The first time it happens, Tony doesn't even realize what's going on.
"Tones?" Rhodey sticks his head through his workshop door while Tony is busy trying to figure out how the aliens power their buildings. By the time he woke up, the soldiers have extended the tower with a smaller building – a windowless one not unlike a hangar – and both structures show up on FRIDAY's scans saturated with a brilliant purple energy that is not quite electricity, but not too far from it either.
"Hmm?" he asks distractedly, reading through the results of his latest analysis.
"If anyone asks, I've been down here the whole day, alright?"
Tony doesn't bother looking up as he fires off a reply.
"You know you can't keep using me as a beard forever Sugar Plum, I'm sure Mama Rhodes will forgive your heterosexuality if you just—"
"Yeah okay, goodbye Tony!"
The second time it happens, Ross shows up with a laptop and a determined expression befitting a soldier going into battle.
"I need to use one of your…" he pauses, momentarily distracted by Dummy and U playing catch in the back of the room, "workbenches."
Tony raises a questioning eyebrow, because Ross has yet to stay longer in his technological empire than a few minutes at a time, and the man doesn't exactly look like he's planning to deep dive into a fit of engineering in his khakis and pressed shirt.
"I have some spreadsheets to fill," Kenny raises his laptop as if that's his justification, and Tony is way too curious at this point to refuse.
They spend three hours working in complete silence before the inventor finally catches on.
"You're supposed to be doing the convincing now, aren't you?"
"Yep," Ross answers without a hint of remorse, then looks at his watch, closes his computer, and stands up. "And I'm really sorry we couldn't come to an agreement at this time, Mr. Stark. I hope we can revisit this conversation at a later date," he says with overt formality, then gives a small, uncertain smile, turns on his heel and leaves.
Well.
"FRI," he says after a few minutes of contemplating the situation, "show me what people have to say about our honored guests."
The holoscreens around Tony fill up with articles and news reports and distant aerial shots about the new tower in the Compound – which the New York Times humorously nicknames 'Stark Tower Jr.' – and some of the more persistent paparazzi even manage to capture a few videos about the UGC soldiers flying around, some dressed in their uniforms, others fully encased in their vessels.
"…in a breathtaking display of efficiency, the tower was built during the course of a single day, with resources, technology, and manpower all supplied by the Unitary…"
"…showed up in flying suits, which – while somewhat different in appearance – are not completely dissimilar to Tony Stark's patented Iron Man…"
"…whether Stark has stolen the idea or if the UGC has been inspired by our resident hero remains to be seen…"
"…and while the full list of abilities of their suits remains up to speculation, one has to wonder if the display of unity will perhaps inspire billionaire Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, to equip his team with similar…"
"…with Mr. Stark being an avid supporter of the UGC integration against predicted interplanetary threats, one wonders if his support will extend to supplying the Avengers with…"
"…will this new development prompt Tony Stark to learn to share his toys, or will he…"
"Alright FRI, mute," he says in fit of annoyance, even though this was exactly what he expected when he turned the feed on. Rhodey must have been sent down by the Air Force earlier, and when FRIDAY offers him a screen with his call history, he sees she fended off several inquiries from both the military and one Thaddeus Ross. Brilliant.
"Boss, I suggest you take a look at the comment section."
God, he hates the comment section. It never has anything nice to say about Tony, and he's already dreading whatever prompted FRIDAY to direct his attention there.
robinNme: so, are we srsly going to just ignore the fact that Rogers and co have been fugitives as in CRIMINALS just a few weeks ago and give them all ironman suits? are we srsly THAT stupid?
TheNotAmusedOne: Wow, did we get over #CivilWar quick. #ZeroFucksGiven
Whysochic7: Dude, last year the rogues tore up half of europe like wrapping paper, wtf would anyone give those ppl more weapons to play around with? I wouldnt trust them as far as i can spit,those sh*theads have less empathy than a handfull of dried up moths
ArielSeadown: No way Stark is that stupid.
klann4sale: RIGHT?! Lookat these people: *picture of the Avengers*
Cool, right? Now look at what these people did to Romania: *picture of the destruction caused by the Avengers in Bucharest*
And now IMAGINE THOSE PEOPLE EACH WEARING AN IRONMAN SUIT at that time... STILL COOL?
Heather775: oh god, PLEASE don't. Just. Don't. #JustSayNo
PerilDiaman: Cut them some slack. People make mistakes. Imagine what 8-10 ironman suits could do in a battle. Isn't our safety more important than petty arguments?
leed-da-way: Have you guys seen the footage from last week? One Iron Man is enough. Also, "petty arguments" lol. Bucharest and Leipzig would disagree.
freerepublic86: Never thought id say this one day but I really hope stark will refuse to share. yes more suits would be handy in a fight but NOT in the hands of the ex-vengers!.
