Title: Along the Way

Author: Nordremo

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: T

Pairing(s): Loki/Tony Stark mainly

Warning(s): language, explicit violence

Spoiler(s): MCU Phase Deux

Summary: Tony Stark decided he needed some change in his life. Some drastic can't-turn-back-now kind of change in fact. The post Sokovia accords bullshit had let him worn out; Captain muscles and his stupid unapologetic letter had made him use words Rhodey had never heard before. Hell, Tony had even considered buying a cargo full of mobile phones to build a giant middle finger and offer it kindly to said Captain superb.

Instead, Tony found it best to start afresh, and throw away whatever remained of an extravagant -yet chaotic- life. He bought a one-way ticket into the unknown. Now was the time to get some peace, away from the constant buzz, and get to find his true self along the way.

Chapter 1: And the Phoenix, Again…

What is that other soul
so free from things
between God and nothing

-The Fan Painter

He was aware of Steve watching him from the doorway, leaning on it. Not saying anything. Not that there was anything to say to begin with. Tony resumed his packing, checking he had everything in this huge backpack of his displayed out on his bed. His bed he wouldn't see in a very long time.

'So you're leaving?'

At first Tony didn't acknowledge the question. Rogers always had a knack for stating the obvious when he didn't know how to get the other party to talk. In normal circumstances it would irritate Tony, but now it was different.

Now he was too tired to care.

'Yeah, I am.' Tony closed the clasps of his backpack, pulling on the lid to ensure it was properly closed before sliding it up on his shoulder and finally turning to Rogers.

He couldn't decipher anything on his face even if he wanted to. Tony was used to it by now, he had seen this look on the man for weeks during their… He walked to the door, Steve sidestepping to let him out.

'You don't have to do this', he heard him say then.

Tony barely bit back a bitter laugh.

'One of us has to. And as the current situation stands, it certainly shouldn't be you.'

'This is ridiculous. It just looks like you're running away…'

'From what? My responsibilities?'

Ah. There was the bitter laugh.

'There's no pleasing you, isn't it? When I stay, I am the man who dares showing his face instead of crawling up a hole somewhere dark in shame like he should do, and when I'm leaving and doing supposedly that, I'm running away. Really Rogers, tell me, you who's so knowledgeable, whatever shall I do?'

He knew that Rogers had no answer to that, and even if he did, Tony didn't let him.

'Think whatever you want. You know at this point it's been a long time I've been past caring.' He started along the corridor again, only to be stopped by Rogers calling after him.

'You still have to tell me why. Yeah, things went horribly wrong between us, and I can aknowledge the fact that you need your space to reflect on it, as all of us need to, but leaving for good altogether…'

'We can't work together anymore', interrupted Tony, turning swiftly to face him. 'We just can't.'

"I don't want to" was left unsaid.

'Our views are too different, and we're too stubborn to compromise and discuss things or whatever it is that responsible adults do. If we were capable of that, all this fucking giant mess would never had happened in the first place. I know that. You know that. Everyone fucking knows that. Butting heads isn't really the problem, we've been doing that since the very beginning. It's that it went down to this extent. Maybe your memory is horribly failing you, but we still went this close to killing each other. Us. Heroes. Who are supposed to be the good guys kicking the ass of the bad guys, not kicking each other's ass. What do you think it did to people, seeing us turning against each other like this? They're scared now, they don't know if they can still trust us. Trust you. In their minds, there is no grey area, one of us just has to be wrong and then be out of the picture. To step back.'

Tony caught sight of Steve still on his spot by the door a few steps behind him.

'And they won't accept it to be you.'

Turning his back on him again, he walked a few steps further before Steve spoke again.

'Being a martyr figure doesn't suit you, Stark. You're not this kind of guy.'

Tony stopped and turned slowly to him.

'No I'm not. Doesn't mean I can stand the idea of staying and risking things going all to hell once more because I wasn't granted the opportunity to properly reflect on it and learn from it. Doesn't mean I would have the strength to go against you once again when we start another war because one of us wouldn't stand back since hey, that's what we do. Doesn't mean you won't have to resort to killing me this time.'

He reajusted the strap on his shoulder.

'Because I would probably let you.'

Steve didn't say anything when he walked away this time, not waiting for an answer.

He probably finally figured out that there was nothing he could say that could make Tony stay.

