"It's been brought to our attention," Fury says, fingers steepled under his chin, "that individual members of this Initiative are liabilities."
Tony sits up straighter, actually placing his feet on the floor for a steadier indignant posture. "We just went over this," he protests. "You are not kicking me off this team. Nuke, anyone?" Tony looks in askance around at the rest of the team—if you can call it that. Cap isn't looking at him, probably so he doesn't end up glaring, Natasha's ignoring him, Barton looks pissed (so no change) and Bruce is fidgety. No help from the peanut gallery, by the looks of it.
"If you would let me finish." Fury glares at him, waiting for Tony to interject, but Tony rolls his hand magnanimously to let him continue. Fury rolls his eye. "By which we mean, when you're out alone you have this tendency to catch yourselves between a rock and a hard place and not ask for backup." That's an unimpressed look in Barton's direction, and Tony makes a mental note not to touch that with a ten-foot pole. "Or get yourselves into situations where you can't personally call for back up, as Stark's recent kidnapping has proved."
Now everyone's looking at Tony. Usually, that's not a problem, really, but he's really not sure anyone except Bruce here even likes him. "Okay, that was like a week ago," Tony protests, tipping his chair onto its back legs. "Ancient history, outlier, should not have been counted in the statistic."
He's ignored. That's becoming alarmingly par for the course, these days. "SHIELD is mandating that your quarters will now be with each other. There are a few options for this, the first of which is SHIELD housing."
Tony actually laughs before he realizes that Fury isn't joking. "What? No. That's, just, no. Not doing it, nope. I bet you guys have roaches and stuff, I'm not dying of septic for team unity."
"You don't get septic from roaches," Cap says, his face composed and despairing at the same time, like Tony is everything that's wrong with the twenty-first century.
Tony adheres more to ideology that he's everything right with it, too. "You get the idea," Tony argues. "No septic. No bugs."
"I doubt that they have bugs," Bruce puts in, then seems to realize that he's actually said something out loud in front of other people and shrinks into his chair. "Health codes and such," he adds under his breath.
"You're going to have to deal with SHIELD's housing if you want to stay on the team, Stark. Unless you have another idea?" Fury has far too powerful a glare for a man with only one eye to glare with, in Tony's not-so-humble opinion.
"I own, like, ten properties that would be better suited for hosting a bunch of superheroes," Tony scoffs, waving a hand dismissively. "You can't just cram awesomeness into your little sardine rooms."
Fury smiles. That's never a good sign. "Thank you, Stark, for volunteering."
Tony's chair thuds back down onto all four legs and he sits up straight. "What? I didn't volunteer. That was just, I was saying, hey, I've got—" Tony considers. "Actually, okay, I can kind of see where you got the volunteering thing from, but also no. That was not an offer."
"Take our lodging or supply your own for the team, Stark." Fury's eye was gleaming with smugness and Tony cannot believe he's been backed into this corner.
He glances around at the team. Bruce will be fine. He'll be fun. Thor would be his second choice, but he's still off world. Tony doesn't have great confidence of his ability to get along with the others: Captain Goody-Two-Shoes and two master assassins predisposed against him. In his defense, he was dying when he met Natasha. "I'm pretty sure this counts as blackmail." But the mere thought of living in SHIELD designed/funded quarters makes him cringe.
And it's not like he doesn't have the money.
"Oh my god, fine," he groans, tips his chair back again, and will forever blame Natasha—he didn't see it, but he knows it was her—for kicking the chair and sending him falling backwards, landing with a crash and an extremely undignified shriek.
—§§§—
"Pepper, help," Tony mutters into his phone. "I still don't know if this is bravery or stupidity."
"With you, there usually isn't a difference," she replies sweetly. "Now tell me you haven't locked them outside."
"Well." Tony considers the surveillance screen showing feed from one of the cameras in the lobby. "They're not outside."
"Tony."
"Don't lecture me, Pep." Tony lets out a gusty sigh. "Why did I think this was a good idea?"
"You said something about pest control at the time," Pepper says drily.
"Not helpful."
On screen, Natasha is arguing with the receptionist. Tony didn't exactly tell her that the Avengers were coming by, which Pepper would probably say was mean, but that would imply accepting that he's somehow ended up playing host to four ill-adjusted superheroes, not counting himself. Bruce, Tony likes. Bruce, Tony can handle. But Barton's already giving the camera the stink-eye like he knows Tony is watching them and Tony doesn't know how to deal with people he actually has to work with. That's supposed to be Pepper's job.
"Anthony Edward Stark," Pepper says, "go out there—"
"I said they're not outside—"
"—and invite them in or so help me I will schedule you a meeting every day this week."
Tony grimaces, because Pepper would actually do it. "Yuck. Fine. Will that be all, Miss Potts?"
"That will be all, Mr. Stark."
Tony hangs up on her before she has a chance to hang up on him. Immature, yes, but he never pretended to be a responsible adult. Then he stares at the screen Barton's glaring at him through for another moment before rolling his eyes. "J, let 'em up. Obviously there were just some wires crossed, right?"
"Of course, sir." And Jarvis is judging him—he does that a lot for a computer—but at least he does what Tony tells him to, so he can't complain that much.