DiminNaan92: WE DON'T ARM TERRORISTS. YouKnowWhoIAm, please #JustSayNo.
ershtinguyen: #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JustSayNo #JUSTSAYNO!
…Okay, then.
For a second Tony wonders if something should be done about the PR image of the Avengers in general, because if the current trends are anything to go by, people are really not over the whole 'Civil War' fiasco, but before he could make a reminder to talk to Pepper, he realizes that neither is he.
So. Ross and Rhodey have spoken. So have the people of Earth.
Time to see what the people of not Earth have to say.
…
Barton glares at him over the campfire he and Wilson have set up in order to introduce the aliens to the wonders of roasted marshmallows. The experiment seem to be going well – Sam is making easy conversation with the dozen or so people gathered around the makeshift fire pit, the soldiers look completely enamored with their marshmallows, and Tony just hopes Wilson has the good sense of keeping Barton from getting testy with anyone before the night is over.
Laura has won the custody battle this morning, and while Tony doubts she will keep the archer from seeing his kids altogether, she did decide to teach him a very quantitative lesson in terms of child support.
Tony would know – he supplied her with his best lawyer, after all, and Barton's fierce scowl suggests he's not oblivious to that fact.
There's a split second where the inventor contemplates offering something of… well, not an apology, certainly – it' not his fault the man decided to leave his family to become a criminal – but… an acknowledgement? A few words of sympathy, maybe? It's not like Tony went out of his way to make sure Barton would come out on the losing side: it was Laura who asked for his help, worried the judge would be swayed by her husband's Avenger status, and—
And that explanation would hardly go over well with someone who took Tony's abiding the law as a personal offense.
Barton is not the only one to notice him though – Ranina looks away from Wilson's enthusiastic recounting of his pararescue days as Tony steps onto the porch, and she is either a mind reader or his expression must be more transparent than he'd like because the moment their eyes meet she stands, walks right up to him and says:
"Mr. Stark, come, have dinner with us," she motions to Hotel Alien, and sets off without waiting for a response.
Tony is surprised at the invitation: their buildings are official UGC territory, and while Tony's made it clear the communal areas of the Compound are free-for-all, the aliens have yet to take him up on that offer and pointedly did not extend the same allowance. While the inventor is sure he would have managed to get a peek of their interior sometime during the next few months, he didn't expect to garner enough rapport to do so on the second day into the Grilians' stay.
Barton's gaze follows him as they make their way across the yard, and Tony shudders in relief when the doors slide close behind them as they step into the tower.
Perhaps he will sleep down in his workshop tonight. Not that he really believes the archer would do anything to threaten his safety, but Tony's seen him do stupider things on a misguided impulse, and diverting stray arrows would be significantly easier from behind a twenty inch thick glass wall than from his bed.
The tower is just as stunning on the inside as it is on the outside, and Tony is not gawking.
He is not.
Ranina leads him to a closed off glass counter right next to the entrance. It seems to contain quite the selection of both entire dishes and separate ingredients he mostly doesn't recognize – a complete a-la-carte menu for him to choose from, only for Ranina to ignore his opinion entirely by tapping away on the glass and collecting the two trays that is produced for them in turn.
"Things that won't try to viciously murder your digestive system. You'll like it," she says with certainty as she hands him one of the trays, and Tony adds cross-compatibility of meals between races to his continuously growing list of 'stuff to figure out/reverse engineer/blow up later'.
The food looks strangely appetizing – there's something that looks like shiny rice on steroids, several types of probably-fruit, and half of a roll that could pass for bread if it wasn't dark blue. The entire thing is coated in strands of a yellow sauce and sprinkled with green flakes, and he sort of wishes he was the kind of person who takes photos of his meals.
"So," Ranina begins after they take a seat on a padded bench at one of the giant tables – eating is clearly a group activity in the Communia, seeing how the entire ground floor seems to be designated to suit just that purpose. There are people are milling around, chattering quietly – a few smile at Ranina in greeting, a couple women sit down at the other end of their table, but none of them seem to pay his presence any mind.
"Our arrival has created quite the upheaval for you, hasn't it?"
The question makes Tony wonder just how often Ranina checks in with the internet, though part of him is relieved he doesn't need to explain the situation he's found himself in from the bottom up. He pokes at his blue bread with what he would call a healthy dose of self-preservation instinct – Pepper would be proud – before taking a bite, and nods.
