Am I four years too late to be publishing a Civil War fix-it? Why yes, yes indeed. And yet here we are! My first multichapter fic (that was meant to be multichaptered). I can't wait to get started.
So, yes, this is a Civil War fix-it (of a sort). It takes place about a year after Captain America: Civil War, after they've all renegotiated the Accords. I made a couple changes to canon, but none super significant. One, Tony didn't sell the Tower because I Like The Tower. Two, AoU Cooper and Lila don't look even a little bit like they're three years away from IW Cooper and Lila. (Nate is of course two). This is largely unimportant to the story, but for our intents and purposes, Cooper is fifteen and Lila is thirteen. Go with it.
All the Avengers will be involved, but given the style of the story, Natasha, Tony, Steve, and Clint (in that order) will have the most "screentime". We will explore the POV of other characters, including Wanda, Peter, Bucky, etc, but less often. Each chapter will be about two thousand words, give or take.
Warnings: Language, I guess (sorry Steve). Some canon-typical violence in later chapters, and referenced character death (oops). That should be it, I think. Also, no copyright intended, blah blah blah.
Please, leave a review! Let's get to it..
- aurea
Begirt with many a blazing star,
stood the great giant Algebar,
Orion, the Hunter of the Beast!
His sword hung gleaming from his side,
And, on his arm, the lion's hide,
Scattered across the midnight air,
The golden radiance of its hair.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Chapter 1 - Arriving
Monday, June 15th, 2017
Steve Rogers lifted his chin as he stared out of the helicopter window.
It was a helicopter, of course, because the UN jets couldn't land on the Tower and it didn't look good for appearances to have a Stark or Wakandan jet bring them. So they had taken a UN private jet from Wakanda to New York, and then a helicopter to get to Avengers Tower. All for appearances. All dramatic.
In front of him, Clint was silent, his eyes alight as he gazed at the approaching building, as tall and imposing as Steve had ever seen it. He was quiet, for once. Excited.
There wasn't much talking in the helicopter, and it wasn't just because the rotors were so loud. The UN Avengers envoy was sitting between Clint and Wanda, a no-nonsense man with grey hair. He didn't seem to be very talkative, despite being a lawyer. More importantly, however, he was a stranger, someone whose very goal was to report on the Avengers.
The pilot tapped the seats. "We're here," he said over the headphones.
And so we are, thought Steve.
When they landed on the helipad, there were two people waiting for them. When the rotors became slow enough, Steve was the first to leap out and meet them.
Briefly, he reflected on the last time that he had been in a helicopter, months ago. Well, he hadn't been in the helicopter, but Bucky had, and Steve made a mess of the whole thing.
That was a long time ago, though.
Sam was the first to follow Steve out onto the helipad, then the others.
Maria Hill barely blinked at them before she moved towards the pilots and the lawyer with practiced grace. She started talking business and politics and bureaucracy and as much time that Steve had invested in that, he didn't understand any of it.
The other person waiting for them, however, ran towards them, her heels clicking on the floor.
"Nat," breathed Clint, beside Steve. His face broke into a wide smile as he embraced her. The hug looked like it hurt, but they both smiled. It had always been Clint and Natasha, two separate parts of a whole.
"Took you all long enough," she said. "We've been waiting."
She hugged Wanda next, saying something quietly to her. Wanda replied, but the wind was too loud for Steve to make out her words. To Sam, she offered a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
Then she turned to Steve and hugged him, too. "I missed you," she murmured. "It's good to see you."
"You, too. It's good to be back," Steve answered, and she held onto him for a second longer, as if she wanted to say something else. But she withdrew, instead, and offered a hand to Scott.
"It's nice to formally meet you," she said.
"I wouldn't stress about it," he replied dryly and she laughed. Steve didn't catch the reference, but it meant something to them.
Natasha stood back and surveyed the group. "Well, for being on the run for a year, you all look pretty good."
Wanda laughed, at least. It was a poor attempt at a joke. All of them had been staying at one of T'Challa's lesser palaces in Wakanda, with the greatest technology and comforts in the world.
"Let's go inside," Natasha offered.
When the doors slid closed behind them, she turned to Clint.
He knew that she knew what he was about to ask. "Where are they?"
"Downstairs. They got here fine. Lila was very excited."
"When can I see them?" T'Challa had allowed the Barton family into Wakanda, but after negotiating the plea deal, he had sent them home to Iowa, where Natasha had picked them up. Meanwhile, Clint and the rest of the Rogue Avengers had been bounced around the globe for the past few weeks, so he hadn't had much contact with them.
