The city of fear (part 3)

Then it just happens, all of sudden: in the early morning of 25th – three days before Tony's next radiation cycle, thanks heavens for the little things – S.H.I.E.L.D. facility in northeastern region of New York state sends an emergency signal and reports immediate evacuation order due to the Tesseract acting up in a completely unprecedented manner.

The Avengers assemble in ten minutes, all of them dressed up and with gear on hand, and wait for any kind of information, and it comes maybe a fifteen minutes later, from Maria Hill: Fury is unconscious, as well as several scientists and the security detail from the research facility, and Loki has apparently disappeared somewhere with the Tesseract; all the Helicarrier's spectrometers are calibrated for gamma radiation to find the cube, but Loki must be shielding it with some kind of spell – Thor seems to think so, at least – and it's untraceable.

What basically means they can't even do anything but wait and it's more mentally exhausting than anything else could be.

Clint and Spider Man, being the crazy darling assholes they are, try to play battleship, but Captain stops them soon enough and tells them to please be serious for a few moments when we are facing an alien threat and a potential catastrophe. They still play, but at least sitting next to each other and keeping silent. Thor is pacing back and forth, swinging his hammer, and it kinds of drives Tony crazy so he orders JARVIS to shut the visualand give him the newest data on everything that might be related on the HUD.

Then they get a message saying just this: Loki is trying to open a portal on the top of Stark Industries Tower and at the same time a lot of thing happen: Thor jumps out of the window and flies. Like, flies, towards Stark Tower. Tony doesn't faint and fall to the fucking floor only because JARVIS locks the armor's joins.

'Miss Potts is on a conference in Austin, sir,' the A.I. adds and Tony's head clears a bit, but he missed the first two sentences of whatever Coulson is saying.

'… not far away from here, the Quinjet will help you get up and onto the top of the tower. Wait –' he stops for a moment, 'Hill says Fury is okay, just beat up, they are getting up to Helicarrier, she gave instructions to all the police and army squads in the city and WSC is informing the other cities and countries, they will be on alert. We need to get New York under control ourselves.'

'Why does it always have to be New York?' Clint whines, even if it isn't really true; the last few attacks happened in the U.S., but not in NYC itself.

'Iron Man, Spider Man, you need to get on your own to the tower and take care of the civilians you might meet on your way, now move, move it!' he yells; Clint, Natasha and Steve run out of the room to go to wherever the jet might be.

'Bruce – you stay here and wait for any intel we give you, but we might need the other guy,' Coulson adds quietly, waits exactly until Bruce nods, and disappears, too.

A moment later there is a voice coming from Avengers' comm, Coulson giving update on Helicarrier's position, and then Tony gets a message for Nate, asking him to analyze the last readings from the facility before the Cube was stolen.

'J, you're on that, right?' he asks, getting to the roof and taking off, the HUD shining with colors and numbers when Tony turns his head around to look at the SI tower: the portal is already open, a blue column of light going straight into the sky and –

– a hole, an actual hole in the sky, black and energy-absorbing, as far as the suit's sensors can read, and there is something coming out of it.

'Of course,' Tony murmurs, his brain unconsciously aware of all data JARVIS displays. 'An army, isn't that what Thor said, and army of god-knows-who? Or what? J – Happy? Doc? Riversi – fuck! Give me an update, like, a year ago –'

'Mister Happy and Mister Eisen are okay, driving one of your cars to the underground workshop just like you instructed them in case. Riverside is okay, it's out of the center of the attack, sir, and nothing is happening in that area at the moment. I am afraid we cannot do anything, the roads are blocked, the civilian communication is mostly down.'

'Keep tabs on them and keep me informed – and give me that readings for Nate in a sec,' Tony asks, accelerating, and he gets no more than a glance at the data before he is fully engaged in a fight with several of the aliens.

'Those are Chitauri, they come from outside of the Nine Realms,' Thor's voice booms via the comm just as Tony blasts two of the Chitauri down; a second later Black Widow, Hawkeye and Captain jump out of the Quinjet that fires all its weapons taking down several of the aliens and flies away swiftly. 'I am afraid Loki has escaped from where the portal is,' Thor continues. 'But it's of no matter now, we need to battle the invaders to prevent the destruction from the city,' he adds grimly and Tony realizes what the problem is: Thor's beloved is somewhere in the middle of this mess, trying to work out the portal just as Nate aka JARVIS and several other S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists are –

– but not Banner, Tony is informed a second later via a roar that would wake up all the fucking dead within fifty miles. Suddenly, Hulk leaps and finds himself clutched to a building a few streets to Tony's right, smashing the aliens on their air scooters or whatever as if they were flies.

Spider Man seems to have more fun than he should with catching the invaders into his webs.

Coulson, already on the carrier – he was flying the jet that dropped the agents and Captain – gives them all the info he can via comms and it's not all good information, but apparently there is only one portal – what a fucking relief – and the Avengers seem to be managing okay, very much thanks to the Hulk. NYPD is doing the job down on the streets, evacuating people from buildings and streets to the subway tunnels.

The scientists are on another line, having a teleconference, each staring at his own screen, but they can't come up with anything that makes sense because the readings are outlandish; it only makes Tony think about what Thor said one time: that the Tesseract is a magical object, just like his hammer. It doesn't make sense to Tony, who has been born married to science, but apparently it is real.

