Okay so I was thinking about what I was going to do for my tribute this year and I decided to put it on this archive because I had the best idea to go on. I'm sure I'm not the only one with this idea but I swear I didn't copy. I hope you'll take my word for it. Anyway, so I'm not sure if this is true but for this fic, Black Widow isn't an American citizen.
"Okay. We have pizza, Chinese takeout, Indian takeout, subs, and almost every kind of wine you can think of from Tony Stark's private stash." Tony took stock of the food, pointing out each of the groupings to his teammates. The Avengers followed his progress.
"Do you really think we'll need all this food?" Natasha Romanoff asked.
"And do you talk about yourself in the third person often?" Steve Rogers added. Tony smirked.
"Yes and yes." He waved his arms. "Dig in."
"But Thor's not here yet." Clint (A/N: Blanking on his last name.) pointed out.
"And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason we need so much food. Dig in, trust me." The billionaire genius playboy philanthropist lead the way to the food, filling his plate and grabbing a diet Pepsi from the cooler before stretching out on the couch. Bruce Banner sat on the floor, leaning up against the couch his friend was lying on.
"Who are you and what have you done with Tony?" Natasha asked, towering over the two of them with her hand hovering threateningly over her gun.
"What are you talking about?" Tony asked.
"You have the largest assortment of alcohol-based beverages in the world and you chose a Diet Pepsi?" Clint clarified.
"Maybe he's trying to better himself." Steve suggested.
"So innocent, our captain." Natasha patted his shoulder. "Tony Stark exists to indulge himself." She turned to Iron Man's alter ego. "Now tell me what the real reason is before I shoot you."
"He's giving a talk tomorrow." The three of them looked down at the mild-mannered version of the Hulk.
"What?" Natasha asked.
"He's giving a talk tomorrow at a national conference for 9/11." Bruce repeated. "SHIELD was going to do it but they dropped it on Tony because they had to 'investigate something'."
"Why weren't we aware of this?" Clint demanded. Natasha Romanoff was quiet. She wasn't an American, but she knew how deeply the loss had cut the nation. Clint was, and he was furious that SHIELD – an organization he was a part of – had dropped the ball on something as important as this to go chasing after aliens.
"I have arrived, mortals." Thor announced, and the next few moments were a scramble for food before it was all gone. When they were all finally seated again in various positions around the furniture, Clint brought it up again.
"What are you going to say?" He asked. Tony shrugged.
"I spent all last night writing it. Then I showed it to Pepper and she rewrote most of it." He smirked sheepishly.
"At least she didn't rewrite all of it." Bruce pointed out. "I think we're seeing progress here."
"And the fact that you're not blowing it off and getting drunk." Natasha added. "That's definitely progress."
"Am I missing something?" The large, statuesque alien asked.
The SHIELD agents and the scientists turned to him as if just realizing he was there. In all honesty, he could've appeared out of nowhere in their minds. For some of them, the conversation had been a reminder of something they'd seen on TV, something that had affected loved ones. For Natasha, it was a tragedy that happened in another country that she didn't really pay much attention to until SHIELD called her in to investigate.
That had brought it home for her. Natasha had seen death before. She'd become accustomed to it – or so she'd told people. She'd tried to cut herself off from grief or horror at it, tried to compartmentalize it and shut it off from her emotions. But the thing is, death will never let you just pass it by. No matter how hard you try to remain unaffected, you can't quite manage it.
Some people see the grief of death as the only response. They think if you don't feel sad or distraught over a body that you've become unfeeling and cold. But feeling cold is still feeling. Looking at a body and feeling nothing is not possible. Something inside you will always react to it. And forcing yourself not to react is a reaction in itself.
"Tony's speaking at a 9/11 conference tomorrow." Bruce was saying something to Thor. Natasha drew herself out of her thoughts and listened. "So he's not getting drunk. SHIELD was supposed to do it but they backed down."
"What's 9/11?" All of them looked at the source to that question. Tony laughed humorlessly.
"Wait, Steve…you're telling me that Captain America doesn't know what 9/11 is?" He gasped in disbelief.
"Give him a break Tony, he was frozen in ice for almost a century." Bruce murmured.
"Sorry," The word slipped out, but it was enough to set ice into Steve Rogers' veins. Tony Stark had never apologized to him or anyone as long as he'd known him. Whatever had happened in this country on September 11 was enough to put even the great billionaire genius playboy philanthropist off his game.
"What's 9/11?" Thor repeated the question before Steve could.
"9/11 is…" Tony Stark looked at the other three Avengers who actually knew what the terrible date meant. "It's…"
"The anniversary of the day in 2001 when terrorists took over four planes and tried to crashed them into buildings." Bruce said.
