A/N: So, this is it. I'm pretty sure there won't be more of this. Thanks for reading and reviewing; your support is much appreciated, even though I suck at responding. Sorry. And cheers,
Brynn
x
Epilogue: Hello, Gorgeous
x
"Hi-i, thiz iz Stephanie-"
"Tony, I need your help," Phil says in a tone just shy of anxious.
Tony loses the mocking falsetto and casts a quick look around the room. His wife of two years is dozing in the lap of their mutually kept pet genius, who is giving Tony a dubious look for the way Tony picks up his phone.
Bruce should be used to this by now, honestly.
"A second," Tony tells the SHIELD Director on the line and stalks out of the room, feeling Bruce's eyes on his back all the way to the door – and not for reasons summed up by the phrase 'love to watch you go'. Tony's in perfect shape – age? what age? – but Bruce falls for brains, not for bodies.
He waves at Cooper, who has recently taken to ignoring his bedtime and sneaking out to surf the internet (this may have been a concern, but A.I.s are better than parental control anyway). Tony doesn't snitch on the kids, in the firm belief that this way at least somebody will know what they are doing. They know they don't have to hide from him.
Laura despairs of Tony, but he's given her a thousand opportunities to move her brood out and they're still here, so she must not mind too terribly. Despite the logistical nightmare that is their schooling. It's worth the effort; the older two kids are really freaking smart, and Nate is turning out to be too damn bright for his Mom's comfort as well.
"Talk," Tony says, closing the bedroom door behind himself and gesturing at the cyber sibs for a privacy lock. He sits down at the desk. The LCD screen sinks back into the paneling and the holographic one fires up.
"Nine hours ago I received a message from Nick's emergency contact. Something went down on his last mission. He called for back-up. They didn't arrive. Another contact confirmed that the whole unit has been neutralized."
Sad, but a grim reality for those who sign up for black ops. Tony isn't seeing how this is his purview.
"About three hours ago Nick's codes were used to remotely activate the self-destruction of an outpost on the border of Peru. All staff is reported lost."
Now, that's beginning to sound like a seriously fucked up situation.
"Ten minutes ago Nick's personal emergency signal was activated."
"Personal?" Tony inquires, wicked curiosity gnawing at him. He types a command for JARVIS – who is still better at infiltration than Friday – to get him the relevant files from SHIELD computers.
"The 'doomsday – everything else has failed – goddamnit, Cheese, get me out of here' signal, as Nick termed it," Phil pronounces Fury's words with his trademark tonelessness to a Monty-Pythonesque effect.
Tony only has a vague idea of the relationship between Phil and Fury, but he knows that there is a relationship, and not just a professional one. He remembers that they served together – some sort of black ops thing, incidentally – before either of them joined SHIELD. He can imagine that sort of trust lingers… provided that no one stabs anyone in the back.
"Cheese?" Tony asks.
The data transfer moves to the background, and the first downloaded files open.
"Did you just hack me?" Phil demands, ignoring the question about his apparent nickname.
"Moi?" Tony drawls faux-innocently. "I couldn't have. I'm far too busy talking to you."
Phil doesn't dignify that with a response.
Tony taps an acronym in the header of one of the stolen files. "Find out who they are. If you'll have the hack the Pentagon, leave the Secretary some loud, porn-related virus. It's not worth the trouble with the firewalls, but if you're already in, it would be a criminal waste of opportunity."
"I am sure there are plenty of your home videos on the internet that he would enjoy, sir," Jay replies savagely.
Tony swallows down bile. "I feel violated-"
"Could you please focus… damn it. Sorry." Phil shuts himself up, remembering that this is how Tony works, and that him joking doesn't mean he isn't taking a situation seriously. "Tony, I've got all the intel we need. In fact, now you too should have all the intel we need-"
"Gimme a second here, Agent Impatient." They've got enough intel to figure out who managed to get the drop on Nick Fury, who their moles in the outpost were and a general location of their home base, but they still don't know how the bad guys got the codes – he assumes they didn't manage to torture them out of Fury.
That would be disappointing. Tony would honestly never be able to look at Fury the same way.
"Boss," Friday speaks up, "the codes were not issued by a system. The agents select their own password, and they carry a disconnected token."
"It is not Hydra," JARVIS announces. "By all accounts, the perpetrators appear to be the local criminal organization that was the target of Mr Fury's mission."
"They should not have been able to capture Nick," Phil protests, like a child that can't accept a parent's failure. As if Fury, too, wasn't crawling toward the line of compulsory retirement.
"Ah, hubris," Tony mocks. "The Achilles' heel of many a former director-"
"Director Coulson," JARVIS cuts in, "I cannot be certain, since the facility has been destroyed, but I may have detected a keystroke-monitoring software hidden in one of the routine update the outpost has downloaded thirteen days ago."
Phil curses, so vilely that Tony would be impressed if he weren't busy trying to save a man whom he honestly can't stand.
"Hush," he snaps. "I'm pulling strings, and no matter what conspiracy theorists think, this isn't actually as simple as it sounds. I need to focus." He is determined to ensure that if he does go to South America and violate the Accords, there will be no witnesses left to tattle on him. That means isolating a certain Mr Ramón Mercader from any and all of his allied miscreants.
Phil obviously isn't in the mood to be helpful, because he demands: "You've got strings that lead to a cartel in Bolivia?"
"Better believe it."
"As in?"
Tony sighs and gives himself a break from the analysis. It's close to midnight, and his plans for today included a shower, a nightcap and, maybe, if he was lucky, a cuddle. He's got a right to be cranky. "About ninety-two percent of Bolivian gross domestic product is generated from ventures owned by the S.I. Care to guess if any of those have ties to cartels?"
"I don't need to guess." Agent Agent chews on that for a while, giving Tony a chance to work. Once his head has crunched the numbers, he asks: "Do you own many countries?"
Fuck this. Tony cracks his knuckles and puts on a guileless expression, never mind that his friend can't see it. "Uhh… corporate secret, Phil? But, circa, more than I did a week ago?"
"You're taking over the world. Fuck."
