The whole thing started on one random night.
Tony had never bothered to make his rooms unavailable for others occupants of the house. There were only the three of them, and no one had ever made any attempts at getting inside his private rooms, so the matter never even crossed his mind.
Until one day, when, in the middle of the night, Fri announced that Wanda was walking into his room with two cups of something in her hands. It took Tony so much by surprise that he was still in his bed, holding his StarkPad in his lap when Wanda walked in as if she owned the place.
"Here," she offered, putting a mug full of tea on top of his bedside table while keeping another one in her hands, sitting at the end of his bed without another word.
Tony blinked, wondering if this was some kind of weird dream. He also wondered if the appropriate moment to get up and put a shirt on had already come and gone.
"What is it?" He asked, instead, releasing his StarkPad and grabbing the mug in a single move, locked in a weird hazy state where none of it felt real.
"Tea," she explained, taking a small sip. "Chamomile and lavender, to be precise. I mixed it. It's good to relax. F.R.I.D.A.Y. said you were still awake, so I thought you might appreciate a cup."
Well, he had never forbidden Fri from telling the others about him. In his defense, he never thought anyone would bother to ask.
So, yeah, he took a sip from the damn tea, and fuck it if it wasn't delicious. Not even a little bit sweet, the hot liquid was floral and calming all without being cloying and disgusting like the vanilla teas Pepper used to drink in bed.
Tony hummed in appreciation, taking another sip. "You should sell this."
"I don't think so," she said, but had a small smile tugging at her lips. "It may not be big in America, but in Sokovia people drank many cups of tea a day. This would hardly impress anyone from my country."
My country, she said. Her dead country.
Tony tried not to allow his mind to go down that path.
"Well, good thing you're in America now," he said, hoping for a distraction. "We're easily impressed by small shit."
Her eyes sharpened a touch at his lightness, but other than that, she held the smile firm on her lips and agreed, "That's good to know." After that, she fell silent, studying him from her place at the end of the mattress.
Tony carried on drinking his tea in silence, enjoying the rare moment of peace to relax against the headboard of his bed and doing his best not to think about anything else. It had been a good while since he had allowed himself to do that — to simply be.
His floating head-space seemed to stretch for an eternity. Only when his lips were met with an empty mug and his whole body felt warm, did Wanda break the silence.
"Do you often have problems sleeping?" She asked softly, and Tony could do little else but sigh.
Understatement of the century.
He kept his eyes closed as he answered, unwilling to break the moment. "You could say that, yes."
"Do you feel you could sleep now?" She asked again, and he felt soft fingers prying the empty mug from his hands. This time, her voice came from much closer, yet still so soft and quiet, barely more than a whisper.
"Perhaps," he admitted, vaguely aware that it wasn't appropriate for him to fall asleep in his bed, shirtless, while Wanda was still hovering next to his bed. It was almost enough to get him to open his eyes, but then, to his surprise, out of nowhere, Wanda started to sing.
Well, more like humming a tune under her breath. Some kind of weird lullaby that Tony had never heard before, but it sounded great coming from her lips.
Soothing, perhaps.
Tony could also no longer feel the light coming from behind his closed lids, so he guessed that Fri took the hint to turn them off when Wanda began to sing.
And, after some time — Tony had absolutely no clue when — as he was thinking about the song and the lights and the tea and the soft bed beneath him and the idea of sleep, his mind shut down.
He went to sleep — just like that. Without taking anything or drowning in liquor or staying awake long enough to tire even his mind. He went to sleep and only woke up many hours later, feeling well-rested for the first time in Christ knew how long.
It was a baffling feeling.
Addictive in a way only a person who had been deprived of sleep could ever fully understand.
Which might have been why he failed to protest when she started to randomly wander into his bedroom a couple of nights a week.
It was poor decision-making on his part, really.
Tony should've known better.
He really should have.
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It was a burger.
It was supposed to be a burger — at least that's what she said.
It did not look appetizing whatsoever.
"I'm not eating this," Tony informed, looking Wanda dead in the eyes so she could understand just how much he meant his words.
