Of Artificial Suns And Alternate Courses

by dorianne77

The freshly pardoned Rogues have complaints, Tony is dead on his feet, and Steve has issues with the handsome alien lord who keeps offering Stark the literal universe. Post Civil War, not Team Cap friendly.

6. Chapter 6

It's a beautiful day to be sitting outside.

The porch is shielded from the glare of the sun, but Tony can still feel the warmth and that ozone like smell it always brings – something he hasn't learned to truly appreciate until he moved into the middle of a forest. There are birds chirping away in the background, a couple of squirrels are chasing each other around a tree trunk, Pepper is happy with him after his brief attendance of the board meeting, and to top it all off, Tony finally, finally has his hands on the blueprints of honest to god alien technology.

It is, therefore, quite fitting that this beautiful day is also the one where SHIELD decides to screw them collectively over by showing up on Tony's doorstep and going:

"Terra fits your written criteria."

The silence conjured by Coulson's words doesn't last more than a few heartbeats. Tony's sure that at least a handful of soldiers are well within hearing range, but none of them stop to stare with a gaping mouth like the inventor is tempted to do in his quiet seething.

"Well," Erin says as he leans back into the swing bench, absentmindedly picking at the sleeve of his white shirt. "The Council won't laugh in your face. They are too polite for that."

Tony, apparently, isn't.

"We would like to—"

"To get your hands on our technology, yes," the alien cuts the Agent off. "I heard you."

Coulson's blank expression doesn't falter, and the lack of reaction from Fury tells Tony that SHIELD must have come here with a Plan. Wonderful.

"That's not at all what we are proposing here," agent Agent goes on with a flat tone, and Tony tries to act casual as he moves a hand over the alien phone when it becomes the target of Fury's wandering gaze.

"Isn't it? So your organization wouldn't volunteer to help us distribute our—"

"You'd be welcome to work directly with the affected areas, of course," Coulson hurries to reassure the white haired man. "SHIELD doesn't have to be involved at all, if you don't wish so."

That is… a concession Tony admittedly did not anticipate, but Frosty seems to be one step ahead of the game, for he says:

"You mean the areas where pieces of technology attempting to remedy the same situation go missing with increasing frequency?"

Erin turns to Tony for a brief moment, giving him a raised eyebrow and a deadpan voice.

"How convenient."

Fury's jaw twitches, and the inventor has to bite the inside of his cheek to suppress the shit-eating grin that threatens to overtake his features.

"Save your breath, please," Frost turns back to Coulson as the latter gears up to a no doubt well-thought-out explanation, and cuts the matter short before the man can even start. "I've done some research after the gala. Terra is not overpopulated: it has resource distribution issues stemming from the way you structure your society. The famine affected areas have never been part of your supply chain in the first place, so that clause does not apply to you."

Coulson still looks way too calm about the rejection, and Tony's breath hitches when the man's next question finally gives away why.

"Does the cause really matter when people are starving?"

Ranina's words from their first meeting flash into Tony's mind: words about planets holding their own people hostage to get their way, and okay, he always knew they were going to do something wrong eventually, something spectacularly shitty even, but he never thought they would actually go this far, that Earth would become one of those planets that—

"Good question. Does it matter to you?"

Erin's words put an abrupt end to two things at once: Tony's internal downward spiral, and Coulson's deceptive confidence in his extortion tactic.

"No," comes the agent's reply with decidedly less aplomb than before, making him sound like he's trying to feel out the right answer for the question.

He doesn't succeed.

"And yet," Frosty crosses his arms as he peers up at Coulson, "here you are, content living in a presumably comfortable home, spending your money on food you sometimes don't even eat, instead of doing everything in your power to stop the death of those… what do you call people whose lives are 'equal' but somehow still less important than yours again? Ah yes, the less fortunate."

Tony knows the words are not intended to make him feel guilty over his own lifestyle, but damn, does the guy know how to hit where it hurts. The billionaire makes a mental note to shovel more of his personal funds back into the September Foundation as soon as he deems the Legionnaire project sufficiently prepared for a space Titan. Maybe he will get more involved with their charity events until then – their annual ball is coming up soon, perhaps he can bribe Bibin with some s'mores into attending.

"You think me unsympathetic, but I am not."

Erin doesn't sound unsympathetic to Tony's ears, all of a sudden. He sounds… resigned. Sad, even. For someone with such an aloof mannerism, the alien's voice does a remarkable job of carrying emotion.

"Societal development is not something we can accelerate for you, not at your current level, at least. Not only would we do more harm than good, you would also gradually revert to your previous state after we leave. There's a reason we don't interfere with domains below level eight, and believe me, that reason is not cruelty."

"The Cilian law says—" starts Fury, but his attempt at grasping at straws is only successful in swiftly pushing Erin back into impatience.

"Our laws don't cater to loopholes," Frosty proclaims with only minimal irritation, and Tony watches the man stretch his limbs as he pushes himself up from the bench with a deep sigh. "That said, I won't stop you from getting your hearing."

Tony can imagine the surprise on Fury's face, but he doesn't check because his eyes are busy tracking Erin's left hand, which is currently making its way into the front pocket of the man's pants.

Along with Tony's phone.

"You won't?"

Yep, the director is definitely surprised.

"No," Tony hears the alien say, and looks up to find the dark pair of eyes already seeking his gaze, white curls falling over a raised eyebrow. There's a few seconds of a pause where the two of them are simply looking at each other, the StarkPhone disappearing from sight as Erin apparently takes the inventor's silence as permission, and turns back to the agents.

"Not only am I profoundly uninterested in whatever that is," Erin points to the folder in Coulson's hands, "but you, as it happens, are also not my job. Ranina!"

The General doesn't spare them another glance as he makes his way across the yard, and Tony doesn't wait until Ranina's hurried steps carry her to the porch.

"Nice agenting, gentlemen," he says to Coulson and Fury, suppressing the childish urge to offer a high five in response to the latter's scathing look. "Have fun with the rest of your… whatever horrible idea you're no doubt planning to unleash on us now. Just remember, no nudity on the porch! Kay, bye!"

Tony practically bolts from the swing bench before Coulson's face can do that rare, frightening thing where it looks like it's about to develop an emotion, and he clutches the not-quite-StarkPhone in his hands like it's his personal Christmas come early present, delivered straight from space.

A beautiful day to be sitting outside indeed, he thinks with the beginnings of a smile.

…

He nearly walks into Vision upon entering his workshop.

The android looks at Tony like he's the one who's been AWOL for the last half a year or so, and the ensuing conversation is almost as surreal as Vision's spectacularly ugly Christmas jumper that Tony is going to salt and burn the moment he gets his hands on it without supervision.

"Thank you for building braces for Colonel Rhodes."

Tony doesn't have the emotional maturity to give anything resembling a graceful reply to that greeting, but the android thankfully doesn't wait for a response before he asks:

"Are you well, Tony?"

Tony isn't sure how to answer that question either, so he defaults back to his standard "I'm fine", and proceeds to interrogate Vision about his time in Tibet. After a few minutes of small talk and Tony getting his bearings over the fact that the android is back in the Compound, Vision decides to throw him another curve ball.

"Can I stay here?"

The inventor blinks a few times before he finds his words.

"Of course. The Compound belongs to the Avengers. You're an Avenger, last time I checked—I mean, if you still want to be one, you can stay even if you don't, which would be perfectly fine, by the way, and there is always the Tower—"

"I meant here, in this wing. Nobody else seems to be using it besides you. Would you prefer to keep it that way?"

Tony feels like there are dozens of implications behind that request even if he can't quite unravel them without another cup of coffee or two, but he watched the footage of Wanda forcing Vision's body through several floors and leaving him there without as much as a 'Hey, are you alive down there?', so he's not going to look his gift horses in the mouth.

"No. No, that's fine. Pick a room buddy, FRI will help you settle in, won't you baby girl?"

"Of course, Boss."

"I can get the Spiderling if you need help to move your stuff – he's a bit of a showoff when it comes to lifting boxes, it's—"

"I'll manage. Thank you, Tony," Vision interrupts with a shake of his head, and of course he will manage – he has a synthetic body with super strength.

"I'm not sorry for leaving," the android pauses to offer on his way out, the artificial lines of his brows furrowing as he looks back at the inventor with something akin to guilt etched into his features.

"But I'm sorry for not being here for you."

Tony lowers his head into his hands on an exhale after Vision disappears into the ceiling. He'd lie if he said he doesn't recognize the relief that comes with a weight being lifted from his shoulders, but still.

People should know better than letting him anywhere near emotionally charged conversations with impressionable youth.

…

TheNotAmusedOne: Anyone willing to count the drawings about Cap? Won't take long. #DecorateTheTowerDay #NowWithAliens

PerilDiaman: Stark probably threw the rest of them out. It's called PR, people.

robinNme: yeah, thats why he allowed those *21 drawings* about captain america to slip through. dude,wake up.

ArielSeadown: HOLY SHIT THATS MY DRAWING IRON MAN IS POINTING AT?fdsgjhuiyx,klj

Whysochic7: this event is supposed to be for kids. XD

ArielSeadown: Yeah, but I couldn't resist. I mean just look at that smile! If stark doesn't win sexiest man alive this year, imma sue.

ershtinguyen: So, we just not gonna talk about the guy with BLUE FUCKING SKIN then. Cool.

Whysochic7: ArielSeadown yeah, im pretty sure erin alredy won that this year lol. #erinsarmy

TurkishDelight78: What happened to the Avengers getting nanosuits? #JustSayNo?

KimberleyMckee: This thread is about Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner doing something nice for the kids. Can we just focus on that ppl?

PerilDiaman: This thread is about Tony Stark doing something nice for himself, namely PR, and putting Captain America in a bad light.

KimberleyMckee: Say what you will, but my 14yo is studying to be an astronaut because Tony Stark told him he could do it. You know what happened at the meet and greet with Steve Rogers? Nothing, because that's never been a thing.

DarrenBlakeP: TurkishDelight78: The better question is "what happened to the avengers" and the correct answer is "don't know, don't care, finding my kid's drawing in there is going to take FOREVER!" #sendhelp

TurkishDelight78: Don't you ever wonder what happened in Siberia?

robinNme: they redtaped that shit the moment it happened. let it go man.

ershtinguyen: Seriously tho, blue alien? Anyone?

Whysochic7: dude, just go to central park if you wanna see aliens, they cosplay there sometimes. i saw him dressed as a smurf once which was funny cause hes like 8 feet tall lol

ershtinguyen: They WHAT?!

…

Their team meeting the next day goes unexpectedly smoothly, as far as Tony is concerned.

