Bruce listened to Coulson's explication as he watched the video feed on the child clone. The boy was still huddled in the corner. Natasha was sitting next to the door where they could barely see each other around the end of the bed.

The boy fingered the baseboard he'd pried off the wall and glared at Natasha.

Bruce cocked his head, made a decision, and stood up. "Uhm, sorry." He bit his lip as everyone around the table looked at him. "I think I know why he pried off the baseboard." He gestured towards the hallway. "I, uh, want to talk to him."

Phil nodded slowly. "We still aren't sure how to adress him."

Bruce shrugged. "I'll just ask him." He headed down to the room they'd put the boy in between Phil and Francis' rooms. He gently knocked and eased the door open.

Natasha looked up at him. "Bruce."

"Hey. Hi." He didn't look towards the boy. "I'd like to talk to him."

She nodded. "Of course." She slowly stood and stretched out her back. She looked at the boy glaring at them. "This is Bruce." She turned to him. "He'll need food in another hour at the lastest."

Bruce ignored the rumble of the boy's stomach as he nodded. "I'm sure he'll let me know if he's hungry."

"Hey! I'm sitting right here!"

Natasha gave him one last glance as she slipped out the door. Bruce propped it open a couple of inches and went as far as the end of the boy's bed. He sat down on the floor and looked at the boy glaring at him.

"You were checking the date, weren't you?"

With a jerk, the boy huddled himself back into his corner. "What? I...don't know what you are talking about."

Bruce gave him a bland smile. "Yes, you do. I'm Bruce, by the way. What's your name?"

The boy frowned and looked down at the baseboard. "No one thinks about baseboards when they are lying to you, you know?"

"I do." Bruce hunched forward to put his elbows on his knees and tuck his chin in his hands. "What's your name?"

"I..." The boy tapped his head back into the wall behind himself. "I'm not who Raines tells me I am. The dates are wrong." He waved the baseboard.

"He told you that you are Tony Stark and that you were...what? Sold to him by your father?"

The boy jerked and blinked several times. "You're like me, huh? That funky thing I can do where I can tell when people are lying."

"Sort of." Bruce pointed at the baseboard. "The manufacturing date. It's what, 2011 or 2012, right? The Tower we are in is very new."

The boy looked down and nodded. "Yeah, 2012. I...Raines was insisting it was the 1980's. He kept saying I could help save the world." He looked up at Bruce. "I'm not Tony or Anthony."

"No, you aren't." Bruce reached out slowly to touch the end of the baseboard. "You are a clone of Tony Stark, but you aren't him. I am...none of us...are going to ask you to work for us." He tapped the end of the board. "You are extremely smart, just like my friend, Tony. And you look hungry."

The boy pushed the end of the baseboard into Bruce's fingers. "I'll find the test in this and I'll make you sorry."

Bruce smiled. "No tests. We're still convincing Hanna and Francis of that. I don't expect you to believe me. Do you have a name you like that we can call you?"

"Steve."

Bruce bit the inside of his cheek as he shook his head. "No, sorry. We've got a Steve. Something else?"

The boy thought about it as he fingered the baseboard. "Edward?"

Bruce nodded. "I think we can live with that."

Tony locked himself in his workshop, changed all the inputs so no one could come in, and ordered JARVIS to override all the overrides so even Coulson couldn't just waltz in. Then he used his lock-cutter to snap the lock on the cabinet he'd put all his alcohol from around the workshop in.

He glanced up at the ceiling tiles and headed across the workshop to grab a sheet of metal to make a barrier.

Edward stuck his head out into the hallway slowly and stopped. "No brutes."

Bruce let him go at his own pace and stayed out of arm's length the entire time. "No. You don't call them Cleaners?"

With a shrug, Edward ran his fingers across the wall panels as he creeped down the hall. "No. They're brutes. They like to..." He glanced at Bruce and then stopped talking.

Bruce didn't say anything as he lead them to the stairs. "There's an elevator if you'd rather..."

"No." Edward stood against the wall, shaking as he pressed himself into the wall. "Stairs are great. I like stairs."

Bruce nodded and went ahead of him through the door. He kept himself half-turned, ready to lunge for a catch if Edward started to fall as they went up the stairs. "You always knew you weren't really Tony?"

