"Sam, sit down," Wanda told him.
"He told me—he said he'd call," Sam repeated, not for the first time in the past several hours. "Is there anything—?" he cut himself off.
Vision gave him a sad look. "He must have removed the battery from his phone as neither Mr. Stark nor I have been able to track him," he reiterated with as much patience as he had every time Sam asked. Wanda reached out and rubbed Vision's arm, knowing he was concerned as well.
"His friends don't seem worried," Wanda reminded. There was something about Winner that she didn't like, that rubbed her wrong in a way she couldn't explain. It wasn't the same way that Maxwell himself rubbed her wrong. Maxwell made some deep instinct curl up in fear, though he'd given her little reason to think he was a threat to her. She was the Scarlet Witch, and she'd seen nothing that should make her afraid of him.
And yet… there was something inside him, something that wasn't right, something that she feared on a primal level.
Winner wasn't the same, but when her power brushed him, it recognized something like itself. Since he hadn't made any explanation or otherwise attempted to interact with her power, she couldn't be sure, but it still made her wary.
"Duo has returned," FRIDAY announced. "He's on his way up."
"FRIDAY, can you redirect him here if Stark hasn't already?" Sam asked.
"Of course, Mr. Wilson."
It was only a minute before the elevator door opened. Maxwell looked perplexed for a moment before he seemed to figure it out, then sagged. He shoved off the wall and stepped out. He looked tired and dirty, shirt clinging to him.
"You said you'd call," Sam swooped down on him like he was in his Falcon pack.
Maxwell sighed. "What I actually said was 'if I say yes, will you go?' I didn't actually say I'd call."
Wanda didn't like the fine distinction he was making, and judging by Sam's expression, neither did he.
"Think you're cute, do you?"
"I think you've been stressing out for way too long, and you should go to bed," Maxwell replied, moving to head to the stairs.
"I thought maybe we could be friends," Sam snapped as Maxwell made it to the door. "What were you doing anyway? You smell like you took a bath in a bar."
Maxwell's shoulders tightened, then dropped as if the fight had gone out of him. "I don't want to fight," he said, not turning to look at Sam.
"You don't leave friends hanging like that. Hydra has already come after you once. Anything could have happened—"
The door in front of Maxwell opened, startling everyone as Winner popped up. "Duo!" he said, pleased. "I thought you were back!"
Maxwell gave him an odd look. "Quat," he greeted.
"Did you get into a bar fight?"
"Something like that."
"Are you going to grab a shower then?"
Even from where she was standing, Wanda could see the exasperated fondness on Maxwell's face.
"You could just tell me I smell like a dive bar, you know?"
Winner gave him wide, innocent eyes. "I didn't say that!"
It made Maxwell chuckle. "I'll go hop in the shower. You should go the hell to bed."
"I'll be right behind you," Winner said.
Maxwell gave him another careful look, then sighed. "Play nice. Night, Quat."
"Good night, Duo!"
Winner waited courteously, perfectly polite smile on his face for a minute before giving them a long look that Wanda couldn't read.
"I don't recommend doing that," he said, gentle but with an undertone of steel.
"Doing what?" Sam asked, obviously defensive.
"Treating Duo like a child."
"He was acting like one."
Winner shook his head as if disappointed. "He has spent all day being grilled by Nick Fury, and I would guess, he's been talking about his dead husband a lot." He paused, looking at them each in turn. "Jesus Reyes has been in the ground for less than three months. He is still mourning. I think that warrants some latitude and at least a little empathy."
"We have all lost people," Wanda said, not liking something about Winner's tone.
"Of course we have," Winner said, meeting her eyes fearlessly. "But few of us have lost as much as recently."
The condescension made her grit her teeth.
"Grief can make people unpredictable, and Hydra has already gone after him once," Sam pointed out with remarkable calm. "Doing things like refusing to stay in contact and taking the battery out of his phone is dangerous."
"It is," Winner agreed too easily. "But it is Duo, and as he has already demonstrated, he is a force to be reckoned with. You cannot cage him. You cannot confine him. You cannot force him down a desired path. The moment you try to do any of those things, he will do his best to subvert you. If you try to make him go left, he will go right. If you demand he go through an obstacle, he will find a way around it. If you give him two choices, he will find a third."
"That sounds just like Stark," Wanda couldn't help but comment.
Sky-blue eyes jump back to hers. "He is Mr. Stark's son," he reminded.
"He is actively being hunted by Hydra because of that," Sam reminded in turn. "Doesn't that worry you at all?"
Winner sighed. "Perhaps it should, but honestly, no. As I said, Duo is still grieving."
"What does that mean?" Wanda asked, confused as to the relevance.
There was a hesitation where Winner obviously chose his words with care. The temptation to push into his mind was strong, but both her instincts and recent events stayed her hand. She may not like Stark, but she was aware of what was owed to him, aware of what they were trying to build here. If she violated the mind of a guest for any reason less than outright attack, she had no doubt Stark would see her back in prison before she could say wait.
"Let's just say that I pity any Hydra agent who makes the mistake of targeting Duo Maxwell while he's grieving," he finally said.