The third line is Happy but he only speaks up every five minutes to report if they are okay – they are – and if something is happening in the perimeter – a few bodies knocked out of the sky, but no living Chitauri. Riverside is okay, too. Tony feels like an egoistic asshole, but he is kind of happy that nothing is happening to the people that are important to him. And Pepper plus Rhodey, who are out of the town and country respectively, are out of the direct danger, so that's one less thing to worry about.

Fighting is going all right, even if the armor's supply of ammo is getting steadily lower, until a few of giant bug things, Thor doesn't supply the team with a name, come through the portal and Iron Man deals with them Jonah-style – it's a completely crazy thing to do, but it works and really, there isn't much time for thinking – Hulk takes a few on his own, growling and roaring like a wild beast he is, and Thor's lightning proves much more useful here than with the portal that just can't be closed.

No one has any idea what to do. The science team has no answer either.

Then Maria gets on the comm line and tells Avengers that Loki is on the Helicarrier.

Thor immediately wants to take off – Mjolnir apparently has a built-in magical GPS – but there is like a dozen of the giant things coming back and he can't leave. Clint offers the team a long stream of curse words, shouted and murmured, until Natasha makes him shut up and focus because apparently there are some ten aliens tailing him.

'Coulson, what do we do? Any orders now?'

'You try to close the portal, we will deal with Loki,' the agent's calm voice pours through the comm devices and everyone is probably relaxing a tiny bit, that's what Tony does at least. So far everybody is uninjured, accounted for and with some ammo left, so it's not a completely fucked up situation yet, but it will be it the portal stays open.

There is another twenty minutes of fight – Tony, by some miracle, manages to swing by the area where the mansion is and get some new ammo, but he doesn't have time to even lift the faceplate up to show Happy that he is okay, he just lets JARVIS take care of placing the weapons in place and shoves the man back into the kind-of-safe workshop, it all takes no longer than two minutes – and it makes everyone exhausted because hey, the Chitauri keep coming as if it was a never-ending stream and the other superhero teams were pretty far out to begin with, so even if they manage to arrive and give aid, it will be in at least an hour and no one will last a few hours – Tony doesn't let himself think too much, well, there really isn't a second he can spare for sappy moments of melancholy. After dealing with a few of the giant monsters, Thor finally takes off; there are a few quieter moments.

And then everything goes to hell in a second.

Coulson says, in his usual voice, via the comm like that Loki has a spear and said spear can close the portal but the god has tricked Thor into containment – yes, the Hulk-proof one – so Thor can't get it.

Then he stops in mid-sentence and the comm goes silent, transmitting only an unpleasant buzz for a few moments before Tony cuts Coulson's device off the line.

Clint shouts and then Natasha does too, and Steve, and it's something bad because they are all near each other, Iron Man's sensors keep track of them. He lets JARVIS take a few shots and turns around to see Clint falling off Empire State building and Tony can swear his heart stops for a second – but then Spider Man catches him, puts him on the pavement at Captain's feet and leaps in the air again, hitting a couple of the scooter-riders in the process.

Hill says the Helicarrier is one engine down and they are lucky the other three are okay, but it's close to being a disaster – and a second later she adds that Loki has disappeared. Clint asks about Coulson, but she says she doesn't know; all the systems of the ship are scrambled.

Spider Man comes in sight and take a few more of the flying things tangling them in his webs and lining for Iron Man to shoot down while Widow helps Hawkeye up – or Natasha helps Clint up, it's more like that, her touch much more tender than Widow's could ever be – and it's not even five minutes before Hill makes contact again.

With Iron Man only, he notices, JARVIS is tracing the calls.

'WSC sent a nuke to bomb Manhattan,' she states drily, but her voice trembles the way Tony would have never expected. 'We have three minutes.'

'I'm on it,' Tony tells her without missing a second to think about it.

Because – because of Happy and Doc and all the rest of people who look out for him, Riverside and S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and his team, because of all the fucking eight million people living in the city and he – he can do this.

Tony is wearing the newest suit and it's not even dented that much, not destroyed very much, he can make it, JARVIS calculated everything on 0.3 second.

It's two minutes left when he gets to the missile – at least it's not SI-made – and grabs it, almost attaching it to the suit. His mind is really too numb to think; the only thing he is aware of now is the weight on his back and how fucking fitting that it.

New York can't be nuked, his brain says. Therefore, the missile must be but somewhere. Portal. Aliens. Outer space. Different dimension. Easy.

And it's not like he will be losing much if he dies now, a few months, it's just – Pepper. Pepper and Rhodey.

'Shall I call someone?' the A.I. asks knowingly; he doesn't have to ask Tony what he is planning. He can read his creator's mind – he's already cut off the Avengers' comm and the scientist's line, leaving Tony to silence and a rainbow of data on the HUD.

'No, J. You know – you know what to do. Make sure it's done,' he just says, shivering a little, but it is lost on the suit.

'Thor escaped from the containment cell is fighting with Loki on the top of SI tower, sir,' JARVIS offers and a moment later Tony sees it, but he can't do anything right now. They will manage.

Fifty seconds when Tony reaches the stream of blue light shooting up in the sky and starts following it.

