The Fallout

The last few days had been pretty exhausting for everyone in the tower – especially for Tony. He'd barely slept as he'd held a silent vigil by his kid's side and on top of that he'd spent a fair amount of energy reminding Steve just how bad an idea it was to lay a hand on those Tony loved. Twice.

As soon as Darcy had been relatively calm and squared away in her self-chosen little hidey hole in her bedroom closet, Tony had returned to Steve's apartment where he was slowly recovering from whatever the hell it was that Darcy had done to him.

Tony didn't bother knocking before entering Steve's space. JARVIS silently unlocked the door before he could even ask. The Captain was reclining gingerly on his couch, but seemed to straighten into focus at Tony's entrance.

Steve hadn't even managed one word before Tony had clocked him wearing one glove from his suit. The force of that blow landed the eldest Avenger onto the floor and within seconds, Tony was on him again.

Realistically, the enraged father knew that if Steve had been at full strength it wouldn't have been so easy to hurt the other man, but there was no doubt in his mind that full strength or not, Tony would've found a way regardless.

Ten minutes later, when there was a satisfying amount of blood and blossoming bruises, Tony stopped and got back on his feet. Steve was lying on the ground and breathing harshly. Their eyes locked and it was only the dawning shame on the Captain's face that stopped Tony from doing something more permanent. He'd always wanted to see if the Serum could regenerate torn off limbs after all…

"Don't ever look at Darcy again, Rogers. If you ever talk to her again without her initiating the conversation, JARVIS and I will make what she did to you look like a nice relaxing day at the spa. Am I clear?"

"Tony…" Steve slurred, his jaw seemingly a little bit broken and very painful-looking, as he tried sitting up. He stopped trying when Tony's foot landed on his chest and pushed him back down again ruthlessly.

"Am I clear, Captain Rogers?"

There was a long moment of silence wherein all of Steve's emotions was almost audible in their intensity, but finally, Steve hadn't been able to look the enraged father in the eye any longer and Tony took that as agreement before leaving the suite as quickly as he'd arrived.

Now, days later, the rest of the team were trying to deal with the fallout. Steve's injuries had already almost healed up and it made Tony very eager to repeat his actions whenever he laid eyes on him. Natasha was the only one that didn't act any different, but then again; she'd been closest to Steve and Clint since the get-go.

Clint himself was staying out of everything by keeping to himself and Thor wasn't at the Tower these days as he still used a lot of his time getting Jane to forgive herself for letting Darcy out of her sight. Bruce was…well, Bruce tended to turn a little more green around the gills whenever he looked too long at the quiet Captain, but otherwise he was almost normal.

0o0o0

So the Avengers were each of them dealing in their own way. It was early morning and Tony walked into the communal kitchen to grab a cup of coffee instead of waiting the time it took to brew a fresh pot upstairs in his own home. Afterwards he fully planned to go back to Darcy and finally try to get her out of that damned closet and back into the real world.

The sight of Steve sitting quietly at the kitchen table and amiably eating while listening to Natasha, sent a wave of anger through Tony, but he managed to beat it down. Instead of reacting externally, he silently walked over to the pot of pure bliss standing ready to fill his empty mug.

The tension seemed to rise immediately when the billionaire simply ignored the two at the table and cheerfully greeted a tired-looking Bruce standing with his head in a book and clearly busy scrambling something way too healthy-looking on the stove.

Apparently, him ignoring Steve seemed to snap something inside of the Black Widow because he heard her get to her feet amidst of Steve's insistent, "Nat, don't." Plastering on a fake-cheery façade, Tony turned to face the dangerous woman.

"Good morning, Natalie. How's the Bird? Haven't seen him today and I've almost finished his new set of arrows and we need to schedule testing time."

"Stark," Natasha interrupted coldly, her eyes looking equally cool as she continued, "It's been long enough. You need to man up and act like an adult. You're overreacting and it's interfering with the team's functionality and if this continued you have to remember that you're not irreplaceable."

An odd sense of calm grew inside of Tony as he stood quietly listening to his teammate's tirade. Everyone that really knew him could've warned her that it wasn't a good sign when Tony Stark got quiet.

He smiled emptily and took one step closer to the woman, who didn't seem to think she'd said anything wrong at all. Well, that was about to change if he had anything to do with it.

"I'm overreacting, you say? My kid, my most precious person in the whole world has lived a life of abuse for ten years. She's been forced to engage in sexual encounters with men that not even Lucifer himself would hang out with. I guess I was naïve when I thought you of all people would know that the kind of life she's been forced to lead since she was two years old is horrible. You have experienced the fear of doing things as a kid with your former employers and had things done to you that no one should ever have. Then she comes home to me and is instantly assaulted numerous times and kidnapped again. She's hurt over and over again and just as I made progress with her ability to trust strangers; strange men, she's attacked again simply because she's seen a man alive that should've died ages ago. So, sure, Romanoff," Tony smirked, his anger raging through his eyes, "I'm overreacting."

Tony slowly filled his cup and took one sip before straightening to go back upstairs to hold his exhausted kid and maybe get her to rejoin the living as he'd planned. Before he left the kitchen, Tony turned again and eyed the frozen assassin. "Also, I think you need to remember that I may be replaceable on the team, but that doesn't matter to me anymore. I don't need you – you need me. Or who else is gonna pay for everything, huh? If you don't like how I act toward the man who repeatedly hurt my daughter you're free to leave. In fact I want you to get the hell out and tell Fury I'm done as of right now. I don't need people like you on my side."

With that last parting remark, Tony left, leaving behind three shell-shocked people and one assassin who realized that she'd just majorly screwed everything up even more.

0o0o0

TBC