Abruptly, his skin feels baked on like he's just walked through an oven. Tony sucks in a breath and grips the workshop table, holding his breath until the feeling passes and he doesn't feel like he's going to spontaneously combust. Slowly, he relaxes his grip and takes a few shaky breaths, closing his eyes. "And look into those heat flashes. That's, what, eight?"
He rubs at his chest gingerly, trying not to trigger another one. It's probably a flashback thing. Tony might deny it, but he knows he's not exactly the picture of pristine mental health. Ever since the cave, where they'd branded him with that ring like he was some kind of animal, he's had moments like these, a burning sensation stealing all the breath from his lungs.
As long as it doesn't happen in front of the Avengers, Tony can deal with it. He looks down at himself: grease-smudged ACDC shirt and jeans that were ragged before he'd invented the Iron Man suit. It's fine for a first domestic impression, he reasons—if they are going to live with him, they can't expect an Armani suit every day.
He experiences another cringing moment of doubt. But he shakes it off. He can put on an act for a team of superheroes. He's done it for a lot less.
Tony goes up to the communal area he's set up to wait. Jarvis's murmured warning gives him just enough time to put on his usual sophisticated airs before the elevator opens and the team steps in.
A tiny piece of Tony's mind can't help but think oh God, all four of them at once, but they're not ganging up on him. He knows that. If he can convince his flighty subconscious of that, even better. And maybe making them all wait in the foyer wasn't the best idea. Barton certainly doesn't look happy. Then again, the only time Tony's seen him smile was with an arrow pointed at Loki's face.
Tony knows how to deal with people who don't like him, though. If they can't appreciate his awesomeness? He'll baffle them with bullshit.
He spreads his arms dramatically. Maybe he should have worn a suit for this. "Welcome to my humble abode."
Roger's eyebrows scrunch together and Natasha raises an neatly manicured eyebrow. It's Bruce who's mouth twitched into a kind of smile. There's a reason Tony likes him best.
"This is the communal floor. Kitchen that way, awesome TV and gaming system that way. Gym's up a floor, has a shooting range and such. You just left the public elevator, which doesn't go up any higher, but this handy-dandy private elevator over here will get you everywhere else you need to go."
None of the Avengers seem to want to move from their little clump in front of the public elevator. Tony flicks his wrist toward the private one. "Coming, anyone?"
Natasha strides forward and doesn't even look at Tony on her way to the elevator. Tony doesn't let his smile falter. "Jarvis, door."
The others are similarly stoic. Bruce's eyes keep flicking from person to person and then the wall. The elevator doesn't seem big enough for the five of them even though Tony knows for a fact that it can comfortably hold eight Thor-sized people.
For once, he understands what Bruce meant when he called them a time-bomb. He kind of wonders what on earth Fury thought they'd be able to do.
"Okay, so each of you gets a floor."
"A whole floor?" Rogers blurts. "Isn't that a little…" Tony waits for something vaguely incriminating, but after struggling for a word for a moment, Rogers simply says, "much?"
Tony stares at him like he doesn't know the meaning of it. "Um. No?"
"Right, floors, can we just get this over with?" Barton snaps.
Tony is obviously outnumbered by crazy people here. "I'm not trying to draw this out, you know. But since someone apparently rolled off the wrong side of the bed this morning, your floor first. Got that, J?"
"Of course, sir."
Everyone but Natasha jumps and Tony smothers and victorious smirk. "Oh, that's Jarvis. He's my AI. You need anything, just ask him."
The elevator door slides open and Barton's out the door before Tony has time to announce that it's his floor. "Later, losers," Barton says, bored, and disappears into the bathroom.
Jarvis closes the door. "Does he hate us all or just me?" Tony wonders aloud.
"That's his resting face," Natasha says.
That doesn't answer his question, but Tony gets the idea that pursuing that train of thought would not be the best idea that he's ever had, so he drops it. The other three are much more polite about accepting their floors, even if Rogers still seems a little bemused at having that much space all to himself. It's probably a forties' thing.
Bruce is last. He gives Tony a slightly desperate look across the elevator threshold. "I'd say good luck," he says, fiddling with his glasses, "but I don't think I'm going to have any to spare."
Two hours later, Tony sits and stares blankly. Machines, he would already have figured out down to the last spark and code. People aren't nearly as easy. "I'm going to be putting out so many fires," he realizes, and sighs.
Dummy perks up.
"No. Not that kind. Put that down!"
—§§§—
"Aren't those my chicken nuggets?" Rogers asks suspiciously.
Barton blinks slowly at him, smirking slightly in a way that could never be misconstrued as innocent. "Oh? I didn't realize. Congrats on figuring out fast food, grandpa, but you might want to put your name on the container next time." And then he pops another chicken nugget into his mouth.
Natasha shoots her partner in crime a flat look that he seems to take pleasure in ignoring. She rolls her eyes and kicks back, setting her feet on the table, which should really be against the rules if Tony ever gets around to establishing any. She's sharpening her throwing knives, each rasp of metal making Tony's nerves twitch. Bruce is drinking his daily soothing cup of tea and he still looks like it's making him twitchier by the second.
"We had restaurants in the forties too," Rogers snaps, and Tony suppresses a sigh through sheer force of will. It's way to early for this; he hasn't even had his fourth cup of coffee yet.
