Tony had FRIDAY jam the cameras on the way down, but Duo's anonymity was on a definite countdown.

He waited until they were safely in the car and leaving the garage before he said anything. "So who was that?"

Duo blinked at him. "Oh, Anderson?" he asked. He was still holding his ribs in a way that was starting to make Tony nervous. "Just… a coworker."

"A coworker?" Tony asked. "I didn't realize you worked with NYPD? Outside of the whole… you know."

Duo leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. "Either the NYPD didn't trust Une when she said she got an agent in or they wanted backup. Either way, Anderson went under with the Kings about three months after I got in."

"And you… covered for each other?" Tony asked, even though he knew he shouldn't pry. "You said he would remember why, so why?"

Slitting open his eyes, he glanced over at Tony. The early dawn light made him look pale. He was quiet for long enough that Tony wasn't sure he was going to answer, when he finally said, "It's not something I talk about, but it has to do with your girl—Wanda? The same reason I make her nervous makes some people, just… panic. It's really rare—I've encountered, including that schmuck and your girl, maybe half a dozen people that seem to just… be afraid of me." He closed his eyes again and sighed, looking wan and much older than he should. "Anderson's seen it, to a lesser degree. This guy… his reaction was severe, but." Carefully, he shrugged his left shoulder. "It's the worst reaction I've seen where someone stayed somewhat rational."

"And what were the worse ones?" Tony asked, even though he didn't think he really wanted to know.

"First one fell over a balcony and died when I was… ten?" He opened his eyes again, looking at the ceiling, trying to recall. "Pretty sure the second one is still catatonic."

"You were ten?" Tony repeated. His son saw someone fall over a balcony and die when he was ten. What did that even do to a kid?

Duo's eyes slid over to him. "You shouldn't feel bad for them. No one good reacts like that."

"I wasn't worried about them," Tony admitted. "I was worried about you."

Eyes opening wider, Duo sat up and focused on Tony, looking more alert. "Why?" he asked, sounding perplexed.

Tony stared. Of any response he thought Duo might have, that would never have occurred to him. He would have thought the question rhetorical, but Duo looked curious, like he was waiting for an answer. "Because you're my son. Because you just had a Hydra strike team come for you. Because you were in a position to see someone panic so badly they fell over a balcony and died in front of you when you were ten, and that's something no kid should have to see." Tony ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "There's so much you've been through, and I'm… so fucking sorry I wasn't there to shield you from most of it. And today, you were targeted by Hydra because of me. You had to kill, because of me. I never meant to bring that into your life."

"What, death?" Duo asked. He snorted, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes again. "They're not the first I've killed, and they're exceedingly unlikely to be the last."

"I'm sorry you've ever had to kill at all," Tony said. In a softer voice he added, "I would never have wished that for you."

"It's a waste of time to dwell on counterfactuals," Duo said, his voice a little tight, breathing a little more shallow, now that Tony was watching closely. They were just pulling into the garage, and the brighter light showed that it wasn't Tony's imagination.

"Duo." Tony leaned forward and reached to feel Duo's face. Duo batted his hand away without opening his eyes. "Do we need to take you to the hospital?"

"Nah. Just get me inside," he said, but he sounded a weak.

Tony threw open the door, turned to Duo, but before could do anything, Duo had lumbered himself out. He staggered slightly, and Tony's heart dropped into his feet when he saw blood between Duo's fingers.

"You said you were bruised!" he shouted, unable to help himself.

"I said 'bruised, probably,' which is probably also true. Gunshots, in my experience, tend to leave nasty bruises in addition to punching holes in people."

"You were shot?" Tony's voice hadn't climbed octaves like that in years, even as his brain said of course he was shot. The cops answered a "shots fired" call. He grabbed Duo's duffel and got out of the car, slamming the door, and watching Duo over the hood.

"Grazed," Duo corrected. "I think I made it worse when I grabbed my bag. I wasn't really feeling it before then."

"And you've just been bleeding for, what? Half an hour?"

Duo blinked at him. "Has anyone ever told you you're a drama queen?"

"King, thank you very much," Tony corrected automatically. "And you stumbled."