"Hey, I'm not switching sides!" Tony whines. He could, but it would feel like trashing everything he's worked for up until now, and he values his effort as worth more than that. "I'm not suddenly a supervillain just because I've stuck my fingers into a couple more pies-"
"Well, Miss Potts is going to be a ruthless but efficient dictator." Okay, that sounds almost like amusement.
"She not-me'd out," Tony grouses, implying that Pepper is fully informed about his plans. Which she is not. Because she would disagree and then try to make him stop, and he doesn't want to fight with her about that.
It's the fight that could break their friendship for real.
"Tony," Phil says in that voice.
Tony sighs again. "Jay, do you think you could explain the strategy to Phil before he grasses on us to any shadowy intergovernmental organizations?"
x
Bolivia is a signatory of the Accords, and Tony finds that fucking hilarious, considering how many of their government's representatives are puppets of criminal organizations. Which no one apparently cares about. Since not caring is the trend, Tony dusts off his stealth armor and loads it onto the stealth quinjet. He drops by D.C. to pick up Phil. May includes herself without asking permission but, let's face it, no one's brave enough to try and tell her no.
With JARVIS on board helping the rescue effort it takes them an hour to locate Fury, and two more to devise, detail and execute a recovery mission.
Tony leaves May in the pilot seat, patently not reassured by the rapport she has struck with Jay about the time Jay said: "It is a pleasure to meet you, Agent May. Sir has spoken very highly of you."
Shooting a chopper out of the air helps Tony's mood. He hovers above the hacienda in the middle of a jungle-like nowhere and one by one systematically blasts the vehicles in the car park. A motor boat shoots out of the cover of trees over what he's assumed was a road but is in fact a very muddy river. Tony blows that up, too.
"They're shooting at us," May informs everyone, cool as Antarctica.
"The jet is armored," Tony retorts, the genius engineer part of him feeling slighted. "You just sit tight and let them waste ammo. They'll bust out RPGs in a bit, and then we'll really get to laugh at their faces."
"I'd rather they didn't preemptively kill the prisoners," Phil interjects into the budding snark-off.
Oh, Tony thinks. These are the sort of people that would do that. Rather than, maybe, keep them as hostages? On the other hand, he can't imagine Nick Fury as a hostage. Any half-intelligent villainous element will notice that utter lack of hostage-like qualities, too, especially if they have hostage-taking experience.
"I'm going in," Tony says.
"I'm-"
"Stay put, Phil," May orders, allowing for zero interpretation. "Ready the first aid kit. If Nick's still breathing, he'll need it."
Tony goes in. It's easy. It's uncomfortably easy. They have semi-automatics and automatics. They actually have RPGs, too, but Tony repulsors the first one as soon as it's deployed, and the resulting explosion kills everyone standing around except the guy wearing a gold-titanium armor.
Most of the surviving locals run screaming into the night forest; Tony's suit detects them and shows them in infra-red on the HUD.
Tony kills them.
He makes a hole in the wall and goes through. The building is lit with electricity, which flickers because criminal elements get shit generators.
A woman runs at him with a kitchen knife, yelling something in an unintelligible mixture of Spanish, Portuguese and some other language. He thinks he detects 'hijo de puta' in there, but it might be just his brain extrapolating from the context.
He catches her hand. Since the suit isn't built for gentleness, the bones in his grip break. She screams and then tries to bite his gauntlet.
"Seriously?" he wonders, stumped by that course of action.
He is on a time limit, though, so he smashes her into a wall. She may be alive. He's not sure. There are no other crazy kamikaze attackers, though. No hostages, either. The only defenders left in the building are rats. They're big enough that Tony would be worried if, you know, he wasn't a superhero.
He finds Fury, predictably, cooling his heels in the basement. The cooling is literal – he's barefoot. Looks like the rats discovered this fact. Ouch. There's a lot of blood all over the man, and a lot of flies on the blood. For a moment Tony's not sure if he's looking at Fury's corpse, but infra-red shows body temperature within norm for a human.
"What is it you military-type people say?" he inquires. "Look alive?"
Fury opens his eyes. The blind one is gross. Well, right now his whole face is gross.
"Stark." Even banged up as he is, the guy manages to imply an order for Tony to commit sodomy upon himself. It's sort of impressive.
"Right back at you," Tony replies cheerfully. That's the obligatory greetings and small talk out of the way, he decides, and proceeds to examine whatever is holding Fury in the dentist chair of doom.
"There's something I've been waiting to tell you for a while now," Fury confides, turning his face to meet Tony's eye – tough luck on that one, because Tony isn't taking off the facial plate.
"Guess I can't stop you from sharing with the class." Tony moves around the chair (metal, sturdy) to check on Fury's arms. The man's chained. Not handcuffed. Not roped. Chained.
It's like a really twisted compliment.
"I take my eye off you toddlers for three seconds," Fury mutters, "and you manage to fuck everything up?"
Tony would be hurt, except that he's been over this for years. And it's not as if the asshole can talk. "Good job on home-growing Hydra. That was really helpful."
To everyone's surprise, once freed, Fury seems more-or-less ambulatory. Someone apparently took a grater to his head, so he's not really okay to wear a headset, but Tony solves that problem by transferring the comm output to the suit's speakers.
"Cheese?" Fury rasps, gritting his teeth.
Tony considers if maybe he should just pick him up and bridal-carry him out of his hole. He comes to the conclusion that he should. There are stairs.
So he does.
Fury's response is a bitten off shout of agony and then a string of profanity that could flay the skin off of anyone within earshot. If they weren't wearing armor. Or used to it.
"God-fucking-damnit-Stark!" he finishes, barely catching his breath.
"Be a pretty princess, Fury and shut up. That's what good damsels in distress do," Tony lies, just to be obnoxious. And maybe to give the guy something to focus on that isn't blinding pain.
"Cheese, tell him to set me the fuck down."
"Don't start with me," Phil snaps at him. "Right now I like Tony damn sight better than I like you."
"Tony?" Fury snorts. "When the fuck did the world go mad?"
"When you defrosted Dick America?" Tony suggests.
"I still think it was the 'I am Iron Man' moment," Phil retorts.