Barton's placating hum has just enough skepticism in it to make Rogers grit his teeth. It there's one thing to be said about Robin Hood, it's that he knows exactly how to get under people's skin. And seems to enjoy doing so.
Despite the writhing tension of the situation, Tony's a little tempted to ask for lessons.
Another rasp of Natasha sharpening her knives makes him think twice.
"I suppose you figured out the frozen yogurt, too?" Barton asks, too casual.
Rogers crosses his arms and stares him down. It was probably enough to make the Howling Commandos confess whatever stupid thing they'd done most recently, but Barton was made of sterner stuff. "I didn't buy any frozen yogurt."
Barton rolls his eyes. "It's the stuff that looks like ice-cream. Mint, right?"
Bruce puts one hand down on the table and says, deceptively calm: "That was my frozen yogurt."
There's a split-second of a hitch in the rhythm of Natasha's knife sharpening and Barton's eyes widen. Rogers does not look amused. Tony downs his coffee as fast as he can; he'd rather get out of here before shit hits the fan.
"We'll just all put our names on things in the future," Rogers says.
He's in Captain Mode, which kind of makes Tony want to sketch a salute and make a smart-ass comment, but as of now the tension of the room isn't focused on him and Afghanistan finally got it through his head that a loaded gun pointed in your direction might actually hurt you.
"And we'll all eat what's ours, not—" Rogers stiffens as there's another rasp of steel on whetstone. "Will you quit it with the knives?" he hisses at Natasha.
She eyes him lazily, like a snake waiting to strike. "I was under the impression this kitchen was a communal area, Captain."
Rogers purses his lips, shaking his head minutely, and storms out of the room. Barton slinks out past Tony, obviously hoping to clear Bruce's blast zone while he's distracted, but he needn't have bothered. Bruce stands, taking big, deep breaths. "I'm just going to," he begins, then apparently decides that no one left in here actually needs to know, and simply leaves the room.
Natasha stays where she sits, drawing the whetstone across her knife in even strokes.
Tony leans his head back on a cupboard. "Seriously, though, that's really annoying."
She raises an eyebrow at him and allows herself to smirk, now that the danger's cleared the area. "Communal area, Stark."
Something expensive-sounding crashes the next room over and Tony winces. Probably the French vase that Pepper had thought was a good idea to put in the TV room. There's no roar, so Tony assumes it's Rogers. So much for All-American Anger Management.
"Oh my god," Tony mutters, staring at the door like it's kicked him. That vase was more than a hundred grand. Not that he cares, really, but Pepper will sigh at him. Pepper's sigh has made the Board vote unanimously, once. "We're like frat boys. But without the drunken bonding."
"Or any bonding," Barton snarks from behind him.
Tony jumps about a foot and narrowly avoids having a heart attack as he spins around. Barton is perched on top of the refrigerator, like a completely insane person, or possibly like he actually thinks he's a bird. Tony isn't ruling the second one out. "What're you so mopey about?" Tony snaps, frustrated at being startled. "You had mint frozen yogurt. And you've got your hot spy girlfriend!" He waves a hand toward Natasha, in case Barton hasn't noticed.
Natasha gives Tony a glare that promises slow and agonizing death. She glances appraisingly at her knives and Tony realizes with a foreboding jolt that she's only just finished sharpening them. Barton snorts and they look at each other and do that creepy spy thing where they communicate by either eyebrows or osmosis—Tony hasn't been able to acquire enough experimental data to figure out which—and Barton says, "And you have your science bro. Doesn't mean me and Nat want to be here."
Tony scowls. It's not like it's his fault the whole boy band is here, but he's not letting his tower get insulted. "Excuse you. My place is top notch habitation."
That earns him a smirk from Natasha. "Sure. Just not for cohabitation." And there's that look again—from both assassins, he's being double-teamed, this is so not fair—like Tony's amusing but ultimately has no importance in either of their eyes.
Tony takes a breath to retort, but finds he can't. It's probably safer not to argue with a lady holding razor-sharp knives, anyway. "You may be on to something there."
"I'm always on to something," Natasha sniffs, stands fluidly, and glides out of the room.
Tony tries to look at Barton subtly, out of the corner of his eye. He's a hundred percent sure he notices anyway, but it's the thought that counts. He's completely still, a sniper in his nest (on top of the refrigerator, the common sense in Tony's brain shrieks, but he's good at shushing that voice by now, and some people in this tower don't seem to have heard of social niceties anyway). Just pretending that Tony doesn't exist.
Tony would protest, but that stupid brand on his chest and the fresher tattoo bits that his most recent kidnapper so thoughtfully added are itching again, and he can't help but think it's safer to stay ignored.
—§§§—
"It probably got lost in transit," Tony says dismissively, "I mean, bureaucracy, right?" He's walking fast, like he thinks he might be able to somehow subtly leave Agent Phil in the next room while he escapes to the fridge to convince his stomach that no, a three-hour meeting isn't actually going to starve him to death.
But Agent's fast. And he makes keeping up seem like he's expending even less effort than Tony is, which is just plain unacceptable. He also seems to have taken vague offense to Tony's last comment, which is weird in and of itself until Tony catches on that, in some weird way, Agent is both the person who gets to kill people and the one who writes it up, so if that's not super-spy bureaucracy, nothing is.
