In Your Hand
Chapter 1
"Update Friday"
Tony mumbles the command so softly the AI barely registers it, even in the silence of the workshop. A silence so loud that covering his ears doesn't begin to stave off the whispers in the back of his mind.
His hair is greasy, and his body is covered in two-day old coffee and oil stains. Deep in the Avenger's compound, there is no longer a sense of time, only metal, and torches, and memories.
All of which he wants to burn away. Watch them scatter into ashes like he has a million times throughout his life.
But it's too easy, and he knows better.
That even when the flames are gone, they'll still smolder beneath the surface, waiting for the chance to catch their breath and begin the dance all over again.
It's all a part of the shitty carnival ride he still hasn't found a way off of.
And as for his wishes, well, Tony has wished for a lot of things in his life.
Admittedly, most were fleeting and flashy. Handcrafted bones for the vultures to pick from to secure the persona. The rich out-of-touch playboy genius who pisses away thousand-dollar bottles of scotch and bangs supermodels on a yacht two at a time.
Unfortunately, chasing after cliché's and soaking up the adoration of others who believe they want the same is a more graspable goal than holding onto dreams better left for children.
Whenever Tony thinks about the years he spent rushing to his father's side with a new invention, or a perfect grade, convinced it would finally be the way he earned the love he so desperately sought after, only to be met with demoralizing criticism instead of praise, and to be shipped off to boarding school, does he realize just how wrong he'd gone about things back then, and how much those wishes and dreams were merely naïve fantasies, perhaps meant for others, but certainly not for him.
It took a long time, but he managed to crush down every bit of longing to be accepted beyond simply for what he could do, until it was finally unrecognizable. Flat enough to scab over and allow him to continue moving forward in the face of constant, inevitable disappointment.
Love mutated into something skin deep after that. Merely a word with a definition. Something to study but not to touch or feel. A tantalizing gift behind the glass, unaffordable even to him.
But there were - are - still moments over the years, far and few in-between, when the alcohol and drugs blur the walls. He finds himself passing by the window and stops to gaze inside, fingers tentatively on the glass.
Tony knows he is a smart man.
Being exposed to the most cutting-edge technology at such a young age has accelerated his brain and opened pathways some still think are god-given, but in the end, there's always a tradeoff. One that he tried to ignore until Yinsen spelled it out so clearly he couldn't look the other way anymore.
Machines have been his only family. Science his brother. Loneliness his workspace.
He has been a man with everything and nothing. He thought he would remain that way until the end of his days. Till they lowered his gold-plated casket into the grave beneath the monument that listed all the things everyone considered him to be, and never who he actually was.
He'd resigned himself to being that Tony Stark.
But then like something out of a fucking fairytale, she came along.
Smashed that thick impenetrable glass he'd forged into so little of shards he can no longer make out his reflection anymore.
Exposed him to the foreign bodies that were kept sealed on the other side.
And for all his smarts, he's been laughably stupid and unprepared for it all.
There was nothing gentle about the way it consumed him - is still consuming him.
He'd gone headfirst into a rabbit hole he hadn't even realized he was being swallowed up in, until he found himself sprinting down the yellow brick road, flying at Mach speed over the rainbow bridge, right into a sweet hell of a nexus that made the rest of the world about as interesting as a cold cheese sandwich.
"I've never loved anyone…"
"Of course, you have, Tony."
She looks at him like he is the dumbest genius in the world. He figures she is probably right. He knows dick about what they are doing. She seems to have more experience than him. He never doubts for a second she could be lying despite who she is, that there's no way she could be just like him.
They're past that, and b esides, the explosions are lighting up the sky, making her red curls sparkle in the dark. The bombs glitter in her eyes like fireworks, d istracting.
"I think I might love you though."
He doesn't think about whether it's the right moment to say such a thing. After all, his experience is zero, and she's the one who let this disease out of its box to devour him from the inside out. It feels uncontrollable at times, and the words race to the tip of his tongue and he blurts them out because he doesn't know any better.