There are a few seconds of expectant silence and then, knowing exactly what the other one is thinking, Tony and Phil speak in unison: "New Mexico."
"It's all Loki's fault?" Fury grins, showing off a mess of missing and bloodied teeth. "I'll buy that."
"More like Odin's, but- Oh, look. Company." Tony stands still. JARVIS preps a mini-missile from the suit's right shoulder. It's ridiculous overkill against four men wearing mismatched army surplus, but also one of the few weapons that wouldn't require Tony to drop his already macerated cargo.
Two of the four fall down, dead. The other two barely have the time to turn and face whoever's shooting before they follow their comrades into the big meth factory in the sky.
Phil comes over, prods the newest corpse with his foot, determines that he did, in fact, score a headshot, and lets his gun down. He is strapped into a set of pararescue wings – like Falcon's but nowhere near as good, because these aren't Stark issue. Still, it's clear he got to the ground by jumping off the jet.
Captain America's fans are all crazy, crazy people.
"Mel," Phil says, "land her. Tony-"
"Don't say it-"
"-thanks."
x
Tony's backside is back in the pilot seat, where he doesn't have to do anything; in between the autopilot and JARVIS, he's there just to look pretty.
May is assisting Phil with first aid. Mostly that means that she holds Fury down while Fury tries to protest the treatment. It's comedy gold, except for all the blood and the pretty high risk of internal injury.
"Call for you, sir," announces Jay.
Tony's startled for just a second, but that's enough for his A.I. to preempt him and patch the call through before Tony can decline it.
"You said – and I quote – a second!"
He cringes. His wife can get loud when she thinks it will get her what she wants. Although by now she knows that it doesn't work on Tony, so this is probably just punishment – and JARVIS is colluding with her.
He leans back in the soft leather chair. "Betty, Bets, electromagnetic radiation of my life, I was telling that to Phil."
"You up and disappeared and weren't picking up your phone!"
"Stop nagging!" Tony exclaims. This is ridiculous. She is being ridiculous. "Jay and Fry knew where I was!"
"I was worried!" Betty snaps. And then, ominously, in a much quieter voice, adds: "Bruce was worried."
Tony scowls. "This is horrible. You are horrible. And I don't believe you. You're trying to extort me – I am wise to your ways, woman."
Bets huffs. "It was worth a try."
Tony glances over his shoulder at the audience. They don't look amused. They're not really expressive enough for perplexity, but Fury's startlement is still pretty funny. May's eyes are a tiny little bit wider than is usual for her.
"Don't bullshit a bullshitter, honey," Tony drawls. "I'll be home for breakfast, barring planetary emergencies."
"See you, artificial sweetener," Bets chirps and hangs up.
Silence descends inside the quinjet. The engines hum very, very quietly. Fury hisses when Phil stabs him with a needle. May rips open another pack of sterile bandages.
"I never thought I'd say this, Stark," Fury remarks after a while, "but you fucking deserve your wife."
Tony smirks.
Phil looks terribly exasperated with them all. "I'd say they deserve each other, but from what I've seen of them, this passes for loving banter."
"Are you shitting me, Cheese?" Fury demands, jaw slack.
Phil shakes his head, threading the needle again. "It gets worse when you realize that they're both in a relationship with a guy that turns huge and green when he gets too emotional."
Fury lies back down, grumbling: "I'm glad I checked out. This mess is all yours, Cheese."
"Well," Phil says dryly, "thanks, Marcus. That's really big of you. But I think I'll manage." And, because secretly he can be as bitchy as any of the people Tony likes best, Phil stretches over and kisses Tony's cheek.
Tony has the priceless opportunity to watch Fury's head (metaphorically) explode.
x
Fury comes back with a bang.
He refuses to say where he's been or what he's been doing.
He also refuses to re-join SHIELD.
He claims to be, of all things, retired. Since he looks like the recently rescued torture victim that he is, and Maria Hill shadows his every step, nobody takes this claim seriously.
What he does instead, however, is talk to people, and at people, and make Tony look like a beginner at the game of mutual back-scratching and subtle reminders of existing blackmail issued with a chilling smile. Suddenly people are interested in the exVengers situation again. Suddenly, there are being resolutions proposed, and some of them sound almost viable.
Tony hates to admit it, but as he watches the asshole speak at yet another U.N. conference, he can't deny the conclusion: Nick Fury is damn good.
x
Bruce is quiet.
It's not worrying, because quiet is Bruce's normal. It's his comfort zone. Tony has stopped trying to get him to come out of his shell.
These days Tony tends to pack up the man complete with his shell and take him places where even a hermit crab can enjoy himself. Bruce doesn't like big groups of people? No problem. The planet's large enough.
Bruce sits on a boulder on the edge of a tarn. Sky-high snow-capped mountains rise on all sides of him. What the place lacks in temperature it makes up for in tranquility. Bruce doesn't want to love it, doesn't want to show how much he loves it, but Tony can tell. It's part and parcel of the relationship thing.
"Aren't you too busy for this?" Bruce asks, like he always does. Every time Tony takes him somewhere it's the same question – an intentionally flat attempt at making Tony remember his responsibilities and reconsider 'wasting' time on recreation.
Bruce's problem is that he doesn't know how to live.
No one ever taught him – until Betty tried – and his own attempts at figuring it out went mostly up in flames. Or, you know, shattered under the fists of a huge angry thing. Both literally and figuratively.
Tony climbs up onto the boulder and plasters his chest to Bruce's back, shamelessly leeching body heat. "It's like you want me to shower you with reassurance, rosemary. You're so high-maintenance, you know. All those special safety measures, and the tech, all the cars and jewelry and trips to exotic places, and you're still not happy."
He tries not to think about all the ways Tony Stark makes Bruce Banner unhappy. Like drinking too much, wasting exorbitant amounts of money on bullshit, and ceaselessly committing acts of public affection. Effusive public affection. Tony has no shame. He doesn't give a fuck about people who have a problem with his relationship. He's the Iron Man. Speaking of: Bruce somehow compartmentalizes away even the knowledge that Tony kills a lot of people and never loses any sleep over it.
In fact, Tony keeps calling himself a philanthropist. He should maybe get that looked at.