"Which is why I'm here, as I've said, Mr. Stark. Eliminate the middleman—"
"Excuse me? What did they teach you about shooting the messenger in super-spy school?"
Tony's pretty sure the prickling on his neck is Agent's glare, but ultimately, he doesn't respond to Tony's quip. Depressingly, Tony's getting used to this blatant disregard of his genius. "As you've proved, you turn any need for paperwork into a well-organized nightmare, so I can't help but think that coming to get it myself might at least reduce it to a mid-level migraine."
He pretends to think, tapping his chin even as he scans the kitchen. Rogers is by the toaster and Barton is on top of the fridge again, but they're not talking to each other and they're the only ones in the kitchen, so as long as Tony pretends like they're not there it's possible that nothing will explode. "Well, no one's ever called me well-organized before," Tony concedes, edging past Rogers to the fridge. Barton stares down impassively like a gargoyle guarding a decaying castle. Technically, Tony can open the door without disturbing him. Theoretically. Ignore Barton, he tells himself, you don't see him he doesn't see you—
That's when the heat wave hits.
Tony makes a abortive grab for the counter behind him, but it's too far away, and as the sensation of burning heat turns his knees to jelly, the world tilts and he finds himself painfully on the floor. He can see dust bunnies under the refrigerator and the jam stain on the bottom of a cabinet where he'd fumbled the jar in search of a midnight snack a few weeks ago, but he isn't seeing either—he can't see anything, inside his self-contained hellfire and brimstone. Even breathing hurts, like the air is feeding the flames, and he tries to hold his breath as best he can, acutely aware of the humiliating whimpering he was making.
Sounds of alarm that he couldn't parse drift around him and somebody's feet shuffle past his line of sight. A hand touches his shoulder and he cringes away; the hand is much cooler than his own skin, but it paradoxically burns him all the worse for it.
The flat, stagnant coolness of the fridge door has Tony scrambling to press himself against it, though. The very last sane thought in his head flits around in a panic: the heat waves don't last long. They never last this long, it should be gone—
"Stark." Barton's voice cuts through the haze of heat with the precision of a knife. Blindly, Tony looks toward him.
Words: definitely not English, and they don't sound like they're particularly polite words, either. A hand touches his forehead, but this one doesn't burn. Tony pushes into it pathetically. Please make it stop, let someone take it away.
Holding his breath becomes too much and Tony risks breathing again, but it makes the inside of his throat burn like the pits of hell. Ow ow ow why me why me?
"Breathe."
Tony actually kind of laughs at that brilliant suggestion of Barton's. Yeah, no.
"Tony, I know it hurts, you have to breathe. Trust me, okay, just—one big breath."
Nope. Tony holds his breath, swaying a little as black speckles his vision. No breaths here, not for Tony Stark. Not when it invites fire in for a cup of tea in his lungs.
Barton sucker-punches him. All the air left in Tony leaves him in a rush of air and his body reflexively pulls in a fresh breath of air. Bad, that was bad—Barton's playing dirty.
"You have to breathe," Barton snarls in his ear. "Deep breath. Come on, Stark!"
It occurs to Tony that Barton is a bone fide crazy person and is not going to stop until he is obeyed. Tony feels like he might as well just curl up and die on the spot, but, curling in on himself in instinctive self-defense, Tony sucks in a breath as deep as he can stand.
He can't help but give a pained little cough, and ow.
"That's it. Breathe, cough. Do it."
Worn down, Tony obeys. Breathe in (pain) give weak coughs like he's trying to clear his throat. The roof of his mouth and his tongue start to tingle.
"Get out of the way!"
Tony wonders for a hysterical moment how Barton expects him to move, but then he manages to truly cough. Something like phlegm, but at the same time not like phlegm at all, is propelled from his mouth and the cupboards under the counter catch fire. Someone yelps and someone else swears.
That feels a lot better.
"Again," Barton says, and this time, Tony doesn't argue, keeps sucking in air and coughing up whatever flammable hazard has clogged him up until he's exhausted and half the kitchen is on fire and finally, finally, Tony feels like his body is his own again. Shaking, sweaty, and frazzled, but his.
"Your body temperature has returned to an acceptable ninety-eight point six degrees Fahrenheit," Jarvis announces from on high, his voice every inch the measured computer in a way that means someone is about to be on the wrong side of a cyber attack, or possibly a death ray if Jarvis can figure out how to go Skynet fast enough.
That voice is never a good sign. Tony rouses himself enough to glance around the room to try to gage the situation.
Rogers is white as a sheet, and is staring at Tony like he's some kind of alien species. Agent doesn't look at Tony, or Barton, or even Rogers; instead his gaze flicks about the various pieces of flaming furniture as if to make sure the sprinklers put all the fires out. So far, they're doing a pretty good job. Which is how it occurs to Tony that, while he may not be suffering a heat wave of whatever hellish source anymore, he is soaked, shivering, and leaning heavily on Barton.
The leaning is kind of embarrassing in its own right, but Barton is only holding his elbow, a single point of established firm contact, and Tony doesn't want to move. Ever. The anchor is, for a moment, the only thing that ensures him that he's not just a ghost hanging about his burnt husk of a body until the grim reaper comes for him, or whatever the process is for that. He should probably ask Thor next time he's Earth-side; he seems like he would know.