Not to say there is no drama involved – it just doesn't seem to be involving Tony on this particular occasion.

Wanda is too busy sending longing glances at Vision to pay any attention to the inventor, and while Vision is not ignoring the woman, he is all professionalism and stoically refuses to reciprocate the attention. The android mentioned something about 'confronting painful truths instead of living in comfortable lies' yesterday, and Tony would be hard pressed to say that he'd mind if Vision's relationship with Wanda ended up being a casualty to that newfound piece of wisdom.

The Android's presence is not the only source of tension at the table either.

Barton and Wilson are very pointedly not looking at each other. Tony's focus is mostly taken up by his tablet – RANINA has seen an unexpected amount of upgrades during the last twenty-four hours – so he doesn't even notice it at first, but his brain picks up Romanoff's gaze flitting between the two men, and he can't not see it after that point.

"…and with Colonel Rhodes being back on active duty, he will serve as your team leader on the field effective immediately…"

There are no protests against Kenny's words. In fact, there are no protests against anything.

No talks about nano-suits, no comments on the Disastrous Dinner, no questions about the UGC Council hearing that Fury somehow talked Ranina into and organized for Monday.

Rogers doesn't even look Tony's way once the meeting is concluded.

"Pardon my language, but what the fuck?" Rhodey asks once he, Ross, and Tony are left alone in the conference room – a surprisingly quick ordeal, with Sam and Barton storming off the moment Kenny calls it a day, and the rest of the team following in a haste. Tony can hear Romanoff talking at the archer in placating tones, while Rogers and Lang trail after Sam in the opposite direction. Wanda is the only one who detaches herself from the group, opting to shadow Vision instead.

Tony feels like Bruce is really missing out on this one – he will have to show the footage to the scientist later.

"Aptly put," Kenny says with a palm pressed into his temple, "and while I have no idea, I'm sure it's going to become my problem sooner rather than later."

Well, the man is likely not wrong there.

"As interesting as this episode of 'Keeping Up With The Avengers' is," Tony addresses the liaison, deciding to steer the conversation to more important matters. "Why on earth did the UN approve Fury's bullshit about the famine thing?"

The exhausted sigh he receives in reply says more than a thousand words could, but Kenny gives him an explanation nonetheless.

"SHIELD sent Coulson and Romanoff to talk to them. They can be very… persuasive."

And oh, doesn't Tony know that.

"The UN wants to help. They know SHIELD is likely to have an ulterior motive, but as long as it feeds people…" Ross shrugs before collapsing back into his chair.

"Don't tell me they actually believe the UGC will agree," Rhodey adds in a skeptical tone.

"Romanoff convinced them the worst that can happen is a refusal. No harm, no foul."

Tony and Rhodey snort in unison.

"Yeah," his Honey Bear says, "because that's totally how politics work in real life."

A high pitched beeping sound interrupts the discussion before Tony can add his share, and he looks at his companions for a few seconds before Kenny gives him a raised eyebrow.

"I think that's you, Tony."

Is it? He doesn't recognize the sound. It's certainly not his ringtone—

Oh. The alien phone.

Tony scrambles to find the device in his suit jacket, noise halting and display lighting up with the words 'How about another exchange?' as he touches it. The sender of the message is apparently not the patient type though, because an entirely new screen is pulled up before Tony can figure out how to reply, and the inventor nearly drops the phone when he realizes what he's looking at.

"Okay, good talk everyone, need to go, see you later."

Tony distantly hears Rhodey's laughter as he lifts himself up from his seat and walks towards the door more by muscle memory than sight, catching the words "that's his in-the-zone voice" before leaving the room completely. God, he loves his Rhodey so much.

"FRI, status on our wayward StarkPhone, please," he instructs the AI the moment he steps into his workshop, gaze never wavering from the blueprints in front of him.

"No new files accessed since the last report, Boss."

Huh. Okay.

According to his baby girl, Erin has spent several hours browsing RANINA's designs since he appropriated Tony's phone, but never made an attempt at accessing anything outside that particular folder. Not that he would have any luck – FRIDAY turned the device into a glorified pen drive the moment it left Tony's hands, wiping all history and rerouting all communications to a new phone now securely ignored in one of his many drawers.

Frosty's lack of snooping is both a relief and a curse, because while the implant's schematics have kept Tony sufficiently busy for the last day, he has to admit he's been having an extremely hard time giving the guy the same courtesy.

No need to worry about that now though, not with the UGC vessel's blueprints lighting up Tony's world in blue and gray and black lines, and holy mother of Tesla it's the most beautiful thing he's seen since the first time Pepper brushed her teeth in nothing but one of his dress shirts in the morning.

The charts are not complete. The spaces where the energy sources are supposed to be are empty, and the 'anti-gravity plates' have been replaced with blank discs that contain absolutely no information, but Tony couldn't care less: it's tech, and it's alien, and he's going to create a Mark LI – no, scratch that, a Mark LX, or a Mark C even – with those same exact fittings if it's the last thing he does.

Received:
Well?

Tony chuckles at the new message. Not the patient type, indeed.

"FRI, show him the blueprints of the Mark—" Tony pauses, taking a better look at the images floating under his fingers. It's a black armor, he realizes with a frown now that his excitement allows him to breathe properly again. The entry level of the Communia vessels.

Well, that just won't do now, will it?

"Show him the Mark XLVII. Strip the weapons and the reactor."

It takes exactly forty seconds for the next message to show up in the AlienPhone's inbox.

Received:
This is not your newest vessel, is it?

Tony grins as he navigates the screen to type out a reply.

Sent:
We have a saying around here, you know. "I'll show you mine…"

Erin sends him the white armor with less than a minute of delay. Tony unlocks the Mark L, and he doesn't leave his workshop for twenty-nine hours.

It's the most gratifying twenty-nine hours he's had since forever, and he's just contemplating the merits of skipping sleep for one more day when FRIDAY interrupts his plans by announcing:

"Boss, Harley is at the gate. I assume I should let him in?"

"What? Now? He said next week, what happened to next week?"

"It is next week."

"But it's only Tuesday! He said Sunday, I know he did, I made you put it in my calendar and everything!"

"Yes, you did, although I feel like I should point out that it's currently Friday."

"…He's still early."

"That he is."

"Stop judging me."

"I'd never dare, Boss."

Tony greets the kid in the driveway.

"A taxi? Seriously?" he asks as the boy gets out of the back seat, matching Harley's grin despite the exhaustion that is hitting him all of a sudden.

"Hey, if you wanted to keep this place under wraps, then you shouldn't have built a skyscraper in the middle of it. I could see that thing from the plane, Tony."

Harley is not a tactile kid. He allows Tony two hugs whenever he comes to New York: one in greeting and one in goodbye, and even then he maintains the pretense of only tolerating the gesture for Tony's sake.

There's no trace of that pretense in his movements as he clutches at the inventor's back now, pushing his face into Tony's shoulder with a small sound of relief that breaks the man's heart just a little. God, he's nearly as tall as Tony now.

"You're early."

"You're old," Harley mumbles into his shirt, and Tony lets out a slightly watery chuckle.

Six hours of nonstop talking and two rounds of takeaway later, the two of them are slumping against each other on the ratty couch Tony keeps in the corner of his workshop, watching E.T. of all things because "Aliens, Tony! If one a.m. is too late for you to let me talk to the real ones, then I'm entitled to movies on aliens!"

They fall asleep before Tony can think about his rule of not letting the kid stay at the Compound, but he can't quite bring himself to regret his oversight when he wakes up to Harley drooling onto his collarbone as the brat uses the inventor like his personal, living and breathing body pillow.

"FRI, take a picture. Set it as a background for his everything."

Tolerates his hugs. Of course he does. Tony scoffs at the thought before he closes his eyes, going back to sleep.

…

He wakes up to a high pitched beep that is starting to sound strangely familiar.

Received:
How attached are you to Terra?

The kid is nowhere to be seen, and Tony motions for FRIDAY to pull up his scratch board as he sits up with a yawn, rubbing the blurriness out of his eyes.

09:21 a.m., Saturday
29 days since 'Boss fights an alien'
2 days since 'dunce cap for DUM-E'
5 days since 'fire in workshop'
3 days since 'Boss Lady threatens Boss with pointy things'
11 days until 'Motormouth Birthday'
4 days since 'the kid pines after MJ'

Legionaries finished: 86
Legionaries in production: 14

New message from 'Pep': The UN is taking over the money exchange fund for the aliens. We're pretending I gave them a choice. Please be nice and play along.

Note from Harley: Went to conquer Grilia. Be back by dinner.
Note from Harley: You snore.
Note from Harley: DUM-E is putting WD-40 on the edges of the tables. I didn't ask.
Note from Harley: Who the hell is MJ?
Note from Harley: Also, I'm having lunch with Pepper, but don't worry, you still have full custody.

New message from 'Platypus': I don't care what you're doing in there Tony, if you miss date night, I'm divorcing you.

Tony smiles at the display. He could be content like this. This screen is the closest he's ever come to having a family in his adult life: two brilliant kids he would die for, FRIDAY, the bots, Rhodey, and Pepper – even if Pepper and him are still in the delicate process of finding their way back to their old friendship.

And if there are things he can't talk to them about, that's fine. If his friends never quite got his need for Iron Man, if the boys are too young to be burdened with the bullshit that tends to be Tony's life, and if he's never quite sure how much FRIDAY would agree with his decisions without Tony's constant influence…

That's all fine. One doesn't need to be understood to be cared for.

Tony re-reads the message on the AlienPhone, his eyebrows rising now that he actually processes the words.

Sent:
Is that a job offer or a threat?

Received:
The former.

Sent:
Sounds like one hell of a commute.

Received:
I'm choosing to take that as a 'maybe'.

The inventor snorts into his coffee. He knows for a fact that the Mark L must have showed nothing revolutionary to the alien: even if Tony didn't withhold the arc reactor and the weapons, he doubts he could show something new to the guy who's likely been playing around with nanotech for longer than Tony's been alive. He did not fail to notice that the first Cilian Law dates back to more than two hundred years ago by 'Terran count', after all.

Plus, one does not simply offer Tony Stark a job – it's Tony Stark who does the offering, thank you very much. If he thought even for a second the alien was serious, Tony would have no choice but to take offense.

Sent:
Take it as an "I'm open to bribery".

Received:
Noted.

Tony does a quick round outside to make sure Harley hasn't killed any of his ex-teammates, but the kid seems to have been adopted by Lady Execution of all people, so he figures he has nothing to worry about. The kid knows how to work a crowd without putting his foot in his mouth, and the Rogues are sufficiently terrified from Khali to leave well enough alone. Excellent.