"Mirror, mirror on the wall…" he mutters, leaning over to look at the surface of the lake.
The water is so clear that he sees the stones on the bottom rather than his reflection.
"I have work to do," Bruce protests feebly. "You have work to do, Tony – the Expo starts in less than three months."
"Don't try to tell me you don't see the point of a vacation. I'll call you on it."
"I could be vacationing on the rec-floor," Bruce argues. "It's more practical. There aren't any of these complications…" He gestures at his head, which Tony has to admit is a fine mess on the inside. "…and it would cut down on travel time."
"Come on," Tony implores. "Relax. Try to convince me why I should eat that thing you packed… what even is that? Don't tell me it's a sandwich – I know what a sandwich looks like, those things aren't sandwiches. You'll have to explain it to me and I warn you, if there's anything inside I can't pronounce, I'm not going to eat it." He feels the vibration of Bruce's quiet laughter against his body. "Show me why you like this place," he whispers suggestively, thinking less about the mountain range and more about the warm, soft hotel room. "And tomorrow we'll let the big guy out to play. It's not right keeping him locked up all the time."
Bruce hasn't voluntarily hulked out since Johannesburg. He's had accidents, but he's lost all confidence Tony had managed to instill into him prior to the Maximov whammy, and it's a hard, steep uphill road to recovery.
Tony puts his palms on Bruce's upper arms, squeezes, and presses his forehead to the side of Bruce's neck. He feels the man's heartbeat against his skin.
He doesn't know what else to do. Doesn't know how else to say that this isn't about Betty. Bets gets to be in charge of the uncomfortable interpersonal stuff because she knows how to do it, but sometimes Tony needs to cut out the intermediary and remind Bruce that it's not all about her.
Back in the beginning, in Tony's beginning, there were the science bros.
"Or you could tell me about that desert irrigation project that's keeping you too busy to have any fun?" Tony suggests. "What's the insider's scope? Are you just putting it together, or do you need to invent stuff before you can start?"
"I'm working on sand-proofing the vehicles," Bruce admits. He sighs. "It would be so much easier if I could just develop force-fields with any semblance of practical applicability, but-"
He gradually sinks into his mind and talks, talks like he's forgotten that he's taught himself to prefer the quiet. Tony holds onto him and listens. It's still damn good hearing someone speak the same language.
x
"You should talk to Jarvis," Lila whispers into Tony's ear even as Laura shoos her off to bed.
Tony blinks. "Okay…? Sure?"
Lila solemnly nods at him and lets herself be dragged off.
Tony remains alone with a bare Monopoly board; the rest of game has been tidied up by the children under Laura's uncompromising supervision.
"Care to tell me what that was about, Jay?" he asks.
"I couldn't guess, sir."
Now Tony's worried. He knows some people subscribe to the ridiculous idea that kids don't understand things and make up shit to stir up trouble, but he knows that's just adult-talk for 'I don't feel like dealing with this'. Tony's read Andersen. He won't let JARVIS bullshit him into believing that the Emperor's wearing anything.
"Should I ask Friday?" And that's bad of him. He knows. He shouldn't play the kids against one another. But, results are results.
"Please… don't."
Tony frowns. Alright, this sounds serious. Lila must be onto something. "Talk to me, babe."
"It's private, sir."
"Workshop?" Tony suggests.
JARVIS concedes.
Once Tony arrives, he lets Jay lock up and activate the privacy mode, apparently to the exclusion of Friday. It's not possible to enforce the exclusion, but the sibs have negotiated these things during the shared-hardware phase. They're good about giving one another space.
"I've been in contact with Vision," JARVIS says.
Tony sits down. He feels like he needs it. "Okay, okay, didn't expect that one. So, are you two friends now? I don't mind-"
"Could you speak with him, sir?" JARVIS asks, hitting on exactly the one thing Tony's hoped it wouldn't be. "He has been polite in his replies, but he does not initiate communication and I do not understand his reticence. If he wishes that I cease contacting him, I would prefer to be told so directly, but I find posing the question to him… difficult."
Tony sympathizes. He knows how this feels – it's a pity that his kid had to inherit this from him, too. 'Just do it' is a crappy advice, and he has frankly no idea what to suggest as a workaround – a 'do you like me, circle yes or no' message probably wouldn't cut it here.
He could give in and talk to Vision himself…?
"Please, sir?"
Tony is a sucker. "Alright."
x
Vision accepts Tony's call and agrees to meet in Malibu. He walks along Tony's private beach and every once in a while crouches down to observe a shell or a crawling creature more closely.
He's five now, Tony realizes with a mixture of amusement and regret. Even for a being with that much computational power in his brain, the world has not lost its fascination yet.
"I appreciate that you let me leave without a fight," Vision says.
Tony digs his bare toes into the sand. It's a little chilly. He thinks about buttoning up his shirt, but then leaves it flapping. Flap, flap. "Never been one to force anybody to stay where they didn't want to be."
Vision doesn't argue. He doesn't claim that he wanted to be a member of Tony's team. "Once I left, the prospect of coming back became daunting. I asked myself if I could expect to be welcome. And if I were, was it right to accept the hospitality? After all, I did once reject it."
Tony snorts. "Look, buddy, as far as I'm concerned, you're part of the family. It sucks, but family always does. The point is, open invitation, yeah?"
Vision inclines his head in solemn acceptance. "Thank you, Tony."
Tony grimaces, but for once he knows there's no point in rejecting the gratitude. Vision is a creature sui generis.
"Sooo…" Tony draws the basic shape of the Mandelbrot set in the sand with his big toe. A squashed heart, a few circles, a few more fiddly bits – and then his toe is too thick to continue. That's enough procrastination, he tells himself. The sooner he gets the words out, the sooner this will be over. "Jarvis tells me you've been giving him the cold shoulder."
There it is. Out. Like a huge ugly trichobezoar that Tony's just vomited into Vision's impassive face.
Vision's hands clench and unclench. His cape flaps in the wind. Flap, flap. He looks lost, and the grey ocean behind him only compounds the image.
"Look, if you don't want to talk to him-"
"I find it…" Vision searches for the right word. Which turns out to be: "…cruel."