She shrugged. "Soon." She turned to Scott. "Your Cassie, she's there, too, with her mother. And Hope, too." She pushed the button for the elevator. "I'll leave you to settle in your rooms after we see everyone down. Well, almost everyone. Oh! Vision's there. And the kid, the kid, too. He'll be very excited to meet you all."
"The kid?" Steve asked.
"The, uh, Spider-Man, I think he calls himself. You met him at the airport. He's Tony's intern."
He nodded. "And where's Tony?"
The air grew colder at the mention of his name. Scott became interested in his shoes. The elevator dinged and slid open.
Natasha didn't skip a beat, holding his gaze. "He's in his lab. You probably won't see him today."
"Natasha…" Steve whispered, hoping to convey a thousand things in the one word, including—and perhaps most importantly—regret.
She tilted her head. "You won't see him today, I think." There was all sorts of meaning behind his words, but nothing Steve could decipher. "Rhodey's with him."
Steve nodded.
Natasha led them into the elevator. "FRIDAY, is everyone still on floor forty-three?"
"Yes, everyone I believe you're referring to," hummed the AI. "Would you like to go down there?"
"Yeah." Natasha turned back to the group. "Your floor numbers… I don't remember. FRIDAY will take you there after we say hi to everyone. Clint, Steve, yours are the same as before. The rest of you never actually lived here, so you get new ones. They're pretty cool. I helped design them, but it was mostly Tony."
"Is he okay?" Steve didn't let her change the subject. He wanted to see Tony, to apologize. The last he had seen of Tony was in Siberia, surrounded by a thousand mistakes.
Natasha sighed. "He wasn't. He's better now. Please don't antagonize him." She looked at Scott and Sam in particular, the latter of which made a Who, me? gesture. "I don't know if you heard, but he and Pepper are engaged. She's on the west coast right now, but I think she's coming back in the next couple of days."
"Really?" Wanda confirmed.
Steve had heard a rumour, but American news was hard to get in Wakanda, so he questioned the validity of it.
Natasha smiled. "Yes. Very sweet. Wedding's a couple months from now, I think."
Steve wondered if he was invited.
Tony Stark was in his lab.
He wasn't exactly working on anything in particular. He had projects open, sure, numbers of them, and he needed to finish the arrows he was redesigning for Clint as a sort of welcome home gift. He didn't have anything for anyone else, but Tony always had a lot of fun with Clint's arrows. There was no complicated engineering, no cutting edge science. Just pointy sharp things. Besides, Clint had been his friend, once upon a time. He was the only one to catch all of Tony's jokes and sarcasm, and he was always up for a prank. Tony still couldn't imagine that guy as a father, even if he had met all of Clint's children.
His virtual nanotechnology file sat open at one table. Other than the use in his suits, Stark Industries had begun to roll out nanotech in various fields, especially medical technology, but it remained very rudimentary. It took a very long time, especially in medicine, to get products approved, but Tony was still fixated on that industry. It would benefit the most from his inventions. From weapons to this. Not that he was working on that, either.
Normally, if he found himself lacking ideas, which was rare, he would take a break. Head downstairs. Hang out with Pepper or make an AI for the toaster (the normal kind of AI, not the homicidal kind. Her name was Barbara, she was nice). Take Natasha's weapons, rant about everything that was wrong with them, have her refuse to let him fix them (or ruin them, if you asked her). Watch a movie with the kid, or make a new type of webbing or give Karen a better targeting system.
But nope! Not today. Today, he would spend every hour in one of the few rooms that Steve Rogers was not allowed in.
It wasn't that he didn't want to see him, exactly. Tony had certainly done the lion's share in the work that had allowed the Rogue Avengers to come home. No one could deny that. He had started the process and fought with the UN every step of the way to make it happen. Not without support, of course. The Avengers had pulled off a strong united front, which left little room for argument. Of course Tony wanted to see them.
But now they were here. Rogers was here. In his Tower. Only a few floors away.
At least Barnes wasn't here. Off the record, Tony had sent T'Challa's people whatever information he and Natasha could compile on brainwashing, but he was still in cryo. Good. Tony wanted to see him even less.
He'd had a nightmare last night. Siberia. Back there, freezing, alone.
He wasn't alone anymore.
"Rhodey!" he called, glancing behind him. "How are your legs?"