Edward leaned over the rail to look down the stairs. "No." He looked up. "I thought I'd been sold to him for being too stupid until I was about five." He touched each stair with his bare foot before actually stepping up onto it. "Someone had a cellphone. It was way ahead of what Raines had let me have."

Bruce held the door to the common floor open and let Edward take his time easing through it. They worked their way down the hallway to the kitchen. Someone, Bruce figured it was Coulson, had propped the door open.

They could smell food and Edwards' stomach rumbled again. Bruce stuck his head in and glanced around. They'd cleared the kitchen except for Coulson, Jon, and Steve. Bruce gave them a careful smile before pulling back to give Edward plenty of room.

Edward saw the people and went stock still. His breathing sped up until he was nearly panting. Bruce shook his head as Steve started to stand. They waited as Edward stared at them all.

Hanna clung to Clint as he carried her and Francis down the hall away from Hulk's room. "And this little Tony doesn't trust anything?"

Clint nodded as they got into the elevator. "He's terrified and Tony is upset enough he's locked us all out of his workshop. Bruce is trying to help the little Tony right now, so I need you both to stay with Thor until we can get some food into him, okay?"

They both nodded and wiggled to get down as Thor greeted them. Hanna stared around them because she'd never been to Thor's floor before. Clint settled them and reassured Thor they were helping Tony by doing things like they were.

Peggy settled across from Raines as Agent Romanoff leaned against the wall behind her. "I'm here to learn what you have been doing to the clone you made of Anthony Stark."

Raines giggled and the oxygen tank cycled a puff of air. "Fuck off."

With a polite smile, Peggy leaned forward. "You will tell me what I want to know before you die."

Jon ate as he watched Edward touch the table and the counter. The boy had looked at everything's copyright dates or manufactured by dates. He'd even opened the refrigerator to read the use by dates.

Bruce smiled at him from across the table as he took another bite and made way more noise chewing than normal.

Jon got what they were trying to do, and he got that Edward understood it too. Trusting was a bitch when you were wounded. Jon dug into his carrots. "You want a bite of this?"

Edward drifted over to look at Jon's plate. "You are just going to drug me into compliance, aren't you?" He poked at the edge of Jon's food with a finger.

Coulson handed Jon another fork. "We are just trying to feed you, Mr. Edward."

Jon put the fork he'd been using down next to Edward's hand and started eating with the new fork.

Edward blinked and gave Coulson a weird look before touching Jon's used fork with his fingertip. "Don't call me mister. I don't like it." He rolled the fork over and looked at it as Jon took another bite of food.

Coulson nodded and passed the rolls to Bruce. "Of course, my mistake, Edward."

Jon forced himself not to smile as Edward picked up the fork and sniffed it. Edward glanced between Jon and Coulson before grabbing a carrot from the middle of Jon's pile with his fingers. He sniffed it.

Bruce took a roll and sat the basket between him and Steve. "We've got four different ages here all eating the same food, Edward. If we wanted to drug you we could just overpower you and use a needle."

Edward snatched a roll and slid under the table. Jon peeked under there when Bruce looked astounded. Edward was sitting between Bruce's feet, one arm hooked around Bruce's right leg as he chewed the carrot while sniffing the roll he'd broken open.

Clint eased his way through the vents and wasn't surprised Tony had blocked his way into the workshop. He moved further down and looked in using the small hole he'd carefully made just in case of this sort of thing.

Tony had trashed a good portion of his desk. Broken screens and papers littered the floor around the desk. Tony himself was sitting cross-legged in front of an open cabinet, sobbing.

It didn't take Clint even a moment to decide what to do. He touched the donator and braced as the tiny explosives popped dropping him and his part of the vent into Tony's workshop. Jarvis said something Clint missed because Tony was screaming, scrambling away from him.

Clint worked his way out of the vent and then settled down into a cross-legged posture like Tony had been in. "Sorry."

Tony threw a wrench at him, but Clint didn't even have to dodge because it skidded across the floor to stop at his knee. "I locked the damn door! Don't you understand a locked door?"

Clint spread his hands. "Nope. Thor doesn't get it either, by the way."

