometimes wondered growing up why they never found Captain America, but hearing the stories from Aunt Peggy made Lucas want to be more and more like the members of his family. He dreamed of working side by side with the Captain, and becoming a superhero spy like his aunt had been. This was normal, even his cousin Sharon had become an agent, so he worked with her and trained since childhood to become an agent of SHIELD.
When Captain America was found he was ecstatic, that a part of his life was once again around, it only solidified his dream, but everyone told him that he was too young and that he should just focus on becoming the best that he can in school. "That's what Captain America would want," his mother had told him. So he did, he worked hard and helped kids who were being bullied, he did everything he could to become the best of the best.
That's how Lucas met Isadora, his closest friend, she was awkward at times but she was also extremely smart and he swore that she would change the world with just her mind, if she didn't become a super villain. She was one of his closest friends, and they worked together on everything. She was a year ahead in school so they were in the same grade, he even convinced her to join SHIELD one day. In middle school they met Farkle, who was just as smart as Isadora, but kept to himself most of the time. So Lucas brought him into their weird little friendship and they became closer than ever. The three of them volunteered for park clean-up, and were always partners in their classes.
Farkle always made plans, and put together all kinds of scientific things that Lucas could never understand, but he encouraged him especially when Lucas knew that the genius was getting close to something. He did the same thing for Isadora who was more tech savvy and would hack into a multitude of systems trying to find a new puzzle to get through. Lucas would always climb to the highest building in their neighborhood just to set up her uplink, he was more athletic so it was easier for him. This wasn't normal things for middle schoolers to be doing but for the three of them it was a challenge for each of their abilities.
When SHIELD fell he was fourteen years old, and he saw his dreams fall down in front of him, but every new threat meant that there was still a chance. The Avengers operated out of New York and they were inside of Stark Tower, which Lucas didn't really like since he knew what the Stark legacy had once been, but he could work with that. His Aunt Peggy had told him not to judge Tony Stark, but how could he not judge the man when his entire fortune had been built on years of selling weapons and the deaths of so many people.
"But Steve doesn't judge him," she had said in one of her more lucid moments.
When Aunt Peggy died, Lucas had cried for a week, he barely remembered the funeral even though it was his chance to meet the Captain. As he helped carry his Aunt's coffin down the church. The woman had been more that a family member to Lucas, she had been his closest friend. He loved his friends, but Aunt Peggy was something more, she was the one who told him stories, and taught him how to be a better person. She showed him everything about her life, and in turn Lucas told her about his friends and all the things he did around the city.
So he tried his best to like Tony Stark and to be a good person because that's what Aunt Peggy would have wanted, until the fight at the airport over the Accords, after that Lucas knew that he was right when it came to his dislike of the man even more. Lucas watched everything that happened since, even when that purple man attacked the world over some stupid bejeweled glove. Now at seventeen years old he was given the chance to become a part of a new school set up by SHIELD, his Sharon had gotten him into the school because she had told them of his potential and he was excited about it all. He was going to get the chance to be a part of SHIELD and work with Captain America just like Aunt Peggy had.
He had asked Sharon to help his friends join as well, because he wasn't going to leave them behind. They were a team and they worked well together, he didn't want to give that up only to have to learn the habits of a new group of people without them. Plus he felt that he would be lost without them, they had been there for him through the thick of it, he did the same for them, they were in a way their own kind of family. So the three of them were now moving into the dorms at the SHIELD Academy and starting a new phase of their lives together.