"Upheaval is one way to describe it, I suppose."
"We are discouraged from delving into the internal affairs of independent domains, of course," Zefironn joins them with a plate of highly stacked pancakes, picking up the conversation like he's been part of it from the beginning, and Tony suddenly feels like he's walked into an ambush. "Your people are quite divided on most topics as it is, we would not risk further deepening rifts by expressing our opinions. We are not here to take sides."
O…kay. Zefironn sounds sincere but unapologetic, and Tony has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep in a nervous rant when two more people join them at the table – a man and a woman, effectively boxing him in his seat.
Definitely an ambush.
"What we can do, however," Ranina focuses on cutting up her mushy green pancake, "is point out that the Communia considers its soldiers representatives."
Four pair of eyes zero in on Tony, and he gets the distinct impression there is something he is supposed to be getting here, but he doesn't—
No, wait. Oh.
Oh.
Ranina grins at him approvingly, and the man to his left leans in a bit with a serious expression as he says:
"But on a more important note… how would one go about attaining more of these… s'mores of yours?"
As far as ambushes go, this one is… not so bad. Tony could get used to ambushes being like this.
…
Ambushes don't usually go like that though, no matter how much he wishes they would, as the next few days prove rather adequately.
Tony remembers coming away with mixed feelings after reading about the Cilian test for the first time, and things apparently haven't changed much on that front since.
It's one of the central pillars of the UGC's political system, and while taking it is voluntary, it's a pre-requisite of holding a representative positions – which apparently means both political and military posts, and Tony will have to send his "sorry-Pepper-I'm-wrong-you're-right-please-don't-quit" gift basket to Ranina for that tip.
The assessment is a rather exhaustive mental evaluation, including the mapping of chemical imbalances in the brain that are associated with certain… qualities. Behavioral patterns. Predilections. Tony knows many would find it invasive in its nature, yet he can't help but admire the system due to its sheer scientific brilliance, and honestly, he's not going to say no to the option of preventing people with megalomaniac tendencies from getting into a position of power. Why entrust people with the means to destroy solar systems if there is a chance that they will, right?
That being said, Tony Stark doesn't lack the self-awareness to recognize that he is, admittedly, a teeny-tiny bit of a megalomaniac in a position of power himself, so… yeah.
Mixed feelings.
The mere existence of a test so advanced they could never hope to replicate it with their current Earthly technology does provide an excellent shelter against Ross The Lesser's continuous harassment, for almost two full days.
The argument of 'but the UGC does it' is exactly the sort of double-edged blade Tony can use against the Secretary with his newfound knowledge, right until Ross realizes he's rapidly losing ground, and ups the peer pressure game by starting a campaign about 'dressing our patriots in safety' and 'pushed into the future by the futurist'.
Tony doesn't even have time to blink before Pepper declares war.
Her guerilla marketing is running with the slogan 'There is only one Iron Man!', and it practically floods New York within a single day. People eat it up like they haven't seen Tony flying around in the same metal suit for years, and Stark Industries' stock skyrockets.
The Avengers brand hits an all-time low.
Ross The Preferable comes down to his workshop the next morning, waving a white hand towel with a sufficiently cowed expression.
"The UN will stop pestering you. Please call of your Pepper."
Tony does, and graciously doesn't mention how the UN hasn't so much as sent him an email about his nanotech. Kenny never sought him out after that first courtesy round, and the PR move made its point where it counts, he suspects. No need for Pepper to keep her teeth bared for Mr. Secretary's sake forever.
The World Security Council is not so easily deterred though, and the next call comes from Maria Hill.
Hill worked for SI briefly after the fall of SHIELD, and she's done a truly impeccable job in her role – or rather, in both of her roles, as she continued to feed information to Fury until Happy caught her taking photos of old documents at one of their production sites.
Tony doesn't even try for amenity.
"Mr. Stark, I'd like to—"
"No."
When Fury gets tired of being put on hold, he delivers a particularly low blow by sending Phil Coulson to the Compound.
Tony meets him on the porch, and is not even surprised when half of the Avengers are… not surprised.
"I mourned you," is all he says to the agent before turning on his heel and all but running back to his workshop, initiating a full lockdown.
Tony cannot get away with his blackout protocol for as long as he would in his tower, not with Rhodey living under the same roof, but he still manages a good day and a half before his friend plants himself in front of his door and refuses to leave until FRIDAY lets him in.
"This stops now, Tony."
