Hey, I'm back. Would you look at that? THANK YOU to everybody who gave me feedback on that first chapter. It means a lot as a writer to know that people are actually reading what you write.
I don't own these characters blah blah blah
Alright, let's read.
Chapter Two
Within three hours that he received confirmation that his house arrest had officially been terminated, Tony was on a plane, shooting across the expanse of the Atlantic ocean. Destination: Geneva.
He'd put his final weeks of home confinement to good use, filling his solitary days tirelessly developing Natasha's defense for the UN. The instant she had left the tower the day she had come to visit Tony, he had ripped apart his lab, hunting for something to write on.
He had crafted the outline of an argument for Natasha's reinstatement on the first thing he found, which happened to be the backside of a rough sketch that Tony himself had made months ago of an upgrade to Sam's wings. A project which had gone uncompleted. Tony had allowed himself half a second to stare at the design, a million and one thoughts threatening to spill into him, before he flipped it over and began scribbling.
Over the days that had followed, Tony tweaked and sharpened his presentation, FRIDAY providing input here and there, most of which he incorporated. He even used parts of the Accords themselves to produce his most infallible points.
One morning, the newborn sun barely peaking between the skyscrapers as it lifted itself further above the horizon, an agent ventured into his penthouse. He belonged to the lucky band of government operatives that had been on assignment to watch Tony for the month-long duration of his probation.
Tony recognized him by his unkempt suit, rumpled from spending hours on end stuffed into the surveillance van that had been parked stubbornly on the street below for the past month, and his caffeine clouded, yet hawkish eyes, red rimmed and squinting from weeks spent watching a monitor.
He handed over Tony's phone, who swallowed the urge to press his lips to the device, and crisply informed him that all of the tower's systems had been reengaged earlier that morning. He gave him a tight smile, as if his lips were made of rusted iron, and told him that his house arrest was legally over.
Tony was on the phone the moment the elevator doors closed, FRIDAY having already dialed the number for his UN contact.
His secretary answered, her voice accented by the beautiful lilting tones of the French language. She became quickly flustered with his demanding urgency, trying her hardest to remain neutral with a 'the delegates are very busy, Mr. Stark, it may not happen today.'
However, Tony was in no mood to wait. He'd been sitting on this for two weeks and 'ma'am, you tell them Tony Stark needs a meeting today, I'll wait.'
It took some doing, but the woman managed to scrape together the United Nations representatives who made up the Avengers' supervising board and arrange a conference in Geneva that evening.
Tony called his pilot, instructed him to fuel a jet for the trip to Switzerland, and notified him that he'd be at the Stark Industries private air strip within the next two hours.
He reluctantly shrugged out of his MIT sweatshirt, worn soft by decades of use, and traded it for a midnight black Westmancott suit ensemble paired with a striking red tie. He ran down to his lab, collecting various papers from where they were strewn across one of his desks and stuffed the most important ones into an interior pocket of his jacket.
Tony snagged the keys to his R8 as he passed the counter on his way to the private elevator in his lab, settling his tinted sunglasses on the bridge of his nose. The elevator doors closed, shutting him inside and he began an smooth descent to his personal garage.
"FRIDAY," Tony spoke distractedly as he swiped through the thousands of emails and texts and voicemails he had missed in the last month, "reboot all systems will you? Run full diagnostics on the firewalls, I don't want any bugs left on my stuff."
"Right away, Boss." came the disembodied voice.
Tony pocketed his phone as the elevator slowed softly to a halt. The doors opened and he stepped into the brightly lit underground garage, weaving his way through various sports cars before stopping at the bright orange Audi. He ducked into it, the door shutting with a soft whoosh of air.
The sound of rubber tires on lacquered cement barely penetrated the dark interior of the car as he peeled through the garage, the large door opening automatically to let morning light stream into the space. He was forced to stop, however, by three agents who had taken up position in the middle of the ramp that led to the streets of Manhattan.
Tony rolled down the window as they approached, and it lowered with gentle hiss of machinery at work within the body of the car.
