"When will you realise that there's more for you here, on land, than there ever could be out there on the ocean?" Obadiah asked Tony as he prepared for another trip on the Avenger.
His trips hadn't started out as anything other than a child's wish that they could find the parents he had lost to the sea but they'd evolved into so much more than that now. He ignored Obadiah as the older man continued speaking the same words he said every time Tony went away. It wasn't that Tony didn't enjoy his time on land, it was that land just wasn't home to him anymore. The ocean, and all that came with it, were his home now and he wouldn't give that up, not even for the uncle that had raised him after his parents had been lost at sea.
"Tony, think about this, please," Obadiah was saying. "I've been talking with the Mills' and they have a lovely daughter I think you should meet. You'll love her."
Tony paused in his packing; was Obadiah trying to marry him off? He thought of red hair and brown eyes, both accompanied with mischievous grins and kept packing. "I'm not interested, Uncle. I've found the sea now, what else do I need?"
He'd found a lot more than the sea, but that wasn't safe to let out. Only his crew knew, and they also knew how important it was to keep the secret. There would be a massacre if anyone greedy or bigoted enough (of whom there were a lot of candidates around) discovered the small colony of merfolk that lived nearby.
There was a knock at the front door and soon enough Clint, Tony's best lookout, was shown into his room. "Hey Cap," Clint said languidly. "You almost done here? The rest of us want to get out there."
Tony nodded and closed his trunk, flipping the clasp that would hold it closed. "Just finished. Mind giving me a hand?" Clint gave a put-upon sigh but easily stepped up to take one of the handles on the side of Tony's case. "I'll see you when I'm back," he told Obadiah, before grabbing the other handle and helping Clint carry the case out of his room and towards the dock.
Natasha was waiting outside and slipped into step beside them when they exited the house. "Thought he might have convinced you to stay this time," she remarked.
Tony scoffed. "He threatened me with the Mills family." He considered for a bit and then adjusted, "Well, he probably thought he was tempting me with them, but no way can Regina compare to the two beauties I have waiting for me."
"Glad to know we're not losing you to the land," Clint said.
Tony just smirked at him. "You're just glad you get to stay on my ship and see Phil again. I know you two, it's not me you really care about."
Natasha snorted. "Like you're any better with Lily and James. You'd abandon the ship and the rest of us with no hesitation if they asked you to."
"Ah but they haven't," Tony said. "Because they are wonderful people who are just as fascinated with the Avenger as we are with their home."
"We lead a strange life," Clint observed as they came into view of the Avenger. "We went from pirates ravaging the ocean to classy merchants in relationships with merfolk."
"Hit him for me, would you, Nat? Lightly," he quickly amended, knowing what her hits were like. "I'll have you know that I was never a pirate," he told Clint after Nat had hit him for him.
"You almost were," Natasha pointed out.
"Almost doesn't count," Tony's first mate Rhodey said. They had started walking up the gangplank to board the Avenger and he'd clearly heard the tail end of the conversation. "Thought you lot were never coming."
Tony grinned. "You know what these two old gossips are like, can never go anywhere quickly with them tagging along."
Rhodey rolled his eyes. "You're all as bad as each other. Get settled, I want to get out before the sun sets."
"Who made you captain?" Tony asked.
"You, when you made me first mate and then declared that I was in charge of everything," Rhodey said dryly.
Tony just nodded and made his way with Clint to his cabin so they could dump his trunk in there. Past him had been very wise in wheedling Rhodey into being part of his crew and then being his first mate. Rhodey was the best—apart from Lily and James, of course.