'I am so sorry, J. Tell them I am sorry,' Tony adds in whisper, taking last look at the view of the city underneath: there is so much destruction. But he will stop more destruction from coming. That's – that's a noble thing to do. The right thing. Something he's always wanted to do.

Thirty seconds and he enters the portal; all the noises are suddenly gone and he is surrounded by ringing silence that almost physically hurts. JARVIS takes the suit as far as possible – seventeen, sixteen, stops at fifteen seconds, Tony's hands fall and the nuke goes on thanks to the momentum.

Twelve and Tony starts falling; he is counting only in his mind now, so he might be wrong, he might be counting milliseconds or eons. With the suit's power going out all the lines in front of his eyes have disappeared and the only thing he can see it the giant planet-like mother-ship of the Chitauri, and the bright strange stars all around.

Eight and he is falling so fast that it hurts, every single of his cells hurt so much that he uncontrollably yells in pain, it feels as if some strange force was ripping his body apart – he misses seven and six and five and four, but manages to open his eyes at three – the starts are so bright they hurt his eyes.

Two. One.

Then he sees the orange-red light, a curiously-shaped explosion because there is no surface, nothing to stop it, and Tony closes his eyes with all the light and colors still in front of his eyes.

'The eyes are not here, there are no eyes here in this valley of dying stars, in this hollow valley,' Tony murmurs soundlessly to himself. It seems viscerally fitting.

He keeps falling and it keeps hurting. He is free.

Tony wakes up laying sprawled on the pavement, still in the suit, JARVIS shouting at him to open his eyes. Maybe that made him wake up from – fuck.

JARVIS was never programmed to be able to shout, but apparently he can. Somehow.

'… rip your suit apart, sir, if you don't start moving, I can control the armor and copy your speech patterns only to a certain extent –'

'Nuke?' Tony manages to rasp out, blinking rapidly to clear his blurry vision.

'Hit the mother-ship just as it exploded – the Chitauri all fell when it happened, I gathered, sir. The portal was closed – you fell through it a second before. How are you feeling?'

'Lucky me,' Tony coughs, sitting up slowly. Like, really, really, really slowly. 'You can guess, J – everyone?'

'The Avengers are around you, sir, all of them,' JARVIS says a bit smugly and Tony finally is sitting up properly, with the A.I.'s help, and lifts his head up. They really are here. 'Riverside is all right. The workshop is under control, too. No damage.'

'What we got?' Tony asks weakly, ignoring the headache that starts sliding under his skin, nesting somewhere between his temples. It takes him ten more seconds to stand up and the rest of the team just seems to stare blankly somewhere behind him.

'Loki was incapacitated, Thor informed the rest of the team. His spear is gone –'

'What happened?'

'Agent Coulson was gravely injured by Loki, sir,' JARVIS says quietly. 'The doctors can't say if he will be all right.'

'Fuck,' Tony swears angrily, shuddering. He knew something was wrong that moment when Clint fell but he didn't think – no one thought – 'Get all the data you can from S.H.I.E.L.D. as soon as all their systems are up, I want to know everything,' he barks and then takes a deep breath.

'Are you sure you should stand up? I mean, I know you are cool and tough and all but you fell out of the outer space –'

'I am fine,' Tony interrupts Spider Man. He looks battered but in surprisingly good spirits; Tony guesses it makes some sense since they did fight off an alien invasion. For what cost – it's not definite yet. Not yet. 'Don't look at me like that, Captain,' he adds. 'The suit is really much sturdier than it looks. Everything is all right – and I believe we have work to do, right?' he asks, turning towards Thor who is eying him with concern and some confusion.

'Aye. That we do,' the god agrees.

S.H.I.E.L.D. ends up taking Loki into custody, guarded by Thor, with Mjolnir set down on his chest to prevent him from even moving, since no Midgardian science can contain magic.

Yes, Tony promises himself. Yet.

Clint disappears with Natasha and the reason and destination are obvious: Coulson is still in surgery and will be for a while. The spear has made quite a dame to his lung and heart and the doctors have a lot of work with him, not to mention that there are dozens of injured agents and hundreds of dead or injured civilians.

Bruce is back to being Bruce and sits in his post-Hulk clothes with Captain, coaxed by the man to eat something to replenish his energy.

Iron Man nods to them and disappears; he knows JARVIS is handling Nate for now – Tony has to congratulate himself for making up the mute act, the A.I. can send written messages without being suspicious – so he goes to the broken engine and it takes him twenty minutes to repair it. Fury gets on Avengers' comm and tells them they will have a debrief with him in two days at 1000 hrs and orders them to get medical attention and some rest now because there is nothing more they can do.

Tony waves at Captain, Bruce and Spider Man and disappears into the air; then he turns on the invisible option and gets straight to the apartment. Happy and Doc are not there yet; he told them everything is all right and didn't listen too much of what they wanted to say. Because apparently, the footage of Iron Man going through the portal with the nuke and saving the whole city was live on TV and now is the most watched video on the internet. At least everywhere where the electricity is working.

Honestly, Tony is too tired to care.

It will take his two babysitters at least an hour to get from the workshop place to the apartment through the rubble and the mess that the world outside is: every single policeman and soldier is working on collecting the Chitauri bodies, weapons and everything alien, while all civilians are helping fellow victims.