"You're saying that right now? In the middle of all of this?"
They duck behind the overturned car as the shrapnel of dirt and Hydra body parts soar overhead. Their eyes are locked. Tony waits for her to say something, anything. Neither thinks about if their conversation can be heard over the comms.
"Have you ever looked for your real family? I know you're Black Widow super spy, but I could help you find them. I'm good at stuff like that."
His eyes shift downward in a rare moment of self-doubt and embarrassment. His mangled heart is hammering with uncertainty. He wants to believe this is going to end differently than all the other times he's told someone he loves them, which can be counted on less than one hand, and offered them everything he has because that's how far he would go. No limits. But he can't keep the flashes of turning figures and ghosts of disapproval at bay.
He doesn't feel his eyes growing glassy, only the rawness in his stomach.
"Tony." Natasha is studying him worriedly, but somewhere in the thick of it, he thinks he catches a glimpse of recognition on her face. Like maybe it isn't a lost cause.
Her hand squeezes his, warm and reassuring in the middle of a Hydra camp amongst the smell of death, gunpowder, and disturbed earth. He clears his throat painfully and swallows all his emotions down. Only then does he realize how bad he is spiraling, and that there is something happening he doesn't have a protocol for.
When he gains the courage to meet her eyes again, her worry has been replaced with a humorous glint and a smirk that turns his world, and his frown upside down.
Her fingers caress his stubble. He leans into her touch like an attention-starved cat.
"We should save this conversation for later. When there isn't a death ray trained on the white house," she says.
"Probably a good idea."
"Miss Romanov is currently in Budapest, sir," Friday reports.
"Objective?"
"Unknown."
"Satellite feed?"
The video burns his swollen red eyes. There's nothing on the screen except a mess of buildings, but the one Natasha is in is highlighted. He watches her red dot pinging back and forth like a bad game of pong. Tony wonders who she is fighting and what she is after, how he can help. His chest aches knowing how pathetic he is, how gullible. She betrayed him. Ripped the plush rug of security out from under him. It still stings the way it did 20 years ago, when he was still trying to trust, and getting shunned for his efforts. And yet here he is, a fool hanging onto the last tendrils of a farce, still willing to give her all of him.
There are suddenly a number of other red dots converging on Natasha's. Tony narrows his dry eyes at them.
"Zoom in!" He barks at Friday, sitting up straighter from the couch he's been using as a makeshift bed for...what day is it again?
They blow the roof on the building and rappel down. The feed is magnified as close as it will go, outlining all the figures in red. His eyes are glued to Natasha's. She and another are working together to defeat the rest, or at the very least, escape with their lives.
He's never seen someone match Natasha's hand-to-hand combat like the people she's facing now. It's almost as if they have had the same training she's had. Tony purses his lips as the fight stumbles out into the street. Car chases and crashes. He doesn't know how she survives, but she does. And when there is nothing but the aftermath staring back at him, the glass of liquor in his hand screams beneath his grip.
The TV flips to Ross making another speech about the manhunt. Tony's head falls to his hands.
He wants to come unglued more than he already is. Wants not to be stuck in the middle. Wants not to feel guilty like maybe he caused all of this. Most of all, he just wants to help Natasha. But he is already skating on such thin ice with Ross that his army of lawyers might not be able to pull him out of if he fell through.
His head goes round and round, weighing the consequences. All roads lead back to him being imprisoned.
Way back when, that would have been enough to keep him in place, but there is something else guiding his actions now. A messy irrational logic that has him pushing through the pain, and the prospect of life in a cell.
24 hours later, he finally succumbs to his desires, because he doesn't know how to keep them in check anymore, and he's the barest he's ever been.
The glass has long since broken, after all, and he is in the suit using every bit of stealth equipment at his disposal to track Natasha down again. Of course it's at a Russian prison in the middle of an artic wasteland. He lands atop a mountain in the distance to gain his sea legs after being in the air for so long, cursing his eroding judgment and her choice of venue. He's not exactly sure what is going on or why she's here, just that he has to be apart of it.
