"I'm not sure what Fury wanted us to be." Tony's glance followed hers into the vast emptiness of the sky. "I mean, Cap… yeah, why not. He's a fairy tale prince, I get that. But the rest of us?" He shrugged. "Barton screwed up pretty bad the first time we were assembled, and Banner… well, Banner always screws up, sometimes because we want him to, sometimes… not. Thor's a half-god, I'm pretty sure that's cheating. Romanoff… no. We're not heroes. We're avengers."
"And whom are you avenging?"
When Tony turned around five minutes later, he still had no answer. Wanda probably was satisfied with that – with his admittance not to know – but that didn't make the question less probing. Whom were they avenging? The world, he had told Loki in a moment of desperation. Might have been his most heroic and most stupid statement ever.
As most heroic statements had something stupid in them, something deadlocked, as if there weren't thousand ways for a situation to pan out.
Loki had only grinned, that smug arrogant smile that showed exactly how much he despised him. Not only the human race – that, too – but especially him. Tony Stark, billionaire, philanthropist, new born super hero. Kind of.
It meant nothing to the god.
"What did she say?" The captain nodded towards the girl who was wandering off in the opposite direction.
Tony swallowed. Rogers might be the only one who had never asked himself why he was doing what he was doing, the only one at peace with himself.
Would he be like that, too, if he only let himself be enclosed by ice for seventy years? Sounded like a fair deal.
Whom are you avenging?
"Stark?"
"I… she…" He looked down. There was no way he'd open up about his doubts to Captain America and Hawkeye. No way. He liked them better than Thor (who sometimes shared Loki's arrogant grin), and sometimes Banner (too scared of everything, and most of himself), but… he didn't trust them. Not when it came down to saving the world.
Saving, dammit. Not avenging, because when the earth was destroyed he'd die with it.
"She wants to know what we're doing", he said after another too-long-moment of silence. "Whom we're avenging, as avengers, precisely." He shook his head as if wondering about that crazy idea. "I think she's just desperately trying to distract herself from the fact that she has no other choice but to join us…"
"She has!" Barton stepped closer, anger in his eyes. "She has a choice, she can still go back and try to live a normal life. It is possible, you know? I live it."
"Do you?" Tony shrugged. One of the reasons he felt comfortable around Barton was that the man had lost every power to make him feel uncomfortable. "Because as far as I know, your son was born three weeks ago, and you're already back here. Your home is a ruin because you try to rebuild it every once in a while, but you never finish anything before you start the next. At least… judging from the way my room looked like. And the sunroom. And…"
"That's enough, Stark! Clint came here to help." Trust Steven Rogers to stifle every nice fight before it really began. Tony shrugged. Unfortunately, Barton didn't seem upset by his words either. What had happened to them? Did almost seeing the world destroyed change so much in a person?
Or was it the experience of being saved by a manipulated, angry boy who in his last hours on earth had proved as much a hero as any of them?
And then he had left his sister alone, to deal with the world they'd saved.
"She has no choice", he said again, calmer this time. "She can't simply go back to Sokovia, there is nothing left for her. Her parents died there, her brother. She was imprisoned by HYDRA, she's got no friends. She only had her brother."
"Who died to save me." Now it was Clint's turn to look down. "Why did he do that? Why?"
"Why do people do what they do?" Tony sighed. "Why are we here? Why do we call ourselves avengers, whom do we avenge, is the world worth saving? You're asking too many questions, Clint."
"As do you", Steve murmured, still looking at Wanda. "She knows what she's going to do. I agree with you, Clint, she has options. But I can't imagine she'll go back."
"Me neither. But she's deserved the time to find that answer in herself."
The captain shook his head. "She won't. She's still too angry at Stark for trading with the bombs that killed her family, and with SHIELD and us and herself for killing her brother. Deciding would mean she's forgiven herself enough to move on." His face darkened with memories, and for a moment the seventy years were all too visible in his eyes. "She needs us to order her to find a place in this world. Despite everything she did. Or couldn't do."
Tony and Barton stared at each other.
"Why would she feel guilty? She couldn't have known about that child…"
"She decided to help Ultron in the first place" Steve interrupted, his expression still raw, "she made Pietro fight, no matter which side we're talking about. Maybe she could have stopped him. Chances are low, and we'll never know but… maybe. If she had chosen differently… maybe they'd still be together." He looked down, then took a deep breath. "I guess it's my turn to talk to her now."