Natasha appears in the doorway, rather concerned if her expression is anything to go by. She takes one look around the kitchen and looks like she wished she hadn't come."Do I want to know what just happened?" she asks. Her tone hints heavily that she probably doesn't.
"That," Agent says, finally eyeing Tony up and down and shooting Barton a look that Tony wishes he could read, "is a very good question."
Barton almost looks guilty. Which is about when Tony connects flaming furniture to whatever came out of his mouth and comes up with—he can't believe it took him so long—breathing fire.
Tony does not giggle. He chuckles, just up an octave. Although he will admit he hiccups. And he can't find a good way to deny how he quietly slips from consciousness and faints into Barton's arms.
—§§§—
Tony wakes up on the couch in the living room. He tries not to guess who carried him there, because he definitely didn't get there by his own power.
"It's complicated," Barton is saying. Tony's not sure to whom, and he's not quite willing to check yet. "Really complicated. It'd be easier to explain once Stark wakes up."
Hey, that's him. "M'awake?" Tony mumbles. It's more of a question than anything, and he carefully slits open an eye to make sure no one's glaring at him before letting himself actually try to fight his way into consciousness.
Something heavy and soft drops onto him. Tony stares in bewilderment at the blanket heaped on his legs and hips for a long moment before realizing it must have come from somewhere. Carefully, wary of an incoming headache or God forbid another heat wave, Tony looked over to see Agent standing impassively.
Which didn't make any more sense, really. "This is a blanket," Tony says suspiciously, plucking at the woolly coverlet emphatically.
"Yes, it is." If Agent didn't sound so agreeable, Tony might think he was being mocked. "You were shivering."
Well, in that case… Tony kicks and wiggles and snuggles until he's wrapped up in the blanket up to his chin. By the time he's satisfied and looks up, he sees the rest of his team staring at him with varying degrees of amusement and worry. Tony pokes a hand out by his head to make a regal gesture. "Go on." He probably looks more like a munchkin than a monarch, but he's dealt with enough trauma today that no one can begrudge him a little bit of pathetic behavior.
"I'd say he's awake," Natasha says diffidently. She gives Barton a small smile that seems oddly sharp, considering its target. "You can explain now."
Barton tenses slightly. Interesting. "It's really hard to explain."
Bruce snorts. He's not making eye contact with anyone and his breaths are carefully measured. He's cleans his glasses in exact, slow movements, a calming routine. "I'd at least like an assurance that Tony's okay now."
Barton hesitates.
Oh shit, Tony thinks. Hesitation is rarely a good sign business or one night stands and it doesn't seem to get any better with superheroes.
"Last time I checked," Rogers says, "A hundred and seven fever is fatal. What happened here? How can he be okay?"
"Define okay," Barton says, just as Tony interjects, alarmed: "Fever?"
"Sir, your internal temperature reached one hundred nine point one degrees Fahrenheit," Jarvis recited from the ceiling. "I don't know how you are still alive, much less speaking to us now."
The silence is deafening as everyone in the room takes that in. Tony curls into the blanket a little bit more. "What," he bursts out, finally. "But—that's never happened in a heat wave before."
Barton's gaze cuts to Tony, sharp and piercing. "This has happened before?"
Aaaaand now everyone's staring at Tony again. He kind of wishes for a stage, because then at least this would be normal. "Uh. Kind of? Not like this. They just come and go, really fast. Just a minute, not a whole—whatever, with the, the breathing fire."
The words breathing fire sit heavily in the atmosphere of the room. Tony swallows and tries to breathe normally under the pressure.
"How long has this been happening?" Barton demands.
"Uh," since the kidnapping, "two weeks? Maybe closer to three?" His knuckles are white under the blanket.
"When did it start?" Barton persists.
Oh, fine. "After the kidnapping."
"You didn't mention that in the debriefing," Agent says, folding his arms and looking at Tony critically. "Or in the report you didn't send."
Tony makes a face at Agent, but Barton seems prepared to ignore anyone else as he's grilling Tony. "Did they brand you?"
"What?" Tony recoils. How does he know about that? "No. I mean, they—that happened back in Afghanistan—"
"Afghanistan?" Barton looks like he's just swallowed a bug and, if it were anyone else, Tony might say he almost looked afraid. But his is Hawkeye, so he must be reading things wrong. "Four years ago? How the hell are you still alive?"
Tony tenses and narrows his eyes. Deliberately slow and clear, he says, "Because I beat them and I killed them." He shudders inside at the reminder, but he swallows and just tries to keep himself braced on the couch as the emotion clogs his throat. Calm down, it's okay, it's over, you won. You survived.
The silence in the room has turned stiff and awkward. Barton doesn't quite look him in the eye when he belatedly says, "That's not what I meant."
"Then why don't you tell us what you meant?" Bruce suggests, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Barton gets the fortitude to meet Tony's eyes again, and Tony tells himself not to look away. Not for this. Mentioning Afghanistan meant war, frankly, and he didn't like losing battles.
"Can I see your brand?" Clint asks.
Tony smiles a little, at that. Funny. No. "Well, that's a little private—" he explains.
"Let me guess," Barton cuts in. "You got branded by a ring, I guess in Afghanistan, and when you got kidnapped a few weeks ago they branded a dot inside that circle and little wings on either side of it." He folds his arms like he's daring Tony to argue.