Her only response was to roll her eyes at him. "Take one bite," she said, trying to reason with him, as though he was the one being impossible.
"I don't think so." Tony shook his head, pushing the plate away. "Not this vegan shit."
"It's not shit; I promise! Try it."
"No. Nope. No way. I have principles."
"Principles? What does that even mean?"
"It means that I refuse to eat a leafy thing that's trying to be a meaty thing."
Wanda stopped in her tracks. "Did you seriously just say that?"
And yes, embarrassingly enough, Tony had, indeed, just said that.
"Whatever," he carried on, neither denying nor confirming. Better to just move on from this entire conversation. "I have to go. Work to do and all that crap."
As soon as he moved to get up from his chair, however, Wanda's hand moved like a snake, quickly grabbing his arm and keeping him in place.
"Wait! Don't go," she said, and her eyes flashed with some weird emotion behind them. Something that looked suspiciously like desperation, and it was enough to freeze Tony in place. "I'll make you something else, okay? What would you like? I don't know how to cook a lot of dishes with meat- I mean, before all that, well, before my parents, I did, but then I didn't and I can't remember much of that—"
And she carried on rambling about her parents and meat and dishes and the things she could try to cook for Tony, all while he stared in surprise, dumbfounded by her sudden display of nerves.
It wasn't something he had ever seen before. Not with Wanda, at least — not like this.
There she was, offering to cook him shit she didn't even eat, and for what? He had never asked her to do this. To feed him, to help him, to serve him, as though she needed to.
It raised some red flags in his mind.
"Hey!" He cut her off mid-sentence. Enough was enough. She froze, blinking rapidly as his voice brought her back to the present. "Wanda. Let me make something very clear, alright? I don't need to be fed or catered to, okay? I'm capable of feeding myself."
"I'm aware," Wanda said, and for Christ's sake, she sounded confused. "I never said that."
"Well, act like it. Quit freaking out about my eating."
She shook her head. "I'm not. I mean, I am a little, I suppose," she started, running her hands through her hair in a manner Tony was starting to associate with a nervous response. "It's not because I believe you to be incapable of fending for yourself, however. Although I've seen your attempts at cooking and it's not good. I just…" She stopped and looked away. "I'm sorry, it's nothing."
Wow, talk about big cues.
Now, see, if only Pepper had been that easy to read, he thought, for a wild, pathetic flash.
"Yeah, Quick-Fingers, if you want me to believe you, you're gonna have to do better than that," Tony said, then wondered why he didn't take the chance to make his escape. She was giving him a perfect way out of that awkward conversation. Why was Tony choosing to press the subject?
Did he even care about whatever it was that bothered her so much, anyway?
"I…," she began, then stopped. Inhaled, and ran her hand across her hair again. Tony saw the exact moment her shoulders dropped and she decided to just spit it out. "It gets lonely in this house, that's all… And I get that you are a busy man, and Peter needs his personal space, and the lab is not a place I'm much needed at, but I thought that this—" she mentioned to the space surrounding them. "—the kitchen, well, I could do this."
And just as the words processed, and their meaning settled as another heavy weight in Tony's already overcrowded mind, it became clear that yes, he did care about it.
Fuck it, Tony cared.
Wanda looked ready to be ridiculed for her frankness and for heaven's sake, it was Tony's fault that she was there in the first place, and not at the Compound with the others, and shit, the least he could do was stop being such an asshole. Tony's mouth opened before he even realised what he was about to say.
"That's not true," he said. Backtracked when he saw her reaction. "About the lab, I mean. A lot of the time we're just tinkering with some tech or throwing ideas around. Just passing time." He shrugged, and it was all awkwardness. "Just show up. It's fine."
It was not fine.
Inviting people to his private lab was not fine. Telling her to just show up was not fine. Giving this sort of access to someone besides Peter was not fine. Giving up on his hiding place was not fine.
None of it was fine.
And yet…
The words remained. He took none back, and instead, allowed the offer to hang in the air as Wanda stared at him in disbelief, probably as shocked as he was by the sudden generosity.
In the end, after many, many horrible minutes of silence, she nodded.