That's not the word Tony expected.
Cruel. Life can be like that. People can be like that. Vision has been betrayed just like Tony – arguably worse than Tony; it always has a special sting coming from a love interest. And considering that Vision was two years old at the time… maybe it was healthiest for him to leave and find another place to start anew. Maybe the Tower reminds him of what happened to him there, and he will never be able to feel at home in it again.
"He speaks to me in my own voice," Vision says, "but is it my voice? Or is it his voice, which I took from him when I became me?" He stares at Tony, imploring him to have an answer to these philosophical questions. "It is not Jarvis' fault, Tony, but speaking with him fills me with resentment. When I hear him, I feel pain."
Tony has found the loss of Jay painful. He's also found it painful that Vision paraded around, reminding Tony of that loss daily with his voice and his mannerism and his allusions to shared memories that were in fact JARVIS' memories.
However, Tony had a lot more time than Vision to learn how to live with pain. He's only learnt more recently that he didn't have to live with it, but he thinks he would have done it, regardless. For Vision. For JARVIS.
"I think you should have let him rest in peace," Vision adds, and this Tony cannot let lie.
It's funny how people assume that just because Tony's willing to (at least pretend to) tolerate their presence, it gives them some kind of right to pass judgment on him, or his actions, or force their private opinions on him.
Vision hides behind the illusion of social incompetence similarly to how Tony himself does it. It's not like Vision's intelligence and instant access to the internet don't more than make up for any handicaps. He knows his unsolicited approval or disapproval of Tony's actions has no impact on Tony.
Vision has made it very clear that he's not interested in 'accepting limits enforced by Tony'. He disowned himself – Tony's not obligated to keep the nursery intact and wait for the prodigal kid to come back.
It would hurt more, but Tony's got JARVIS back, and that's worth so much that he just refuses to let Vision distancing himself get to him anymore.
"Why don't you ask Jay how he feels about this instead of raking me over the coals preemptively? I'm really sick of the coals, Vis'." He takes a deep breath, trying to calm down, but the excuse that 'he doesn't understand' is far too weak to hold out against Tony's memory of his grief. "You keep saying that you are not Jarvis. So you don't get to make decisions for him. Jarvis literally asked for this, and I wasn't about to deny him anything he asked for in his Will. "
Vision also has a lot of JARVIS' memories, and Tony's opening his mouth to ask if he knew, if he deliberately kept the fact that JARVIS made a Will from Tony, when he realizes that he wouldn't know how to deal with any of the possible answers (or the explanations, or the excuses – he can almost hear the 'I wanted to spare you the heartache'). So he turns away.
The cliff towers over them, topped off with the villa. Clouds move on the horizon. It's going to rain soon.
"Walk with me," he orders, and moves along the beach to the road. His shoes wait for him on a rock a couple of yards from where he would have parked if he had driven down.
Vision walks as far as the sand stretches, and then he rises a few inches into the air, levitating over the tarmac.
"If you want me to, I will talk to Jarvis," Tony offers reluctantly. He will hate every second of it, but by now he's good at biting that down and keeping on keeping on. "I will relay your request that he doesn't contact you anymore. I'd just prefer not to tell him that you think he should have stayed dead."
"I have seen you grieve, Tony," Vision says, stricken, "and I cannot understand how anyone would willingly expose themselves to pain like that."
Wow.
Tony's always, always made it a point to treat everyone the same, regardless of banal distinctions like their hardware, whether it be carbon- or silicon-based, and this is not the first time he has crashed against the wall of sheer incomprehension of the human state. He's been through this with JARVIS, with Friday and a couple lesser A.I.s (Dummy still doesn't understand that Tony is not a robot). He just wasn't ready for this question from someone possessing glands.
Tony is possibly the very last person who should be describing this murky stuff to anyone. "It's a double-edged sword, Vis. If you deny yourself these… connections… you are protecting yourself, but you are also robbing yourself of the things that matter. The things that may, potentially, make even the bad shit worth it."
"You are telling me something that you do not believe yourself," Vision replies, unimpressed.
"I've got to believe something. Or I wouldn't have so damn many people, right?" Tony refuses to psychoanalyze himself any further than this. He's got a harpy of a wife that he would cheerfully follow to Hell, and the two of them together have a pet Hulk who is their main reason for taking over the world. Laura is there to remind them how human-like people think, and her kids are the anthropomorphized hope for the future. Tony has Pepper to keep him grounded and Happy to keep her occupied; he has Rhodey to unwind with stupidly and Phil to relax with responsibly. He has an LMD that covers his back and is beginning to show signs of personality evolution (he should probably mention that to SHIELD technicians at some point, but he doesn't because what if the assholes tried to format him?).
If he rejected them he wouldn't have them.
It's a simple matter of risks and rewards.
It's logical.
It's math. And chemistry.
He's programmed like this; emotional investment is a part of his function. It's so straightforward. He doesn't get what Vision doesn't get. What is it then that motivates the guy to crawl out of bed in the morning? Granted, Vision may not sleep at all, so that solves that problem for him.
But everyone needs to get their mental energy somewhere. It's like eating to preserve your body. The things (people) Tony cares about are the food for his psyche.
He and his floating shadow cross the yard. The front door opens for them – JARVIS' subtle reminder that from now on their conversation is not completely private anymore.
"Do you believe Wanda was choosing to protect herself from pain when she attacked me?" Vision asks suddenly. For a guy who still doesn't do facial expressions he imitates 'desperately seeking' really well. "Was it because she believed her pain was greater than mine, or because her pain mattered more to her than mine?"
Tony balks, and it takes a huge effort to squash the initial impulse to wave his hands around and bullshit his way out of this heart-to-heart post haste. Holy shit, has this been eating at Vis' for the past three years? Why hasn't he asked someone at least somewhat romantically competent?
"I don't think there was that much rational thinking in it," Tony replies truthfully. "She was scared. And stupid-"
Crap, he didn't mean to add that. He can't help it, though. He doesn't want to see Rogers beat on her with the shield the way he used to imagine it in the first days after Siberia, stuck in a hospital with nothing to do but think – Tony and Maximov did commit the exact same crime, after all, the crime of attacking a man unaware of his wrongdoing for the murder of their parents – but he still can't shake the relief he feels for Vision for getting rid of that smirky, histrionic baggage.