As always, in such moment, people seem to be the most formidable of all beings in the universe and they are doing damn good job at being a community. Probably for a day before they will manage to find something to argue about, but it's, for now, uplifting.

Tony can take a minute off, then.

JARVIS unwraps the suit and Tony almost collapses when the metal supporting his weight is not there, all of sudden. He was clever enough to drag himself to the middle of the living room first, so it's only three more steps to the sofa. Tony manages that a bit shakily and the collapses.

He is alive.

He is alive.

He is still alive.

It's so surreal that he decides he might just as well be dreaming already.

The next day feels even stranger.

Doc looks over and decides that there is nothing terribly wrong with him, just bad bruises, some scraps and a few strained muscles. Not even pulled. It's much less that Tony has expected, so it's big a relief. Happy has called Scott and told him that everyone is alive and safe and that they will meet as soon as some of the mess in NY is cleared, because he knows perfectly well that Tony won't leave the city now.

No one talks about the nuke, but the question is hanging in the air, making the atmosphere heavy but in a way it's comforting, like having a thick blanket wrapped around shoulders.

The first morning after Tony goes to Riverside to check up on the kids. Everything seems to be okay, luckily, the kids are only scared to death, but about 98% of the world is and all the others must be crazy. It is Saturday, but everyone understands when Nate says that he can't stay today; it maybe would be good for the kids, as a distractions, especially for the bit older ones, but Tony just can't do that.

Nate has to go to S.H.I.E.L.D. for a meeting about the Tesseract with Thor and Jane Foster and he has to do that in person; the situation is too serious for him to say sorry but I can't.

The meeting is strange and hectic and the most important information of the day is that Thor will be taking the Tesseract to Asgard no matter what the Midgardians say and he will stay there until Odin wakes up – it might be a day or a year, the god says, but he also claims that Odin even is his sleep is somehow able to feel the weight of his responsibilities and he won't be asleep for longer than necessary is a face of such grave incident.

He says it all with Jane sitting in his lap, as if it was totally normal; she stops blushing furiously after ten minutes when everyone stops staring a bit. Nate hasn't known Thor for long, but what he is sure about already is that if the god cares about someone, there is no stopping him, and however strange that may be, he is completely and madly in love with a girl from the earth.

She is totally smitten with him, too, so everything makes a fairytale-like sense.

Thor keeps looking at Nate throughout the meeting, mostly when someone else is speaking, but it's not really staring or anything like that. It's a curious glance of a child, Tony decides, he has seen enough of those recently.

When the meeting ends, Thor disappears with Jane straight away and Nate makes his way out of the building – the boring way, leaving via the main entrance – but before he manages to get to the ground floor, a certain someone suddenly happens to be in front of him.

'My favorite consultant,' Clint signs. He looks rather bad, covered with bruises – obvious thing, given how much he was falling and jumping around – and has his left arm in sling, dark bags under his eyes because of course he didn't sleep. He looks just lifeless.

But he is still standing on his own legs, so it's not that bad.

'Is everything all right?' Tony signs, because it's something Nate would ask about not knowing everything that Iron Man knows.

'Of course not,' Clint replies and they share a resigned humorless grins. 'But I need to go. I just wanted to check on you. You okay?'

'I am,' Tony assures him. 'Don't worry about me. Take care of yourself.'

'I will,' Clint says aloud. His voice is completely devoid of emotion. 'Good to know you're okay. I had to make sure you didn't – you know. Good. I will see you around,' he adds and turns around, disappearing somewhere a moment later.

Tony spends the rest of the day working on repairing the suit because who the hell knows when he might need it – anytime – so he cannot afford to relay on the older and outdated models; sure, they are good to fly and fight, but it's nowhere near Mark VII. He knows he might be obsessing. A bit. JARVIS says he is obsessing a lot, but Tony doesn't agree; it seems only fitting after what has happened.

No one seems to agree and Tony ends up dragged out of the workshop around nine p.m., Happy drives them to a place they both like and gets them proper warm food and makes Tony eat. Tony himself is rather surprised that he can manage that without throwing everything up straight away, the way his gut feels.

He doesn't tell anyone. It's just fear. It's just being human.

Sunday is the debrief and everyone is present at 1000 hrs sharp, for once not in their uniforms, save Tony and Spider Man. It's a strange mix between mission mode and normal life mode, especially Natasha and Clint, the way Tony has noticed at the end of the battle.

Tony knows Coulson is still in ICU and they can't say if he will live. Two more days, they say, if he pulls through two more days, he will make it. That doesn't make anyone feel better.

'Before we start, I want to tell you one thing, team,' Fury says, his voice as booming and authoritative as always. 'We are dealing with WSC at the moment. Hill is on that, with a few of the top agents. We are not going to tolerate this kind of actions and I am not going to let some bunch of morons to nuke my city. I am sorry,' he adds, turning towards Iron Man, and everyone looks at him too. 'That we had to put you in such situation.'

'You – we didn't have choice,' Iron Man's emotionless voice replies and Tony lowers his head a bit. It doesn't really matter so much, not a big difference, it could have been interesting, for a moment I thought it would be a great way to die, Tony thinks, but doesn't say any of it aloud, not even to JARVIS. 'Don't reminisce. I am all right. There are other things we need to focus on.'

Fury stays unmoving, with his arms wrapped behind his back and his head tilted slightly, staring at Iron Man as if he was trying to figure something out. Maybe half a minute later he nods slowly, looks down at the papers on the desk in front of him and speaks up.