The inventor doesn't look up from his blueprints – Rhodey doesn't need to see the shame in his eyes. His t-shirt is wrinkled and dirty with motor oil, he hasn't eaten in two days and hasn't showered in three, and sleep… sleep has been coming a bit too easily, lately. Even with his shot-to-hell circadian rhythm, Tony is not stupid enough to think that's a good thing.
Rhodey sounds… sad, when he sits down on the workbench, pushing an arm against Tony's shoulder.
"You know… I thought they would be good for you. I mean… alien tech, right? You seemed so excited and I…" He lets out a snort. "But then again, I used to think the Avengers would be good for you, once. God, I'm so stupid."
"No you're not," is all Tony manages, because he's too exhausted for any of his long winded, witty remarks, but he also doesn't want Rhodey to blame himself for Tony's cowardice. It's not Rhodey who makes Tony act like an unwanted guest in his own house. It's not the aliens, not SHIELD, and not even his old team.
It's Tony.
"You're going back to the Tower," his Platypus states decisively, but Tony already knows this conversation – knows Rhodey, like the back of his hand – and brings out his last line of defense before the man could get into one of his "I'm going to save Tony" phases and start laying down the law for real.
"I'll bring the kid around."
He chances a look up when his offer is met with silence. Rhodey looks skeptic, which is a step up from murderous-guilty-disappointed, so he pushes on.
"The kid makes everything better, right? It's his superpower. I mean, besides the… you know. The 'Pew Pew, Hola, I'm the Spider-man' thing."
Rhodey's lip twitches. Sucker.
"That's not what he does."
"It's totally what he does."
"To be fair to Boss," FRIDAY interjects, "that wasn't an entirely inaccurate portrayal."
They share a laugh. It rings a bit empty.
"It's fine, Honey Bear," Tony says after a few minutes of easy silence, then catches a glance of Rhodey's expression and hastens to add: "Okay, it's not fine now, but it will be. Soon. I promise."
Rhodey looks at him for a long while, and he sounds both uncertain and apologetic when he speaks next.
"Tony, I… if this doesn't… I'll have to call Pepper."
For some reason, that sentence alone feels more humiliating than Rhodey's and Pepper's joint intervention did because of the drinking.
"It will," Tony promises again, and he'll make sure to keep that promise if it's the last thing he does. Rhodey's been paralyzed only a year ago and he's still struggling with re-learning how to pilot War Machine with his braces – he doesn't need Tony's bullshit added to his pile of worries, not now. Tony is not his problem.
Tony refuses to be his problem.
"Okay," his friend says with obvious reluctance, clearly used to Tony's "I'll take better care of myself, no really, I will" shtick by now. Tony can't blame him – he's rarely meant it before, if ever.
But he does, this time. He went without food for longer than two days before, but never because he was too afraid to enter his own kitchen for fear of having to listen to yet another accusation of how he's failing everyone, how his stubbornness will cost ever so precious lives, how it's always, always his fault the world is not a better place because everyone else can afford to stand aside, but Tony Stark?
Tony Stark should be doing more.
Rhodey is right. This stops now.
…
Tony makes his way to the kitchen – the giant, albeit only kitchen the main building has to offer – after Rhodey leaves, just to make a point.
He doesn't ask FRIDAY to check who's in there first, and feels only a tiny bit startled when Wilson blinks at him from the counter, head buried in what looks like a steaming mug of… hot chocolate? It's the middle of the night, coffee would make little sense. Does he even keep hot chocolate in the Compound?
"Yes you do," comes the amused reply with a chuckle, and the next minute Wilson is shoving a hot red mug into Tony's hands, with a cartoonish version of his helmet and the words 'There is only one Iron Man!' printed bellow with golden letters. He should have married Pepper.
No, really, he should have.
"So," Wilson starts after Tony takes a hesitant sip of his chocolate, which, to his disdain, is unfairly delicious. "About tomorrow."
That brings Tony up short. Tomorrow? What's happening tomorrow? And where's the speech about doing the patriotic thing and—
"Our Avengers meeting is tomorrow," Wilson supplies, "Well, more like later today. And there's no speech."
Oh. Did he say that out loud?
"Yes, and if you didn't notice that, then you really should be getting more sleep, man."
Tony sighs, but doesn't acknowledge that with a reply. If only Wilson knew.
"So what about our meeting?" he asks instead, now curious despite himself. Wilson might not have been his first choice to talk to when he went to the RAFT, but maybe he should have been: the man might have disagreed with Tony on the Accords, but at least he didn't push his head into the sand when faced with the consequences of his own actions, like Barton did.
Of course, he also didn't stay to face the full brunt of those consequences when given the chance, but Tony will take what he can get at this point.