"Okay," Wanda agreed, her voice so goddamn tentative still. "I will. Thank you."
Tony was about to dispel the wholesome moment with a terrible comeback, because enough was enough, but then Wanda went and smiled. A fucking bright and hopeful smile. The kind that had become so rare these days after, well, everything, and it surprised him enough to silence him.
Whatever.
Rhodey always said the world could do with fewer of his stupid comebacks, anyway.
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"No." Tony shook his head. "Absolutely not."
"C'mon," Peter pleaded, doing that thing with his eyes that Tony hadn't yet learned how to resist. "It will be fun."
Tony clung to a slither of his precious sanity and tried to keep his eyes away from that dangerous face.
"Peter, c'mon. Stop. You always say that — the words lost their meaning by now, buddy."
Wanda hummed in agreement, although she looked way less bothered by the idea than Tony thought was appropriate given the suggestion. "That's true. You have to stop being so liberal with the word 'fun', Peter."
"It's not my fault you're both sour people with no sense of humor," Peter said, shrugging and attempting to roll his eyes at the same time, with little to no success.
"Yeah, no." Tony got up from the couch and went to fill his cup of coffee once again, a deep, sinking feeling in the bottom of his stomach warning him that he was losing the battle, despite his better efforts. "My sense of humor is perfectly fine. Incredible, some people might say. Legendary, even."
"No one would say that," Wanda deadpanned.
Peter had the gall to snort a laugh.
"Watch it, Spider-Boy," Tony warned, keeping his eyes on the half-filled cup in his hands. "I'm sure I can still find Lizard-Man somewhere, you know?"
"What? That's a stupid name," Peter complained. "And it's Spider-Man. Thank you."
Wanda raised a brow. "How can Spider-Man be okay and Lizard-Man be stupid? That makes absolutely no sense."
Peter shrugged. "Well, you're, like, Russian, or something. You wouldn't understand."
And inexplicably, Tony's bottom lip started to curl inward in an effort to keep himself from showing his amusement, and he had to tighten the grip on his cup, doing his best to prevent from spilling the hot liquid on the carpet.
"I'm not even from Russia," Wanda corrected, shaking her head with an air of affected-disapprovement. "What are Americans taught in geography class?"
"Whatever," Peter said. "It's the same thing."
"What? No, it isn't. Is America the same country as Colombia?"
"Of course not."
"Then you're an idiot."
"Nuh-uh. I went to a high-performance school, actually."
"Oh, did you? Not sure about that, buddy."
"Whatever. Admit it – You're just jealous 'cause Russian school wasn't as cool as ours."
"For the last time: I'm from Sokovia," Wanda said slowly, and there was a small twitch in her forehead now. "That's not the same as Russia."
Peter made a gesture of indifference. "I wouldn't know."
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Rhodey sighed, managing to convey all of his frustration ever through the screen.
"Man, you need to get back into the world. What do you plan to do? Spend the rest of your life locked up in this house with two teenagers?" He asked – demanded, actually – and Tony barely managed to hold back the urge to flinch.
Teenagers.
Fuck.
They weren't teenagers, of course, but it didn't change the fact that Rhodey was right. To them — to men their age — Peter and Wanda should be no more than teenagers.
"Yep," Tony replied, ignoring the rest and answering the first part only. "I'm good where I am. Saw enough of the world — of the fucking galaxy, really — to last me a lifetime. Here seems good."
"I'm not saying you should go back to your old life, Tony," Rhodey said, and it's fucked up that Tony didn't even know which old life his best friend was talking about this time. "But it's not healthy what you're doing here, either."
"I'm not doing anything. I'm living my life. Doing a rather excellent job of it, actually," Tony corrected, keeping it light. "I even earned brownie points with Pepper the other day. Being productive and all that."
"Don't do this, Tones. You can't do this to yourself." Rhodey shook his head. "What about them? Peter and Wanda?"
Tony smiled, all teeth and no humor. "They are fine, Platypus. I feed them and everything," he said. "I don't keep them locked in the basement, you know. Lose the long face. I keep my booze there."