'Good. I don't know exactly how it's done usually in your team – I trust my agents – so we will do it my way. Let's go through your reports first,' Fury states, looking at them expectantly, and it's Steve to start talking first, everyone following his example.

The debrief doesn't have the usual rhythm and sparkle; half of it is because everything they are talking about is serious matters and heavy stuff and Fury doesn't joke even about funny things; the other half is that Coulson is their friend, better or worse but friend, and the Director is nothing but a foreign substitute.

And, of course, everyone is exhausted.

On Monday Tony starts radiation as if nothing has happened. The clinic is pretty far from the center of Manhattan so there is no damage, it works normally. Since Tony's treatment is just come-and-go kind of thing, it's not a problem to conduct it normally, even with all hospital beds filled with the attack's more or less gravely injured victims.

'Are you now going to behave like a responsible adult you are supposed to be, boss, or do we have to ask JARVIS to lock you out of the workshop?' Happy greets Tony when he comes back home at 2200 hrs after spending the whole day working.

There is so much to do. Again. And this time for real.

'You will give me curfew?'

'You already have a curfew, you just don't respect it,' Happy replies with straight face, putting a plate full of pasta in front of Tony. 'Now eat.'

'You do not care if I am hungry,' Tony says before Happy can do that.

'Oh, so you know that, how nice,' Happy sighs. 'But really, I don't care if the whole world needs your help suddenly. You need rest, especially now. You are tired and beat up like a walking eggplant.'

'You are so funny,' Tony scoffs, but sits down with his legs crossed and eats almost all of the food.

'You know you've got something else to do, still,' Happy adds when they are finishes, giving Tony the look; he gets up, leaving the things to clean for the bots.

'I know,' Tony admits, biting his lip. He fucking knows.

'I will do it if you don't. Soon.'

'Okay,' Tony agrees because he knows he needs to know that someone will force him. He would be running away as long as possible. 'Please do that,' he adds almost inaudibly. Happy nods. He will.

June 1st, five days after the post-mission debrief, there is the usual Avengers meeting. It's not official at all; Fury told them he will tell them when they might be needed, but the team decided to meet by themselves anyway. Captain said they have a few things to talk about.

He is the boss here while Coulson is under the meticulous care of S.H.I.E.L.D. medical; he's managed those two days and has even woken up a few times coherent enough to talk. Tony knows Clint has been basically living his hospital room; JARVIS has access to all the cameras. The archer seems much less tired and more… pulled together, what is great. It has been a fucking pain to see him so hurt and broken.

Although everyone seems more or less hurt and broken these days.

'As you know, Agent Coul–'

'Phil,' Clint cuts in with a small smirk. There are no Cheetos this time. 'He'd like that.'

'Phil,' Steve says with a smile, 'is going to make it and he will be back with us in a few weeks. Even if it might be a few months before he can work as our handler again – we need to discuss the other potential handlers. The other options. I think at this point we can bargain and get what we want.'

'We really should since we've just saved the world, I think it might be an universal law or something,' Spider Man adds, sitting crouched in his chair like always. 'No one is going to tell me to do what I don't like doing –'

'I will,' Steve stops him, rolling his eyes. 'Watch me. But. I think we did a great job as a team, and it was far more than we could have ever tried to prepare for. I thanked you all already, and we've gone through being all polite and nice, so now down to business.'

'We've been thinking,' Bruce starts, pushing his glasses up a bit with his pinkie like he does all the time. 'We've had some time to figure some things out, about S.H.I.E.L.D., about the Avengers – thanks to Steve, you know everyone breaks down when he speaks to them,' there is a soft wave of laughter, that is so true, 'S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't have any other plans for us than to have the team on standby for any missions that might require our skill set. Like we've been acting so far. But since we all are lost creatures – okay. I will spare you the elevated speech,' he smiles sheepishly. 'Cap?'

'We think we should move in together. Live in one place – out response time would be great and we would get to know each other much better, seeing each other every day – but of course there are two cases.'

'I'd love to sneak into your bedroom and look out for any blackmail, Steve, but I am afraid that's impossible,' Spider Man says and it's the first time Tony hears his sounding anyhow apologetic or regretful.

But he knows himself that a Secret Identity means sacrifices.

'I can't,' he says truthfully. 'If you move, though, I fully support the decision. I think Spiderman and I could come around as often as possible. I would certainly try.'

'Well, as long as there are free snacks and beverages,' Spider Man nods eagerly.

Steve smiles in his perfect Cap way and turns his look to Clint and Natasha.

'If you asked me a month ago, I would say no,' Clint says, leaning back in his chair and giving Natasha a long look. 'But now I think I can say yes. As long as Phil is invited.'

'Of course he is,' Natasha scoffs, squeezing his arm reassuringly. 'We're in. I think we genuinely need a break from S.H.I.E.L.D. since we have lived and worked and breathed this place for years.'

'Thor?'

'If I am in Midgard, I would be most glad to join you, my comrades,' Thor replies gravely.

'That's great,' Steve says as earnestly as only he can, 'I really wasn't sure you would say yes. That's really swell,' he adds and laughs lightly; it's nervous but excited. 'We've got a place that we could use. The old S.H.I.E.L.D. facility twelve blocks South from here – you know the place, right?'