Tony retreats to his workshop and spends the entire day working on the designs of a new armor – one he names 'Bleeding Edge', because there are simply no numbers that would make it fit into the Mark series. Erin's vessel has completely overthrown Tony's perspective on the usage of nanotechnology, and he's planning to adapt no less than thirteen aspects of the alien's suit, three of which he believes he can actually improve, at that.

Sure, he will need to rely even more on his mental faculties than on the pre-programmed formations the Mark L and the black UGC vessels mostly operate with, but if Frosty can do it, then so can Tony.

If the white armor is a thing of beauty, then Tony intends the Bleeding Edge to be a goddamned miracle.

"Oh god, you need a shower," Rhodey says as he leans over Tony's shoulder, just as the inventor is sketching out a new life support system that will supply him with breathable air for an entire week as opposed to Erin's measly three days. Take that, aliens!

"Yeah," Tony agrees with a smile he imagines must look dopey with the amount of sleep he's been skipping in the last few days again, "but look what I've done."

Rhodey smiles back indulgently, but drags Tony away to the inventor's quarters nonetheless, and bullies him into the bathroom for a quick shower before Tony is allowed to explain his upgrades.

Half an hour later Tony is practically molded into the couch, pleasantly loose limbed and halfway into his takeaway when he realizes he's eating dinner, and it's already dark outside and he hasn't heard a peep from the kid since morning.

"Shit!" he sits up with a start, "Harley is—"

"Busy lulling the Communia into a false sense of security," Rhodey is quick to assure him, guiding Tony back into his previous slump with a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Khali invited him for dinner. He's fine."

"That woman is seriously scary."

"Yeah. Kid has taste. Now eat."

Tony does, but only because Rhodey looks appropriately awed by his new blueprints, and agrees to leave Tony to his own devices as long as he promises to go to sleep after collecting Harley.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Harley is running up to him as he's loading the kid's luggage into the trunk of Happy's car, and Tony might feel like he's walking on clouds after his latest engineering binge, but he's also way too exhausted to deal with teenage stubbornness.

"I told you, you're staying at the Tower," he says, covering a yawn with his shoulder.

"And I told you—"

"Harley, just… just pretend to be the obedient kid you've never been, and don't fight me on this one. I can't let you stay here and I'm way too tired to—"

"Mr. Stark?" Jasir calls out as he runs up to the driveway, and Tony sighs in irritation because Harley is looking at him like he's preparing for a war, and Tony is alarmingly close to laying down on the concrete and assuming fetal position for the next twelve hours.

He's immensely grateful he lets none of that show on his face when he turns to the blue skinned alien though, because the man says:

"We were thinking… we have several empty floors in our building. Your sons would be welcome to stay with us until your Compound becomes… habitable again."

Tony doesn't have the energy to analyze where that offer is coming from exactly or why it would be wise to thank and politely refuse the man, but Harley suddenly looks like Christmas came early, and Hotel Alien surely has some sort of protection against mind-altering powers, so he finds himself saying:

"That's…" he runs a hand over his face. "Alright. I suppose he could—"

"Excellent!" Jasir exclaims with a beam, pushing Tony away from the car so he can get at the baggage inside. "Come on Harley, let's find you a room!"

Tony barely has time to blink before the man is happily bouncing towards the tower with suitcases stacked high on one broad shoulder, and while he knows Harley can be tactful where it counts, he still turns to the teenager to say:

"Meals in the Compound."

"I'm not an idiot," Harley frowns at him like Tony has offended his mother, and yeah, okay, he supposes the kid was trained by Pepper.

The boy offers a hasty "See you tomorrow, old man!" and hurries to catch up with Jasir, and Tony is just about to answer with an equally infuriating jab at the kid's own age when Harley freezes in his tracks, turns back slowly, and addresses the inventor with a deceptively blank expression.

"Did he just say sons?"

…

Harley skips breakfast the next day, as an act of protest to Tony 'giving in to the doe eyes of every rando Stark wannabe he comes across', and Tony is just beginning to feel the slightest hint of trepidation when the boy finally drags himself into the workshop in all his sulking glory around noon.

"Lunch," he deposits a plate of burnt omelets at Tony's elbow, proceeding to hurl himself into a chair at the opposite side of the table.

"Are you sure?" Tony eyes the plate with a dubious expression, but he picks up the fork at the growl emanating from the blond.

"Is this my punishment for acquiring a new teenager?" he asks while chewing his way through a charred bite of Vengeance à la Keener. "Death by salmonella?"

"Be honest with me Tony."

Oh damn.

Tony pushes the cardboard-masquerading-as-a-meal away with a sigh of relief, but his respite is short-lived because the kid is watching him with those piercing green eyes that seem way too old for a sixteen-year-old, and Tony is suddenly very, very unsure of how much he's going to regret inviting Peter over for today.

"Is he…" Harley trails off, breaking eye contact and scrunching his nose up on what could be a sniffle, and Tony has three horrible seconds to panic before the little shit has the nerve to ask:

"Is he prettier than me?"

The grin barely crosses Tony's face before he schools his features into a semblance of seriousness, doing his best at giving a grave nod.

"Younger too."

"Damn."

They last for a few more seconds before laughter takes over, and Tony is just about to take the kid's acceptance at face value when Harley's next words hit him straight in the chest.

"So, my dad came back."

Shit. Looks like Peter is not the issue, after all.

"I guess whatever he won with those scratchers must be gone, because he spent the last few days trying to convince Mom to let him move back in with us."

Tony bites back a curse, his mind already reeling with possibilities: property deeds, divorces that should have happened in absentia a decade ago, Simmons from legal who decimated the ex of Happy's sister in court when the guy went after her catering business.

"Do you want me to—"

"No," Harley cuts him off before he can finish the offer, derailing Tony's thoughts of Martin Keener and the pains the man will suffer at the hands of SI Legal, if Tony has anything to say about it. The inventor gives the boy a questioning look, not understanding why Harley wouldn't want his help – or why his mother hasn't contacted Tony for help already, for that matter.

"Mom sent Suzie to Grams before shipping me off to here." Well, that explains why the kid was early. "We're not allowed to go home for at least two weeks."

Ah.

"She's gonna bury him in your backyard, won't she."

"Yep," Harley agrees, pulling a random box of spare parts closer to give the appearance of tinkering. Tony recognizes the 'Tone of Nonchalance' when he hears it, though, so he takes a deep breath and plows on.

"You don't sound particularly torn up about that."

The kid gives a very inelegant snort.

"I'm sorry, do I strike you as the forgive and forget type?"

"You always forgive me when I take the last slice of pizza," Tony tries for a lighter tone, but Harley's answer is laced with a severity he's not used to hearing from the teenager.

"Yeah, well, you never abandoned me."

Something sharp and heavy lodges itself in Tony's throat, and the billionaire has to swallow twice before he manages to push the next words out.

"No. I guess I haven't."

Harley looks up at him from under shaggy blond locks and points at him with a screwdriver, green eyes narrowing in threat.

"And you never will."

Okay, so maybe some of it is about Peter, after all. Just a tiny bit.

"I don't remember you being this needy when you were twelve," Tony agrees to the demand in Harley-speak, and the kid shrugs in acceptance.

"I guilt tripped you into Disneyland when I was twelve."

"…Fair point. Your abandonment issues could use a therapist, though."

"Yours managed fifty years without one just fine."

"Watch your mouth kid, I'm forty-six!"

"Seven."

"And not above disowning you."

"Please. I just made you eat literal charcoal." Harley holds up a hand, extending his pinky as he lowers his voice into a whisper. "This is the finger I have you wrapped around, Stark."

"I knew you burned that on purpose, you vile little—"

"Mr. Stark!" Peter's voice interrupts Tony's loving and not at all murderous ribbing, and the man watches as Peter bounces into the workshop, half-buried under a bunch of shoeboxes Tony isn't sure he wants to see the contents of. No matter how many covert ways he finds to help the Parkers financially, the kid just won't stop dumpster diving for computer parts.

He just hopes there will be no mice involved this time. DUM-E still hides behind the hydraulic press whenever Tony's chair gives a squeak.

"I'm so sorry for being late, I just run into Mr. Erin and I promised to show him some of the older photos I've— oh, you're not alone, hi Peter, I mean… no wait, I mean hi, I'm Peter, I just wasn't prepared for another person in Mr. Stark's workshop— not that you can't be here or something, I just…" Peter trails off, gulping at the raised eyebrow he gets from the other boy. "You know what, I think I'll just come back later, Mr. Erin said—"

"Erin, as in the General of the aliens?" Harley 'I can introduce myself, Tony' Keener cuts Peter's rambling right off, and the younger boy latches onto the topic eagerly, balancing the boxes on a hip.

"Yeah, you met him? No? He's this tall guy with fluffy white hair that kinda looks like cotton candy, except for the… candy."

"So…" Harley narrows his eyes at the other kid, "like cotton?"

"Yes!" Peter lights up, looking thoughtful for a second before he adds: "But with candy!"

There's a beat of awkward silence as Peter fidgets under Harley's scrutiny, the blonde teenager leaning back in his seat as he voices his assessment.

"You're a weird kid."

Peter deflates for a heartbeat, adapting a resigned expression, but nods an enthusiastic assent after a few moments of contemplation.

"I know, right?"

Tony has a hard time containing his amusement, but he still gives a quick ruffle to that bird nest Peter calls hair as he goes to help the boy, because he'll die before he lets Peter think that being weird is a bad thing.

Harley watches them deposit the boxes on the table for a few moments, then throws his head back and heaves a sigh so great Tony wonders if the kid is hiding a third lung somewhere.

"Oh my god, fine, you can keep him," Harley tells the inventor with a dramatic eye roll, then performs his own form of adoption by walking up to Peter, grabbing him by the arm, and proceeding to drag the thoroughly peeved younger boy towards the door.

"Come on foster Stark, show me this guy with the fluffy hair. And stop calling Tony 'Mr. Stark' for fuck's sake, he's not that cool."

Tony snorts before poking at a shoebox with a wrench, listening for telltale noises.

Harley Keener can introduce himself alright.

…

Tony waits until five p.m. to the minute before making himself a cup of coffee, walking out to the porch, sitting on his swing bench and trying not to look like a parent who's panicking because they can't instantly spot their children on the playground.

It's Vision who finally takes pity on him after a few minutes of silent agony, the android hovering over Tony as he informs the man of the teenagers' whereabouts.

"They are in the workshop with Mr. Cilian."

"Ah. Thanks, Vis. Also, I didn't ask."

"Of course."