"Tattooed it," Tony corrects automatically, because he'd been pissed when he came down from the drugs his kidnappers gave him and found his first tattoo under the influence since the age of twenty-three. A moment later he wonders if he should have said it, but—wings. That's what they are. Now that it had been said, Tony could easily picture the marks as wings. "How did you know that?" he asks neutrally.
"Oh—" Agent bites off a curse. Natasha's gaze flicks back and forth between Agent and Barton's grim face like she's trying to figure out something only vaguely pieced together.
Tony knows the feeling. "What's going on?"
Barton sighs, looks at the floor, then brings his chin up proudly to meet gazes with Tony. "Do you believe in dragons?"
"Not if I can help it," Tony says reflexively, because they're really cool in books, but he's had to fight giant robots to save a city and robots are even cooler, so he'd rather they just didn't exist if the alternative is getting fried into a crispy treat for a fantasy reptile.
"What else do you know that can breathe fire?"
"Breathe—" Barton's statement actually processes and Tony puts two and two together. "No. Absolutely not, I'm not—I—" Tony giggles a little hysterically, because this is just ridiculous. "You've got to be kidding me. They, what, symbolically turned me into a dragon? Why, some kind of object lesson?"
"I don't know it's for an object lesson. But I know it's not symbolic." Barton pulls of his shirt and crouches, rolling his shoulders twice, and huge, purple reptilian wings unfurl. They almost touch the ceiling; they probably would, if Barton stretched them as far as they can go.
Barton smirks at him. "Welcome to the club. Exclusive membership."
Something in Tony's brain just decides to stop working, because nope, just—no. He just stares for all of five seconds, and then he sits up (painfully) and stands up (excruciatingly), drawing his blanket around him like a king's cape. "I am going to bed," he announces. "Obviously I'm high. I'm going to wake up tomorrow and this is all going to be a really bad trip." And he starts toward the elevator.
Barton makes an incredulous sound halfway between a snort and sigh, reaching out to catch Tony's shoulder. "Stark, you can't think—"
"DON'T." Tony spins around, smacking Barton's hand away, tense as a wire and twice as likely to snap. Barton freezes, eyes locking with Tony's but he doesn't move when Tony takes another step backward, so he doesn't care how intensely Barton is staring. "Don't tell me what I can't think," he says, quieter.
He's through the the threshold and the elevator's closed before anyone can make another move. Tony closes his eyes and leans against the wall, trying to convince his trembling legs to hold the rest of his body up at least until he gets to his room. Sleep, that's all, no thinking about—whatever. Absolutely no thinking allowed.
Because, for maybe the fifth time in his life, Tony doesn't know how to respond, and he doesn't know the answers.
—§§§—
Tony wakes up blearily for the second time in the span of six hours and glares at Barton, who's staring at him from the doorway of his bedroom. "Jarvis, why did you let him in?"
"He brought coffee," Jarvis says. "I thought that may be an acceptable sacrifice."
Barton raises the mug in his hands a little, as if to say, see, for you. Tony doesn't trust it.
But it's coffee.
"Fine. State your name and business," he grumbles, mostly sarcastic, making grabby hands for the coffee.
Barton walks forward and holds it out to him. "Clint Barton, here to make sure you don't die horribly in the next two months."
Tony pauses, cup inches from his mouth, and gives Barton a horrified look. Barton blinks at him, like he doesn't see what was wrong with what he'd just said. "You don't tell a man that before his morning coffee!" Tony sputters, and starts chugging the scalding drink, because obviously he needs to wake up fast.
"Figured I'd do it before you kick me out," Barton shrugs, then eyes Tony suspiciously as he perches on the edge of the bedside table. It's tempting, Tony has to admit, but the more he remembers, the more he knows, with a horrible sinking feeling in his gut, that the fire in the kitchen hadn't been a trip. Dying horribly sounds, well, horrible, so Tony thinks he might be able to stick out a couple minutes of weirdness for the sake of not dying.
"Start talking before I change my mind," Tony suggests.
Barton nods once, then twice; opens his mouth, closes it again, and finally settles on, "Can I see the brand?"
Tony sends him a flat glare and resists the urge to fall back onto his bed and cover up his face with his pillow. "You're not convincing me."
Barton scowls. "Look, I just want to make sure it was done right so you might actually have a chance at surviving—"
"I just burned up half the kitchen!" Tony exploded. He thumps the coffee mug down on the bedside table next to Barton before he's tempted to throw it at something, or someone. "I'd say whatever magical mojo it is was done pretty accurately."
"Close enough to give you symptoms doesn't necessarily mean close enough to change you safely," Barton says darkly.
Tony stares at him. "You actually believe that I'm going to turn into a dragon because of a tattoo." The thought is ridiculous enough that Tony can't stand to stay sitting. He pushes himself off the bed and begins to pace.
"You do realize I am a dragon, right?" Barton asks, eyes tracking his movements. "You didn't miss the wings?"
"Yeah, purple, real manly," Tony says sarcastically.
"Amethyst," Barton corrects him stiffly.
Tony shoots him an incredulous glance and rolls his eyes. "Because that's so much better. So, what, this happened to you, too?"