'The mansion that's been an emergency safe house and kind of a storage place for the last ten years? We snuck in there dozens of times,' Clint tells them, giving Natasha a look. She returns it and makes him grin tiredly.

'I'll talk with Fury and tell him everything,' Steve concludes. Tony nods at him; it's fascinating to see how the man is spreading his wings and wriggling out of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s grasp. He is much less kind and agreeable than most people have expected, turning out to be exactly what Tony expected him to be, given the anecdote he's heard: a young rebellious man with too many ideals and lots of common sense he ignores skillfully.

They talk for a bit longer, setting a date for another training day and a team meeting, and when they leave Steve asks Iron Man if they could talk. Tony agrees and sits down in his usual place. Steve closes the door behind Clint, who leaves last, and sits next to Tony.

'I don't think I will ever be able to say thank you enough for what you did,' he starts. Tony inclines his head a bit and waits for elaboration. 'I only woke up two months ago and we've had all this things going on, we were expecting something all the time. I was expecting something with you all, because I didn't know anything else. I've learned so much about this world from you, and I got a bit attached to you, so when Agent Hill said there is a nuclear weapon sent to destroy Manhattan I… I thought about the millions of people who live here, but it was a second thought. The first was you all, because you are as much of a family as I could ever dream of. And then you – you just did it. Grabbed the nuke. Sent it to space.'

'That was an obvious decision,' Iron Man states. Steve shudders.

'We didn't know if you would come back – you didn't know, right? Or did you?' Steve asks, standing up and starting to pace. 'Well, that decision we made to be friends, I know it was made on a whim, but it mattered a lot to me and when I saw how you…'

'How I don't hesitate,' Tony guesses. Steve nods solemnly. 'I did,' he assures Captain. It doesn't matter if that was half a second. 'But you do know this kind of thing. You did the same, didn't you? You crashed the plane with the Tesseract and decided to die just as easily. Because – let's not lie to each other: we both were sure we were going to die.'

'I was just hoping nothing like that would ever happen again, and it did and – just. So close to me. It's always so close,' Steve says quietly. He keeps his pensive eyes on Tony, making him feel strangely exposed, despite the disguise-that-is-no-longer-disguise. And the suit.

'We are in such position that this will happen a lot. But you know it. And you did when you were just Steve Rogers, agreeing to be experimented on for the good of your country. No really sane person would do that,' Tony adds, cocking his head. He knows that Steve has learned so far that it's sometimes an equivalent of a smile that the faceplate cannot convey.

Steve chuckles and his face is just a tiny bit less grim.

'I really appreciate your honesty, Iron Man. Heavens know I need it – but I wanted to ask. That was the point.'

'Ask?'

'Just – are you really okay? You know. You fell out of a sky. Hulk caught you but it was still at such a great speed and force and you took a moment to reply and –'

'Cap,' Tony interjects, getting up and standing in front of Steve. 'Steve. I really appreciate this, but you worry too much. I am here. If something was wrong, I wouldn't be here. It's as easy as that. I was bruised a lot, like all of you, but that's it. You can't let yourself worry too much.'

'I know. I will try.'

'We've got things to do, don't we?'

'I think we do,' Steve agrees and moves towards the door, but Tony puts his gloved hand on his shoulder.

'Hey. We are all right. Every single one of us is, even Phil, he's going to be okay. New York will be rebuilt, not only the city physically, but out spirit, too. Much more than some aliens and almost dying is necessary to break us,' he ends, squeezing Steve's shoulder.

Steve finally smiles the way that he normally does: more radiantly than the sun. Honestly. It really makes everyone happy to make him happy just to get that smile.

'You are right. Much more is needed.'

Tony nods and the finally leave the conference room. Steve goes towards his quarters, to right, and Tony needs to get to the roof – that is the other way – but as soon as he takes the next turn, he almost walks into Thor.

'I am sorry, Man of Iron. I did not anticipate you so soon –'

'You were waiting for me?' Tony asks, surprised, taking a step back and taking in Thor's regal self in his battle clothing that he put on for the meeting.

'Yes. Indeed I was. Could we talk? Where are you headed?'

'To the roof, that's where I fly from – is that okay?'

'I shall accompany you,' Thor decided and follows Tony the few levels up. It takes them maybe three minutes to get outside of the building. 'Can you secure our conversations from the devices that serve the agents controlling this edifice to hear and see us?'

Tony doesn't as how Thor knows that he is able to do something like that, but he tells JARVIS to take control of the cameras and make sure nobody from S.H.I.E.L.D. will be able to listen to their conversation.

'It's done,' Tony tells Thor, looking at the god curiously, but that's hidden by the helmet. 'What do you need such secrecy for, Thor?'

'I know of your real name, Man of Iron,' Thor says, looking straight at the faceplate and making Tony's heart almost stop.

What?

'What?'

'I have known since the meeting we had with your fellow science friends and my beloved Jane,' Thor explain, his voice hushed. 'I am an Asgardian. Here, on earth, we have been called gods not only for our strength and abilities – like mine, to fly with Mjolnir– but also for an insight we have into your world and your souls.'

'What – what kind of insight?' Tony rasps out with disbelief; JARVIS makes it a smooth subdued question, the angel he is.