The android walks back to his companion with a badly suppressed smile – a woman in black uniform and a reddish skin tone similar to Vision's – and immediately falls back into their previous discussion.

Tony doesn't have the time to think about the distinct lack of Wanda in sight – or the absence of the rest of the Avengers, for that matter – before he sees the door of said workshop open across the yard, revealing a dejected looking Peter with hands stuffed into the pockets of his hoodie.

The kid brightens up a bit when he spots the inventor, his expression morphing into something like embarrassment by the time he joins Tony on the bench.

"Harley banned me from Mr. Erin's workshop," he says with a huff, doing an admirable job of fusing himself to Tony's side.

"Banned, huh?" Less subtle that what Tony would have expected from the older boy, but not something he can't work with. "What did you do?"

"Nothing!" Peter says with a flush creeping up on his cheeks, but any further protest dies on his lips when Tony points a finger at the front of his red and yellow hoodie.

"So those wires sticking out from your pocket are just for decoration?"

Peter takes a deep breath, looks around in a not at all suspicious manner, and pulls a hand out of his hoodie.

"I stick to things when I get too excited, which makes me nervous, and…"

His palm and fingers are covered in pieces of wire, hooks, and various small tools Tony can't even name, and the inventor feels a grin tug at his lips as he puts his mug on the ground, pulling Peter's hand between his own.

"And you can't stop touching things when you're nervous," Tony finishes for the kid, and Peter agrees with a slight grimace.

"Yeah."

Tony is almost done freeing the boy from the results of his involuntary shoplifting when the implications of what just happened finally sink in.

"Wait, does that mean—"

"Harley figured me out within like… ten minutes, top," Peter admits with a small grunt, offering his other hand to be cured from its semi-magnetic condition as well. "He promised not to tell."

The inventor huffs a laugh. Yes, Harley knew about Spider-Man's involvement in Leipzig and is generally not a moron, and Peter is hopeless when it comes to keeping secrets, but still. Ten minutes?

"I told Mr. Erin I accidentally poured glue over my hands. I… don't think he believed me."

"No kidding."

Tony pockets the stuff he collects from Peter before going back to his coffee, and they sit quietly for a while before Peter places the question Tony's been preparing for all day.

"Is he really your son?"

The kid's voice is timid, and Tony's arm curls over Peter's shoulders without the inventor's permission in response.

"Not any more or less than you are."

Peter's cheeks, predictably, assume a familiar fire truck red as soon as the words are spoken, but he burrows himself into the man's side without further prompting, and Tony is immensely grateful for having at least one kid who doesn't pretend to be allergic to hugs.

"Remind me, kid, what exactly does Harley want from Erin again?"

Tony knows he hit Jackpot when Peter tenses under his arm to the point where he's not even sure the kid is breathing anymore.

Harley's been nurturing this increasingly suspicious glint in his eyes the longer Tony talked about the aliens, and the boy might not be an idiot, but Tony isn't one either. Whatever Harley is up to, five hours of acquaintanceship has apparently been enough time to let Peter in on it, and the inventor can't decide if he should be happy or offended by being excluded from that list.

"Nothing! Just, uh. Science. Science stuff. Yeah."

Wow.

"Well, you've changed loyalties rather quickly."

Peter splutters in his haste to defend himself, but Tony only laughs, squeezing the boy's shoulder to settle him down.

"It's fine kid, I'm just glad you two are getting along, honestly. We do need to teach you how to lie properly though, 'cause that was just embarrassing."

Peter heaves a knowing sigh as he leans back into Tony's shoulder.

"It's not… it's nothing bad, it's just…"

"It's just Harley having a brilliant, world changing, absolutely magnificent plan?"

"He… does this often?"

Tony can't quite suppress his laughter at Peter's disbelieving tone.

"Don't worry kid, only a small percentage of his plans actually end up with things catching on fire."

The boy doesn't look reassured by those words in the slightest, but Tony's mind is already pursuing a different thread, and he's not about to let Peter escape without confirming some of his theories on the matter.

"Now, tell me all about the workshop. I wanna know everything."

Peter perks up instantly.

"Okay, so you know that really old movie Independence Day? They had these force fields…"

…

Tony doesn't think in words. He doesn't know if others do, but words are slow and so are most people in his experience, so there's probably a correlation somewhere in there.

The inventor is slicing up carrots on a surface that likely isn't meant to be used as a chopping board, enjoying the stillness of the night and the full use of the Compound's kitchen without having to dodge his ex-teammates for once. Following his mother's favorite recipe – the one he's prepared so many times the motions became muscle memory by now – his mind is free to contemplate things more important than instructions and measurements: things like how he's going to convince his two best friends to start a life together, for one.

Words have never been Tony's forte. Sure, he can field congressional hearings and press conferences half blind and drunk off his ass any day, but when it comes to things that actually matter? He couldn't even convince Pepper to stay when he was honest, how is he supposed to convince her to leave with a lie?

'No Pepper, I don't mind that you're dating the one person I've been considering family since I was fifteen, why would I? Let's just hope he'll never mention that ring I never gave you, though – it would make for terrible pillow talk.'

…Yeah, so maybe he should talk to Rhodey first.

'Hey Platypus, remember that ex of mine, the one who manages my company and keeps smiling at you like she used to smile at me? Yeah, so I was thinking—'

Eh, words are overrated, anyway. Perhaps he'll just take a page from Brucie's favorite soap opera: lock them in a room with lots of pillows and scented candles, and blast that awful Titanic song until—

"Oh, Tony. Do you… do you want me to come back later?"

It's still dark outside when Rogers enters the kitchen, startling Tony out of his meditative pasta-boiling – half past four in the morning doesn't seem to be as safe from wandering supersoldiers as he previously thought.

A quick glance at Rogers reveals the reason for his visit: the blond is decked out in full running gear, and the way he keeps eyeing the fridge while waiting for an answer is the only reason the inventor doesn't flee on sight.

"It's your kitchen too," Tony says because – for better or worse – Rogers lives here too, and Tony doesn't want to become the kind of asshole who dictates people's lives in their own home.

"Thanks," the Captain offers after an awkward pause, and targets the fridge without further ado.

Neither of them speaks as they move on with their tasks, the atmosphere nearly peaceful enough for Tony to slip back into his reverie. Rogers pours milk into a tall glass. Tony looks for the strainer. Rogers waits for the microwave to finish, Tony stirs the sauce.

They sit down at the counter at the same time. Opposite sides, opposite ends – a nice parallel to their relationship, Tony thinks idly.

"Harley seems like… a nice kid."

Of course, peaceful silences are not destined to last, not between the two of them.

"He's Pepper's trainee," Tony starts to explain pre-emptively, not in the mood for an elaborate fishing game. "I met him in Tennessee when my house was bombed." That time when none of you bothered to check in after I was proclaimed dead, do you remember that? Do you? "And you can say a lot of things about the kid, but he's not nice."

Rogers' snort says he very much agrees, but when he opens his mouth to answer he ends up closing it just as quickly, going back to his steaming glass of milk instead.

The two of them lapse back into a now uneasy silence, Tony's appetite waning as he's picking at his spaghetti.

Rogers is the first to break.

"I don't know how to talk to you anymore."

'Yes you do,' is Tony's first thought, even if he doesn't dare entertain the idea of voicing it aloud. 'What you don't know how to do is listen.'

"How did we end up here, Tony?"

The inventor takes a deep breath, relaxes his fingers around the cutlery, and decides to check whether Rogers looks as miserable as he sounds.

He does. The tiny wrinkles between his brows seem to have become permanent fixtures sometime during the last year, and the perfectly combed hair doesn't compensate for the dark circles under his eyes, or for the way his shoulders slump like they are ready to collapse under their own weight any minute.

Thank god he's not looking at Tony, because the inventor isn't sure he could take the full brunt of the grief in those ice blue eyes without shoving his knife all the way through the countertop.

"Where do I even start," he says with a voice full of sarcasm, but Rogers, naturally, takes it as a challenge, a determined glint entering his eyes as he's fixing them at Tony.

"At the beginning."

Alright then.

"You attacked me in my lab. In my own home," Tony says, because "I've seen the footage" and "You may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero" are a bit too far down memory lane for his liking, and he doesn't keep enough alcohol in the Compound to get drunk off anymore.

"I know. I'm sorry."

Tony doesn't even have the time to be surprised by the apology, because Rogers goes right on and ruins it by adding:

"I wasn't trying to hurt you, you know."

"Oh, pray tell, what were you trying to do then?" Tony asks, unwilling to give into the kicked puppy look. He always ends up regretting it when he does.

"You were playing with powers you didn't understand, Tony."

"No. I was playing with powers you didn't understand."

"Ultron—"

"Ultron was a sentient goddamn creature living in the Mind Stone—"

"Tony—"

"—I was cleared in court Steve, what else do you want from me, an engraved plaque saying 'Tony Stark didn't create Ultron'? I wasn't even there, what could I have possibly—"

"Tony, please."

—breath in the stomach, hold, five, six, seven—

Tony doesn't know how long it takes for the dark spots at the edges of his vision to clear up, but he can't bear to meet the other man's concerned gaze when they finally do.

"Tony…"

He needs to leave. He needs to leave before one of them says something they can't recover from, but Steve's voice is soft and Tony's going to throw up if he doesn't keep talking.

"Whe—" his voice cracks on the syllable, and he tries to rub the blurriness of the world away with his fingers. "When has it become so easy for us to raise a hand on each other, Steve? When we were creating Vision—"

"You weren't listening to reason, Tony," Ste—Rogers says, voice picking up frustration with every word.

"And your go-to solution to making people listen is punching them, is that it? Do you even hear yourself talk?"

"Mr. Rogers, Mr. Wilson is waiting for you at the entr—"

"You expected me to stand by while—"

"I expected you to obey the law!"

"The law was going to kill Bucky!"

Out of nowhere, snow is spreading on the pearl gray countertop, and the scraping sound of a chair makes Tony jump out of his seat on a reflex. He doesn't remember backing himself into a kitchen cabinet, but suddenly there's nothing but freezing cold air separating him from the supersoldier, and he can't feel his feet and oh god Steve's not going to stop this time—

"Steve!"

Wilson's voice is loud as it echoes within the walls of the kitchen, drowning out the sound of Tony's thundering heartbeat for a second.

"Ready for our run?"

There's no ice anywhere when Tony opens his eyes. The world looks different in the overwhelming brightness of the overhead lamps: no broken armors, no severed metal limbs, no vibranium shields abandoned on the concrete floor. He can't feel pieces of metal grinding against his ribs, and there's no visible steam created by his own labored breath.