Rhodey paused. Waited. "The Avengers—"
"Nope," Tony cut him off, feeling the familiar weight settling on his chest as soon as that word crossed the other man's mouth. "Don't wanna know. I quit. I have nothing to do with them anymore."
"Have you actually quit, Tony? Iron Man?"
"Have you seen a red suit flying around lately?"
"I thought you and Pepper had broken up because you said you would never be done."
"At the time — I don't know if you remember — half the universe was fucking missing."
"And if that happened again tomorrow?"
Tony was done, though. "Then give me a call. Until then, I guess you'll have to make do with getting your orders from whichever nursing home Steve managed to be accepted at."
Rhodey blinked in surprise.
"You've changed," he said slowly, after too many beats of silence.
And wasn't that the biggest understatement of the century?
"I had to," it's all Tony said, and it was all he had to say about it. He had changed, and for once in his miserable life, he didn't regret that.
Where he was now — he was needed.
Necessary.
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.
"Tony, there are twelve coffee machines in this house," Peter said. "I know because I counted them. Twelve, Tony. Not one, not ten — twelve."
"Well, I only use, like, three, so…" Tony shrugged. "Not so bad, see?"
"You use the one on your bedside table. To drink coffee while you're still half asleep."
"Isn't that the whole point of caffeine anyway, to wake you up?"
"Only if you get any sleep in the first place."
"I have no clue what you could possibly mean with that, Underoos. I sleep. A whole bunch of hours and everything."
Peter pressed his mouth into a fine line. "Don't change the subject. Why do you have twelve coffee machines?"
"I'm an engineer, honey. A bored engineer, at that. Be thankful it was a coffee machine and not a speaking toaster, or something."
"Are you guys gonna eat it or not?" Wanda interrupted, pointing at the plates in front of them. Hers was suspiciously empty — Tony suspected she had taken the opportunity to throw the entire thing in the trash while they had been arguing with each other. He didn't blame her, just wished he had thought of it first.
"I ate it! It's not my fault healthy food is disgusting," Tony protested, shoving the half-eaten plate away from him.
"He did try two pieces of it," Peter agreed.
Wanda shook her head. "I'm living with two toddlers."
"I resent that," Tony said, already walking to the fridge to pick something better to eat. "I'm at least a teenager. An old kid, at the very least. Not a month younger than eleven."
This time, Peter hesitated. "Eleven sounds pretty old, Tony. I was a pretty responsible kid at eleven. Like, doing my own bed and everything."
"Okay. Eight," Tony allowed, knowing better than to say what he had been doing at eleven. "Eight and not a second younger."
Peter grinned at Wanda. "Eight," he repeated in a satisfied tone, nodding his head. "I would give us eight."
"I want to move out," Wanda deadpanned, stealing Tony's abandoned plate to eat the weird non-omelette she had made.
"That probably wouldn't be very responsible of you," Peter said, very wisely. "Leaving us to eat cereal for all meals and all that. That's not the sort of karma you want for yourself, is it?"
Wanda didn't even twitch. "I'll take my chances."
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Peter surprised him one Tuesday afternoon when F.R.I.D.A.Y. informed Rhodey was calling him.
Again.
It was perhaps his fourth call of the day.
"Didn't Colonel Rhodes sort of—" Peter blurted out, stopping when the words escaped him. "... give your suit to the army?"
"Well, not exactly the army—"
"Still."
"Still," Tony conceded after a pause. Peter wasn't wrong — he just wasn't right either. "Rhodey gets a pass, though. He earned it — trust me. To be fair, at the time I probably would've done the same thing he did if he were in my shoes. Not really, I wouldn't, but still… that's why he's the responsible one and I'm, well, me."
Peter crossed his arms over his chest. "He shouldn't have—"
This time, it was Tony who cut him off. "You don't know the whole story," he said as gently as he could. "This whole 'being offended on my behalf' thing is sweet and all, but Rhodey was there. I was dying, not really saying anything to anyone, and acting like a total lunatic for no apparent reason. With my suits… I could've been dangerous. I was dangerous, actually."
Wanda spoke for the first time, then. "Why didn't you say anything?"
