The door to the stairway opened, and Maxwell, his Barton, Natasha, and Bucky came out. Maxwell seemed different, somehow. Steve couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he thought for the first time, Maxwell might truly be relaxed.

"Where're Quat and Stark?" Maxwell asked, only finding Steve in the kitchen.

"Mr. Winner said he was going to go take a shower. Tony's down in his workshop," he said, asking Natasha and Bucky a silent question. Bucky looked unusually relaxed as well, and even Natasha seemed to be in a good mood.

Maxwell went to the cabinet and pulled out several cups, then went to the fridge to fill them one after the other. "Cool," he said.

"Do you have to go to the precinct today?" Steve wondered, realizing that it was the first day Maxwell had been at the Tower past 8:30 a.m.

"I have to go down this afternoon to give my statement. I had a message from Anderson," he explained. "And probably be there fucking late." He passed the glasses around, first to Bucky, who downed it gratefully.

The elevator opened and Winner stepped off. He was dressed in what Steve suspected was his idea of being "dressed down," in khakis and a polo. He put his hand over his heart, then smiled wide and warm at his friends.

"You seem to be feeling much better," he said to Maxwell.

"Yeah, I'm… I'm in one piece, I think." Steve didn't think he meant just physically.

"Did you get enough to eat this morning?" Steve asked, figuring if he was going to interrupt them, at least he could be polite.

"I made sure he ate while he was cooking," Barton said, and Steve twitched. He kept losing track of the man, which was unnerving. Not many people slipped his attention. At least when Natasha did it, he could tell himself at least she was a lot smaller than him and a literal spy, but Barton was at least 6'6". Men that tall were noticed , not forgotten.

"Now what was this I heard about you leaving?" Winner asked.

"Duty calls," Maxwell said, resigned. "I have to go give my statement about yesterday." He paused and blinked. "Yeah, yesterday."

"Who is running the investigation?" Steve asked.

Maxwell shrugged. "Probably Preventers, both because Une told me Hydra's, uh, sphere-wide influence makes them Preventers' problem, and because, you know, they targeted a Preventer agent, so, it's probably Preventers running point." He thought about it for a moment, then winced. "So… expect me to be late?"

"Tony got the tip about you being attacked from Nick Fury," Steve said. "I know SHIELD doesn't officially exist anymore, and Fury may not have any official position, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's there when you give your statement."

"Care to tell me why you felt it necessary to warn me?" Maxwell asked, then took another drink of his water.

Steve searched for the words, for the reason. He would have warned Tony, if Tony wouldn't have already expected it. Maxwell didn't seem to appreciate the gesture, though.

"In Tony's words, Fury is the spy," Natasha offered, seeing Steve floundering. "His secrets have secrets, and there's not much that gets past him."

Maxwell exchanged looks with Winner and Barton, skeptical. Winner shrugged. "He knows that I was the target, right?"

"But you're also Tony Stark's son," Natasha said. "He won't like the unknown variable. He probably wants to know how much you're like Tony and—"

"He wants to know my monkey-wrench potential," he interrupted, looking bored. "Is this going to be a thing? People assuming that because we share approximately half a gene sequence that I'm going to fuck their shit up by my very existence?"

Barton coughed, and though his face stayed blank, his eyes glittered in amusement. Judging by the way Maxwell narrowed his eyes at his friend, he saw it too.

"Not a word from you."

"To be fair , Duo…" Winner began.

"Not you too!"

"Heero actually tried to calculate it during the war," Barton said. "The 'Maxwell Boredom to Chaos Coefficient,' he called it."

"Bull. Shit," Maxwell said, and the flat look said he was not amused.

"Okay, it was Sally, and she's not nearly as good at the math, but after trying to keep you in the hospital the second time, she thought naming the phenomenon appropriate."

Maxwell blinked. "That I would believe."

"Not a good patient?" Bucky asked.

"The worst ," Winner said in far too cheery a tone.

"I am not the worst."

"You literally just finished sparring with a supersoldier the day after you were shot—"

" Grazed ."

" Shot ," Barton continued undeterred. "and you complain you aren't the worst."

"One word— femur ," Maxwell countered. "I literally still have nightmares over that. I don't want to hear it."

Steve exchanged looks with Bucky and Natasha, but they looked just as lost as he did.

"He got better. You have, arguably, gotten worse."

"Don't look at me," Winner said, hands raised. "I listen to my doctors."

Rolling his eyes, Maxwell said, "Of course you do."

"Do I want to ask how many stitches you busted?" Steve interjected.

"Just two," Natasha said. "I was impressed. Tony probably would have done worse."