There's just Tony, and Sam, and a glass of spilled milk.

And Steve. Steve, who, apart from standing up, never even took a step away from his chair.

"I'm… Tony, are you—"

"We're late, Steve," Wilson cuts Rogers off with an authoritative voice, but the kitchen lights are hurting Tony's eyes so he opts to close them instead of checking the Captain's reaction.

For a second or an hour he can only hear shuffling and muttered words about someone getting a head start, and Rogers is gone by the time the numbness of Tony's hands eases into tingling.

Sam is still standing in the doorway.

"You okay, man?"

"Oh fuck off, Wilson!" Tony blurts in a fit of unexpected humiliation, running a hand through his hair as he scrambles for a kitchen towel. He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth, but he fears that trying to fix them would just make things worse, so he decides not to risk it.

Taking a deep breath, he starts cleaning the counter instead, but his shaking hands only seem to make the mess worse, and Tony's eyes prickle with shame when Sam pries the towel from his fingers.

"I used to think I was a good counselor, you know. How on Earth I missed this is beyond me," Sam says in a clipped tone, and while Tony can't quite bring himself to apologize, he doesn't shake off the hand that squeezes his shoulder before the other man leaves either.

FRIDAY doesn't greet him when he wanders back into his workshop, but his scratchboard is open above the main workstation, and the corners of Tony's mouth twitch when he sees the line highlighted in red.

0 days since 'fire in workshop'

If only FRIDAY wouldn't be the only person to understand him without words so easily.

…

Harley's current plan takes 'world changing' to entirely new levels, and Tony can't decide whether he should shout at the boy, or congratulate him on a job well done.

Tony is watching the Council hearing from Bruce's lab, and it goes exactly the way the two scientists expect it to go: Hill and Romanoff prepare their presentation, Ranina and Zefironn summon projections of three Communia Council members, and said projections infuriate Tony and Bruce by interacting with their surroundings and pulling out the chairs for themselves as they take a seat.

"Nanites, Tony, I'm telling you. They are hollow on the inside—"

"Clearly, but that doesn't explain the colors, Brucie Bear—"

"It's in the material—"

"It's the light—"

"Shh, they are starting!"

SHIELD's presentation takes around twenty minutes. Bruce and Tony watch in terse silence as Romanoff speaks, spurting death rates and statistics of food scarcity like the country they are sitting at doesn't waste more produce than what some others consume, and Tony's mounting irritation is almost enough to make him forget about his earlier encounter with Rogers.

He hasn't stopped shaking until DUM-E helpfully brought his stash of WD-40 into his fire extinguishing efforts. That had given the inventor a more immediate concern than a simple panic attack.

One of the Council members – a woman with dark gray skin and antlers so huge Tony immediately nicknames her Mrs. Rudolf – leans onto the table when Natasha is done, and tells her the same thing Erin told Fury just a few days prior:

"Disregarding the blatant misdirection you attempted here by omitting facts we are well aware of," Tony sees Ross wince at the woman's open disdain, "I'm afraid I can only reiterate what our attachés have no doubt told you already."

Mrs. Rudolf puts her hands on the table, palms up, showing off pink pads at the fingertips.

"No matter how much we want to help your people, our options are limited. Terra's development can't be forced, and leaving our technology on your planet is simply not an option," she gives a saddened little sigh, and Tony is reminded of Ranina's words from just a few hours earlier:

"We can't risk you destroying yourselves with our creations, Tony. That's a path we only needed to take once to learn the consequences."

Yeah. Tony knows that feeling.

"What about…"

The inventor ignores the doomed-to-fail negotiation that Hill engages the Council members in, mentally already back at his own workshop when a familiar voice disrupts his thought on the Bleeding Edge's regenerative capabilities.

"Sorry for being late," Erin announces through FRIDAY's speakers, and Tony's head immediately snaps to the feed where Frosty saunters into the meeting room in his usual plain white-shirt-black-pants attire. "I'm still getting used to the planet's solar cycle," he says as he pulls up a chair between Ranina and Kenny, not acknowledging the dubious looks sent his way.

"Ooh, I didn't know he was coming!" Bruce coos at the screen with all the delight of a teenage boy in the face of his first crush, and Tony's hackles rise on a reflex. "Didn't you say Cilian wasn't going to—"

"How come you're never this happy to see me?"

"You're never this entertaining."

"That's not true! I'll have you know that I can be very—"

"You can't be late if you weren't invited," Ranina chides the General in Garbage Truckian – which FRI already helped Tony identify as native Grilian instead of the Nilnak he was suspecting – and Tony puts his grudge against Bruce on hold in order to oversee the happenings.

Erin looks… disheveled, as he's shifting to get comfortable in his chair. His white curls are sticking up at odd places – kind of like Tony's hair does after a twelve hour long nap at his desk – and a thin braid lining the shaved side of his head is in the process of unraveling itself. His shirt is tucked into his pants on one side, and Tony gets the feeling that wherever the guy just woke up at, it wasn't a bed.

"Erin," Mrs. Rudolf addresses Frosty with a frown on her freckled face. "I assume there's a reason why you've joined us?"

"Yes. I came up with a way to aid Terra safely."

There are a few heartbeats of a pause, but Tony can't bring himself to tear his eyes away from the man to check the reactions.

"Well, someone else came up with it, I'm just adapting the idea."

Dammit, Keener.

Tony will either have to choke the kid to a slow, painful death, or buy him a Ferrari, depending on where this conversation will be at in five minutes.

"Excellent," Mrs. Rudolf says on the screen with limited enthusiasm, leaning back into her chair. "Is there anything you need our help with?"

Erin crosses his arms, his brows furrowing as he switches to Grilian.

"Really? You're not even going to check what I'm planning to do with their planet?" he asks with a voice that oozes disapproval, but it has little effect on Mrs. Rudolf's demeanor.

"I'm sorry, do you want us to pretend that we don't trust our lead developer with the wellbeing of a single domain?"

Frosty lets out a frustrated breath, rubbing his forehead like he's trying to ease a headache.

"I'm dreading the day someone else takes my position."

"Don't we all," one of the two male Council members agrees, then turns to the SHIELD agents and says in English:

"Your request unfortunately does not meet the preconditions of its potential fulfillment, but General Cilian will explain your alternatives. Thank you, goodbye."

Bruce lets out a laugh as the Council members disappear with the hasty sign-off, and Tony can't blame him – Hill looks like she's about to get acute anger management issues, and Romanoff's face is a gorgeous study in emotional suppression. Tony hopes Fury is watching this from somewhere.

"So," Erin turns to the two discreetly seething women, already tapping his fingers against the table in impatience, "are we still running with the pretense of overpopulation, or can we approach your real problem without unnecessary misdirection this time?"

Kenny looks like he's about to speak up for a second there, but a glare from Hill silences the man, and the question remains unanswered for a heavily uncomfortable minute.

"Alright, then," Frosty leans on the table with his elbows, summoning four rotating projections in full color, three of which Tony recognizes as planets from Earth's solar system.

"What is this?" Hill asks with steel in her tone, but Tony can see the way she rubs her palms against her pencil skirt under the desk.

"This is how we deal with overpopulation, Miss Hill. You choose a planet, and we… terraform it for you. Interesting choice of word for planetary modeling, by the way," he says with mild amusement, the rhythmic motion of his fingers stopping for a few seconds. "Give us a year, and we will have about forty percent of your population relocated."

Bruce nearly falls off his stool in laughter. Tony would be tempted to join him, if only he wasn't so afraid the agents will end up agreeing with the alien's plans out of sheer stubbornness.

"You…" Romanoff starts, her eyes flitting between the projections and Erin. "You want to ship off almost half of our population to… Mars?"

"Mars would be the most convenient candidate, yes," the white haired man agrees easily, like he's talking about the weather instead of galactic colonization. "But there are other options, of course. We could alter Mercury's course for pressure control. Venus could hold floating cities pretty much immediately with a magnetic field. There's also a planetoid near your solar system that's only missing a sun to become habitable."

Tony can hear Kenny gulp even through the speakers.

"A sun seems like a pretty important thing to be missing, if you ask me," the liaison tries for a lighter tone, but Erin only nods and continues with all the seriousness he's been treating this whole farce with since the beginning.

"That's why my first suggestion would be Mars. We prefer to explore natural resources before we resort to artificial suns and domain course altering."

FRIDAY zooms in on the tiny vein pulsing at Hill's temple, and Bruce loses it again.

Hill takes a deep breath on the screen and squares her shoulders as he addresses Frost.

"And if we were to let go of the overpopulation notion?"

Bruce stops his fidgeting at once, apparently just as surprised by the woman's willingness to drop the charade as Tony is.

"In that case…" Erin says as he makes the image of the planets disappear, projecting a different set of imitations above the conference table. The probably-nanites form a miniature version of Earth, surrounded by tiny flecks of… dirt?

"This…" the alien extends his fingers towards the projection, enlarging one of the tiny specks floating around the planet, "could be Terra's new air-conditioning system."

Tony swears he could hear a pin drop in the silence that follows the bold declaration, but Erin doesn't give time for objections.

"I suggest you call Mr. Stark. He's going to play a rather integral role in this project."

Oh yes. He's definitely killing Harley.

…

Tony doesn't see the kid until late that night.

He spends the rest of the day in frenzied discussions about climate change and laws and ethics, and by the time he gets back to his workshop, he still can't tell if it's the good or the bad kind of frenzy that envelops the Compound after Erin drops the 'weather control' bombshell on the Earthlings.

On one hand, both Bruce and Tony are buzzing around like hyperactive toddlers on a sugar rush because holy shit, this could be the end of global warming, but on the other hand…

On the other hand, there are things like the 'moratorium on geoengineering Tony, we can't just go around breaking it', the 'people will never go for this', the 'even if the UN agrees…', and about half a million other obstacles Tony would prefer not to touch with a ten-foot pole, except…

Except that – as usual – he's not given much of a choice in the matter.

"I'm told Mr. Stark and his team have made a lot of advances in curbing famine on your planet already. If a weather control system is all they need to complete their solutions, then we are willing to help them design one, based on Terran technology."

Erin didn't attach many conditions to his offer: Earth has to cover the materials and the production costs, the UN has to be the sole operator of the system once it's done, and Tony Stark has to personally select the 'Terran developers' who will work on the designs.

Fury's been particularly unhappy with that last condition, until Erin reminded him they have less than ten months to finish the project, and unless Fury can show him someone better suited for leading the team than the planet's most renowned engineer, Tony's role is not up to debate.