Rhodey looked up from the sofa on the other side of the room, reading something on his phone. Tony saw him tapping at the braces that covered his legs, a casualty of the media-dubbed Civil War. "They're all right," he said blandly. "Same as the last eight times you've asked."
"All right is far from perfect, my friend. Anything you want with them? AC offer is still in the air, by the way. Built-in phone stand? Oh, I could give you an AI?"
"Absolutely not."
"You're no fun." Tony swung around in his swivel chair. "I'm bored."
"Those are words I never thought you'd say." Rhodey stood up and crossed over to him. Tony catalogued each step, checking for imperfections. A model of Rhodey's braces was on the market for SI, to help paraplegics, and the Stark Foundation was helping some afford it. Rhodey had the more experimental model, for now, but Tony had already received many thank you letters from people who were learning how to walk again. Pepper kept them in an album. Tony wasn't sentimental, no, but she certainly was.
"Yeah, well, first time for everything."
Rhodey crossed his arms, looking at Tony. "You don't have to be bored, you know. There are lots of people who'd love to talk to you downstairs."
"Love to talk to me, oh my." Tony stood up and began to tidy one side of the lab.
"Tony."
"What, honey bear?"
"You can't avoid them forever."
"I know. I'm not. I'm avoiding them today."
Rhodey sighed. "And am I supposed to believe that tomorrow you'll, what, show up for breakfast with a smile?"
Tony glowered. "Yes."
"Tony."
"Rhodey."
"When's Pepper getting here?"
Not what he had been expecting. Tony lit up at the mention of his fiancee. "She's flying in tonight, and she'll be here for a couple of weeks, she says. There's wedding planning in my future."
"Not the worst thing in the world."
He couldn't hide his smile. "We've done most of it. You still need to be fitted for a best man's suit."
Rhodey made a face.
There was tapping at the keypad, and the glass door swung open to let Natasha in. "Hey, boys. How are we?"
"Where are they?" Tony asked. "What are they doing?"
She gave him a sideways glance, claiming his swivel chair and spinning around. "Wondering the same thing about you."
He rolled his eyes.
"Common floor," she answered. "With everyone else. Including Peter. Pretty much everyone except you two."
"He won't even consider going down there," Rhodey complained.
Tony stuck a finger in the air. "I resent that. It has been considered. Considered, and decided to be a horrible idea that we are definitely not going to do."
"We?"
"Me."
"You," Natasha agreed somberly. "So if you're not going to go up there, what are you going to do?"
"Wallow, most likely," Tony answered, flicking open the nanotech file with his wrist. The projected blueprints filled the space, making it look complicated and fantastic. Which, of course, it was. "Maybe save the world. Cure some disease. Hey, what disease should I cure today?"
"Cancer," Rhodey deadpanned.
"Extreme Avoidance Syndrome," Natasha said. "It's considered a side effect of being a rich superhero with the maturity of a teenager and it manifests in one's inability to face their problems."
"That sounds very familiar," Rhodey said. "Seems… seems serious, yeah, definitely. Someone in this room should really, really, get on that."
"Mm-hmm, mm-hmm," she said, overlapping with him. "Hmm, yeah, for sure."
Tony pointed a gauntleted hand at them. "You guys are horrible. Both of you."
"Oh, we're horrible?" Rhodey said. "I've dealt with you for almost thirty years, I don't think you can call anyone horrible."
"You love me."
"Somehow."
Natasha glanced at the time. "I've been gone a while, I should get back."
"No, stay," Rhodey said, standing up. "I need to go see everyone eventually, and—" he shot a pointed look at Tony, who pretended not to see, "—it's sooner or later."
When he left, Tony took his spot on the table, just across from Natasha. "You're mad."
"I'm not. I can't blame you for avoiding—"
"Really? Because it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing."
"Let me finish," she said patiently. Natasha was always patient. Not like him. Tony wanted things to be finished as quickly as possible. "I can't blame you for not wanting to hang out with Steve, but I will say this. He's the same person he's always been. So is the rest of the team. We used to…" She trailed off.
"You're right," said Tony. "He is the same person that he's always been. I've just never known who that was before. I do now."
"Look, I know you're mad at him—"
"I'm not mad at him!"
"Then go downstairs and talk to them!"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"Because I don't know what to say. Look, I…" Tony licked his lips. "I've read way too much on Hydra's brainwashing to be mad at Barnes. I'm sorry to him, because I attacked him, but—"
Natasha defended him even before the sentence was out. "It wasn't a big deal, Tony. You were angry, you had reason to be, and you lashed out."