"The others might become a bit… pushy," Wilson says with a slight wince, and shifts on his feet, clearly uncomfortable. "About… you know."
"About 'Stark not sharing his toys with the class'?" Tony does his best impression of Barton, and Wilson attempts a smile that comes across more like a grimace. Good. Let him feel the infantilism his team insists on partaking in.
"They mean well," Wilson says, and Tony nearly snorts hot chocolate through his nose. "No, really, they do, it's just that…" he runs a hand over his face, and Tony can read the exhaustion in that motion. He can sympathize with that, at least.
"Okay, look. That fight… put some things in perspective, right? I mean, how do we hope to fight aliens like those if we can't even get within touching distance without dying? I know you don't make weapons and I respect that Tony, I do. It's just that… we feel like we could do… more? With a protective suit, we could… do more. That's all."
Tony is all but ready to abandon his previous plans and maybe leave a note to Rhodey before he flies back to the Tower for a day or a hundred, because no matter what his father always claimed, Stark men are not actually made of iron, and words do have a grip on them even where Tony knows they shouldn't, but Wilson's next words reach him before he could get his legs to cooperate and turn around.
"Pushing you is not the right way to go about it though, and I'm… sorry for that. In advance."
In advance. For tomorrow. Right. Because Wilson is… not actually pushing right now. Or at least he believes he isn't, and that makes Tony reach out and stop him when the man goes for the door after a muttered goodnight.
"If you had the means to create a bunch of supersoldiers…" he begins slowly, careful not to look Wilson in the eye. "Would you do it?"
The man sounds bewildered.
"Of course not!"
"Really? Because that's what you're asking me to do."
"No it isn't! Nobody is asking for—"
"Even without weapons, a suit of nanites will enhance your strength and durability, right to the point where you could go up against Rogers in hand-to-hand and maybe even win. You could punch clean through walls. Lift a car. Stop a goddamn train."
That, at last, seems to give Wilson pause.
"So see, you are, in fact, asking me to create a bunch of supersoldiers, after a fashion."
He doesn't wait for an answer, and the next minute finds Tony outside, clutching his mug for dear life and looking up at the tower that is not his but he wishes it was, and he's not even surprised to see that several people linger outside despite the hour and the darkness it's consorted with.
There are always people everywhere he goes nowadays.
He nearly makes it to the nearest bench the soldiers installed on the grass – because benches and campfires are the new norm around here apparently, and god, he really needs to introduce these people to the bustle of New York City before they start their own summer camp for kids – when he hears the conversation.
It's not in English, and there are words he doesn't quite catch due to the distance, but the speakers sound definitely distressed, and Tony turns around to see five people hunched over a spot on the ground, talking animatedly among themselves.
"…says it has a central nervous system, but how do we—"
"—not helpful, don't hold it like that, you'll just damage it further, we should—"
"Stop that, we should ask a Terran, not just… oh, !"
And they know his name. Goodie. He knows maybe like… two names out of the two hundred, besides their attachés'. This is gonna go swimmingly.
"Mr. Stark, do you know how to fix your… what was it again?" the soldier slips back into his own language for a moment as he turns towards his peers for help. "Ah, yes… your Limenitis arthemis?"
His… what now?
"Jasir stepped on it by accident and we think it's dying, but your internet doesn't say how to fix it. Do you know how?"
Tony is presented with a weakly fluttering butterfly with large blue wings, cradled gently in the hands of the man with golden horns and muscles that would put Rogers to shame. The inventor is quickly surrounded by five pair of puppy dog eyes that have no business on the faces of full grown men equipped with the world's most terrifying weapon of mass destruction, and has the insane urge to laugh.
"Uh," is the first semi-intelligent thought he manages to voice, quickly followed by "That's not actually mine, you know," which is only marginally better.
"Yes, we know," another soldier speaks up, this one with blue skin and raised white lines marking his face in a geometric pattern. He's like a million feet tall and sounds rather frustrated with Tony, which, okay, not an ideal combination, but his demeanor softens considerably on his next words. "We just want to see if… look, it still lives. If we can keep it that way, then we'd prefer to do that."
Alright then.
Tony doubts any vet would appreciate a late night call because of a stepped-on butterfly no matter how much money he'd throw on them in compensation, so he ends up in Bruce's lab, who gives his best baffled expression when the bug is deposited on his table and is subsequently surrounded by five soldiers all looking at him like they expect Bruce to deliver their baby.
"Um… hello?" the flustered man offers in greeting, looking at Tony for help.
"Squishy sciences, Bruce. Go."