"Don't get me wrong, Mr. Fury," the alien says with casual detachment when it looks like the director's about to object, "even if you can offer a better alternative than Stark Industries, it's still not going to be an organization that defines its purpose as 'world security'. Either introduce some transparency to what you do, or stop expecting me to trust my developers with people who operate from under a blanket cover."

Tony hopes FRIDAY had the good sense to record the collective reaction SHIELD produced to that statement, because he wants it as his ringtone.

"Oh god Tony, we can't… this is huge!" Bruce buries his face in his hands, leaning onto one of the elevated tables in Tony's workshop. "Strengthening the magnetic field will affect so many things I can't even… the power grids, the airplanes, the satellites, even space travel!"

Tony refills his coffee mug before he resumes his pacing.

"I know, Brucie."

"What about Einstein-Rosen bridges? Would they be affected by—"

"I have no idea."

"Oh god, what if it speeds up the rotation of Earth, will it—"

"I don't know, Bruce, okay?" Tony winces at the sudden peak in the volume of his own speech, handing up a palm in apology to the other scientist. "Look, it's… we're going to need a bigger team, clearly," he says after a deep inhale, grateful for the man's presence despite the frustrating questions. "I have a full R&D department at SI, and we both know people."

Bruce gives a hesitant nod, and Tony can see he's already thinking about potential candidates. Good. Tony already has a few names in mind himself.

"And besides, Erin's done this before," he adds, because Erin's done much more than just steering planets off-course, if the aliens are to be believed. The word 'scientist' apparently doesn't even begin to cover what a UGC developer actually does. "Let's just hope the moon he blew up as a kid isn't a general representation of his skills."

Bruce frowns in response to the inventor's words.

"What do you have against the guy?" he asks, taking a seat on one of Tony's stools.

"Nothing."

"Yeah, tell that to your face."

"Fine, I'm not a fan of the fact that he has a bigger workshop than me," Tony says in concession, then pauses his pacing to add: "And access to more tech. And a bigger army."

"You don't have an army."

"Exactly."

"Do you even want an army?"

"You're completely missing the point, Brucie Bear."

"I mean, you don't even want to be running your own company—"

"Boss, Mr. Cilian is requesting entrance."

Tony's head snaps to the door of the workshop on instinct, but FRIDAY has frosted the glass wall so the only thing he sees is a vague outline of a tall figure. He shares a look with Bruce, but the other man comes up just as clueless, so Tony instructs FRIDAY to send the bots to their charging stations and let the alien in.

"Tony, Dr. Banner. I thought I should return this."

Well, let it never be said that Frosty is one to waste time on niceties.

…Or one to appreciate Tony's ability to manipulate goddamned light, for that matter. The inventor is getting really tired of the way the aliens keep ignoring his projections. Is a tiny bit of awe too much to ask for?

Erin walks up to Tony without sparing a second glance at his surroundings, extending an arm with something very familiar clutched between elegant fingers.

Tony's StarkPhone.

"Ah, right. Here," the inventor hurries to fish the AlienPhone out from his jeans, more than a little sad to see it go before he could finish his full analysis on its material. FRIDAY barely scanned it three of forty times yet.

Bruce is watching the exchange from his table with wide eyes, and Tony feels both smug and fearful of the chat that's likely to follow once the alien takes his leave.

"I'm sorry to have involved you in today's meetings without notice," Erin tells him after the AlienPhone disappears into thin air. The man doesn't look any less disheveled than he did during the hearing, and Tony's fingers itch to untangle that final piece of braiding that lines his side cut. "I admit I let your son convince me you wouldn't mind."

"His what?"

"Later, Brucie," Tony promises in a low voice, turning back to the white haired man before his friend can derail the conversation. "Yeah, no, it's fine, it just caught me by surprise is all. To be honest, I'm not sure if the UN's going to roll with the whole idea anyway, so—"

"Ranina will take care of that."

Tony holds back a snort at the confidence in that statement. Ranina's patience may be impressive in her dealings with Terran politics, but she has yet to see what Earthlings can be like in the face of something they already labeled as 'dangerous' and 'off-limits'.

"Of course she will," Tony mutters under his breath, then remembers the junk Peter's sticky hands collected from the alien's workshop. "Oh, before I forget…"

He rummages through a drawer in the table Bruce is sitting at, ignoring the sharp look he's getting from the scientist.

"I think these belong to you," he hands the small items over to the alien, earning himself a barely there smile.

"Thank you," Erin trails off for a moment, then raises his eyebrows at the inventor, his tone gaining a furtive quality. "I hope the glue didn't damage Peter's hands."

Tony can't help the grin that overtakes his features.

"He'll survive."

Erin's eyes mirror the workshop lights in such minute detail Tony can nearly make out the text on the closest holotable's reflection, and he isn't sure how long the two of them are simply standing there with their stupid conspiratorial smiles but Bruce think it's been long enough and lets his opinion known by clearing his throat.

God, the conversation with Bruce after this will be downright mortifying.

"My developers arrive tomorrow evening," Erin breaks the silence at Bruce's wordless prompting, but his gaze never wavers from the inventor's eyes.

"That's quick," Tony says with some surprise, because even with the most advanced warp tech in the galaxy, Grilia is still three weeks away from their little blue planet.

"They are currently working on Edeoter," Erin says, then seeing the confusion on Tony's face he adds: "RC 4706."

"Ah… I think I liked the original name better."

"Me too, but I lost naming rights quite a while ago."

They share another smile, and Bruce becomes a tad less subtle in his sudden case of pneumonia. Erin doesn't seem to mind the coughing, but he's apparently got what he came for because the next moment he takes a step back, pushes his hands into the pocket of his pant, and gives the scientists a brisk farewell before taking his leave.

"I will see you at the meeting. Goodnight."

Tony lets his chin drop onto his chest once the door closes behind the alien, and he doesn't need to wait long for the fallout to reach his ears.

"Wow."

"If there's something you want to say—"

"Most people exchange phone numbers on the first date, not phones!"

"Come on Bruce, I'm a 'go big or go home' kind of guy."

"Did you know you stop blinking when you're looking at someone you find attractive?"

"I can still kick you off the team. I'm the leader, you know. It's a thing."

Bruce raises his hands in surrender, but his wide grin suggests he's far from done with the ribbing. The idea doesn't bother Tony as much as he thought it would – it's been a while since Bruce allowed himself to tease the inventor without walking on eggshells.

"So, why does he think Peter is your son?"

"Oh Brucie, we really need to make you leave your lab more often. So here's the thing…"

Tony distracts his friend with the story of how he acquired his first science kid, and if several hours later he finds a new contact in his phone and immediately renames it to 'The Leader of Everything', Bruce never has to know.

Ever.

…

"Are you angry?"

"Not sure yet, but I reserve the right to ground you until kingdom come if this thing blows up in my face."

"You can't ground me. You're not my real dad."

"True. I guess I can't give you a car for your birthday either, seeing how I'm not your real dad. It would be just creepy."

"…Well played, Stark."

Harley snatches up the last piece of pizza on principle, returning his attention to the adventures of SpongeBob and Patrick projected over Tony's bedroom wall. The inventor has lost today's game of 'Rock, Paper, Blowtorch' for the right to select the movie, clearly.

"Why the whole climate thing, though? I didn't know you were interested in environmental science."

Harley shrugs, kicking Tony's shin when the man reaches over the boy to grab his soda from the nightstand.

"There was a flood, last year."

Tony remembers that. He was in hospital, but Pepper assured him the Keeners were not affected by the incident.

"Grams had this neighbor."

Oh.

"Cool guy. A barber. He used to curl Suzie's hair when she was little. Mom always had to wrestle her to wash it out after a few days."

Tony sips his soda in silence, knowing there are no right words to respond with to something like that.

"People shouldn't be dying just because a disaster is natural."

That last word sounds a little too familiar for Tony's liking, and he makes a mental note to check the footage of Harley's first meeting with Rogers later.

"And you thought the UGC was the way to fix that?"

"I saw an opportunity."

Yeah. The kid is good at seeing opportunities. He'll make a splendid CEO by the time Pepper is done with him.

Or a splendid evil overlord. Either would be fine with Tony, honestly – he would prefer if Harley wouldn't be shot at, but neither of those options are very conductive to not being wanted dead, at least by some people.

"Plus, you kept talking about that Erin guy – I had to make sure his intentions towards my dad were pure. Giving him a new perspective on the climate thing was just a bonus."

Tony shoves the kid off the bed and ignores Harley's "worth it" as he switches the channel to some over the top rom-com. They end up falling asleep before the credits roll.

…

Tony will never doubt Ranina again.

Ever.

…

United Nations General Assembly, 31st special session
Agenda: Extension of the World Food Programme in cooperation with the Unitary Galactic Communia
Status: LIVE

"…surface too hot for habitation. Most of you might not live to see the end of this process, but you certainly have started it…"

Whysochic7: ranina is certainly not pulling her punches haha

Whysochic7: i mean she does have a point

FelixStein: ooh so a little melting ice is gonna slow earths rotation now? i call bullshit. they just want to control us with their drones and we are LETTING THEM! OPEN YOUR EYES PEOPLE

"…and most of it is readily available to you. The WFP is receiving technological aid from Stark Industries as we speak, and it would be no big leap to extend that cooperation to…"

PerilDiaman: This whole thing reeks of stark. I told you one day he's going to kill us all.

leed-da-way: Came here to see if other people are as freaked out about the idea of weather control as I am, found flat-earthers arguing if global warming is real. *slow clap*

"…as we did in the examples shown here. The introduction of airborne biological cultures also increased the amount of breathable air significantly…"

Ronnie970311: how does she do the thing with the planets is this CGI?

freerepublic86: holy shit

Whysochic7: say goodbye to air pollution I guess. #nervouslaughter

"…a planet with very similar conditions to Earth. In fact, over eighty percent of our domains use some variation of the system in order to maintain optimal weather conditions. Terra's stratosphere could be covered with only a few hundred of such devices…"

freerepublic86: holy shit holy shit HOLY SHIT!

leed-da-way: you guys realize we must look like hairless monkeys to these people, right?

"…the design, but to answer your question, no. We would not take part in the operation or the maintenance of the devices, that's why it's important that you create and put them online yourselves. Self-sustenance is a vital aspect of any planet that…"

Barney78: the UN is gonna go for this, wont it?

jenniesavesthetrees: As they SHOULD.

"…the amount of cultures is finite, and the system lacks the energy to strengthen the magnetic field above the intended amount. Any attempt at weaponisation would need several days to take effect, and can be easily prevented by behavioral coding of the individual…"

freerepublic86: not sure about you guys, but im digging her. i only understand like half of what shes saying, but im digging her.