"Two flew into the World Trade Center, or the Twin Towers, one flew into the Pentagon, and one was headed for the White House but the passengers overpowered the terrorist and crashed the plane themselves before it could get there." Clint continued.
"So many people died." Natasha said, looking down at her hands. "There was so much destruction and heartache and pain. So many people lost loved ones."
Steve Rogers clenched his fists, his dinner forgotten on a plate beside him. He was shaking in rage at the people who would dare do something like this to his country. How evil did a person have to be to throw away not only the lives of everybody on the plane but the lives of the people in the buildings too…and when the buildings collapsed, the lives of the innocents on the streets…
The death toll rose and rose in Steve's mind as he remembered how crowded the streets could be. One question remained. Who could have done this? Hydra? But they were destroyed. Steve had destroyed them.
"Not Hydra." Tony said in a dull, sad voice that Steve wasn't used to hearing from him. "Al-Quiada.(A/N: No idea if I spelled that right.) A terrorist organization holed up in the Middle East."
"Why would someone do such things?" Thor was appalled. Like Steve, he was a strictly-black-and-white kind of guy. Clint, Natasha, Tony, and Bruce were familiar – very familiar – with the grey areas. It was harder for people like Thor and Steve to imagine just how evil someone had to be to commit that many murders in their own death.
"I have no idea." Bruce sighed, looking remorsefully down at the food on his plate. "I really don't. I'm not sure anybody does – even the people who do it. I know it seems right to them but I can't see how they could justify that many murders of innocents."
"It's sick." Natasha nodded. "I've killed before, many times. But all those times it was people who could and would defend themselves."
"Kill or be killed." Clint nodded. "That's the kind of stuff I'm used to." He didn't say "comfortable with". He would never say "comfortable with".
"I've been face-to-face with terrorists." Tony said. "I've seen the kind of power they have and how they get it. But the way I see it power over helpless people who just want to be left alone isn't power at all."
"I agree." Steve never thought he'd agree so whole-heartedly with the man he'd underestimated, prejudged, and condemned before he had a chance to really get to know him. He was discovering over and over just how much of Tony lay beneath the image and attitude on the surface.
"I cannot see how this can go unpunished." Thor gripped his hammer. "Where is this al-Quaida? They will meet their destruction from my hammer."
"Yeah, the guy who was behind those attacks has already been dealt with Thor." Tony informed his thundering friend.
"Tis a pity." Thor replied simply. "The death I would've given would not have been a swift one."
"Violence isn't going to solve anything in the end." Bruce still wasn't looking at anyone. "Killing to avenge a massacre isn't going to bring back the people who died. We have to stop the killing altogether. That's something that would really matter."
"How could we do that?" Clint asked. "If we just sit back and do nothing, the terrorists will think they've succeeded and go for round two." Natasha nodded, arms crossed over her ribcage and face set in a determined expression.
"We have to show them that they're not going to get away with something like that again." She agreed coldly.
"No, we have to show them how powerless they are." Bruce insisted.
"What do you mean?" Thor asked.
"I think he means that if they see that their attack didn't break us apart, but brought us closer together and made us stronger, they'll realize that nothing they can do will defeat us." Steve suggested. Bruce was nodding, and when he lifted his head, his eyes were flashing with a fire they hadn't seen before in the allegedly-broken scientist.
"Revenge will only lead to more revenge, which will lead to more revenge which will lead to more revenge. But if we work to make what we have and who we are show then the lives of those lost can shine through us." He said.
"So you're saying that if we raise money and sell girl scout cookies to build a statue the terrorists will back off?" Natasha asked incredulously.
"No…they're saying that if we use that desperation and heartache to fuel a desire to reach out to others and make sure that they don't feel the way we did that day then the terrorists will lose no matter what they do." Clint said. Natasha looked at her partner for a long time, then a smile tugged at the corner of her lips.
"But we still Avenge them, right?" She asked.
"Of course." Tony nodded. "Wherever there is injustice there will always be Avengers."
"Here, here," Thor grinned at his friend, raising his hammer in the air. One by one, all the Avengers raised clenched fists toward the ceiling, toward the sky. Finally, Tony groaned and stood up.
"Where are you going?" Bruce called after him.
"I'm going to rewrite my speech." He said reluctantly. "Thanks a lot."
"I'll make some coffee." Natasha said.
"I'll hide the booze." Clint nodded.
"I will make sure this meal does not spoil." Thor said between bites.
"I'll call Pepper to make sure he doesn't sneak any sarcasm in there." Bruce headed for the telephone.
Steve Rogers just sat there for the moment. There had been a lot of hardship since he'd been asleep. A lot of pain and heartache. But through it all, there was always the spirit of those who would never give up. There was the friendship that would triumph over anything. And there were Avengers to make sure that nothing like 9/11 ever happened again, or went unnoticed.
GOD BLESS AMERICA
NEVER FORGET 9/11