It had been that easy. To walk out. After all that fiasco with Dr. Zemo or whatever his name was, Steve and some of the Avengers (because yes, for Tony they were still part of the team in spite of their disagreements, no question about that) going off the grid, Rhodey being stuck to the ground for a while now if not definitely...Tony had time to reflect. Sort of. Okay, just at first. Because now that the "official" Avenger team was on the road, the UN started to use them as stated in the damn Sokovia Accords. Yeah, "damn", as it turned out that those Accords, beside the fact of being obviously needed, were basically flawed. Tony knew it while signing them. He had read enough contracts in his life to point out weaknesses and flawed reasoning. And the Accords were no exception.

And this was precisely why he agreed to them. To make a point. To show that being legally accountable, yes, but this way, no. Because Tony wasn't stupid. He understood Steve's reservations and his points, very valid ones that is, but once again, unlike Tony, he had failed to see the big picture. Not even once did Steve take the time to seriously consider what the consequences would have been if they all agreed to sign the Accords, and followed their policies as said. Because really, it wasn't that hard. At first he thought that Natasha had seen it as well, and that it was the reason for her siding with him in this mess, but once again he had been mistaken; he guessed there was no knowing a spy. Not that she knew him as well. That was everyone's mistake: thinking they knew him. Only that food would be for another train of thought.

The point was, with Steve running around to save his secret cyborg murderer boyfriend from facing justice, Tony never had the chance to sit with him and explain his plan. Because yeah, big surprise, Tony had a plan to overcome the stupid Accords for certain. A plan that Steve wouldn't have agreed to anyway maybe, but a plan nonetheless. Now, stupid Captain America had to act like his most holier-than-you righteous outraged self. No time to think and listen, just act. Typical. The nerve he had to tell him they needed a plan the first time around, when obviously the term was gone from his vocabulary now. What happened to that, heh? Well, he had a pretty good idea. The reason started with "B" and ended with "arnes". Oh he had checked for sure; Steve had never started to act so ruthlessly and recklessly before his old army bro appeared in the picture. How. Telling.

Starting from that point, things were only bound to go down to hell. Rogers couldn't and wouldn't be contained once he had made his mind, that was like, the basics. But now the question was: why let him do whatever he wanted anyway? Stronger men had been stopped from doing exactly that from time to time, but as for dear Steve, it seemed that the Captain America uniform granted you the privilege to not worry about seriously being stopped by the people who actually could. Because apparently, sporting a star-spangled vibranium shield was enough to gain unquestionable loyalty from followers who weren't even agreeing with you in the first place. At this point, for Tony it just screamed "twisted hero-worship". People were always quick and eager to stop him whenever he suggested to take action after all, whether he was wearing the suit or not. How unfair was that?

Anyway, his plan to evict the Sokovia Accords was pretty simple. If he had had the time to, Tony would have explained to Rogers that waiting it out was their best way to eventually get back to be left on their own devices. Why? Well, because: unprecedented situation. Seriously, who had experience in managing a bunch of super-powered people who just happened to save the world on a daily basis on their own and without anyone telling them to? The answer was: no one. The UN were as new to this shit as the Avengers themselves. The thing was, Capsicle was right when talking about people with agendas; the Accords basically sold them out to the world's politicians, hundreds of them, with their own little schemes and personal plots. And that text did take away their freedom to choose; hell, if they ever decided to make them do campaign advertisements or a TV show about their daily lives they just couldn't have said no. If it was labelled as a "mission", that is (and as every law worthy of that name, the text had left the term "mission" entirely out of a proper and precise definition).

But that was exactly the point: letting them do anything with them, letting them do fucking mistakes. Because one thing, a very big one, that Steve had mentioned but failed to really take into account, was that with that text, the responsibility had indeed shifted. It would have been out of their hands. Which meant that every mission they would have been sent to or forbidden to go onto -as Saint Cap feared- would have been the world's governments responsibility. Being a bunch of lapdogs following orders without having the right to question them came with the package of taking the blame every time said lapdogs fucked up. It was as simple as that. Tony was a hundred percent sure that each government -or among the greediest at least- would have tried at some point for sure to exploit them into its own little agenda. And politicians being a naturally paranoid species, it wouldn't have taken that long for some of them to throw accusations around as to why some country said yes or no about some intervention of them, and what that was hypothetically hiding, and 'the Avengers belong to everyone', and 'you just can't exploit them for personal gain' and 'are you trying to make a personal army out of them', bla bla bla. The usual conspiracy stuff basically. It was easy to forget that for these people, the world came down as a gigantic sandbox where no one wanted to share and jealously kept their toys for themselves, may those toys nevertheless be at everyone's disposal.