Something passed behind Maxwell's eyes. "Hey, I gotta question for you. Not sure if you know, but Stark told me about the arc reactor that used to be in his chest," he began. "He's got a set of armor that had the chest plate had to be replaced on. Do you know what happened to it?"

It felt like watching a car crash in slow motion. Steve couldn't stop his flinch, and Bucky, who had been so at ease, so much like his old self, looked away, ashamed. Maxwell's keen eyes saw them both and Tony's son had no trouble putting the pieces together.

" You did it?" It was less a question than a denial. If Steve had ever doubted for a second that Maxwell was truly Tony's flesh and blood, watching his eyes as he worked to make sense of the problem dispelled them permanently. "Your fucking 'Civil War,'" he said, and it was low and angry. His voice seemed to crawl under Steve's skin.

"I had to protect Bucky," Steve said, knowing it was useless to lie to this man about it. And he was a man. No matter how small and how young, those eyes were old and hard.

Maxwell let out several slow, deep breaths, but he kept inhaling sharply, hands clenched so tightly, the knuckles were white, he asked, "Why the chest?"

"What?"

"It's a simple question, Rogers. Why did you aim for his chest?"

"I needed him to stop. I just wanted to make the suit stop—going at the arc reactor was the best way."

Maxwell's hands opened like grasping claws before he dug them into his hair and he curled into himself. "Do you know how compromised his rib cage is?" he asked, so low that Steve doubted Natasha could hear the question.

But Steve didn't understand it. "What do you mean?"

When Maxwell looked back up, Steve had to stop himself from taking a step back. He didn't have to wonder anymore how this man had married a monster. Now he understood why a Hydra agent might beg to get away from him. The barely restrained rage in his eyes promised pain and blood if he didn't get his answers. "The arc reactor was in Stark's sternum," he said, slowly, carefully, like if he spoke any faster, he was going to scream. Every muscle was coiled and tense. "It compromised his entire rib structure. As good as his doctors are, and he's Tony Stark , so I'm sure they're the best , they didn't replace his entire rib cage when they took it out, so his ribs and everything they protect are compromised. One really good, unprotected blow to his sternum will almost certainly kill him."

"No," Steve protested, his bones aching with cold, head spinning with horror. "I never—I would have never… I just wanted him to stop. I just… He was trying to kill Bucky. I just…"

"He was trying to protect me," Bucky said, stepping in front of him, making himself the target of those raging eyes. "Stark just found out that I killed his parents, and he…" Bucky paused, looking for the words. "He wanted to hurt me like he was hurting."

Maxwell put his head in his hands and laughed, a mirthless, mocking sound, and it raised the hairs all over Steve's body. Steve had heard evil men laugh, and this wasn't that. It wasn't insane or sadistic, but it was dark, and it made his heart race. When it trailed off, Maxwell inhaled, deep and loud in the unnatural quiet of the room. He looked back up and his eyes locked on Steve. "Stark is a much better man than me to forgive you that," he said, and there was a thread of condescension in his voice, as if he thought Tony a fool for it.

He jumped down from the counter, landing on eerily silent feet, and the move was unexpected enough to make him, Bucky, and Natasha fall back into defensive stances. Maxwell stood loose, the barely-contained energy of before gone, but still Steve's adrenaline rushed, his instincts telling him he was in very real danger.

"Duo," Winner said, and his voice brought his earlier words to mind: Duo Maxwell is not an enemy you want. Steve hadn't believed it when he first heard it, not really. He believed it now.

Maxwell's eyes flicked to him, but his body language said he was still focused on them.

" Duo ." Winner put a strange emphasis on Maxwell's name. "This isn't your call to make." It may have been phrased as a suggestion, but it rang with the weight of a command.

Maxwell's eyes flicked to him again, this time he sneered, then sighed. When his eyes swung back to Steve, the threat was gone, but the rage wasn't. "You're right," he said to Winner, despite still holding Steve with his gaze. "Stark isn't mine to protect, and he wouldn't thank me if I did." When he turned away this time, it was a dismissal. "Which reminds me, I thought you might want to take a swing at the Accords, if you have time," he said to Winner.

"I can take a look at them while you go give your statement," Winner said, and the authority that had called Maxwell back was gone as if it had never been. "You might want to go sooner than later, if you think you're going to be a while," he suggested.

"Sure, Quat," Maxwell agreed, sounding more like the man Steve had first met, though the warmer, more open man who made breakfast was nowhere to be found. Maxwell looked at Barton. Though they didn't speak, understanding passed between them, and Barton nodded his head, just one slow acknowledgment that might have been missed had Steve not been watching so closely.