ElliotHarrell: So many pitfalls, but… Famine. Air pollution. Global warming. Seriously, how is this even a question?

"…and thank you, Miss Ranina. The Council now calls upon Dr. Pavel Zakharov, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dr. Yoshida Minato, Professor and Department Chair of…"

PerilDiaman: do you really want stark to watch you in your backyard with his drones, what is wrong with you all

Barney78: If Tony Stark will be watching me in my backyard, no force in the universe will stop me from flashing him then proving my worth with a short dance to single ladies.

"…agree, although we also need to consider what the carbon capture would mean for industrialized nations. It should not be used as an excuse to stop cutting back on emissions, or a defect in the system…"

DarrenBlakeP: Is it just me or does Tony look nervous?

"…Incredible opportunity is the right way to describe it, Mr. Feldman, except it's not just an opportunity for Stark Industries. It's an opportunity for the planet, and that's exactly why I'm not willing to risk it by monopolizing the production… no matter how much I enjoy monopolizing things, as we all know."

DarrenBlakeP: Nevermind, my eyes must have been glitching lol.

"…tenders will be open in areas where SI is not dealing in, or doesn't have the necessary coverage to…"

IsaacTheOne: The ban on geoengineering literally says "until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities". The time has come, kids.

FelixStein: HES GOING TO KILL US ALL

whatissleep: better him than your two remaining brain cells dude.

"…all Stark Industries related costs personally. Other companies shouldn't expect to make a fortune out of this either – this is a time for collaboration, not greed. Apply for the bragging rights, people. You're about to change the world, after all."

whatissleep: i live how he's talking about it like it's already been decided :D

L4D150L0M0N: I mean, an idea that Tony Stark just spent an entire day defending doesn't just *get rejected*, no matter how outrageous it is.

Barney78: Yeah, for a REASON.

"…the debate will continue tomorrow, along with the voting starting at…"

leed-da-way: I kinda want this to happen, but also… really not?

ElliotHarrell: I don't particularly care for Stark but Ranina convinced me. I hope they'll vote yes.

Whysochic7: #alienstoldmetodoit haha but seriously we should #goforit

PerilDiaman: it's a no from me.

FelixStein: not a chance in hell, they cant just do this!

Barney78: Tony Stark can do this in his sleep. #goForIt

DarrenBlakeP: #goForIt

TurkishDelight78: Don't you ever wonder what happened in Siberia?

…

Tony would smile at Harley's habit of leaving post-it notes on every available surface, only if every available surface didn't include the inventor's forehead whenever he falls asleep.

Kidnapped my step bro. Don't look for us.
H.
P.S. The alien tower has an anti-gravity pool. Up your game, Stark.

…And if the aliens didn't have an anti-gravity pool. Whatever that is, it sounds like something Tony Stark should own.

He goes down to his workshop, plays catch with his bots instead of working, and doesn't check his messages the whole day. He's in the middle of a serious round of Would You Rather with FRIDAY when Rhodey wanders in sometime around dinner, and the man's expression tells Tony everything he needs to know about the voting results.

He asks anyway.

"I take it HORUS got the green light?"

"HORUS?"

"Highly Optimized Reactive Unclouding System."

"Is that really the best you could come up with?"

"Well, I suppose I could change it to 'Highly Orwellian Remarkably Untested Shi—"

"You know what, let's just stick to the first one, yeah?"

Neither of them cracks a smile. The tone of the conversation is light, but it's also painfully deliberate. Tony spins on his stool, ignoring how Rhodey's eyes track the movement of his legs, and the question hangs in the silence for a long while before Rhodey gathers the will to voice it.

"Do you really think this is a good idea, Tony?"

The inventor stops the stool's spinning by grabbing the side of the table, and pulls himself closer to the holoscreens. A quick search later he turns back to his friend, pointing at the numbers.

"One hundred and thirty-five countries think it is," he says with a neutral tone, looking Rhodey in the eyes.

"Tony—"

"It will be fine, Honey Bear. I promised, remember?"

"…Yeah. I remember."

Rhodey is possibly the only person in the world who can still bring himself to trust Tony's promises, and Tony hates how much he doesn't deserve that trust, because as much as he wants to stay true to his words…

ULTRON wasn't a bad idea.

It was rushed and overambitious and he would have likely botched the execution even if the Mind Stone didn't botch it first, but the concept itself wasn't inherently flawed.

He has no intentions of turning HORUS into a suit of armor around the planet, of course. Tony isn't sure what HORUS will be exactly: he and Bruce spent enough time with the Grilian developers to clear the scientific goals and aspects, but the societal impacts on a planet with Earth's development levels are anyone's guess.

What Tony does know, though, is that there will always be another Thanos.

HORUS will not only save a lot of people, but it will also be the first step in Tony's quest of gaining access to the sky, because there will always be another Thanos and Peter and Harley will need a planet to live on and ULTRON wasn't a bad idea and while it may be nothing, but…

But the dizzy spell wasn't a one-off.

"You know that you have my full support, right?" Rhodey asks him on his way out, and Tony forces a smile for the man's sake, not mentioning how Pepper asked him the very same question less than a day ago.

"Of course I do, Platypus. Bros before 'global scientific experiments, questionable life choices, and lost games of Scrabble', right?"

Rhodey's smile is several degrees warmer than the one Tony graces him with.

"Always."

In all fairness, Tony isn't sure if Rhodey would withdraw his support if he knew the full extent of Tony's vision – god knows he supported the inventor through some of Tony's wildest decisions, even if they rarely agreed on their necessity.

But support doesn't replace understanding, and Tony is not likely to get much of the latter in the near future. No reason to push his Rhodey Bear into the pool the rest of the world is already swimming in, no matter what Ranina told him.

"Have some faith in your people, Tony. They might surprise you."

If only he could recall how faith used to work.

…

"Did you change your skin tone?"

Vision doesn't blush, but his body language does a pretty good approximation of the act.

"Do you not like it?" he asks, and Tony is hit with the memory of JARVIS asking him the same question in the same self-conscious tone when his AI and his bots discovered the art of gift giving. The picture frame was decorated with bolts and hex nuts and the chipset of Tony's business laptop, and he never managed to recover it from the ocean – just like he never managed to recover JARVIS.

"Nah, it's cool. It's just a shade darker than it used to be, right? Kinda matches that… uh, what was the name—"

"Ravo'nurdol," Vision says before Tony can even finish his question, and the inventor holds back a snort lest he hurts the android's feelings.

"Yeah, her. Pretty name. You guys friends? I've seen you talk a few times."

"I… think so. Yes. She's… nice."

"Good. Nice is good. Also, feel free to tell me if I'm all up in your Kool-aid, but you don't sound very… enthusiastic. About that. Friends should be a good thing, is it not a good thing?"

Vision pauses in his efforts to organize Tony's tool set, giving the question some thought. Tony prefers the box when it's an artfully organized mess, but he never mentions it to the android: DUM-E's going to destroy Vision's shot at orderliness sooner rather than later, anyway.

"I… I believe I still like Wanda."

Tony shares a look with Harley, but the boy's shrug offers him little advice – the hand gesture prompting him to 'do something, you idiot!' even less so.

"Vis," he calls softly, desperate to find the words that will ease the tension in the android's shoulders, but all he can come up with is: "You're allowed to like whoever you want. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise, not even me. Hell, especially not me."

Vision doesn't answer, but he stops trying to fit the drive sockets in places they don't belong, so Tony decides to trust Harley's thumbs up as a score on his performance, both because Harley rarely spares him the lecture when he screws up, and because he doesn't have much of a choice.

Maybe he should ask Ranina if they have any books on "How to raise the synthetic kid who isn't really yours… and isn't really a kid" when he sees her next.

Tony gets the feeling she wouldn't ask too many questions.

…

Tony has this T-shirt.

It's white and simple with hand drawn versions of Iron Man and Spider-Man on the front, and he found it in his hospital room when he first woke up after Siberia.

Peter maintained that an 'artistically inclined friend' gave it to him as a gift, and Tony dutifully bought into the facade, because it was easier than asking why the kid skipped a full week of school only to camp in the hospital room of someone he barely knew, yet was willing to go into literal war for. Tony didn't mention how the shirt was several sizes too big for Peter, or that the boy didn't even have any friends who knew about his arachnid alter ego.

Or that an artistically inclined friend would have gone beyond uneven stick figures with absurdly enormous eyes.

The shirt is ridden with holes and hideous and ridiculously soft, and it's the first thing Harley's eyes fixate upon as soon as Tony steps through his workshop door.

"You made that?" the boy asks with a raised eyebrow, halting his mission of upturning Tony's workstation.

"What if I did?"

The slight pause before Harley's response suggests they'll have to discuss Peter in more depth at some point, but Tony lets it go in favor of an activity he and the kid share an equal enthusiasm for…

"Don't give up your day job."

Emotional procrastination.

"What are you looking for?" Tony asks instead, firing up his coffee machine with a yawn. He doesn't mind mornings in general, but waking up has never been his forte.

"You used to keep cash in here," Harley says, rummaging through one more drawer in his search.

"Yeah, not since DUM-E turned a whole wad of dead presidents into origami cranes for my birthday. Here," Tony pulls his wallet out of his jeans, grabbing a handful of bills blindly and offering them to the boy. "No drugs, no alcohol, no Hammer Tech."

"Don't worry, I'm just taking Peter to a strip club."

Tony snorts.

"Have fun."

"You're a terrible father."

"And you're too far gone on the kid to corrupt him with a teenage bender. Where are you going, really?"

Harley sighs as Tony tries to figure out the sugar's new hiding place. He swears Butterfingers is becoming a hoarder.

"The movies."

Tony looks at the boy from the corner of his eye, staring until Harley throws his head back and admits defeat.

"Fine. We're watching a PG-rated film. Happy now?"

It's a good thing Tony doesn't have his mug in his hands yet, or he would be dropping it amid all the manic laughter.

"Oh, get off your high horse. Try saying no to him at least once, then we'll talk," Harley says, looking pointedly at Tony's T-shirt. "You gonna wear that to your meeting?"

"Yes."

"You forgot you have a meeting, didn't you."

He did.

"Have fun with your strippers," Tony says. "Watch the glitter, it gets into the eye."

"Good. I hope it blinds me."

Tony is still chuckling into his coffee when Harley turns back from the doorway, expression turning serious.

"Tony?"

"Hmm?"

"If you ever replace me with Peter, I will hurt you."

"…Noted."

Well, that's the Peter issue all talked out. Got to love these little heart-to-hearts with the older boy.