And don't even get him started about the nations that didn't belong to the UN. It would certainly have been glorious to hear their opinion about sending a bunch of guys into their territory whether they asked or not; or even the tiny-meeny-bit saying, not in so much explicit words, that they just simply couldn't ask for the Avengers' help because they're not part of the bunch of people who signed the damn thing.

And that was it. The new order would have been destroyed as easily as the old ordeal had started: with stick and stones and chaos. And probably explosions. Not of the cool kind. With always the same people being caught in the crossfire: the civilians. Who would have protested in some way eventually. About what, he wasn't sure exactly, but certainly they would have remembered all the times the Avengers came to the rescue just because they could and had made it their duty to help everytime they could. Not mentioning when they were actually the only ones able to do something at all.

Or, even before all that, before reaching that point, they could have discussed some clauses of the Accords, meaning every single one they didn't agree with. And, on this behalf, they could simply have stood their ground together, as a team, about not signing anything until first, an agreement was reached among themselves as Avengers, and second, another one with the UN about changing said clauses. Some would have argued that they wouldn't have had any leverage to make one hundred and seventeen nations yield, but the fact was, they had. The Avengers had been acting as an independent group for years now, but they were still individuals with basic human rights (apart from Vision maybe but Tony had been working on it), and they could have done a lot of things to hinder if not slow down the process drastically.

Because in the eye of the law, the Accords were basically a contract, and it was the basics that the terms of said contract had to be discussed by all parties involved. Which hadn't been the case at all in this matter; one day General Ross had just walked in and put the stuff on the table demanding they sign it on the sole behalf that one hundred and seventeen countries had agreed to it. Without consulting them. Like Steve liked to remind everyone, with his oh-so-very-convenient-thing-about-not-moving-even-though-the world-tells-you-to-or-whatever, it's not because the majority agreed on something that they're right. And obviously, to force something like that down their throat and expecting them to immediately comply without so much as a protest had been deeply patronizing.

One thing was true though: no one had ever bothered to state an actual legal frame into which the Avengers could evolve. Meaning: they could basically do whatever they wanted without any fear of legal repercussions. No one had ever taken the time to give them an actual existence in regard of the law, and that's why something like the Accords was needed. Until now, it was Tony and mostly Stark Industries that had taken it upon themselves to amend for any cost and damage they left in their wake.

But it just couldn't last forever, as the Avengers weren't any part of Stark Industries, and thus just weren't operating on any existing policies of the enterprise. A sponsor wasn't an employer. The Avengers were just a wild card, a wild card that needed boundaries, and badly. Steve had refused to understand that, because he trusted himself too much about always doing the right thing (ha!) but failed to remember that not everyone knew him personally and most of all, no one was living in his head. If he really expected the world to unconditionally, blindly trust them without question, then Tony felt sorry for him and his pathetically arrogant view of it. Ironically, he acted exactly like those "people with agendas" he hated so much. He was the first to claim about answering for your actions when it came to a lot of people, but as for him? Well no, it was different of course; he was the hero, he was doing the right thing, and you don't have to answer for anything to anyone when you do that. Casualties? Damage? Give him a break: they were normal consequences of war.

War. What a concept. Actually, the whole thing was tightly linked to that word. Because maybe that, as Ultron had sadly painfully stated, Steve Rogers just didn't know how to live without it. Now that Tony was thinking about it, it actually kind of made sense. Steve had struggled all his life, since the very beginning, first as a sickly scrawny child, second as a sickly scrawny teenager and young man, and lastly even as fricking Captain America. Hell, his whole life had been nothing but a fight. The world was at war when he went under the ice, and it was still at war when he got out of it, but not the kind of war he knew. Far from it. He certainly didn't have the time to cope with that fact. Not that anyone tried to help him with that either. So after all, maybe his rash actions could be understood beyond his stubbornness; Steve Rogers was still trapped in a state of war mind, and either didn't want to or couldn't get out of it. Poor bastard just didn't know any better.

And still. Flag Boy being stuck in the past wasn't Tony's fucking fault or problem. Since closing down his weapon factory, he had done his best at making amends, starting with listening to anyone who needed to be heard. And listening meant compromises. And he had made some of them, quite a lot in fact, because now he was spending his time trying to put on shoes other than his. It wasn't easy. Sometimes he even failed to do so. But even then, he still listened and did his best to make everyone, if not happy, at least content with the outcome of things. Because it was about justice, and it is blind, not deaf. Tony did his best to be considerate of everyone's feelings and opinions, which was great and all, except for a tiny little detail: it had to go both ways. Things were just bound to blow up after a while of piling one-way considerations.