Tony sort of shrugged, knowing his reasons weren't the easiest thing to comprehend. "What would I have said? 'Hey, guys, I'm dying?' There was nothing they could've done, besides maybe cry. I'm definitely worth a few good rounds of crying — I hope. Not worth the hassle, though, in the end."
"Did you not care that you would die?"
"Kid, did you not read the papers? No one who doesn't care makes such an idiot out of themselves as I did. Of course I cared. Tried everything I could to fix it, and when I realised there was nothing… I crashed. There was a party that, Christ… Rhodey for sure deserves a pass."
"That's when SHIELD came in?"
"Yep. Natasha and Fury, God's least favorite children," Tony joked, then felt his muscles tense up when he remembered that Natasha wasn't even alive anymore. The pain was sharp and sudden, and it almost stole all his breath. He shook his head and carried on, willing himself to not think about it. Later, he thought. Not now. "Yeah. They showed up with my father's work — that they stole in the first place, I would like to make clear."
From their faces, Tony could tell that they both had realised where his mind had wandered to after his slip, but thankfully, no one said a word about it. Instead, they carried on the conversation as if he had never mentioned her name at all.
"It's that when the Avengers became a thing?"
"Not even close. I was a drunken mess, kid, remember? I was deemed unqualified for the job, actually. Not stable enough to be part of the club. Narcissistic and all." Not that Tony had been upset about it. Of course not. "The band got together when Loki came. Things got out of control and SHIELD had no idea how to handle the mess they created with the Tesseract. As usual, they played the game without knowing the rules. Almost cost us our planet, too."
"Why did you accept, then?"
"What was the option? Leaving earth to be ruled by Thor's adopted mess of a brother? I don't think so. I'm not really fond of any sort of monarchy, to be honest. Too much self-importance, and that's coming from me. Also, he had a horned helmet — there was no way that guy was ruling our planet wearing that."
"I remember watching you all on the television," Wanda admitted. "It felt very surreal to watch aliens popping out of a hole from space."
"I thought you guys were the best," Peter said, grinning. "Seriously. Superheros flying around New York, saving the day? I felt like I was living inside a comic book."
"That's 'cause you were what? Five?" Tony deadpanned.
"Actually, I was—"
Tony interrupted. "Don't tell me. I don't wanna know. God, I'm getting too old for this."
"Don't be dramatic."
"Have you met me?"
Wanda rolled her eyes. "Guys, c'mon. And then what? You started to work together — the Avengers, I mean."
"Sure," Tony shrugged. "Guess almost dying together makes people sort of bond faster than usual. Still wasn't all butterflies and cuddles as the press made it seem. Steve had just come out of his Capsicle phase, and he wasn't adjusting as well to the present as SHIELD had expected him to. The whole team was just a bunch of complicated people pushed together in the worst way possible, to be fair."
"Why not leave? Hadn't they said you weren't qualified in the first place?"
"Yep. Coulson died, Clint was recovering, there was a shit-ton to rebuild around New York, and also the whole 'we are not alone in the universe' stuff kept us together. We moved to the tower and it made sense."
"Your tower," Peter corrected, as though Tony wasn't aware. "You changed the name after Loki."
"What can I say? I'm a glorified landlord," Tony tried to joke, only it came out terribly flat. There was nothing funny about the disaster that had been the Avengers — and to think of how much effort Tony had put in while trying to make things work only served to depress him. The team could've been amazing — he had wanted so fucking much to be a part of a good thing for once, and where had that left him?
"That's fucked up, though," Peter said, echoing his thoughts. "With Germany and everything. How could they do this when you saved their lives so many times?"
Wanda tensed up. "You don't know what you're talking about," she hissed.
"I don't? Why? 'Cause you fought for the wrong side?"
"You have no idea—"
"She's right," Tony said, hoping to avoid a possible messy situation. And she was right — there was that, too. "Steve and the others were doing what they thought was best for them and everyone else. And that's what we were doing as well. It's not their fault. They didn't owe me anything for the past, Pete."
"How can you say that?"