Ten minutes later – and just as many minutes late – Tony Stark walks into a conference room, realizes the meeting includes not only Fury, Romanoff, and Kenny, but also some of their alien guests, and reminds himself that self-consciousness happens to other people when Erin's gaze zeroes in on the inventor's ratty T-shirt.

Ignoring the alien's badly suppressed smirk, Tony pulls up a chair next to Kenny and puffs out his chest to give his audience a better view.

"Gift or bankruptcy?" Kenny whispers to him once Fury resumes talking, leaning in so the others wouldn't hear.

"You're just jealous."

"Certainly. It really brings out the color of your eyes."

Tony has to clear his throat to cover a giggle.

The only part of the meeting he pays any attention to is Erin informing them he wants to test the first prototype of his anti-Thanos device with Vision and the Wizard, but he shares no details on the nature of his creation and Tony quickly checks out after they agree on a time. He'll just have to see it for himself.

He also can't wait to see Strange's reaction to Fury governing his schedule without notice.

To: Jessica Rabbit
How do you and Foster feel about New York?

Darcy doesn't waste any time in giving him an answer, thankfully. Tony would have been forced to pull out his Bleeding Edge blueprints if she did, and he's not nearly awake enough for committing any major updates.

From: Jessica Rabbit
ambivalent. on one hand, no parking space. on the other hand, no more sand in my boots, so i've got that going for me.

Tony blinks at his phone for a few seconds before typing out a reply.

To: Jessica Rabbit
You're here?

From: Jessica Rabbit
just arrived yesterday!

From: Jessica Rabbit
they pulled the plug on Janie's project and i'm sorta working for your company now

To: Jessica Rabbit
You work for SI? Why didn't I know about this?

From: Jessica Rabbit
dude, i didn't realize i was being recruited until i signed the contract. Pepper Potts is SCARY good.

To: Jessica Rabbit
Wait, so you refused my job offer right off the bat, but you signed for Pepper?

From: Jessica Rabbit
yeah, don't take this the wrong way Tony, but your ex is HELLA cute.

From: Jessica Rabbit
feel free to tell her i said that btw

From: Jessica Rabbit
never mind, i'll just tweet it.

From: Jessica Rabbit
oh i just remembered

From: Jessica Rabbit
Janie and i are gonna surprise visit you later. she says it's weird to show up at someone's house uninvited when you only met them once, but no worries, i know just the right amount of tequila to treat her delusions.

From: Jessica Rabbit
make sure to be surprised!

Tony can't explain why his throat is closing up on him when he reads those last two messages, but he knows that whatever this feeling is, for once, it's not the bad kind.

To: Jessica Rabbit
I'll see what I can do. Tell her not to start job hunting just yet.

From: Jessica Rabbit
ugh, job talk

From: Jessica Rabbit
will do. catch you later, Stark!

"How do you know that?"

Fury's tone immediately pulls Tony's focus away from his phone, and he lifts his gaze only to see Erin and Zefironn exchange a confused look.

"It was in his file," Zefironn says with a frown, but Fury's glare doesn't ease one bit.

"What file?"

"The file on the internet?"

At Fury's answering silence, the green skinned man pulls up a projection above the table, displaying a headshot of Strange and some personal data and the emblem of—

Ah.

"That's not from the internet," Fury says in a forcibly measured tone, "that's from a SHIELD database."

Those words don't seem to make things any clearer for the two aliens.

"Which… is part of the internet?" Zefironn asks with care, sensing the shift in the conversation.

"Not of the public domain."

"Oh… You should consider putting some restrictions around…" Zefironn trails off at seeing Fury's expression. "You did. Right. I suppose saying we didn't notice won't help matters, so… we apologize, Director, we will of course wipe all information we came across in your databases. Perhaps… some of you could help us differentiate between public and private domains to prevent such misunderstandings in the future?"

Tony's laughter is loud and carefree and lasts exactly for six seconds before cutting out abruptly, because—

"Wait, did you hack my servers too?" he asks with mild alarm, and it's Kenny's turn to snicker next to the inventor.

"There was no hacking—" Zefironn pauses when Fury clears his throat, then starts again. "There was no deliberate hacking involved, and no. We stopped trying to access them once we realized they were occupied by a conscious being. We didn't want to risk doing her any harm."

Tony's muscles tense up at the alien's words, heart giving a painful lurch. God, he shouldn't have asked, why can't he learn to keep his mouth shut, Fury is not going to just let this go, why the hell did he—

"A conscious being?" comes the predictable question from the director as he graces Tony with the Eye of Accusation, but just as Tony is about to ramble his way into a deflection, Zefironn decides to make things clear with no visible understanding of the gravity of his own question.

"FRIDAY, right?"

Fury and Romanoff turn in their seat, facing Tony fully.

"You said FRIDAY wasn't a real AI," the man says with no inflection, but his expression leans more towards pleased than disapproving now. The bastard thinks he found a bargaining chip.

"Well," Tony hurries to defuse the situation, "the current definition of 'AI' is quite loose, really—"

"You know AI's are banned, Stark."

Tony hears the rushed whispers between the two aliens at the end of the table, and Fury turns back to them when Zefironn starts pulling up screens of random websites from the internet, all proclaiming to be running on some variation of an 'AI'. Tony wasn't lying when he said the definition is quite loose.

"There's a difference," Romanoff says, pointing at the projections floating above the table, "between intelligent systems and conscious ones. Only the latter is outlawed, ever since Ultron."

Those words must mean something to the Grilians because both men go a bit wide eyed at the explanation, and Erin's incredulous tone derails the conversation for a few minutes.

"You have a ban on creating life?"

The resulting debate on what constitutes 'life' is almost as surreal as the fact that Romanoff is having it with an actual extraterrestrial, but Tony can't bring himself to follow the words with the attention they deserve. One of his fingers is circling the edge of his watch, ready to send FRIDAY into retreat at a moment's notice – he's very conscious of all the laws he's just been exposed of breaking, but whatever this day may bring for Tony Stark, his girl is not going to become a casualty of his decisions.

"—creating artificial life is different from—"

"—that word again, Miss Romanoff. You're using it only when it suits your argument—"

"—our history with conscious programs—"

"—do you also ban mothers from giving birth if their firstborn turns out to be a criminal? Creating life is a basic right of all—"

"—the cultural differences in what we considere acceptable—"

"—and we'd still be dying of nutritional deficiencies if we were to stick to 'natural' evolution—"

"Be that as it may, Stark is still breaking international laws by allowing FRIDAY's existence," Fury says, interrupting the quick back and forth when Erin starts to work himself up to a tirade. The director then turns to Tony and addresses him in a mellow tone that, under any other circumstances, the inventor would consider friendly.

"Turn her off, and the UN won't have to hear about this."

The words are soft, spoken like an allowance Tony should be grateful for, and he stiffens in his seat, hands balling up into fists he's unable to unclench.

"Are you serious?" he asks Fury, volume increasing when the man doesn't reply. "She's been running the Compound since it's been built and never even messed with anyone's hot water! She's not hurting anyone!"

Tony's anger is so quick and loud that it takes him a minute to realize he isn't the only one at the table who balked at Fury's request. Kenny's fingers are flying over his phone in panicked little jerks, the Grilians pretty much look like they've been slapped, and to his surprise, it's Natasha who comes to his defense first with a concerned expression.

"He's right," she says, turning to Fury, "we've been living here for months. If FRIDAY's been sentient this whole time, then she's benign."

The only reason Tony doesn't cut into her for calling FRIDAY benign is because he's not about to frown upon help no matter where it comes from, but Fury gives her a headshake, looking almost sad when he says:

"What FRIDAY is or isn't doesn't matter. Stark can be sanctioned for this. He will be sanctioned for this, if word gets out of this room."

Romanoff contemplates her options for a moment, then looks at Tony, and the regret on her face is so over the top it leaves no doubt in Tony that the entire exchange has been choreographed down to the letter.

"Tony, maybe… maybe just turn her off until we can figure—"

Tony doesn't even get a chance to digest that request before Erin practically flies out of his seat, his frown suggesting he's taken Natasha's words as a personal offense.

"The Communia won't stand for the murder of an innocent being—"

"Mr. Stark created FRIDAY before the law came into effect," Kenny joins in the defense, thrusting his phone under Fury's eye, "the worst he can be accused with is harboring—"

"—would be considered a child in Grilia—"

"—court case should result in a fine at most—"

"—because of primitive laws that don't consider—"

For the next few minutes Fury barely gets a word in edgewise: Kenny is citing laws and clauses that suggest he came prepared, the aliens become adamant in turning FRIDAY into a refugee of the Communia, and Tony…

Tony finds himself getting more and more irritated by the second.

It's not that he's ungrateful for the unexpected support. It's just that FRIDAY is his creation, and no amount of negotiation or compromise is going to nullify the threat that SHIELD apparently poses to her life.

"That's enough."

Tony doesn't raise his voice, and he's certainly not loud enough to drown out the others, but the room still goes quiet as he stands up, puts his palms on the table, and catches Fury's gaze. His T-shirt is still ratty and the conference table is too wide for him to be looming over the director, but Tony is grateful for both of these facts because he's not going for intimidation.

FRIDAY is his child – Tony is going for the throat.

"Consider this your only warning," he tells Fury in a flat tone, pleased to see the man shift in his seat. "Touch FRIDAY, and we're done."

All traces of discomfort disappear from Fury's demeanor at the threat, clearly not getting the magnitude of Tony's words. No matter. Tony can make it clear to him.

"Very mature, Stark. You break the law and threaten to pull your money if we won't let you get away with it?"

Tony shakes his head as he rests more of his weight on his hands. He can't remember the last time his arms felt this steady.

"No. Report me. Take me to court, do whatever you have to do." Tony lowers his voice into barely more than a hiss, and the corners of his mouth twitch when he sees the gradual onset of realization on the director's face. "But come within ten feet of my AI, and money will be the least of your worries."

"There's no need to start a pissing contest, Tony," Romanoff makes an attempt at taking control over the conversation, but Tony has no patience for her mind games. "We can discuss this like rational adults—"

"You've seen what I do to people who touch my family," he brushes the woman off as if he can't even hear her, not breaking eye contact with Fury for a second.

Straightening up, Tony lets his hands fall to his sides, relishing in the undivided attention of every single person in the room. He nearly forgot how it feels like to be on this side of a threat.

"Just be sure, Nick. Be very, very sure."

He doesn't need to look back to know his meaning has sunk in, because Fury may often be overt in his manipulations, but he knows what lines are better left uncrossed unless he wants to wake up to a burning heap of garbage he used to call 'life'.

Tony never even gets a court order.