He didn't look back as he went to the stairwell door. Steve didn't realize he hadn't made a sound aside from speaking until the door slammed automatically, its closing mechanism as loud as a gunshot in the room. Only after the door shut did he begin to feel warm again.

Winner and Barton met one another's eyes.

"I think we'll go ask Mr. Stark for that copy of the Accords," Winner said, pleasant, as if nothing abnormal had just happened. It was borderline Stepford Wife perfect, and if Natasha thought that Winner's manners might be a mask before, now she was certain. Maxwell had backed down because Winner had commanded him, not because he thought better of it. She had heard that Winner could be a cold son-of-a-bitch in business negotiations, but this was different. There was something else going on here, something that made her paranoia scream.

Barton followed Winner without a word, and they disappeared down the stairs, and she mentally filed them away for another time. She had something more immediate to address. Judging by the way Steve straightened to attention when she met his eyes, he knew what was coming.

"Tell me you did not do what I think you did," she said.

"I don't—"

God, she hated it when he did this. "Tell me you didn't use the shield." He lifted his chin and stared straight ahead. "Of course you did," she said because she couldn't think of anything better to say.

"He was trying to—"

"I don't care about the reason, Rogers," she snapped, and he shifted slightly backward as if she'd slapped him. "You hid what happened to his parents for two years . I understand how that happened, even if I think you were an idiot to keep it from him for that long. But when it blew up in your face at the worst possible time, you took the shield, the symbol of everything you and his father built, and used it to break the arc reactor that a year before was keeping him alive."

It somehow was worse hearing it aloud than thinking it in her head. Given Steve and Barnes's flinches, they agreed.

"I never—"

"You know that Wanda and Clint and Sam all think the fight was Tony's fault, right? That he was the one out of line?"

"He—"

"Oh, he's no saint, Steve, but that fight took two, and you were certainly not as innocent in it as they would believe." She shook her head, still trying to wrap her head around it. "You really could have killed him," she said, because it needed to be said. The thought of Tony dying, dying at Steve's hand, made her chest tight and her throat close. She thought of Tony alone in the snow of Siberia with a barely functional suit, tried to imagine a world where there was no longer an arrogant, narcissistic, haunted, brilliant, and shockingly kind Tony Stark, and had to take a shallow breath.

"I just wanted to make him stop," Steve said, but it sounded like he didn't believe it either.

"You certainly did that," she said, and somehow her voice was even and clear. "It is a God-damn miracle he bothered to do anything for any of us after what happened to Colonel Rhodes, but after that ?"

"I didn't know about his chest," he tried again.

"But you knew about the arc reactor, so you should have realized that it compromised his chest. I know Tony walks around like he's invincible, but I knew how dangerous the arc reactor was. You should have known. You should have thought about your friend and not just the character he plays to keep the world at arm's length."

"I told him I was sorry."

"Did you now?" She folded her arms and waited.

"I… sent a note."

Yeah, that sounded about right. "I think the very least of what you owe Tony is an unqualified apology, especially because after everything you did, he's helping Barnes."

"I know—"

"I don't know that you do," she interrupted, the mental image of Tony dead in Siberia playing on a loop behind her eyes. "Let me tell you something I know, that you don't. I know that you and Tony are both good men. At the core of who you are, you are both good, and you care so much. I will also tell you that you had better find a way to make this, if not right, then better. Because if you don't, and Maxwell decides that Tony is his to protect..."

That shook Steve out of his self-pity enough to look disbelieving, but to his credit, he didn't dismiss the insinuation out of hand. "It won't come to that," he said, the iron certainty she expected from him back in place.

"Make sure it doesn't. Because if you end up at odds with Maxwell, he will kill you, and I don't want to think about what that would do to Tony."

"You really think he could kill me?" Steve asked and his voice said he was incredulous, but something in his eyes betrayed him.

"He's Tony's son. You'd hold back. He wouldn't," she said simply, then turned on her heel, heading for the elevator.

"Where are you going?" Steve asked, almost nervous, following her and holding the door.

"I think it's time someone in this Tower who actually cares about Tony started acting like it, don't you?"

He let go of the door as if he'd been burned, and Natasha wished she got any satisfaction out of the reaction.

Winner had been distracted since he came down, and it was distracting Tony. He had offered to take the Accords copy and to leave, but Tony hadn't had a good night and he kind of missed having someone just hanging around his workshop like Steve—

Anyway, Tall Barton had pulled out a phone and simply chilled against a wall like that was the most comfortable place in the workshop, and Winner had settled into the corner of the couch. He'd barely begun to read before he reached up to rub at his chest over his heart. He went back to trying to read, but he was obviously distracted. Tall Barton noticed too, because he reached over to knead the back of Winner's neck.