"Because it's the truth, simple as that. The Accords were necessary, I still believe that. It doesn't mean that I was entirely right, though."
His words fell on deaf ears, however, because Peter remained with that familiar stubborn tilt to his chin that meant he wasn't about to be reasonable about the subject. Tony tried to pretend it didn't warm his insides to see someone defending him so openly and insistently.
"Still," Peter insisted, unwilling to listen. "To try to kill you? That was not okay."
"We never!" Wanda protested. "We fought, yes. You were there, though. You know we weren't trying to kill anyone. None of us was fighting to kill."
"I wasn't talking about Germany," Peter said darkly and Tony's heart froze in place.
He could not be talking about Siberia.
"What are you talking about, then?" Wanda asked, her eyes shifting from Tony to Peter, searching for answers that Tony could see on the tip of Peter's tongue.
He said nothing. It was the best he could do. His legs wanted to carry him away from this conversation and its sudden unpleasant turn. Still, he stayed. Silent, but there nonetheless.
"Siberia." Peter spat the word like a curse.
Wanda frowned. "What? What happened in Siberia?"
"Captain Rogers and Barnes left Tony alone in the ice to die," he said, each word sharp and so fucking heavy. Accusations dripped from every letter. Peter was the judge, and he had sentenced them to a thousand years of fire.
Tony had done the same, many years ago. He would be lying if he said it didn't feel satisfying to hear someone else do the same — with the same anger, the same weight. Peter was no mediator, no reasonable person hoping to understand both sides, and Tony almost wanted to smile. To laugh, to thank him for being the person of blind faith that Tony had never had in his life before.
Wanda gasped. "They wouldn't!" She denied it, turning to Tony for a response. A quick explanation. Something that would clear Rogers' reputation.
Unfortunately, Tony had nothing of the sort. "To be fair, I was giving just as much as I was taking," he said, not lying but bending the truth a bit to help her. It had happened a long time ago — he could almost afford to be this generous.
"Were you, though?" Wanda pressed, and her eyes narrowed in concentration. She didn't sound like she believed him.
Tony shrugged. "Close enough."
"Close enough is not the same thing, Tony! Did you or did you not try to kill them as well?"
"Why does it matter?"
"'Cause, it does! How can you ask this? Tell me!" And she was desperate. "What happened?"
Tony had only the briefest of moments to be thankful for the years of therapy he had had since the incident. It was the only thing allowing him to speak about it without losing his shit.
"Barnes killed my parents. Rogers knew about it. They knew and they never said anything," he said, keeping his tone as even as he could and ignoring the way the words were acid in his mouth. "They both knew. He killed them. Choked my mom to death inside her car. Shot my father in front of her. Murdered them. So, yeah, we fought."
"And Steve buried his shield in your arc reactor," Peter added, furious. "Say it. That's how it ended."
"But no," Tony answered the original question, ignoring Peter's words. "I didn't really go for the kill. I could have. At the time, I told myself that I did try to end it — with Barnes. That I would've killed him if I could have. I had opportunities, though. Missiles and lasers and blasters and a lot of lethal functions of the suit that I never used."
Wanda frowned. She looked lost. "And Steve still…?"
Tony sighed. "He did what he had to do. Protected his friend."
"You were his friend."
"I thought so, too," Tony said, a bitter smile on his lips.
Too bad we were wrong, he wanted to add. Too bad that, in the end, he only ever cared about Barnes.
"I can't- He wouldn't-" Wanda babbled, trying to process the information. Her eyes sharpened with each word she uttered. "How did he do that when- And he left you there to die? Alone?"
"He probably knew someone would show up," Tony said, knowing that hadn't been the case.
"How could he have known that?" Peter argued. "That's ridiculous. You could've died. It was a stroke of luck. He should've never left you there on your own — should've never harmed you in the first place. Not like that. Not when the arc reactor was the one thing keeping you alive."
"It did force me to improve it," Tony conceded, tapping lightly on the housing unit on his chest. "To fix it, really. To have the surgery."
"It wasn't his place to do that! To put you in that position! To leave you alone in the cold! It's attempted murder, it's what it is. We don't do that to criminals — how could he do that to someone he called a friend?"