They were part of the UN mandated security detail that had been hovering around the tower throughout Tony's house arrest. He was, after all, a high value target for many organizations and for a wide range of reasons, so the governing board that had placed him under house arrest had also ordered that a security team be present at all times on the premises. Tony had almost fought it, but with nearly all of the tower's systems having been temporarily disabled, some of his defense protocols had also been out of commission. A security detail wasn't a terrible idea.
"Mr. Stark -" one of them tried to start, but Tony didn't let him get that far.
"Sorry guys." he flashed them his trademark grin, "I gotta run. Places to go. People to see. Messes to clean up. It's been real though. Good work here. Go get a drink or something!" Tony raised his voice as he drove away, leaving them staring after him, waving exhaust from their faces.
He directed the car up the ramp and eventually leveled out, looking into the flowing street outside of the tower. Pedestrians on the sidewalks near him stopped to point at the car. Tony held a peace sign out the still open window, then he plunged into the chaotic world of New York City traffic as easily as a trout into tumultuous rapids.
He was alone on the jet, aside from the pair of stewardesses who sat apart from him chatting softly and the pilots in the cockpit.
Natasha hadn't come, and he hadn't asked. He knew where she was. Or, at least, what she was doing. Nobody knew her whereabouts, except for Tony and Rhodey, who still weren't entirely sure where exactly she was. Tony wouldn't be surprised if she had left the city.
Natasha was still on the run, and wasn't aiming to get arrested. And being a fugitive in New York City was the definition of impossible, no matter how good you were. Somebody was bound to recognize her somewhere. Tony still considered it a minor miracle that she had even managed to sneak into the tower with Rhodey the day she had come to see him.
She had risked a lot to do that, which demonstrated to Tony that her intentions to realign herself with him were genuine.
Tony reclined in a plush chair next to the window, his feet propped up on the seat opposite. A series of television screens flashed on the wall, a man's voice relaying the developments of the stock exchange so far. The next four screens played national news stations, flicking back and forth between channels as FRIDAY saw fit, filtering through information to provide only that which Tony would be interested in. Another displayed a world broadcasting station, telling stories of war, starvation, and political unrest from across the globe.
The words organized themselves in Tony's mind as he reviewed the notes he had made. Some, he filed away for later. Others, he dumped immediately.
Some made him look up from his work in interest. Like a report on a heated civil war that was in the progress of ravaging through the small African country of Burundi. Warlords had seized shipments of weapons and bombed a village, leaving deep scars of devastation in their wake.
Eight years of anger stirred inside of him, and he scribbled hospital for Burundi? in the corner of the sheet of notes he was currently reading.
The flight was nearly eight hours long, and Tony spent half of it rehearsing his proposal to himself and the other half alternately absorbed in his phone or looking out the window.
The sky was crystalline and the ocean glittered placidly beneath him, thousands of diamonds riding the crests of waves. It stretched on as far as he could see, until the water met with the slight curve of the cloudless horizon.
The feeling of sluicing through the sky, thousands of feet above the earth had always been exhilarating for him. The muffled whine of the jet engines, the overlapping voices that emanated from the multiple flat screens, and the indistinct conversation of the women nearby blurred into a comforting sort of ambience and he settled back to enjoy the remainder of the flight.
But, like always, his mind refused to still itself, and he found thoughts of Steve and his team worming their way into his consciousness. Tony tried to push them back through the cracks, but they flowed like water, unbidden and pervasive.
The head of that great snake of frustration raised itself in his gut, its neck waving menacingly. Poised to strike. Tony remembered Steve's outright refusal to sign the Accords, asserting that he could decide what was best for 117 countries. Frustration hissed threatening, coiling itself tighter inside him. He remembered Captain America, God's Righteous Man, shaking his head when he learned that 117 countries were scared of them.
The safest hands are still our own.
The words echoed like a battle drum in Tony's head, pounding relentlessly.
Yet it were Steve's hands that ended everything. His hands, the hands that belonged to a teammate, a friend, those hands had defended a killer. A murderer.
Barnes didn't kill them, Tony thought, trying desperately to believe it.
It doesn't matter, hissed the snake. They're gone, she's gone, and he did it. And Steve knew.