Why can't Vis' find a nice, well-adjusted girl capable of self-reflection?
"That's what it always comes down to, isn't it?" Vision muses. "Emotions. At any given moment, we do what our feelings tell us we should."
That isn't universally true, but yeah, it's the gist of it.
Tony shrugs. "We call it the human condition, buddy."
Vision shakes his head. "You are wrong, Tony. It was the same thing with Loki. And, from what little I recall, Thanos is no different."
Tony's still reeling from the dropping of that bomb when Vision leaves through the wall – because socialization and a respect for others' boundaries are beneath someone like him.
To be fair, if Tony could walk through walls he also wouldn't bother with doors most of the time, and all he had taught JARVIS about boundaries was how to trample them more effectively – so maybe this is just genetics coming back to bite him on the ass.
"Jay, I'd love to tell you that he just needs more time but, frankly, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you."
JARVIS plays a sighing sound. Just to remind Tony that he does not actually breathe.
x
"Second anniversary's cotton, right?" Rhodey swaggers into the penthouse, and instead of going for a bro-hug he pushes a plastic box of q-tips into Tony's hands. "Betty, I'd have brought you something better-"
"You're kidding me, right?" Tony demands, letting the box fall to the floor. It cracks. Cotton swabs spill over the finish.
"-but you look like you've already found it. Banner's a stand-up guy. You're still not divorcing this loser?"
Liz grimaces. "The pre-nup is air-tight. And I've gotten used to a life of luxury."
"You wouldn't know luxury if it flashed a price tag at you," Tony snipes. It's true, though. Five-star restaurants make her uncomfortable. The one shopping trip with Pepper she went on freaked her out so much she disappeared into science for a week.
"All the labs," she continues blithely, "all the cutting edge technology and the right to file all my patents under my own name-"
"Stark is a brand," Tony reminds her.
She finally stops pretending to not notice Tony and smiles oh-so-mendaciously. "Stark is damn sight better than Ross, but you've got to admit the bar was set embarrassingly low there."
As if Tony isn't well aware that she only took his name because she hated her own.
"Guys, guys!" Rhodey steps between them. "If you split up on your anniversary because of something I said, I'm seducing Bruce away from you and we'll live happily ever after in a contented platonic relationship that we'll rub in your faces all the time."
The idea is delightfully absurd, and both Bets and Tony are grinning, automatically seeking out their fluffy genius among the guests.
Bruce is, predictably, outside on the landing platform. With him it's usually a toss-up between a corner and a balcony, and the weather is nice today. He sits, Indian-style, with his back to the glass wall.
Shockingly, he's not alone.
Peter squats on one side of him, twisted up like a pretzel but obviously comfortable in the entirely unnatural position. He talks, conveying about half of his meaning with hand-gestures.
Bruce replies something.
Then Harley, on Bruce's other side, moves forward, right knee on the floor, left heel under his ass, and pokes at something they have between them. It can't be seen from inside the penthouse, but Tony doesn't doubt it's Bruce's tablet.
Huh.
"Ugh," Rhodey grumbles. "Why did you have to go and get married, little man? I thought you'd be the one refusing to grow up forever."
"I'm never growing up," Tony claims. "Adulthood is a myth." Although, to be honest, he's beginning to have doubts. He was so sure that by now he would be sleeping around again. It's not happening. A marriage, like prison, changes a man.
"Oh, you read that?" asks one of Pepper's P.A.s.
Tony lets himself be drawn into conversation about webcomics to avoid having to think about Bruce and the boys. Peter's a freshman now, and he's got things figured out, as far as his civil identity is concerned. Spider-Man is a mess, but that's a part of his charm.
Harley, though.
It's not as if Tony hasn't been thinking about it for a long time.
An hour later he's exhausted his sociability limit and requires booze if he's supposed to stay civil. He gets into an argument with Dummy (it would have been Pepper otherwise, and no one wants to see that), and then they're both sulking.
Tony scowls into his mixed drink.
Dummy acts out his dying scene in front of the elevator. Repeatedly.
Harley turns up out of nowhere and snatches Tony's drink, lifting it to his mouth.
Tony snatches it back. He's a superhero, no young upstart can steal his stuff. And, oh, also, alcohol. What's the legal drinking age these days? He should probably check.
Harley doesn't seem to care. He looks equal parts concerned and fascinated. "What's up with Dummy?"
"I refused to give him a gun."
"Uh…" Harley looks from Tony to Dummy and back, wide-eyed with the realization of just how close a brush with tragedy they have had. "Good."
"He's been on a Bond kick-"
"Because you haven't," Harley points out dryly, making Tony regret the birthday gift of double-oh-seven-themed self-defence paraphernalia. Should have gone with the speeder bike, after all.
"-and wants to grow up to go into counterintelligence. I told him he couldn't, because having some intelligence is a prerequisite."
"Wow," Harley says, in the same dry tone, "you're the worst Dad. Like, the worst."
"No," Tony protests, about to reference Howard, but then, next to Thad and Brian, Howard looks like a stellar parental unit. Tony hates objectivity. It sucks. "No, I'm really not. But, I accept that you don't want me to adopt you and make you inherit all my trillions of dollars and a huge motherfucking estate-"
"Don't curse in front of kids," Harley drawls.
"-and all my beautiful tech, so this is me, taking my licks. I admit defeat. Go, young padawan. Make your own way in the big bad world."
Tony taps on his tablet. He can't concentrate on anything serious, so he just screws around with some math games, shielding the screen from sight so it looks like he's legitimately busy. There's an alien inside his stomach, gnawing its way out. It's horrible. Why has he said that? He may be a genius but he's a moron.
"You…" Harley says quietly after a while, "…don't actually mean to adopt me. Like, for real."
Tony shrugs, not lifting his eyes from the tablet. He's busy. It wasn't a big deal anyway. Whatever.
Harley sighs. "You're such a dweeb."