"In hindsight, Steve never called me his friend. I assumed." And how pathetic was that?
"I can't believe it," Wanda whispered, her eyes wide and lost. "I can't believe he would do that. I can't. That's not- I just-" She stopped, got up and fisted her hands. "I have to-excuse me."
And she left.
Walked out of the room in a hurry, her movements stiff and controlled, her back tight with tension, her hands still fisted and white.
Tony could only turn to Peter and ask the question burning in the back of his mind. "Why did you do that?"
Peter never hesitated. "She needed to know," he said, which was hardly an explanation and yet… at the same time, it couldn't have been more clear.
Tony swallowed and pretended once again that Peter's actions weren't everything he had once expected from Rhodey. From Pepper.
From anyone.
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Tony sighed. Again. Postponing things was only serving to make him even more anxious about it, which was precisely the opposite of what he wanted. He had already made up his mind; decided to just rip off the bandage and fucking do it.
He couldn't live in fear of his own creation, his own suits, his own…
Being Iron-Man was who he was, what had saved his life countless times, the thing he turned to when all else failed him, again and again, no matter how many promises he made to quit. To retire. To put the suits away and live a goddamn civilian life.
That was not who he was.
He was Iron-Man just as much as he was Anthony Stark. It took years, but he accepted the fact and all it entailed. Now, however, it was time to prove it — to get back to it.
Months had passed.
He was as ready as he ever would be without the added bottle of alcohol or line of cocaine. And since he didn't do that shit anymore, Tony had only his unreliable self-control and shaky self-confidence to help him get this done.
It was hardly the worst situation he ever faced — far from it, thankfully.
Nevertheless, his hands were still shaking when he raised them to touch the cold alloy. His repaired suit from the battle against Thanos.
Mark LXXV.
His masterpiece.
As close to perfection as Tony could reach at the moment — his favorite out of all his suits, out of every piece of armour he had ever created. His final suit, as it all indicated.
Looking down at his chest, Tony saw the nanoparticle housing unit softly glowing in its place, still empty since he returned from the Compound after the battle. If he had been able to do so, he would've also taken it out that day. Almost had, in fact.
Almost ripped it from his chest.
In the end, Tony was glad he hadn't done it.
Now, though, he needed to get into the suit. It was time. He had to do it. A simple double-tap and he would be encased again — he only had to raise his finger and get it to his chest and he would—
"Boss," F.R.I.D.A.Y. interrupted him and Tony tried to pretend he was angry at the disturbance. That it had, indeed, interrupted him. That he had been about to get it done. "Mister Parker is outside."
Of course he was.
Tony sighed for the hundredth time. "Let him in."
The door opened and Peter walked inside with hesitant steps, eyes searching for answers. "Why were the doors closed? You never close them. Did something happen, because I want to kno—"
As soon as his eyes landed on the Iron Man suit, the words died on his lips. Instead, his eyes turned sharp. Too sharp, in Tony's opinion. The kid could be too clever sometimes.
"Are you doing it now?" Was what he asked in place of his previous words, his tone cautious and severe, even though Tony had never once spoken about this or had ever suggested that it was some sort of ceremony.
The energy to come up with an appropriate excuse evaded Tony, so he merely nodded and hoped Peter would understand that there was nothing else to be said.
Never one to disappoint, Peter was quick on the uptake. Going silent as well, he walked until he stood two steps behind Tony, slightly to his right. Close enough that they were sharing the same space, that they could touch if they wished to.
They didn't.
Peter stood there, in silence. Watching Tony with the same intensity as Tony did with the suit, somehow showing his support without adding any pressure to the situation. He simply stood behind Tony and respected the quiet solemnity of the moment.
Tony wanted to pretend that it didn't affect him. That he would've done it regardless of whether he had been alone or not. That Peter being there changed nothing because Tony had already decided to get into the fucking suit.
Still, it was only when Peter arrived that he moved.
"Yeah," Tony finally answered, raising his hand to the cold metal in his chest. "I'm doing it now." And he tapped.
.
.
.
.