"No. I'm Dragonborn. Which is—well, what it sounds like."
"And I'm, what, Dragon-transformed?"
"Dragonmade."
"Close enough." Tony stops pacing and looks at Barton. He's pulled his feet up and is perched on Tony's bedside table like he owns it—perched like a bird of prey, Tony thinks. Or reptile of prey. He'll admit that it kind of does explain the refrigerator thing. "You really think I could die."
"There's a reason there hasn't been any Dragonmade on Earth for several centuries. That's—" Barton hesitates. Tony hates it when he does that, because he never seems to be remembering, oh, hey, it's not actually as bad as I thought, never mind. It's always whoops, it's even worse, sorry. "That's one of the reasons, anyway."
"It's not because people don't get branded, is it," Tony says, stomach sinking. Barton shakes his head, unapologetic, and Tony tries to keep his breathing level. He can't afford to flip out. "So they're branded," he says, voice only mostly steady, "and they die. Because it was done wrong."
"That's one of the reasons."
It's good enough for Tony. Reluctantly, he pulls his shirt over his head and faces Barton.
The arc reactor is enough of a scar that he doesn't like showing it to people, even besides the fact that it was once pulled out of his chest by someone he'd thought he could trust. It's just—not exactly appealing to most people. And even beside that, there's the brand only about two inches above the reactor, a sign of skin charred by a white-hot ring that even now makes him break out in cold sweat, sometimes, when he sees a plain wedding band.
Oh, and the body art. Let's not forget that humiliation.
Barton doesn't try to get any closer, which is good, because Tony might actually punch him if he tried to touch the brand. But his stare makes Tony want to hide anyway, for the slow seconds that he scrutinizes the brand, and then nods. "It's done right."
Tony lets go of a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and puts his shirt back on. "Oh good, I'm not going to die."
Barton's doing that careful avoidance of his gaze that generally means the same thing as hesitation.
"Right," Tony says, swallowing. "That was only one of the reasons."
"The other main reason," Barton says, halting words obviously chosen carefully, "is that the dragons left Earth a long time ago. And a Dragonmade needs another dragon that's fledged—already has their wings, I mean—in order to survive the transformation process."
"Okay. And you're here. Problem solved." Tony paused. "There's a catch, isn't there."
"There's a catch," Barton agrees.
Tony groans. The only other alternative is yelling, and his throat still kind of hurts from the fire. So he just swears quietly until he can take hearing whatever's next, and then asks, "So what's the catch?"
"I'm—I'm trying to put it in a way you'd understand," Barton says, staring intently at the ceiling. "It's not something humans have. Not really."
Something clicks together in Tony's head. "You're Dragonborn, aren't you? You've never been human."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Barton grumbles, and Tony takes a moment to search his thoughts on the matter. He's not sure he cares. He's just overwhelmed in general, and, surprise, surprise: the one other person on this team he thought was a regular human being is—not.
"Okay," Barton says. "It's—I guess the closest thing you have to it is family? But even that—family of choice, maybe."
Tony spreads his hands. "You mean friends?" he suggests, a little incredulous.
"No." Barton sighs. "We call it clan. It's a closer bond than either of those. It's a connection you need to be able to lean on when your body and mind are strained in the transformation."
"Right." Tony's sure that his disbelief comes through in his voice. He just doesn't really care.
"You're not going to like the next part," Barton warns him, sounding tired.
Tony snorts. "Like I've liked any of this? Catch of the catch, of course there is. So, go ahead, just—rip it off like a bandaid, get it over with."
"It's a telepathic bond."
Tony's expression freezes. There's no way he heard that right. Then his brain rewinds about ten seconds and yep, that's exactly what Barton said.
He sits down on the floor and puts his head in his hands. There's only so much of this anyone can take, even if they're a world-renowned genius and superhero. Maybe especially then. "Get out."
"Look—"
"Get out." Tony can't make himself look at Barton, even to glare; his skin is crawling. "My mind is my own."
The silence doesn't last long. Barton's footsteps move toward the door, then pause just before the threshold. "You know, Stark," he says, "I didn't ask for this either."
The door closes behind him. Tony doesn't look up.
—§§§—
Tony turns down Bruce's offer of food and lays on the floor of his room for what's probably almost an hour. Just thinking, and wondering, and idly composing his own obituary in his head. At least he updated his will fairly recently, what with the whole palladium poisoning and all, but still: dying again. Not fun.
Well. Dying or handing over the wellbeing of his mind to someone else. Barton, of all people.
It's not that Barton isn't a good guy. He probably is, the same way Rogers is or Bruce is or (probably) even Natasha is. He just—doesn't like Tony. And lots of people don't like Tony, he's used to that. But sharing his head with someone who doesn't like him? That's just asking for psychological issues even greater than he already has.
And then he thinks: issues, or dead? Surviving Afghanistan gave him issues, some of which are only just now coming to light, apparently. But would he rather have died?
Well, no.
Submitting to this telepathic bond thing with Barton is asking for trouble. And it's probably going to end horribly, because that's what happens when Tony opens up to people. But would he rather die?
Well… no.
Sometimes, Tony hates it when his brain is rational.
"Jarvis, where's Barton?" He crosses his fingers and prays that he's sleeping, or eating, or with someone else, or otherwise just not able to be interrupted at the moment. Not that that usually stops Tony, but plausible deniability and all that.