Bruce gives it his best, he really does. He makes an X-ray, then a CT scan, and looks up facts on insect anatomy with a speed that nearly rivals Tony on an engineering bender, but there is not much he can do at the end. The poor thing stops moving before they could get it to the MRI machine.
The soldiers don't cry as they collect the animal from the table with the same care they brought it in with, but Tony is convinced it's a near thing. They thank Bruce and Tony profusely for their efforts, and leave with muttered plans of something RANINA translates as 'death burning ritual', which makes Tony very disinclined to follow them outside.
"So… that happened."
It did. It did, and Tony is glad it did, because as surprisingly depressive as the outcome was, if this world contains five grown men who can show so much concern over the life of a butterfly, then Tony… Tony can scrape up at least little bit over his own.
His remaining Limenitis arthemis need him, after all.
…
"—not an argument Tony, a paperclip is a weapon if you're creative enough—"
"—ridiculous, nobody is asking you to make supersoldiers and you know that—"
"—except that we are not just some random people who wandered in from the streets, we are your team—"
"—guys, maybe we should all take a breather and let Tony—"
"—in fact the UN is not issuing an official request, Ms. Romanoff—"
"—what about Rhodey then? Don't you want him to have the best protection—"
"—we do have psych evals, you're just looking for excuses—"
"—why would he, when he was born with a silver spoon—"
"—the Cilian system allows for certain concessions—"
"—look at the futurist, contradicting his own—"
"—armor is not a weapon—"
"—rather watch us die—"
"—hypocrite much—"
"—futurist—"
"…No."
…
The kid does make everything better.
He shows up in an SI hoodie proudly proclaiming 'There is only one Iron Man!', makes friends with five hundred people in maybe twenty seconds, and earns himself and Tony a guided tour not only of Hotel Alien's ground floor, but also of the hangar Tony's been dying to peek into since it's been built. It turns out to be an all-purpose space used for everything imaginable between training and entertainment, because: "You can't deprive soldiers from social events for an entire year, Mr. Stark. They are still people."
Tony talks to more people in an hour than he's had during the last year – which, sadly, is not even an exaggeration – and he's reluctant to admit that he's sort of… missed this.
He missed talking to people who seem to be genuinely interested in what he has to say. People who don't sneer at him in derision the moment he steps into the room.
People he hasn't disappointed yet.
"Mr. Stark!" The kid is tugging on the sleeve of his suit jacket with a rapid, jerky motion, his voice more alarmed than Tony's ever heard. "Mr. Stark," he lowers his voice into a whisper as the subject of his fascination comes closer, and Tony groans when he realizes what's about to happen. "Mr. Stark, that guy is covered in fur, and I have to—"
"Be cool, kid."
"Okay. Cool. Okay. Got it."
Peter's cool lasts for two seconds exactly, which is two seconds more than what Tony expects.
"Oh my god, hi, I'm Peter and I have to touch you, no, wait, that's not what I— not like that, I just… I mean, it's just that you're covered in fur and it looks so soft and I just, um— I'm still talking, Mr. Stark, why are you still letting me talk, you know I can't just stop like a person—"
Tony lifts his hand from Peter's shoulder lazily, and covers the kid's mouth with his palm. Peter sags against him in relief.
"Cute kid," the deep voice of the pink furred man informs him. "Is he yours?"
Tony clicks his tongue and makes a so-so gesture with his free hand.
"Depends on the day. Today? Not so much."
He relishes in the way Peter's eyes bulge, and he squeezes a bit harder when the kid starts babbling incoherently under his fingers. He's forced to let go when he feels the first hint of drool on his skin though – if he wanted the whole drooling kid experience, he could have found himself a considerably younger one to casually not-adopt.
Peter flails when he rediscovers his ability to speak, going beetroot red in the span of a second.
"I'm not his—" is however as far as he gets in his protest before Tony's raised eyebrow stops him in his tracks: he pauses, reconsiders, and makes a valiant attempt at a save. "Today. I'm… not today."
Valiant attempt, Tony said, not a great one.
The pink guy considers them for a short minute before he sighs and extends an arm to Peter.
"Twenty seconds, no scratching."
The smile the kid graces Tony with shines brighter than his arc reactor ever has, and Tony considers the day a success.
It may not be fine yet, but it's getting there.
…
Ranina is quite beautiful, and Tony wonders why it took him so long to come to that realization.
The woman squints at him with irises larger than that of an Earthling, having just informed him about her interest in the September Foundation, and Tony gets the idle thought that fifteen years, one Pepper Pots, and an unsanitary open-heart surgery in a cave earlier, and he would be all over getting into her… purple Buddhist like robes and whatever she's presumably wearing underneath. Yeah, he'll go with that.