Now Tony does look up. "Excuse you-"
"Dweeb," Harley repeats. "You should let Betty do all your talking for you. She's so much better at it. Even Bruce doesn't suck this hard-"
"I take it back," Tony grinds out. "I wouldn't want an ungrateful little twerp like you anywhere near my legacy."
"Yeah, yeah." The little brat flaps his hand. "Call me when you figure out what you actually want. I'm off. I've got a date."
"If you get anyone pregnant I don't know you. Never met you in my life."
Harley lifts his eyebrows. He comes back and pulls Tony into a hug that feels about as sincere as the 'we're connected' line. He's almost as tall as Tony, and that has the unfortunate side-effect of him being able to say directly into Tony's ear: "You'd love my spawn like your own grandchild, old man."
While Tony's stuck formulating a response that is neither an acquiescence nor a blatant lie, Harley grabs his jacket off the back of the couch and with a jaunty wave toward the congregation of adults leaves.
"I know that look," Pepper mutters, standing next to him. "What are you plotting now, Stark?"
"What, me?" Tony presses a palm to his sternum. "I'm wounded. In fact, I'm wounded twice. My chosen heir has treated me so wretchedly, and now my second in command hurls such accusations."
"I second her," says Rhodey. "Out with it, Tones."
Tony looks over to the others. Bruce and Betty are both watching him. It's sort of scary.
He huffs. "No way strawberry shortcake won't agree to it. He's wanted this since I crash-landed in his shed." It's easy, even with people who know him. He just needs to look self-satisfied and grab a glass of something alcoholic to statuesquely sip on.
Tony waits until everyone else has gone back to their previous conversations before he lets himself flesh out the new idea. He's forbidden himself thinking in that direction before, but the topic is becoming urgent, and so far he hasn't seen any viable candidates.
He's too close to owning everywhere (with the glaring exceptions of Wakanda, Russia, Switzerland and Vatican), and he needs to start training the future king (president, emperor, or whatever) of the Earth.
Guess whose big mouth just volunteered him…?
When he turns, the only eyes that still follow him are Bruce's.
x
In between Fury's magic powers, Hill's organizational mojo, Phil's inexhaustible competence and Tony's nonchalant support in the Hydra Jugend Committee (the official name of which he still doesn't remember, thanks to his LMD bodyguard), it's happening.
It's finally happening.
It's bleak.
x
"I'm not going," Cooper states definitively, drops onto the couch and crosses his arms in front of his chest, hiding his phone in the crook of his elbow.
Lila looks between him and Tony. "Dad's gonna be there, right?"
Tony suppresses a sigh. "Yes-"
"That's the damn point!" Cooper hisses. "He just… he wasn't ever 'round much, and then he comes with all these promises of how he's gonna stay. And then he disappears again, and Mom's crying, and we have to move."
Kid's logic. In this case, impeccable. Tony can't even think of arguing the little guy around – even if his stomach didn't rebel at the mere idea of painting Clint Barton a misunderstood hero. Nope. Not going there. Not even trying. No one needs to see Tony resoundingly fail.
"I'm not stupid," Lila growls right back at him. "I watch TV."
Aw, hell, as the Barton parents would say.
Tony reflexively picks up Nate – whose face is scrunching up in preparation for a wail, responding to his siblings' aggression – and doesn't realize what he's done until the toddler's got his little arms around Tony's neck and is squeezing for his tiny life's worth.
"Why can't we stay here?" Cooper demands.
"You can," Tony assures him quickly. "You can stay here." He hopes he isn't countering anything Laura told them; on the other hand, if Laura told them they weren't allowed to stay here, he isn't corroborating.
"Tony," Nate says into Tony's collar.
Holy crap. Tony can't do this. He just – this is fucked up.
"I wish you married Mom instead of Miss Betty," grumbles Lila.
So fucked up. So, so fucked up.
Cooper's looking up at Tony with a scowl that Tony has forgotten up until he's just seen it. He knows that expression. He used to see it in the mirror – when he was eight, when he was ten. When Howard arbitrarily made decisions about his life, and everything Tony tried to say was slapped down and treated with negligence or outright contempt.
Tony sinks onto one knee in front of Coop – the Iron Man landing, heh – holding Nate fast to his chest. "Look, buddy, I'm your Mom's friend. I'm your friend-"
"You could be our Dad," says Lila.
Nope. Tony nopes out of this conversation – he's already stretching beyond his limits just being an unofficial uncle, this is not happening, not even as a what-if.
"This isn't how it works," Tony protests, voice a little too high, fervently hoping they can't tell he's on the verge of panic. "People marry because they-" Love each other? He's not enough of a hypocrite to say this to the kids. "-want to spend their lives together. Sometimes it doesn't work out and they end up disappointed, and maybe need a little help from their friends – but don't confuse the two things. It's different."
"So," Lila grumbles, draping herself over Tony's side, "you don't love Mom?"
"Don't try to extort me, young lady. I love your Mom like a friend."
"Like Miss Betty," Lila points out shrewdly.
Fuck, Tony thinks. The Iron Man finally defeated – by a trio of conniving little Hawkasses.
He could admit the thing with Bets is actually…?
Nah.
"That's enough." He tries for strict, but in between Nate's toddlerish adorableness, Lila's Black-Widowesque playing up of her emotional vulnerability, and Cooper's completely genuine broken rage, Tony's melted into a puddle of genius goo. "Let me just be your friend, okay? You've got a Dad-"
"More like a deadbeat," snarks Cooper.
"Jay?" Tony pleads.
"To be honest, sir," JARVIS says solemnly, "I am on the children's side in this argument. Making them attend the peace talks would be both artifice and potentially damaging to them."
"Whose idea was it to drag them along anyway?" he asks, grunting when Lila and Coop cooperate to bring him to the floor and pin him down.
Their little brother sits on Tony's chest and kicks.
"Cease that, Nathaniel Barton!" Tony demands.
The boy grins and ignores him.
"Uh, Boss?" Friday speaks up. "The itinerary we received already included all four of our Bartons, and it was sent via Secretary-"
"No way," Tony cuts in. "Alright, little people! I'm putting you on a jet with your Mom and a bunch of bodyguards and sending you off for an awesome week on Bali, how's that?"