With Tony being now the only official leader and face of the Avengers, it was now up to him to keep the machine going. Because, unlike some people, Tony had been aware of his position all along, meaning, beyond the personal decision of being an Avenger, there was the consequences of it when it came to the rest of the world. He wasn't just walking in his own lane anymore, no, now he was sharing it with almost eight billions of people on the planet. He was aware of the symbolic figure of Iron Man, what its mere existence meant for some people, what he set as an example or a role model for them. Maybe it had been easier for him to be aware of that aspect in his life because he always had been a public figure, even as a child, and fame did that to you; everything you were doing for yourself, you were doing it for the people as well. And he had thought that Steve understood that as well, with all the propaganda he was forced to partake in as a war icon all those years back. That he couldn't just act like he wanted, because everything he did set an example that people were more than less willing to follow. He was Captain America, for hell's sake, so he ought to be almost always right, no?

Rogers could argue he did care about all that, but his actions just showed clearly what his priorities ladder was all about. He lived and felt like a soldier, ditto; in the end, sacrifices were just a daily routine for him. Or more like sacrifices independent from his will or considered so (Tony certainly hadn't forgotten the final choice befalling upon him during their last battle against Ultron in Sokovia, and Steve absurdly, stubbornly and infuriatingly standing his ground about not making the call of killing anyone for the sake of saving much more even though they had no choice, stupidly willing to die with the world he just chose to leave to its destruction out of personal beliefs. But let's not call him arrogant of course). If anything, he obviously could live with them.

Anyway, none of this was Tony's concern now. Not anymore. He was done. For a while at least. It had been wrong for him to overlook a break he desperately refused to admit he needed. Everyone had a breaking point. He was way past reaching his by then. It was finally time to be on the mend.

All on his own. Off in the great, wide world.

He didn't remember his first stop. Nor his second. Or even his third. He had prepared everything alright, but once set off, he didn't really have any traveling plans. He just went where his gut told him to go. Which wasn't really satisfying, to say the least. If anything, he was getting the taste of wandering like a lost soul literally. But it was fine. He was on a journey to seek something he didn't know he was looking for. That's what introspection was all about, right? It wasn't like there was any user manual for this kind of thing. One had always to manage on their own eventually.

And on his own did he manage. At first people recognized him of course, it was hard not to when he didn't sport a shabby three-days-worth-of-beard look yet. His face was, if not familiar, often ringing a bell for anyone who didn't sweep past him in the street. By now his 'temporary retirement' had been on the news for a few weeks already, and things were starting to subside, but that didn't exactly make him less noticeable. He was even sure that people were trying to track his movements down with all the videos and photos of him taken unbeknownst to him (or not) anywhere he went. He didn't really mind. His travels had purpose only for himself.

Nonetheless, it still became annoying after some time, and he decided to avoid overly populated areas. Completely even (changing countries didn't necessarily need a plane depending on where he was on the globe). There was more meaningful things to learn and discover in the most remote ones after all. For one, only there, where life was sometimes reduced to just appreciate what you had and being thankful for having anything at all, was he able to find some semblance of peace. For the likes of him, who had always known and been raised in a world where he supposedly had everything possession wise, it gave him a unique opportunity to really tinker from scratch with scraps.

But even more important, it gave him the chance to know what it felt like to help people on a much lesser scale. As an individual. Everywhere he went, there was plenty of things to fix, mend, or even improve. Quickly he had begun to avoid any wealthy destination such as Europe. There was nothing here for him to learn about himself. Or maybe there was, but he didn't want to do it the easy way. Far from his mind to think that there were no misery in developed countries, but their population had yet to acknowledge how much they were actually coddled. And he didn't want to give anyone the opportunity to point out again what he had been called (that exactly: coddled) every time there was something everyone seemed eager to blame on him.

No, he was going to do that properly. The harsh, realistic way. He wanted to see for himself what it was actually like to struggle to just live everyday. Some might argue that it was just some arrogant rich guy whim of his, but he didn't care. The fact was that he was actually here, helping people whenever he could wherever he was, without his wealth, fame, or suit. No Sir. Not even as Tony Stark. For those people, he was just another human being lending them a hand because he could, whether it was on the spur of the moment or in exchange for a night or two under the shelter of their (more often than not) makeshift roof.