Nowadays, though? All he seems to want now is to stare at people from a safe distance, and hope he'll survive the knife they will inevitably plunge into his back when he's not looking.
Pretty things come at a price, after all, and nothing is prettier than loyalty.
"Is that a military thing?" he cuts her off mid-sentence, gesturing to the shaved side of her head, and Ranina takes the question in stride, like she's taken everything he managed to throw at her so far.
"No. It's a Nilnak thing," she explains patiently as she tucks a stray lock behind her ear, which somehow managed to escape the braids she is wearing today. It takes Tony a second to place the name as Ranina's race, and by the time he does, a mischievous glint has appeared in the woman's eyes. "This hairstyle is actually outlawed in the military."
"You… banned a hairstyle?"
"Yes."
"That sounds… surprisingly stupid of you," he braves, but Ranina looks more amused than offended.
"Yes."
Okay then.
"Also, I hate to break it to you, but…" he trails off, gesturing towards the window of his temporary office, where they can clearly see several soldiers outside: deep in preparation for lunch, and with a distinct lack of hair above their left ear.
"I know," Ranina dismisses his concern with practiced ease, smiling at Tony when she speaks next. "They are all actively breaking the law. Now, about the voluntary work, does your Foundation offer…"
There is no more talk about hairstyles and bans, and Tony stops assuming he can learn everything about alien culture from text, so he makes a plan to introduce some of the soldiers to the wonders of New York hot dog vendors as soon as he can get away from SI.
The pink furred guy definitely deserves a reward for yesterday.
…
The ultimate ambush finds him in the kitchen, at the end.
Well, it doesn't so much find him as he walks into it willingly, having been notified both by Rhodey and FRIDAY beforehand.
The coterie is quite the sight: there are the Avengers sans Bruce, Fury and Coulson, both Rosses, some guy dressed to the nines in formal military uniform, another one he recognizes as the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, and a woman in a lab coat. The Communia apparently hasn't been invited, which is a shame, as some of their soldiers have taken to spending time in the main building's communal areas – Xbox is apparently 'fascinating' – and Tony would have loved to see their reaction.
"No," is the word he chooses to open the conversation with, and his resolve is strengthened further by Rhodey's tight nod and the way Kenny discreetly raises his hands, signaling he is not here on the UN's behalf.
That's fortunate, because that leaves only SHIELD and the military, and Tony is very good at telling no to the military.
Surprisingly enough, he doesn't get the repeat chance to do so.
The woman in the lab coat is apparently with SHIELD, and – completely disregarding his initial reaction – is quick to assure him that she could replace the Cilian test with a "more than adequate equivalent", Tony just has to believe in the power of psychology and SHIELD's latest imaging technology that he gathers is little more than a glorified MRI. Along, of course, with the dozen scientists and agents who would totally handle the results without tampering.
The Air Force is next, upping the ante by straight out thanking him for his contribution by sharing his nanotechnology, like not only Tony has agreed to produce them flying suits, but also offered to pay for it.
Ross takes over after a few minutes, continuing the sales pitch like Tony's agreement is a foregone conclusion, and the inventor is in the process of zooming out when he notices the three people quietly lingering in the doorway.
Ranina and Zefironn are standing behind a soldier dressed in black, and Tony's eye twitches because he may be horrible with names but he's excellent with faces, and he definitely has not seen this guy in the Compound before.
Tall, Light and Wiry appears to be a Nilnak, for one – a race represented only by Ranina among the two hundred and three people Hotel Alien is hosting – and his biology clearly knows jack shit about color matching, because while his eyes and eyebrows are the same inky black as the woman's, his hair falls onto his forehead in curly, shock white locks that could vanish in snow.
Yeah, Tony would remember seeing that.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," Jack Frost steps forward after a minute of listening in, cutting Ross off without a second thought, "but are you currently at war?"
Ross looks mildly annoyed by the newcomers, but his perplexity over the question wins out when his face finally decides on an expression.
"No?" he asks somewhat lamely, like he's wondering why he even bothers acknowledging a lowly soldier when he could be talking terms about his personal legion of flying supersoldiers with the unimpressed billionaire standing before him.
"Do you expect to be?" the guy continues his line of questioning with a deadpan expression.
"Well, no, but—"
"Then why do you wish to equip your soldiers with vessels?" Jack's tone is perfectly polite and more curious than accusatory, and Tony can see the tick in Ross' jaw as he flounders for a reason to eject him from the conversation. He finds none, and Fury decides to take over before their Secretary ends up apoplectic.