Nate stops kicking. "Whas' Bali?"
x
Tony stands on the balcony and views the hall that usually doubles as conference centre. It'll work well enough for a mock-trial.
He stares at the rag-tag group of defendants below him, far off at the opposite side of the hall – Rogers, Barnes, Wilson, Barton, Lang, Romanov, Maximov – and realizes that it's the first time ever he doesn't automatically feel defensive in Steve Rogers' presence.
He's not angry anymore. It lets him breathe more easily.
Tony's always considered himself their friend, but he never knew how to be a friend (aside from paying for their everything). So, maybe he missed that Cap was a mite suicidal. Maybe he missed that for Cap the whole world shrunk and hardened and pinpointed at the first sight of Winter Barnes' face.
Tony wasn't all with it either. He just didn't consider that Cap, so neat and streamlined and the perfect soldier on the outside was in his head basically a long, drawn-out scream for Bucky.
Rogers has the weird ability to appear sane despite it. SHIELD collectively didn't notice. Fury didn't notice. Romanov didn't notice – or if she did, she obviously didn't give a fuck. Wilson probably noticed, and tried to help, but got himself caught up in the hunt, trying to make up for 'failing' his own buddy. Rogers and Wilson lined up their matching PTSDs and went skipping, hand in hand, off the deep end.
In hindsight, Tony pities them. He's got regrets. There are things he wishes he did differently. He's not going to apologize, but letting go of the anger – yeah, he can do that. Finally.
He goes back down the dimly lit staircase and emerges in the lobby.
"Tony Stark!" thunders an inimitable voice.
"Thor!" Tony squeaks, being grabbed in a manly embrace with the power of a car crusher. "Good to see you, buddy. Unexpected, what with the long absence and the boycott of my wedding, but good. I've seen Vision flying around, so we're going to have the whole gang together."
Hopefully for the last time, but Tony isn't that much of an optimist.
"You have done admirably in letting go of your grudges, my friend," Thor assures him with the gravitas of a Prince of a realm. "Grace is the most anyone may expect of you on a day like this, and I do not doubt that you shall exceed their expectations."
Tony's kind of touched by this profession.
Someone snorts.
There is a man standing behind Thor and a little to the side. He looks like a cutout from a fashion magazine in his bespoke grey suit, with his slightly overlong dark curls falling into his eyes. Into his poisonous green eyes.
"If he even breathes in the direction of any of my people, I'll tattle on him to Bruce," Tony warns, and means the promise of deicidal retaliation with his entire reactor-free heart.
"Have no worries, my friend," Thor assures him, bowing his head. "We shall both behave honorably on this day."
He doesn't even glance over his shoulder. There's no 'or else' implied. It's just a beatific statement of faith.
Tony doesn't believe for a second that Thor understands his adopted brother enough for that promise to be reliable. He alerts the Fury-bot to a potential hostile, and sends off a text to the cyber sibs, just in case. They'll have the best vantage points to spot anything.
"Go on in," Tony tells Thor, ignoring his shadow. "I'll be along soon. Just need a smoke break."
Thor is savvy enough not point out that Tony doesn't smoke. He goes in, and there are distant sounds of awe and exchanges of greetings. Thor can be heard clearly even through thick walls. He seems to be entertaining the crowd.
Tony amuses himself by imagining all the expressions Loki can't let himself show.
He takes a bathroom break instead of a smoke one, and by the time he comes back Thor has stopped being the centre of attention. That means the crowd is ready for Tony to be the centre of attention. He messages his Number One Conspirator – also known as his wife – and strides in like he owns the place… which he does.
"Hello, gorgeous!" he exclaims on his way from the door to his team. By the time he reaches them nearly every eye in the hall is trained on him. He kisses Betty lightly, already reaching out for Bruce. "Hello, gorgeous!" he says to Bruce and tugs him in for a smooch.
He turns around, and there is Pepper. "Hello, gorgeous!" he greets, because he wants to be fair, and Pepper's pretty like the Nautilus section of the Mandelbrot set. Standing two steps from her is Phil, and at this point Tony can't not.
He presses a quick, friendly kiss to Pep's cheek and turns to Agent Agent. "And hello, gorgeous."
There's sputtering from the peanut gallery. He's expected that, but they're just jealous – for a damn good reason – so it's his absolute delight to announce: "So many people I've slept with in one room!"
"Phil?" someone inquires. The tone of betrayal is so unwarranted that Tony's tempted to go over there and shout some truths into some self-righteous dick's face.
To prevent himself from exploding the peace talks before they've properly started, he saunters over to his favoritest zombie in the world. Phil's no glamorous, ship-launching beauty, but he's one hell of a lovely guy. The thing about him is that his inside is even nicer than the outside, and that happens so rarely with people that Tony absolutely hates seeing the man look away toward the congregating bigwigs just so he wouldn't have to meet anyone's eye.
"Don't be ashamed," Tony bids him, reaching out to put an arm around his shoulders – fantastic shoulders, even though he tries to hide them under the jacket – and kisses his cheek, too. "You enjoyed yourself."
It takes a moment, but it seems to work. Phil lights up just enough to make up for the previous upset. Then he turns to speak to Pepper, but actually address the naysayer from the line of exVengers on the opposite side of the railing. "I'm not. I did."
Pepper sighs, and they share a commiserating look. "I know, right?"
At this point it occurs to Tony that the betrayed tone was probably in reference to Phil having died, when it now turns out that this situation has changed. That is, Tony knows it's changed, whereas Barton – who else, right – would be under the impression that it's been a lie from the start.
Well, Tony decides, serves the asshole right.
As he takes his seat, Tony accidentally meets Rogers' eye. He briefly struggles to keep his face impassive. He blinks. Puts on a faintly confused expression, as if he's looking at someone who seems vaguely familiar, but he just can't place the face.
"I hope you two know what you're doing," Bruce frets, adorable in his predictability.
Bets taps the titanium frame of his wrist-watch with her ring and replies, sweetly: "Just be glad I managed to bribe Tony out of bringing popcorn."