"Right, but still. Steve didn't tell me that… what happened… happened because he was afraid I'd react exactly as I did. So he was right. So I can't be mad at him, either."
"Would you have reacted like that?" Natasha wondered. "Had you learned from someone other than Zemo, in an abandoned base in Siberia. If he had told you, a long time ago, would you have reacted like that?"
No. "Nobody wins the speculation game, Natasha, you know as well as I do."
She conceded that with a nod. "We used to be really close, once upon a time. You, me, Steve, Clint. Thor, when he was here."
"And Bruce."
Natasha sighed. "Yes. And Bruce."
Tony had almost forgotten about that particular… event. He glanced at the corner, where FRIDAY was constantly running facial recognition for both of the missing Avengers. He'd had to increase her capacities to do that. Tony watched Natasha carefully, but she seemed largely unaffected by the mention of her old friend. He supposed that she had enough going on that day. Or maybe, you know, she was a spy. Whatever she was feeling, she didn't need to share.
"We used to be pretty close," Natasha continued. "What happened?"
Tony didn't answer.
A few months ago, after a bad mission, Natasha had asked him a question. "What was it like?" she had asked. "To fight Steve? To fight him."
Tony had scoffed. "You were there, at the airport. You were fighting with the rest of us. Most of the time, at least."
She had ignored the low blow. "Well, yeah, but there's a difference. That was non-lethal, almost fun. It felt like we were sparring, practicing. It didn't feel real."
"And you think I was trying to kill Rogers back there?"
"No," she answered instantly. "Have you seen that suit of yours? If you wanted him dead, he'd be dead."
"I don't think I wanted to kill him," Tony confessed. "I think I just wanted to hurt him."
Natasha had looked up at him, eyes piercing. "Did you?"
Tony didn't reply to that either.
Now, Natasha shifted. "Wanna do something? I'm not quite ready to leave you here alone, and you're not coming with me."
"Chess?" Tony suggested.
She made a face, but agreed. "You'll win."
He did win, eventually, but she put up a good fight. Natasha was good at chess, always.
"You know," she started, making the same argument that she always did. "Chess is great, but as far as metaphors for real life go, it's not my favourite."
"What do you mean?" Tony had heard this enough to know exactly what she meant.
She shrugged. "Everything is exactly as it appears. There's nothing left to chance, and you start the game knowing exactly what you do by the end. There's nothing to be learned in each game. The idea that each piece has a designated purpose that can't be changed is so unlike real life."
Tony squinted. "You learn about your opponent."
She laughed. "In movies, a game of chess is always so dramatic. You took out my pawns first, that means that you fear the less powerful pieces on the board for what they might become. It's ridiculous!" She put on a funny voice as she imitated a movie character. "I can learn more about someone from their drink order."
Tony smiled. He didn't get to see her like that very much, so off-guard and carefree. "Their drink order?"
She nodded emphatically.
"Scary. But, you know, don't knock chess. You kill the pawns to make sure that they don't become queens."
"Why doesn't it just start that way?" Natasha asked. "Why does this game start with all our cards on the table?"
Tony hesitated, grinned. "This is why you're good at poker."
Natasha shrugged, not disagreeing. "I am, yes. So are you."
"Poker's half psychology and half math. Between the two of us, we got it set."
She sighed. Before she could say anything, however, FRIDAY's voice hummed from the speakers. "Miss Romanoff, Captain Rogers has requested to know where you are."
"Nosy, aren't we?" Tony said, glancing up.
Natasha stood. "I guess that's my cue. You coming with?"
He wanted to, he did, but at the same time, there was nothing he wanted less. "Not yet."
She nodded, pecked him on the cheek. "I will say this. If you're not mad at Rogers, and you're not mad at Barnes—who isn't even here…"
It was true. Barnes was still frozen in Wakanda, far, far away.
"... then the only person who you might be mad at is yourself. And that isn't right."
She left, and Tony realized just how large and empty his workshop really was.
Review! Tell me what you think! Update should be about a week from now? We'll see.
This chapter was mostly the beginning—we'll arrive at a plot soon enough, though.
Also I feel like when anyone writes a Civil War fanfic, they have to let the readers know their allegiance? Just because? I am very gently Team Iron Man, but we Acknowledge That Both Sides Made Mistakes. This is a fix-it. They're going to end up as a team at the end.