Steve's hands were the hands that lifted the shield above his head and brought it down with enough force to rip through metal.
oh god he's going to kill me, he's going to kill me
It were Barnes' hands that had issued the blows that ended his father's life. And it was his hand that wrapped like an iron band around his mother's neck, squeezing until her choked cries died with her.
And it were Tony's hands that had created Ultron. His hands that had nearly single handedly brought something into a world it had almost ended. His hands weren't safe.
Nobody's were.
The snake inside of him struck violently, and Tony shifted in his seat, suddenly aware that his hands were gripping the arms of the chair like they were a life-line, his knuckles bloodless. He unclenched his fingers, spreading them out in the air before him, like he would in his lab as he worked on a project. But he couldn't stop the slight tremor that ran through them, and he tucked them into his elbows as he crossed his arms over his chest.
He stared out over the ocean again and it seemed colder than it had before. The water the color of flint and the diamonds that had been there glinted glacially up at him like shards of broken glass.
The screens continued on, prophesying of death, disaster, and a doomed world.
Pardoning Natasha wasn't the battle Tony had anticipated.
He had spoken to the room which contained the 12 United Nations representatives, presenting Natasha's case confidently. He referred them to the Accords, which each member had a copy of before them, and pointed out that nowhere in there did it explicitly detail what the course of action should be if any Avenger found themselves confronted by a situation in which they considered to be questionable.
"Natasha Romanoff did what she felt to be the best course of action at the time." Tony explained, 12 sets of contemplative eyes on him. "She believed that Steve Rogers was right when he told us about Zemo's plot to wake up the Winter Soliders in Siberia. A belief that was discovered to be false, yet still led to the apprehension of a criminal. She may have allowed fugitives to escape, but her motives were pure. Nobody believed in Barnes' innocence, so she gave Rogers the chance to prove it."
"This is all based on hindsight, Mr. Stark." the delegate from Ethiopia spoke up, leaning forward. He was called Markos. His teeth flashed blinding white in contrast to the darkness of his skin as he spoke. "While it is true that her actions led to the chain of events that result in the capture of a terrorist, she still broke the laws which she had agreed to abide by."
"So did I." Tony countered, pacing deliberately before them at the front of the room. "Her actions were a violation of the Accords that she signed, but the Accords never specify how to act when a judgement call is required in the field."
"A discrepancy we intend to look further into." the German representative pointed out coolly, her frosty blue eyes tracking his movements.
"That is an idea I'll see to when I return to New York, Ms. Schönfeld." Tony reassured her steadily, unruffled by her gelid personality. "But for now, in this case, consider it. Natasha Romanoff is no more of a criminal than I am, and deserves less of a punishment than I received. I broke the Accords and went to Siberia against direct orders. I gave Steve Rogers enough time to break his team out of the Raft and flee the scene before I finally arrived. She's done a better job of following the Accords than I have."
Another woman with olive toned skin, regarded him with soft, almond shaped eyes. When she addressed him, her voice was saturated with a heavy Eastern European accent. "How are you so sure that Ms. Romanoff would return?"
Tony met her gaze honestly, rooting himself. "She has made contact with me, and expressed desire to be reinstated as an Avenger. An Accord abiding Avenger."
This stirred up a ripple throughout the room, representatives turned to each other and discussed the information quietly and efficiently.
"And you are positive she is truthful?"
"I am."
There was another bout of hushed conversation around the conference table.
When it died, the Head of the Liaison Committee to the Avengers, Alan Sabbe, a wiry Belgian man with perceptive grey eyes, stood. "We find Natasha Romanoff suitable to return to her duty as an Avenger."
Tony stared at the man for a time before the reality of his announcement finally sunk in. He felt the rigid tightness that had been with him throughout the course of the meeting ease away, like dew burnt away by the morning sun.
"However, she is expected to serve a mandatory probationary period of one month. Ms. Romanoff shall not be permitted to join the Avengers on any missions they may be called on during that time, but she will not be confined to the Avengers Compound. Mr. Stark," Sabbe graced him with a small smile, "you've got your teammate back."
Tony held out his hand to shake the Belgian's, his own lips lifting into his own politely satisfied smile, holding back the urge to beam around giddily. "Thank you, sir."