'It is alike a… signature. Each person gives us a certain feeling. It is very unique and we do not make mistakes there. When we met, I felt the same kind of emanation from a Midgardian that calls himself Nate Rives as I feel from you, Iron Man.'

'Oh,' Tony manages, a stream of mixed thoughts racing through his head, but none of them making much sense.

'Do not worry. I will not share this revelation with anyone, 'tis the reason why I asked you to ensure our privacy here.'

Well. That at least makes Tony's heart slow down a bit and wow, breathing normally is fun too – he doesn't even know why he is reacting so strongly. It was bound to happen at some point, Tony has been aware that it's highly probably that someone will connect these two dots sooner or later. He just hoped for later. Much later.

'Why would you tell me that now, then?' he asks finally, staring at Thor whose face lightens and a smile crawls on his face.

'I know naught of your family or friends –'

'I guess you can call me Nate at the moment,' Tony sighs. Thor beams.

'– Nate. I thought it would only be kind to ask you if you would not consider sharing this double identity matter with our shield brothers. Then you could come to live with us.'

'Thor, it is…' Tony pauses for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. 'I am happy you thought about me, but I am afraid I won't be able to do that. I – Iron Man and Nate are two separate people, even if it's me. Iron Man is someone that appears when he is needed, and it's temporary and additional, in a way. Nate is – he is everything else. I don't want them to merge. Maybe one day, but not now. I need this separation,' Tony explains. He has this strange feeling that despite JARVIS' transmitting his voice via the synthesizer, Thor knows exactly how Tony is feeling.

'Of course. I understand. I only felt obliged to share the knowledge with you, since you are my friend, and I would not keep a secret of such importance from a friend. Remember that if you require any kind of help or assistance, whenever I am in Midgard, you can turn to me and I will try to offer you counsel.'

'I – thanks, Thor. I appreciate this a lot,' Tony says, meaning it so much.

Maybe it's not that bad. Knowing that, within the team, there is someone he will only have to half-hide from and who will have Tony's back if something happens.

'Now, I believe we both have work to do,' Thor adds, a bit more grimly. Tony nods.

Nate has a few things he needs to do for S.H.I.E.L.D., since his charity jobs are on hiatus now; everyone has different problems at the moment.

And Thor is leaving tonight with Loki and the Tesseract, so he has enough on his head already.

'Thanks again, friend,' Tony says, offering Thor a salute and making him smile amicably.

'Until next time, Iron Man,' Thor replies and disappears into the building.

The next day Tony finally talks with Pepper and Rhodey. Happy talks with them and says as much as he thinks they should know before the meeting.

It's more or less this information, just in so many more words: Tony is okay. I've been with him all this time. He wants to meet you. He is – in disguise, of sorts.

Tony can't make himself call them or even ask JARVIS to do that; every time he wants, every time he tries, he just can't utter a word because hey, he is a genius and he realizes perfectly well what a terrible thing he's done to his friends and how it all hurt them, and now he will have to hurt them more, so much more, and he can't bring himself to do it.

Happy makes him, just like Tony asked. He wouldn't go far without Happy.

They come over to Nate's apartment at noon and Tony is so nervous that he almost throws up the little breakfast he's managed to eat – he is in the middle of radiation, even if it's easy to forget when all he focuses on is work – and Happy considers tying him down to a chair or something because he keeps pacing around the flat for good two hours. His body literally hurts all over from the internal tension, but it doesn't stop him.

This is ridiculous and he knows it, but rationality doesn't help at all.

Between rehearing obsessively what he is going to say, Tony counts the seconds to noon; the clock's numbers are changing inexorably. The time seems to stretch endlessly, but when noon comes it feels as if not even a minute has passed.

Tony feels so terribly self-conscious when Pepper and Rhodey enter the room, all of sudden aware of how different he looks to them: it's been half a year and they expect to see Tony Stark, that is only natural, even though Happy told them what it will be like – he knows that they won't believe until they see him. His skin color is natural today, he left the glasses somewhere and didn't put the contacts in, but it's still such a big difference.

It's been so long that he has actually genuinely forgot – let himself forget and leave behind –what he was like before.

'Tony?' Pepper asks unsurely as she and Rhodey get the first glance at Tony.

'Pepper. Rhodey,' he greets them. His voice is almost not trembling.

'Tony, it's – it's you. Really.'

'Yeah,' Tony admits, hanging his head down and waiting for them to scream, to shout, to be angry. Instead, Pepper and Rhodey come up to him slowly and hug him simultaneously so strongly that it leaves Tony breathless.

God, how he's missed them.

'Tony,' Pepper says again, still disbelieving, but at least she is not crying.

'You little fucker,' Rhodey says at the same time, shaking his head. That's perfect Rhodey. 'You little fucker, I made so many sacrifices for you, I stood up for you so many times, I gave up so much for you, and all because I believed you deserved it – and you do something like this? Do you realize that the only proof we had that you were still alive was that your bots were missing. We knew you wouldn't leave them – of course, we didn't think you'd abandon us either.'

'Sorry,' Tony breathes.

It's full minute before Pepper bursts into tears and Tony hates himself so much for making her like this.