"You okay?" Tony finally asked, the particular motion of rubbing at his chest hitting a little too close to home for Tony.

Winner smiled, and Tony did not trust that smile, but Duo definitely trusted Winner, so Tony was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. "It's probably just some heartburn," he assured. "We can leave if we're distracting you," he offered again.

"No, I'd like to hear your thoughts, actually. I think I've heard every single argument my lawyers have made, and I've heard—well, I've heard every counter to them. I'm curious for a new set of eyes—especially colonial ones."

"Yes, but I can make notes and give them to you."

"I prefer dialogue."

He smiled, and this one looked more sincere. "Prefer to talk through your thoughts?" The affection in the observation told him it was a habit of Duo's, which, okay, yeah, he liked Winner finding reflections of Duo in Tony.

"Not always," Tony disagreed.

"Sometimes the words can't keep up?"

And yeah, that maybe made Tony's heart warm a little, because that was totally Winner telling him it was something Duo did. Something they shared. "Sometimes."

Winner seemed to settle in, but just as Tony was getting into recalibrating the protection behind the arc reactor, FRIDAY said, "Miss Romanov requests entry."

He sighed and sat up. "Might as well let her in."

She came in wearing her most blank mask, which made him nervous right away because that never boded well for him.

"Would you like us to leave, Miss Romanov?" Winner asked, the epitome of discretion and manners.

He saw a flicker of surprise at their presence, and filed it away as interesting. She expected to find him alone.

"No, it's good," he said before Natasha could voice her opinion. "You can stay."

Winner looked up at Tall Barton, who shrugged subtly, but he eased back into the seat. Natasha looked like she'd rather they were alone, but that was too bad. Someone other than him should be disappointed on occasion.

She hesitated, and that made Tony stare because Natasha didn't hesitate. He could see her make the decision, and she straightened. "I wanted to come and apologize," she said.

Whatever Tony had been expecting, it wasn't that. "Apology accepted—what exactly, are you apologizing for?"

She sighed, but the blank mask had fallen when she apologized and now she looked at him with both exasperation and—dare he suggest it—even a little affection? "A lot of things, mostly for being a bad friend."

"I could not have heard that right. Do you mind repeating—"

"I haven't been a good friend, and I'm sorry," she repeated deliberately.

"Not that I don't appreciate the apology, and I'm not rescinding your apology acceptance, but why now? Why the sudden need?"

"Just… a new understanding of events," she said. "I knew about Barnes too, and I should have told you, even if I thought it wasn't my place. When I realized Steve wasn't going to, I should have."

He looked at her, somehow surprised to see that she seemed genuinely apologetic. But then, this was Natasha. She only showed what she wanted you to see. He could take her apology at face value or he could reject it, reject her.

Tony was so tired of all the tension, of being at odds with everyone. He ached for the days when they lived in the Tower together like a family. He could reject her, but where would that leave him? Alone? Again? Maybe she was manipulating him, but he didn't have the energy to try and figure out her games anymore.

So, face value it was, then. "It probably would have gone down the same way."

"Would you and Steve have still disagreed about the Accords? Probably. But you would have helped him find Barnes. You would have helped him find a way to make things right."

"You can't know that," he told her, remembering how hurt and angry he'd been when he realized what Steve knew.

"I can," she said. "Because even after what he did, you brought him back. You brought us all back. And you're helping Barnes."

"I just don't like sharing," he quipped.

"No, you don't," she agreed, voice soft, and that was worse than if she were yelling at him. "But you share your home with us, even after all we've done, no matter how ungrateful some of us are."

"I'm used to it."

"You shouldn't have to be. You deserve better. Even if no one else does, I'm going to do better. I promise."

"It took us both to break it," he felt the need to remind her.

"And it'll take us all to put it back together," she said. "But I think it's worth doing."

So did Tony. He didn't say it. He didn't have to. Natasha knew.

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

A/N: Happy Turkey Day for those who celebrated! I hope everyone stayed safe!

Also-if you've made it this far and haven't seen, I have posted a spoiler for if Stand will be 1x2 on my Tumblr for those of you who have to know, and I'm sorry it took me this long to figure out a simple solution to spoil those who want to be spoiled. The reason I haven't answered the question before is because it's complicated, so if you want the spoiler, now you have it. You may just want to search the #standwithoutflinchingfic tag. . post/635503158894952448/will-stand-without-flinching-be-1x2

I'm so grateful for my lovely readers. I definitely don't take ya'll for granted and hope you enjoy!