"I'm exhausted. I haven't slept in over forty-eight hours, and I just had a massive adrenaline rush. Yeah, I've been bleeding for half an hour, and yes, gunshot wounds hurt like fuck. Let me stitch it up and get some sleep, and I'll be good as new in a few days."

Tony didn't know where to start. He wanted to ask a whole bunch of questions about the sleeping thing since that appeared to be an ongoing issue, but he thought the gunshot wound took priority. "You've been shot before? How many times?"

Duo gave him a disbelieving look. "I don't know. I don't keep count."

Tony had been afraid that was the answer. "Of course you don't keep count," he muttered, getting pissed off. "Why would rational people keep track of how many times they've been shot."

"Black fucking—" Duo cut himself off. "Look, can we go up and get me stitched up? You have superheroes living out of this place. If you try to tell me you don't have medical facilities to rival most hospitals here, I'm calling bullshit. Honestly, I heal fast. Stitch me up and let me get some sleep, and I will be just fine. If no one here can or will stitch me up, I can damn well do it myself."

"Tony." Hearing Cap's voice as he and Barnes walked toward Duo about made Tony's blood pressure hit new heights, but Cap said, "Maybe we should get Duo upstairs and treat the wound rather than yelling about it?" He was using his most careful, talk-someone-off-the-ledge voice, which normally would have made Tony lose his shit, but… he was right. Duo was bleeding, and that needed to be the priority.

Tony ran his hand over his face. "Yeah, fine. Let's go. Cap, can you—"

"What the fuck?" Duo snarled as Barnes picked him up. "I can fucking well walk!"

"It's called a compromise, kid," Barnes said.

"Call me kid again, and I might take it on myself to remove your other arm," Duo snapped, starting to sound genuinely angry.

Barnes gave him a small grin and said, "Yes, sir."

Duo blew his bangs out of his face in irritation but didn't argue or struggle, so Tony took it as a win and made a beeline for the elevator.

He should have known from Cap and Barnes coming down to meet them that the entire Avengers team would be waiting in the kitchen. At least Bruce had the dignity to have a first-aid kit and be useful.

"FRIDAY said Duo needed stitches?"

"You are never going to convince me your AI isn't creepy," Duo said.

"Put him down," Tony said, taking the first aid kit from Bruce. "Duo, get your jacket and your shirt off, so we can actually see what we're working with."

Barnes set him down on a stool, and he shrugged off the black jacket. "I should warn you—"

"Less talking, more shirt removal," Tony said, pulling out gauze and digging for the stitching needles and thread.

He heard Duo sigh behind him. When he had the basics pulled out, he turned around, and had to stop and stare. Duo was holding his crumpled up shirt to his side, and he could see a blood smeared on his skin, which he had expected. The tattoos weren't that unexpected, although there were a lot of them, Tony remembered the shadow of what he could now see was a skull at the hollow of Duo's throat. Elbows to shoulders were covered in solid sleeves. Big, broken, bleeding wings stretched out across his collar bones from the skull at the hollow of his throat, and Death walks with me ran under them in ornate calligraphy.

What surprised Tony was the number and variety of scars on Duo's torso. He was never allowed to complain about the scars he had from the arc reactor again.

Bruce, blessed Bruce, gently moved Tony to the side so he could begin treating Duo.

"I tried to warn you," Duo said, pulling the shirt away. Tony's eyes went automatically to the wound, which began to bleed again as the shirt was removed. It was a graze, in that it had taken a nice little chunk out of Duo's side, but it for all that it had bled, it didn't seem deep enough to have done more damage. A bruise already discolored the area around it, and it would probably spread as it settled. Duo sat still, letting Bruce clean the wound so he could get a good view of it. At least Duo hadn't been lying about the severity, though even bullet grazes were more dangerous than the movies would have you believe.

"I think you should sit down, Mr. Stark," Viz said, pulling over a stool and guiding Tony onto it.

"Tried to warn me?" he asked, feeling a little lightheaded.

Duo had the gall to look amused. "The body isn't as pretty as the face," he said with a tone that suggested he'd used the line before.