And here was another thing that he found fascinating: the lack of need for money. Those people had literally nothing, and could just exchange services with each other, because money was never and would never be an issue. In their world, it simply didn't exist. They were way too far from the capitalist world, whom they would have had no assets to present to anyway, because what they cherished had actually no value in it. If you wanted something, you could either get it in exchange of something else, or by the will of kindness and/or generosity from someone else. Very simple. Too bad it only worked in small communities. He could live that way. Sell out his tinkering services to anyone who needed them, the reward being either a life necessity or a sweet little luxury he'd had by then learnt to call precious. One was mistaken into thinking he needed anything technologically fancy to challenge his mind. The fact was, it wasn't the advanced tech his mind was having a blast with most of the time, oh no; it was the creation challenge it brought with it. The endless possibilities it offered to a mind like his, the thirst to overcome supposedly set limitations, the eagerness to prove that there was a way, there was always a way. His own mistake had been to think that only technology could keep him away from boredom.

But first of all, with this new wandering lifestyle of his, he had to learn things again. From scratch. Whenever he went somewhere new and indisputably unknown. Sometimes, without even knowing the language, he listened for hours as locals told him all about how things were working here, how they were done. He grasped the shape of entire new worlds this way, systems he would never have thought about because of his geographical landing when birthed in this realm. So much for being "cultured". He knew he could never completely understand, because he was never a part of it, wasn't meant to be, but it held no importance whatsoever; he wasn't seeking a place to belong to, but a mean to shift the restrains of his overclouded boundaries.

He did expect the high capacity for sharing in those very low-class spheres (well in some of them that is), but still, it came as a surprise to him how willing they were. It was a very nice change to actually meet people who had nothing but were eager to share the little they had unconditionally, be it material possessions or trust into your fellow mutual/visitor. Tony didn't experience any disappointment everywhere he went, as he was warmly welcome every time (and when he wasn't, it never crossed his mind to blame anyone). Sometimes he had the feeling that word of his arrival had been spread when he went from a village to another in the same area or region, since there were people kind of waiting for him to fix a few things or at least show them how to do it from time to time, so they could do it on their own in the future. At first he feared kind of a repetition of his years at MIT, when he was the youngest and eager to belong, and let himself be of service to anyone willing to grant him some social approval in exchange. Of course, things didn't turn out that well in the end, since he was more exploited than anything else, and for very little results regarding the loneliness he had wished to get rid of in return.

But here, it was different. The people waiting for him at the village entrance didn't have taking advantage in mind; they sincerely asked for his help to improve things and show them what they could actually do with the little they had. They respected his intellect, but even better, they didn't take it for granted; they were as eager to learn as to teach, showing him and making him learn the basic survival skills he needed to go further on his journey. So he began to stay longer. A few nights quickly became a few days, and then a fortnight, sometimes more. He began to teach actual classes to everyone who was willing to learn, and soon he had dozens of people from all surrounding communities coming to his little displays. The language barrier wasn't a problem when you could show what you meant. So he did.

And it felt good. Because as opposed to the kind of helping he was doing as Iron Man, meaning, on a grand scale, beside saving people once in a while, now he actually saw the direct results, even foresaw them in the long run. As an Avenger, he had been too high above, and that distance had been gnawing at him, unaware. He realized now, while looking at all those people hungry for more every time he was done teaching them something, that until now being an Avenger had been sitting on a throne while thinking it was a chair. He couldn't help wondering about Bruce, working as a doctor for underprivileged people in India before the whole... business sought him out. If he had felt the same. Like he was really making a difference. He guessed they were finally both cut from the same cloth now (may he be safe and away from all that mess for a long time still).

Traveling on his own with the bare minimum did wonders for his sense of self-worth as well. He finally came to face the fact that he wasn't exceptional because he was Tony Stark. No, he was unlike anyone else because he did what no one else could do. Which had obviously its perks.

But also, as rotten-luck people like him often experienced, and as it turned out later, its downsides.

Author's Note:

So, I'm the kind of person who does things when she's very pissed off and frustrated (mostly pissed off haha) and as some of you might have noticed, CA: CW did just that.

So after months of bitter brooding, here you are, a post-CW FrostIron fanfic I've been working on for a few weeks now. I cleared all my other works (beside the translation of Dead Memories who's not finished of course) especially for that purpose.

Now let me tell you that I'm the kind of writer who's just totally unable to make short things. It's like, in my DNA. So the chapters will probably be relatively long, which means a certain amount of time can pass between them being posted, so I'm sorry but you'll certainly have to be patient.

Another thing: the story is initially in English, but since I don't want to deprive my French readers as well, I'm translating it in French, and I decided to post the two versions at the same time, so I'm sorry, but it will mean more waiting time, as the time I need to translate will be added to the time I will need to write the chapters. I still hope you will enjoy the story though!