He hacks the comms of her helicopter as it approaches and hears her talking to another woman about springing one of the prisoners inside, someone named Alexei Shostakov, aka The Red Guardian.
Tony skims through the minimal information Friday provides in the HUD, then glares out into the distance.
"So, he's a knock-off Cap, great," he mumbles angrily to himself, because she already chose Cap over him once, now she's going after his knockoff?
He blasts towards the prison and accesses the situation.
Hostiles are swarming after Red Guardian. Tony could make easy work of all of them, but then the helicopter descends and Natasha swings out of it on a rope like a fucking swan into a pond and starts doing it herself.
He busies himself with taking out the guards in the tower instead, as well as some more coming up hot on Red Guardian's tail.
"What the fuck is that?" Alexei yells when Tony speeds by him, demobilizing half a dozen guards.
"What?!" Natasha runs down the catwalk and jumps back onto the rope.
"A demon!" Alexei grunts as Tony circles and swoops him off the ground, carrying him into the sky.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" Tony rolls his eyes at the man who's supposed to be a super-soldier, yet is crying bloody murder in his hands.
"What the fuck is going on, Alexei?!" Natasha cringes from his screams in her ear.
"He just disappeared into the sky!" Yelena pulls the helicopter back up.
"Get off me, demon!" Alexei struggles against Tony's iron grip.
"Can you shut the hell up? Or would you rather I drop you?"
"Tony!?" Natasha lets out a gasp upon hearing his voice.
"Tony? As in Tony Stark?!" Yelena floors them away from raining machine gunfire.
Moments later, Alexi comes flying through the open door of the plane, slamming into the opposite side and denting it while Tony lands gingerly next to him.
"Jesus, man," Alexei grumbles, dragging himself to his feet.
Tony disengages his retro-reflection panels just in time to be pushed to the back of the plane by a livid Natasha.
"You shouldn't be here. If they find out you're with me you know what will happen." She hisses.
Tony retracts his helmet, revealing his disheveled appearance. There are bags under his eyes and his goatee is unkempt. His face is thinner and his eyes reflect just how lost he is without her. Natasha's anger leaves her after she sees what a sorry state he's in. Her eyes drop to the floor as her brain screams what a bad idea this is. That he could ruin his life and could go to prison just by being in her presence. That she's trying to stop the casualties not create more, especially not when it's him.
"You look terrible." She murmurs.
"I want to help you." Tony tells her, almost pleading, hating how desperate he sounds.
"Tony…" Natasha shakes her head, stepping closer. She runs her fingers through his hair.
"Why did you do it?"
"I never meant to hurt you. But this – this cycle of super soldiers and widows. I can't let it go on. When Steve told me there were more of them, I had to let them go. I can't stand by and let this keep happening to people."
"Then let me help you," he insists.
He knows she doesn't really need it though. In fact, she could probably do all of this with her eyes closed without any help from her band of misfits up front, but there is something more at stake now. He doesn't know how they'll make it work, but goddamn it, he's not ready to give what he thought they had if there's even the slightest chance it was real.
"And what happens if Ross catches you? Get's wind you're working with the enemy?" She huffs.
"Fuck Ross," Tony says, then plants his lips on hers with conviction.
For a split second, she's frozen under him, but then she responds by sliding her arms around his neck and pushing up against him. He comes back to life, as if he were a wilted flower in need of its water. His entire life may be in the balance right now, but he doesn't care. He pushes her back into the wall of the plane and drinks her in as if she were his sunlight, trying to make up for months of having to go without it.
"Ahem," Yelena yells from the front of the plane. "Are you going to introduce us to your boyfriend, Natasha?"
"Yes, I would also like to speak with this, boyfriend." Alexei seconds, his tone fatherly as he glances back at them.
Natasha smirks slightly against Tony's lips. She pulls back and rests her forehead against his.
"Who the hell are these people?"
"It's a long story."