"Perhaps, Mr. Stark," Representative Schönfeld said, her blue eyes landing on him once more, though they held a warmer glow, "you could possibly wait another day before demanding a meeting? It is, after all, the middle of the night here in Geneva."
Tony smirked at her, tilting his head in her direction. "I'll take that under consideration."
The delegates seated at the table passed around a slip of paper, which stated Natasha's pardon and official reprimand, signing their names until twelve signatures sat with glorious finality at the bottom of the page, a seal of victory.
It was almost three in the morning by the time Tony walked back into his penthouse. The buzz of the city was at its lowest point of the night, but the glow of light and the roar of trains and subways and the bark of taxi horns still filled the black night, a beautiful chorus.
Tony walked further onto the floor, suit jacket draped neatly over one arm. He toed off his designer shoes, discarding them in the middle of the hallway.
He turned the corner past his personal kitchen and had a clear view of the entire wall of glass that overlooked the Manhattan skyline. A few stairs below him, located in the spacious patch of unnecessarily fluffy carpet that Tony had insisted upon having, a certain assassin sat silently on a love seat facing away from him.
He knew that she had heard him come in, but she made no sign of moving or turning her head to acknowledge him.
Tony removed the folded up slip of paper from one of the pockets of his jacket, then arranged it over the back of the nearest bar stool. He glanced at the sheet in his hand, another feeling of triumph washing throughout him, making his fingers tingle.
"Hey." he said softly, not eager to disturb Natasha out of her trance. Call it personal experience. "I brought you something."
Natasha's head swiveled on her shoulders like an owl and she planted her striking gaze on Tony as he approached the common area. The common area where they had all used to gather after difficult missions, sprawled across everything and limbs thrown over each other like the family they had become.
Tony figured maybe that's why Natasha was here. To try to remember the good things about the people they had lost.
He hovered over her, holding his hand out to offer her the document, sympathy making his chest constrict.
She took it and delicately unfolded the paper. The dim lighting provided by a single light in the kitchen and the glow from the city below was enough to read the words on the sheet. Her eyes ate up the words, and Tony watched her quietly.
Natasha got to the bottom, reading every name, her thumb brushing over the letters. "They approved?" she breathed, so softly Tony almost missed it.
"Of course." he said, as if it should never have been a doubt. For either of them. "I can be very persuasive." There was a heartbeat of silence before he shrugged, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his dress pants. "You're back."
Natasha smiled softly at that. But, perhaps it wasn't so much a smile as it was the way her face changed from unnervingly pensive into complete relief. It might as well have been a smile in Tony's eyes.
"Thank you."
Tony might not know everything about Natasha, but he knew more than most. And he knew how much this truly meant to her. For the majority of her life, Natasha had worked outside of the law. Even S.H.I.E.L.D turned out to be Hydra in disguise. What Natasha sought for in her life was the knowledge that she was doing what she did for the right reasons, and that she was working for the right people.
The Avengers had given her that reassurance. They'd given her a moral purpose.
"I would put that up on your wall." Tony stated lightly, gesturing to the UN document in her hands.
Natasha snorted, "I don't have a wall, Stark. I've been on the run for the past two months, remember?"
"You've got a wall, Nat." Tony said softly, the playfulness gone from his voice. He met her eyes as she looked up at him. "Three floors down. There's lots of walls. And they're all your's. Remember?"
It was difficult to see in the half light, but Tony could've sworn that Natasha's eyes actually swam for a moment. Though it could've easily been the wavering light sweeping and shining across them.
Then she blinked once, and it was gone. "You got a frame? Because this is going up."
Steve: T'challa told us you were pardoned.
Natasha: Tony got me cleared.
Steve: Are you happy?
Natasha: Of course. I'm back on the right track.
Natasha: But I could be happier.
Natasha: He cleared me. He could clear you if he wanted to. You could be reinstated if you signed. You'd have to serve probation, but that's a small price to pay considering.
Steve: Nat, it's not going to happen.
Natasha: Are you happy, Steve?
Steve: read at 3:15 a.m
mr-stank :)