"So we could protect our planet against intergalactic threats," the Director says tersely and makes a point of turning back to Tony immediately, but Frost, to the inventor's great amusement, is persistent.
"The Communia will continue to offer protection even after we leave your planet. You're our neighbors now, and I expect Terra will fall within our borders soon enough."
Ross adapts a mock-smile that could scare children into being un-born, and focuses all his impatience on the soldier, barely mindful of the two diplomats' presence.
"Yes, and we are grateful for that offer, of course" he fires off with a tone that makes him sound anything but grateful, "but we prefer to have our… own means to handle our safety, instead of fully relying on someone else. No offense meant, but you know how it is. Better safe than sorry."
Frost doesn't even pause to contemplate the words before he nods.
"That's reasonable," he says and Tony's world crumbles just a little, until the man projects a familiar looking page into the air with a flick of an elegant wrist. "So… how do you plan to manage the distribution of the vessels? China and India have the largest populations if your Wikipedia is not mistaken, so I assume you will start production there first?"
The room falls silent. Tony can feel his heart pounding in his throat.
"…Why on Earth would we hand over weaponized armor to other countries?" Ross asks, completely bewildered. Frost doesn't appear to be affected by the sudden change in mood – he continues to idly flick through several different screens, showing off the neural links over his ear to the audience as he tilts his head to the right. He has two vertical blue lines in the middle of his lower lip that Ranina lacks.
"You said the vessels would be used for 'protecting your planet against intergalactic threats', not for internal fights," he quotes Fury's words verbatim, and Tony notes that his eyes never stop tracking the lines of text as he speaks. "Wouldn't it make sense for each country to get an equal opportunity to join the cause? You could, of course, ration by respective size of land instead of population, in that case you'd have to start with Russia—"
"The United States will be happy to extend their protection to the rest of the world, of course," Fury is quick to cut in, attempting to nip any ideas of sharing with the Russians in the bud, but Frost is not done and Tony's still undecided about whether he likes where this conversation is headed to.
"Well, yes, just like the Communia will be happy to do the same for Terra…" the soldier dismisses the holograms, his gaze returning to Fury, and proceeds with exactly zero intonation when he says: "But you know how it is. Better safe than sorry, right? I'm sure the rest of the Terran countries will be of a similar mindset."
The silence that follows is so deafening that Tony can't help it – he bursts into a laugh.
"I—" Ross immediately jumps in to protect his ground, but his openly malicious expression prompts Frost into holding up a hand, impatience bleeding into his tone now.
"Please don't, my daily quota of listening to bullshit has already been filled by another domain, but you're welcome to resume this conversation if you luck out and run into me again during your natural lifespan. Goodbye now." With that laughably swift dismissal the man turns to Tony, fixing his dark gaze on the inventor's eyes, and breathing becomes just a tiny bit more difficult all of a sudden. "Mr. Stark, do you have a minute?"
"I'm sorry, but who are you again?"
Ross is clearly not going to be discarded so easily, and Tony can see the rest of the people shifting uneasily as they watch the proceedings.
Instead of providing an answer, Frost turns to Ranina – who has yet to make any attempts at calling her soldier off, Tony notes somewhat distantly – and motions towards Ross.
"Who is that?" his tone implies he has no real interest in the answer, but Ross, naturally, puffs out his chest and speaks up with all the offense he can physically compress into his voice – which is quite a lot, as most of the onlookers observe in silent mortification.
"I am Thaddeus Ross, Secretary of State of the United States of America."
Frost looks deeply unimpressed, reminding Tony of Lady Execution.
"Oh, we're doing titles." He turns to Ranina again, lowering his voice into a mock-whisper: "He's doing titles."
Ranina pinches the bridge of her nose like she's staving off an imminent nosebleed, and Tony watches in quiet awe as Frost tears Earth's mightiest into metaphorical shreds with a few simple words and an exaggerated wave.
"Hello, I'm Erin Cilian, leader of…" he trails off, looks around in contemplation, then makes a careless motion that encompasses pretty much "…everything. Left my white jacket at home I'm afraid, but I'll be sure to wear it to our next dick measuring contest."
With that done, the man turns back to Tony, content to pretend the rest of the room has never even been present to begin with, and Tony is only a little terrified when it actually works.
"Mr. Stark, are you busy?"
Tony gives it a few seconds, then some more, but Frost seems to have magically regained his patience, and nobody dares to cut in. He allows himself a hesitant grin as he says:
"Not at all."
Frost returns the expression with a tiny smirk of his own, and things may still not be fine just yet, but Tony feels like they are definitely getting there.