"He appears to be moping in the shooting range," Jarvis replies.
"Practicing his bow, right, obviously he can't be interrupted at the moment," Tony rambles, "so I'm just going to stay here and keep my brain to myself. Sounds good."
"He's only staring, actually."
Tony sighs. There goes his excuse. "Fine."
He drags his feet on the way to the range, but once he's decided on a course of action, Tony can't seem to find it in himself to sit still for any length of time. It only takes him about ten minutes at a stretch to get there, but he stares at the door for another minute or two before he can't take it anymore and goes inside.
True to Jarvis's word, Barton's sitting on the floor and staring at the wall. Well, glaring at it hard enough that Tony's half surprised it doesn't catch fire. Then again, if Barton wanted to burn something, he could probably breathe fire on it. Being a dragon and all. Tony shakes his head to dispel the thought; his life has suddenly gotten extremely strange.
Barton turns his head and sees him before Tony even announces his presence. But that could just be the spy training. Tony crosses his arms and tries not to look as worried as he feels.
"You've completely turned my life around in less than twenty-four hours," Tony says flatly. "I almost feel like I should congratulate you. And it's because—someone did… this to me. And, I'm, I'm not human anymore?" Tony shrugs, trying to rid himself of the crawling panic that's been threatening him ever since the incident in the kitchen. "I'm freaking out. Sorry, not sorry, it's a thing. But I don't want to die. So, fine, I'll do this thing. I guess. Just—don't mess with my head any more than you have to, deal?"
Slowly, not taking his eyes off of Tony, Barton stands. "I'm not trying to hurt you," he says.
"Yeah, well, someone already did," Tony snaps. Barton actually winces, which in and of itself kind of makes Tony want to go bury himself in a hole. Whoops. Said too much. He doesn't want pity. He tries taking a breath, expelling the emotions along with it, but everything's still a tight knot in his chest, wrapped around his heart. "So what do I have to do for this Vulcan mind-meld?"
"It's not—" Barton shakes his head, apparently giving up on proper terminology, and continues, "We'll need physical contact. That should make it easier."
Tony stares at him. "Okay. So, I know most people don't seem to think I have any standards except upright and breathing, but really?"
Barton blinks, not seeming to understand for a moment, but then his face becomes a magnificent tableau of horror. He makes a sound of disgust and presses his hands to his eyes as his shoulders slump. "Ew. I wish I could bleach my brain," he complains. "No, that's not what I was saying at all. Like, a hug. Maybe."
"Oh." And yeah, that's a lot better, less gross. "So, more Care Bear, less—"
"Do not finish that sentence," Barton growls at him.
Tony puts his hands up in mock surrender. "Fine. Okay. We just…" Hesitantly, he spreads his arms. "And ta-da, telepathy?"
"Yeah." Barton doesn't look much more convinced than Tony feels.
He doubts this could be more awkward if they tried. They're standing at least two feet apart and Tony, for one, isn't particularly inclined to get any closer. Hugging has never been something Tony does, and it looks like Barton feels largely the same way.
Don't be a teddy bear, he tells himself. "Bro hug?" he suggests tentatively.
Barton nods, looking relieved at the suggestion. "Bro hug."
They step forward at the same time, kind of bump shoulders and pat each other on the back, then awkwardly stay there. "Try not to think," Barton says.
"Geniuses always think."
"Well, try not to. And close your eyes."
Don't think, close your eyes. One of those is easy. Tony rests his forehead on Barton's shoulder, closes his eyes, and tries to empty his brain. It's kind of like cleaning out a desk: he gets all the big stuff out and laying on the floor fairly quickly, but he's left chasing around all the crap in the corners of the drawers that he doesn't remember putting in there for ten more minutes. Not to mention the elephant in the room: don't think, so someone else can break into his mind.
Tony hates his life.
Something utterly foreign brushes against Tony's consciousness and he flinches, hard. Barton's arms tense around him, keeping him from jerking away, and Tony is suddenly, horribly aware that Barton could snap him in half if he so chose.
"Don't think," Barton growls at him again.
"That's like not breathing," Tony hisses back, which, huh, that's an idea. He holds his breath, concentrates on that, and waits for the next contact. He knows what it feels like, now, and he's determined not to flinch.
He still does, but he just squeezes his eyes shut tighter and breathes once through his nose before holding his breath again. The next time, the foreign consciousness—Barton's, it must be—dives in, swimming around in his thoughts. Tony can feel it dipping between days of memories, before it turns and twists into the places in Tony's mind that he has no words for, because there are no words there. The middle of him, the core—
"Oh god," he whispers into Barton's shoulder. Barton's arm grips his back tighter.
—to where Tony hides all his fears and his longings and secrets, the things he never even thinks aloud. Suddenly terrified, Tony jerks away from the presence, throwing it back into his conscious mind. Tony cries out as it hits the metaphysical walls of his mind and something breaks as Barton's mind disappears from his own; something shatters, Tony's ears pop, and the structural integrity of his consciousness is reduced to that of a lean-to in a hurricane.
Tony goes boneless in the sudden onslaught of pain, unable to even think. The world goes dark; he hears (feels) someone call his name, but he's already too far gone.