'You know,' she says between sobs, when Tony is wrapping his arm around her back and guiding her to the sofa, 'half of the world half the world thinks we're going to find you under the Brooklyn Bride after you drink yourself to death – or maybe in some random place in the Midwest, since I am sure someone is actually checking the Brooklyn Bridge – and the other half has decided that you've run away from all responsibilities and that you're having fun with call-girls somewhere on a private island and I didn't even have time to really think because you were… Gone. You were gone. You left me with everything and you were gone.'

'I'm sorry,' Tony offers weakly, but no amount of apologies can make a difference.

'I thought you were alive, but I didn't have a proof and anything could have happened and I wouldn't know and –'

'JARVIS would have told you if I died,' Tony cuts in trying not to sound too teary. 'He knows all the procedures. But it doesn't matter now,' he adds.

'It doesn't,' Pepper repeats and buries her face in his shoulder. 'You look so different,' she mumbles almost inaudibly. 'You are so different.'

'I have been someone else,' Tony admits, tensing a bit. He really wants it to be over. Or to never happen. Just – be somewhere else than here.

'Tell us about it,' Rhodey orders.

Tony tells them about Nate first because it's the easiest part of the story.

'But that is not – it's not all,' he finishes. 'There is more.'

By now they have both calmed, a tiniest bit but it's something, and Pepper is even wearing a small smile since Tony told them about Riverside. He hates this: giving them answers that they want so much only because they don't know how much it will hurt. But they need to know everything.

'It's been me playing Iron Man since the beginning,' he finally manages to say.

That leaves them speechless, so Tony takes a deep breath, using the occasion, and decides to do this as quickly as possible.

'I've been doing all of this because I need to make some things right and I don't have enough time. I'm – I'm ill. I've got cancer. It's terminal.'

God, how he wants to disappear now. Again. Just so that he wouldn't have to deal with this. He hates himself so fucking much at this point. For disappointing them and ignoring them and letting them believe he was dead – that's so cruel. And now he is really going to be dead and it's even more cruel.

But then, he's always been an egotistical bastard.

'Tony, is this… for real?' Pepper asks finally, breaking the silence that makes their heartbeats and breaths sound like thunder.

'Yes,' he murmurs.

'I can't believe this,' she whispers, shaking her head slightly.

'I know. I am sorry.'

'Sir. Please stop apologizing. I can't listen to you apologizing anymore,' JARIS says, making everyone jump a little and startling them completely. 'You do not have to apologize,' the A.I. adds. I would hug you if I could, he doesn't say but Tony hears it anyway.

'Thanks, J, but –'

'No, he's right,' Rhodey interrupts. 'Don't. It's not your fault.'

'Maybe not the reason, but everything else –'

'No, Tony. Don't,' Rhodey states firmly. 'Really, don't.'

'How long…' Pepper doesn't finish the question, but she doesn't have to.

'At this point, about two years… A few months more, a few months less, difficult to say. It's still – it's not that soon. I still got some time. And before you ask no, they can't do anything more than they are doing now. I'm – I'm in radiation. It helps, but it doesn't make it stop.'

'Oh God,' Pepper breathes. She's not crying, what probably is not a good sign now. 'You –'

'The nuke,' Rhodey seems to realize at the same time. 'You would have died with the nuke without telling us – that's what JARVIS would have told us, right? All of this? If you died?'

Tony just nods, perfectly aware that he is not able to say anything right now. Just nod. Everything they are going to ask you will require a yes, he tells himself silently.

It takes them some time to wrap their heads around what Tony has just told them and for Tony to calm down enough to be able to talk – behave – quasi normally. They don't move an inch through all that time and Tony takes in the closeness with all his senses: it's intoxicating and amazing. It's one of the greatest things in the world.

Eventually, he tells them more about Iron Man and the Avengers and everything about the cancer and his treatment; it takes hours, but no one complains.

'I have to make these months that I have left matter,' Tony tells them finally. 'I was so scared of telling you. That's why Happy called. I thought – I was hoping you would forgive me. For this half a year and for all those lies before. It's been inexpressibly cruel of me, but I – I don't think I regret it. I hope you won't hate me for this.'

There. He did it.

It's a real weight off Tony's mind. He's been running away for so long and this feels like taking responsibility for his actions, at least some of them. The rest he doesn't care about.

'I will keep acting as Nate and Iron Man,' informs tells them finally; it's never been a question. Tony Stark is missing and will stay missing. 'I hope you can accept this.'

'Of course, I will just… need some time. It's so much. To think it over,' Pepper assures him. That's something he can agree to.

'I will do every-fucking-thing for you, you dumb brat, as long as you'll need me, be it months or years and I would even if that meant following your insane self for a hundred years,' Rhodey tells him, squeezing his arm tightly. Tony smiles at them. They smile back. He really doesn't deserve such incredible friends.

It will be so much easier now, he knows, to make this time the most amazing ever: with Thor and Steve and the rest of the team, with all the Riverside inhabitants, even if they all are unaware. With Happy and Scott and the doctors.

With Pepper and Rhodey.

They have a city to rebuild – and a world to keep safe.

A/N: The whole part was beta-ed by Quaxo.

Last piece of The city of fear, so please review! I hope you enjoyed yourself. Let me know what you think. It was my first time ever writing this kind of action/battle and any comments and suggestions are very welcome :)

The next piece, Long may you run, will be mostly about the team and *simple* everyday life. And hiding from people who have too many questions, a lot of that :)