Tony scooted closer and pointed at Clint. "You drew the short straw?"

"No straws." Clint looked up at the full cabinet. "Were you going to blow yourself up?"

Tony laughed harshly as he scooted close enough to lean against Clint. "I'm fucked up."

Clint gathered Tony close. "I've been you. I know."

Tony sniffed and dropped into sleep as he hiccuped.

Clint eased him into a more comfortable postion. "JARVIS? If he muted you, can you unmute for me?"

"Thank you, Agent Barton."

Clint smiled up at the ceiling. "No problem. How long has he been awake now?"

"He was approaching thirty-seven hours." JARVIS voice went steely. "He is most upset about the clone, Edward."

Clint rolled his eyes. "What is with the middle names, seriously?" He took the blanket Dum-E was offering. "Thanks, buddy. Do you think you can unblock the door for me?"

Dum-E clacked his gripper claws together and rolled off.

Clint looked over the cabinet. "JARVIS, did Tony actually drink anything? 'Cause it looks like he just piled bottles in groups."

"No. He handled several bottles, but did not open any."

"Awesome." Clint looked up as Jay came in with Pepper. "He's fine."

Pepper looked around the room. "Well, this isn't actually that bad. He's asleep?"

Clint lifted Tony up into Jay's hands. "Yeah, I startled him when I blew the vent. He crashed right after. I probably triggered him enough to cause nightmares."

Pepper nudged a sheet of paper into Dum-E's dustpan with her foot. "He's been having them more, I think." She looked up at the ceiling. "The reinforcement in the ceiling held up."

Clint looked up at it. "Yep. I think Tony'd blow out the door before he blew into the floor above or below." He stood up and took part of Tony's weight back from Jay. "Thanks."

Jay looked around as he shrugged with the shoulder not covered in Tony. "He's hurting very loudly."

Clint grimaced. "Yeah, well, what did Jarod feel like when he first found you?"

Jay blinked. "Like someone had destroyed his whole world."

"Pretty much." Clint followed Pepper as she lead the way out of the remains of Tony's workshop.

Betty stared down at Hanna. "You want to what?"

Hanna scrambled up into the chair next to her as Thor stood at the stove in his apartment's kitchen cooking pancakes. "I want to make a teddy bear for the little Tony. He might like them better than Tony does."

Betty looked at Darcy, who shrugged, and then at Francis, who was poking at a tablet. "Well, okay." She cocked her head. "Why a teddy bear?"

Hanna grinned up at her. "We made one of the Hulk. Tony says it should be able to handle a little smashing and he crocheted the outer casing." She and Francis exchanged glances. Hanna turned back towards Betty. "You don't know about the crocheting though, okay?"

She bit her lip and nodded. "Of course."

Hanna nodded. "We're going to put it in Hulk's room and Tony says we don't have to wait for Hulk's birthday or Bruce's birthday or anything." She frowned. "Why can we give gifts whenever we want?"

Betty ruffled Francis' hair as he looked up to see her answer. "Gifts are things from your heart, Hanna. You can give those any time you feel like it."

Jon watched the chicks as Coulson changed their water. "He's a mess."

Coulson nodded. "Not unexpected. Natasha says that he was an experiment to see if they could make him exactly like Stark."

Jon nudged one of the chicks away from the second water dish so Coulson could pick it up. "Do you think it is going to stress Bruce too much to be the kid's lifeline?"

Coulson frowned as he sat the refilled water back down. "I think that he wouldn't have gone into Edward's room if he thought he couldn't handle it." Coulson looked at Jon. "Are you alright?"

Jon snorted. "Hell no. I'm tense. Hulk decided to like me without asking if that was okay with me." He gestured around the room. "I'm mooching off a billionaire with more trauma to his name than I've got." He folded his arms. "That's saying something, you know?"

"I do." Coulson sat down across from Jon. "I was in the mountain when the Gate was connected to a black hole. I know what you've done, sir."

Jon blinked. "Sorry." He rubbed his cheek. "It's just all...weird."

Coulson nodded and stood up. "Normal is overrated."

Jon laughed and pushed himself up. "Yeah. Let's go see if Steve convinced Eddie to let go of Bruce's leg yet."