Tony was still reeling. There were so many. He worked with Barnes and Barton and Natasha, and they all had scars, but nothing like this. He could count all of Duo's ribs, but he could also see the outline of his six-pack. Of the scars that seemed straightforward, he could see at least three that were obviously gunshot wounds, five that looked like they were stab wounds of some kind, and assorted, irregularly shaped scars that looked like they were probably from shrapnel—and those were just the ones he was relatively sure he could identify. There were at least two that looked long and deliberate. At least four scars were not only from the wounds, but bore the signs of the stitches. Tony wanted to say but stitches are supposed to reduce scarring, except that didn't seem to be the case with Duo.

"Are… you going to be okay?" Duo asked, sounding uncertain. "I think you're paler than I am right now."

He dragged his eyes off all the scars and forced himself to meet Duo's eyes. "Fine," he said, though he sounded faint even to his own ears. "I'm fine."

Duo tilted his head to the side, drawing Tony's eyes to his neck. There, at the base of his neck, small enough to be hidden by most collars, the name Jesus was tattooed.

The idea of that… thug, that monster putting his hands on Tony's son, putting his name on his son's neck, like some kind of claim, was the last straw.

It was a good thing Reyes was dead, because if he weren't, Tony would have to kill him.

.o0o.o0o.

Stark turned white, and Duo blinked. Okay, he knew his scars were bad, but the worst of them were on his back. They had been bad enough that he had covered them with tattoos. Now, they were camouflaged in his backpiece so well that people didn't usually realize there were scars. The ones on his chest had always been random and scattered and never bothered him much.

Banner paused, holding a gauze pad to Duo's side, to shoot a worried look at Stark.

"If you give me the thread and needle, I can stitch this up," Duo said.

Banner gave him reprimanding look. "It would be very difficult to stitch up your side without warping the skin," he said in a calm voice.

"Well, yeah, but that's what mirrors are for."

That got him a wry look. "That's what they're for? Stitching yourself up?"

"Mirrors are multifunctional, but yeah, that's one use."

"Hold this," Banner instructed. He went over to where Stark sat dazed. "You okay?"

"We'll see," Stark replied. Duo turned to see Stark stand up and Banner go around the island to wash his hands. Stark was fixated on him with haunted eyes, and Duo just didn't understand. "How many?" he asked.

"How many what?" Duo asked, feeling like he'd missed something.

"How many of those scars are from Reyes?"

Duo stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Some of those were deliberate."

That was true, unfortunately. He'd pissed off enough people in positions of power over him that a few had decided to carve their revenge out of him. He had a whole patch of his left thigh that had been skinned once, and, well, his back. Mostly though, the stuff on his chest were incidental injuries—just people trying to kill him outright, not harm or torture him. Stark was glowering at him, demanding an answer, so Duo sighed. "None of them were from Jesus."

Stark stalked around, looking livid, though Duo was pretty sure that rage wasn't at Duo. He stopped in front of Duo and pointed at a long, curving scar that started at his sternum and curled under his left pec. "Don't tell me that was an accident."

"It wasn't," Duo agreed, mind shying away from the torture session that had gifted that one. "But it didn't come from Jesus."

"That can't be more than a year old."

Duo snorted. "It's four years old. Look, I heal fast but I scar badly, and my scars take for-fucking-ever to fade. I swear, Jesus did not give me a single scar." He almost added he wasn't that sort of sadist, but thought better of it.

He was unnerved by the hope he was beginning to see in Stark's eyes. He was eager to believe Duo wasn't willing to allow Jesus to injure him, which wasn't correct. Jesus had never left scars, but that wasn't to say he didn't hurt Duo or that Duo didn't let him. Duo liked to think he'd have drawn the line at Jesus carving him up, but he honestly didn't know, so better not to go there at all.

"This is the first new, scarring wound I've had in over two years," Duo said, taking a different tact. "Everything else predates Jesus."

He meant it to be reassuring, but Stark looked crestfallen. "All of this… from before you were twenty?" Stark asked, and oh. Right.

Well, fuck.

Duo didn't know what to do next, didn't know how to make this better. He'd never had someone react like this. Heero had worshiped each new scar, grateful only that Duo had survived. Jesus hadn't been horrified by his scars or surprised by them, just accepted them as part of Duo.