Wanda remembered the tattoo from that night when Maxwell was shot, remembered the scars. "Death walks with him," she said, the words seemed to hang in the air, visible only in her mind's eye, before they dissipated.
Winner's expression firmed in a way that told her this discussion was over. "Indeed it does, Ms. Maximoff. Good night, Vision, Mr. Wilson." He nodded to each in turn, then opened the door even as their perfunctory responses hung in the air.
The door should have slammed, but true to most things in the Tower, it closed softly.
"I think Mr. Winner expects that Duo will kill anyone who tries to attack him while he is grieving," Vision said as if the conclusion perplexed him. Wanda stepped over to him, taking his hand, as much for her own comfort as for his while he looked at her in confusion.
"I think he does, Viz," she said, looking into his pale blue eyes.
"Duo has not struck me as someone cruel," he said, brow furrowing.
Sam sighed. "He doesn't have to be cruel, Viz. He just has to be hurting, and willing to use that hurt to lash out."
Vision still looked confused, but it was an emotion Wanda could relate to only too well.
When Tony walked out onto the deck, it took him a minute to see the shadow sitting out on the ledge. He almost mistook Duo's silhouette for Maximoff's since his hair was down and floating lazily in the wind, but it was too long, and Duo too small. Letting himself stare for a moment—it wasn't like Tony didn't know he was up here—though he was suddenly very aware of how exposed and precarious the edge of the walkway was.
"You're taking a risk out here," Tony said because he really had no idea what to say to Duo anymore, but he couldn't not talk. He'd come out here to talk to Duo after all. "Could be drones flying around, trying to get a glimpse at you."
Duo shrugged, and Tony noticed the soft ember glow of a cigarette dangling from his fingers at the same time that the sweet scent of a clove cigarette made its way to him.
"Please don't smoke those in the Tower," Tony said instead of having the epic parenting freak out he wanted to have. It would be awesome if Duo would just not do at least one knowingly life-threatening thing.
He was surprised when Duo laughed, a soft, oddly languid sound that made Tony wonder if he were either drunk or high. Duo flicked the long ash trail off to be carried away by the wind, but he didn't take a hit. "I don't actually smoke," he said, looking back at Tony for the first time.
"Could have fooled me." Tony wandered closer to the edge.
"Jesus smoked these, sometimes," Duo admitted.
It wasn't exactly an invitation, but Tony took it anyway and sat down—though farther from the edge than Duo. "Jesus Reyes smoked hipster clove cigarettes?"
"I think he just liked the smell, honestly," Duo said, and there was enough light for Tony to see the bittersweet smile twisting at his lips. "They don't taste like they smell though. I will never forget the look on his face the first time I told him he better brush his damn teeth if he wanted to kiss me."
It startled a chuckle out of Tony, because the mental image of Duo telling someone like Reyes off like that was inherently funny.
"How'd that go over?"
"Better than you'd think, once he realized I meant it." He flicked the ash off the end of the cigarette again. "I'm sorry, about earlier."
Tony tried not to stare, because he had not expected an apology from Duo. "You don't—"
"Don't let me off the hook for behaving like an asshole just because you're afraid of scaring me away," he said. "I knew Sam expected me to call. Even if I knew Quat knew I was fine, I should have at least let you know. Not because you're…" he trailed off for a moment, as if looking for a way to say "dad" without either being offensive or derogatory. He must have given up, because when he continued he said, "Because you're putting me up, and Father and Sister beat at least that much courtesy into me." Tony must have been staring, because he hastily corrected, "Metaphorically beat. Verbally, through long-suffering repetition. Father didn't think L2 kids needed more violence in their lives, even in the name of discipline."
Tony stared into eyes washed silver by the moonlight for a long moment before he said, "Apology accepted, just… don't do it again."
Duo sighed. "I'm not making a promise I don't know that I can keep. I'll try. It's been a while since I really answered to anyone. I'm out of the habit."
"You didn't answer to Reyes?"
"Not really. I mean, I was almost always with him, so I never really had to explain myself. He was possessive, but not because he thought I'd cheat. Not sure if he trusted me because of his reputation or because he knew I just wasn't interested in anyone else."
"Have you been drinking?" The question escaped Tony before he realized he wanted to ask it, but even in his limited exposure to Duo, Tony knew he was being unusually candid, and there was something languid and lazy about him that made Tony wonder.
"Can't get drunk," Duo said, and something in his voice mourned it, even as he took on that L2 lilt again. "Least, not anymore. Same as with the anesthetics. Every exposure seems to increase the tolerance square." He looked at the stub that was all that was left of the cigarette as it burned brighter in the wind, then tapped it, rubbed it out against the sole of his shoe, and slipped the end into his pocket. "No point in smokin' neither."
"Anesthetics used to work on you?" Tony asked, curious.
The question seemed to shock Duo out of his melancholy, and the colonial cant dropped. "Yeah. They did. The resistance kind of crept up on me after the war. Before Une let me and…" He took a deep breath. "Yuy partner up, I went through like six partners. Three of them put me in the hospital—four of them ended up there, with or without me. Most weren't bad agents in their own ways, they just… couldn't keep up with me, or our styles didn't mesh well. The last one was a prick who didn't trust me to do my job at all." He tapped his collarbone, where Bruce had found the break. "He was the last one. I took a bullet for him that shattered my collarbone because he broke cover to try and single-handedly arrest some gunrunners in the middle of a sale. Sally had noticed that anesthetics weren't working right on me from the previous hospitalizations, but"—he shrugged—"we just thought I'd been hospitalized so much that I was building up a tolerance. It wasn't until I woke up on the operating table that she realized it was a lot more severe than that." He leaned back on his elbows, careful not to lean on his hair. "Luckily, Heero insisted on being in the operating room and was able to calm me down. Sally ran a couple other tests after that, but it was obvious right away that my tolerance was growing out of proportion to the dose. So no more sedation after that."
"How old were you when you started noticing it?" Tony asked, his mind processing the information.
"Sixteen? Seventeen? Something like that. A little late to have enhancements showing up, that's for sure, if that's what you're angling at."
"You know I wouldn't—"
Duo waved him off. "You're a superhero and your best friend turns into a literal green rage monster. I'm not worried you're going to freak out if I don't qualify as baseline."
"To be fair, Rhodey is my best friend, and he does not turn into a rage monster. Bruce is a close second, though." He looked at Duo, realizing it was odd to see him so relaxed. "What made you decide to share at 3 a.m.?" Tony had to ask.
"I was an asshole, and I said I'd try, but I haven't really been. I figure I owe you at least a little something for scaring the shit out of you earlier."
"You don't owe me anything, Duo."
Duo eyed him curiously, and Tony got the feeling Duo could read him the way that Tony could read machines. "Maybe," he said. "But it'd been a shitty day—I owe your Captain a thanks for the warning about Fury, by the way. He grilled me for fucking hours." He let his head fall all the way back.
"Fury? Fury was grilling you?" Tony asked, alarmed.
"Yeah. Rogers said he'd want to know about the Hydra agents, and he certainly did. Though for a guy who likes to seem omniscient, he has some seriously fun buttons to push." He gave Tony a smartass smirk that Tony could only imagine made Fury want to shoot him. "Complained loudly and often that I was definitely your kid."
Tony managed to force a frown and keep his voice even as he said, "I wouldn't have thought Fury-baiting would be genetic."
Duo laughed again, this time a barking, amused sound. "It's probably less specifically Fury-baiting than authority-baiting, but all the same, I suspect it's something we have in common." He sat up, pulled his legs back over from the side and crossed them in front of him, pulling his hair over a shoulder.
"That's probably true," Tony conceded. "So, worrying about you has kept me up plenty of nights. Why are you still up?"
"Haven't really slept that great since… since Yuy left," he admitted, and there again was the obvious hesitation before he said his partner's name. "Don't want to sleep tonight. Tonight will be bad."
"Because of Fury?" Tony asked, red flags going off.
Duo shook his head though. "I won't say Fury's a pussycat, but as far as guys in the gray go, he's not really scary. People who are mostly good usually aren't." He folded his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. "I went to see Yuy, after…"
Tony frowned, not following. "I thought he didn't remember you."
"He doesn't," he said, voice tight. "I just… I got to say goodbye to Jesus. I needed to say goodbye to 'Ro. I knew, on some level, I knew that my Heero was gone. Seeing it though… seeing it was hard."
"Is he having a hard time?" Tony asked, confused.
"Nope. He's… he's really happy. Happier than I ever saw him." He didn't say it, but Tony still heard, Happier than when he was with me. "I know it's stupid to lose sleep over my ex being happy…"
"It's not," Tony said, thinking of Pepper, thinking of how much stress and fear and worry he put into her eyes. Thinking of how much more at ease, more grounded she had been since they called it quits for good. "It's hard to admit that we may not be the best thing for the people we love," he said, sharing because Duo had, and it felt right, almost sacred to speak these secrets and vulnerabilities into the predawn darkness. "It's like taking a taser to all of our insecurities and lighting them up. I don't like to sleep either when that happens." Duo looked small, curled up so tightly. "Will Winner worry?"
A shoulder shrugged. "He'll fuss, because that's what Quat does, but he's good at giving space when you really need it."
It was late; Tony was tired but had no interest in trying to sleep right then. "Want to build something in the workshop with me?" he offered.
"Not going to send me to bed?" Duo asked, but there was a wry undertone to the question Tony liked.
"Nah. I figure if we're both going to avoid a regular sleep schedule, might as well be productive. I've got some body armor prototypes I'm playing with, and I'd like to get an actual law enforcement individual's take on them."
For a beat, Tony thought he'd overstepped; then Duo unfolded with enviable grace from the awkward position. "Okay," he said and held out his hand to Tony. Tony took it and was pulled to his feet with surprising strength. "Please tell me you have coffee?"
"I'm surprised caffeine works on you?" Tony admitted.
"Sally says it's psychosomatic. I don't fucking care if it's the caffeine or the placebo effect, I just care that it works."
Tony laughed. "Well, there is always coffee in the Tower," he assured, and his heart felt lighter as Duo fell into step beside him.