Banner pulled his hand up to press it to the gauze. "Keep this here. We've got some topical anesthetic in the lab—"

"Don't bother," Duo told Banner, thankful for the interruption. "Obviously, I've got a high pain tolerance." He used his free hand to wave in the general direction of his body.

"Just because you can suffer through something doesn't mean you should have to," Banner replied. Something about his tone reminded Duo of soothing a child.

Dammit. He had to be nice. Duo sighed. "No, don't bother because it won't work."

Banner raised an eyebrow but hesitated. "We've got some good stuff—"

"It won't work," Duo repeated, and this was always fun to try and convince new people of.

Banner hesitated before he asked, "Is… there something we should be aware of?" with remarkable tact.

How to explain you let a crazy old man experiment on you when you were a kid because you held a grudge like a beast and didn't care what the crazy dude did to you if it made you stronger, more dangerous? If it were just Duo at risk, he wouldn't care if they knew he was a Gundam pilot, but there was a depressing lack of idiocy among the Avengers. Once they knew about him, it wouldn't take long for them to put together the pieces of who the other pilots were.

"My immune system is weird," he settled on, because it was true. "Most medications are minimally effective at best."

"Even anesthetics?" Banner asked.

Duo winced again. "Especially anesthetics, which sucks, a lot."

Banner looked him over with a critical eye, reached out, met Duo's eyes for permission, got a small nod, then set his hand on Duo's left shoulder, thumb brushing over a mostly hidden gunshot scar. "What about this?"

"What about that?" Stark demanded. He leaned forward, and Duo could see the instant he was able to pick out the scar behind the wings across his clavicle. "That… that broke your collarbone, didn't it?"

"Yeah. I think the surgery gave the doctors more nightmares than it gave me."

Banner paled. "I can imagine. Surgeons get used to depersonalizing their patients, focusing on the part they're operating on. Having a conscious patient… is not something most are accustomed to."

"You can't be sedated—like at all?" Stark asked, visibly startled.

"I can be, but it's better not to. If it's an injury bad enough that I'd normally be sedated for it, chances are good I'll wake up in the middle of it. Speaking from experience, that's… way worse than just being awake the whole time."

Stark took several long, calming breaths. "I ask this in all seriousness," he began, grim as Banner moved Duo's hand and began to stitch. "Have you ever considered a career change? Seriously, hear me out," he added before Duo could open his mouth. "Whatever your file says, you're clearly a front line, high-danger Preventer. You get shot at and shot enough that you don't think much of it, which is something that this team does, for the record. You're twenty-one—two, whatever. You're in your early twenties, but you've got more scars than most of the long-term veterans I know. How many surgeries have you had to have? What happens if you need a serious surgery, one that would kill you if you were awake through it? Are you trying to put yourself in an early grave?"

He looked so worried and so pained, afraid for Duo. He barely knew Duo—he had no right to look that invested, to care that much about him. And put himself in an early grave? Duo had so vastly outlived his expiration date that every day he breathed was an anomaly. He lived on borrowed time.

Stark… wouldn't understand any of that. He was born a child of wealth and privilege. Old age was expected. Being a target of violence and illness was not. Fighting for his life, until he'd been held hostage in those Afghan caves, had been foreign to him. Stark had spent a year fighting for his life. Duo had fought his whole fucking life, and Shini forgive him, but he was tired.

Duo didn't have the words to explain any of it, not in a way that he could be sure Stark would understand. Instead he asked, "Would you?"

Stark looked confused. "Would I what?"

"Give it up? Stop fighting? Without your suit, you're still just a man. You're putting yourself in terrible danger every time you go out to fight something. Would you just… stop?"

Stark stared, but his answer was in his eyes—he wouldn't stop. He didn't feel he could stop. Even if Duo asked, Stark needed to be what he was. To walk away when he could help? It was unthinkable to Stark.

"Yeah," Duo said, a confirmation of what he saw in Stark's eyes. "I didn't think so."

Duo was tired, but he didn't know how not to fight. He'd rest when he was dead.

If Shini were kind, that would be sooner than later.