Life, Tony could not help but think, had a horrible way of being disgustingly ironic when he least expected it.
How suitable, then, that Captain America seemed to be the main actor in so many of these moments, even after so many years had passed since they first parted ways.
So many years of silence before the fight… and now this.
It would've been the perfect time to air his grievances, he thought.
It really would, honestly. Wanda was already tearing up, completely shocked and betrayed by the news, in a very vulnerable state of mind — it would take only a few well-placed words to taint all her memories of Steve Rogers.
It was monstrous to even consider the possibility, he knew. But he could hardly prevent the thoughts from running through his mind, and Steve was hardly blameless in that whole situation.
What a goddamn clusterfuck.
Like always, however, Tony allowed the moment to pass without a single bad word about the man — keeping his opinions to himself and her memories just as they had always been. It was just as well, really. To dig up old wounds would pain him way more than it ever would her — better to let things be.
To be honest, Steve was doing a fine job of tarnishing his legacy on his own account. His latest decision was simply another terrible one in an endless line of fuck-ups, although Tony had to admit to being surprised by this one, maybe more than he had ever been with the others.
For Steve to drop everything and everyone he fought so hard to protect only to live his fairytale love life in another timeline, well, that was fucking surprising, yeah. Christ, so goddamn irresponsible, as well.
A child's dream. A misplaced wish. Something he should've gotten over years ago. A life he had no right to claim now, in the middle of the clean-up, as the Avengers tried to put their pieces back together.
Peggy had done just fine without Captain America in her life.
And now Sam was supposed to take over the shield, the mantle, while Steve rotted away at the Compound?
Fuck.
Another mess in the pile of shit stinking up the planet.
The worst thing, though, was that Tony would've been alright. He would've been okay with the news had he been alone in his house, with no one else to have feelings and shit. Surprised? Yes. Disturbed? Of course. Dumbfounded and frustrated? Obviously. But okay.
Having to witness Wanda's meltdown was another story entirely.
He had not signed up to be anyone else's support person, Tony thought, quite uncharitably, ignoring his hypocrisy and the fact that he had been the one to practically drag her to the cabin.
As he looked at her, wondering what he should do about the crying woman in his living room, it dawned on him that underneath his feelings about Steve's decision and the discomfort of having vulnerabilities displayed so openly, Tony actually felt sorry for Wanda.
Deeply, truly sorry for what she was going through.
In his mind, she didn't deserve to lose another important person in her life — not after losing so many. That most of those losses were Tony's personal fault only served to deepen his sorrows.
Hadn't that been the reason Tony had dragged her to the cabin in the first place? Because he owed Wanda and all the people she had lost to protect her at all costs? Because her life was a shitshow directed by Stark Industries? Because there was only so much a twenty-something could lose before they snapped, and Wanda deserved better than that?
And Steve knew that.
Fucking Steve Rogers knew that Wanda saw him as some weird kind of brotherly/parental figure, and he still went through with his selfish plans despite it. And as always, it was up to Tony to clean up the mess he left behind with his bouts of stupid decisions.
Another wave of anger coursed through Tony's body even as he forced a deep breath in and out, relaxing his tight shoulders as he exhaled.
That was the moment Wanda appeared to break down completely, bursting into tears right there and then, unable to hold back any longer. She broke down in tears and Tony snapped out of his thoughts, realising where his priorities had to be at the moment.
He knew very little of comforting techniques, though, so he did the only thing that seemed right in that goddamn awkward situation and slid closer to her, visibly offering his shoulder to her as he did so.
It was far from his best move — a terrible reassurance, he was aware — and when she did nothing at first, he almost moved away. Only just as the doubts were getting the best of Tony, Wanda closed the distance between them and hugged his arm as if her life depended on it, hiding her face between his collarbone and his neck.
A full invasion of his personal space.
Instead of the soft touch he had been expecting, Wanda clung to him in a way that spoke of levels of intimacy they never got close to having. He gave a little and she took it all.
His space, his arm, his neck, his private bubble, his careful plan, his calculated decision — Wanda ran past the fences with barely a look at the damage left behind.
In fact, it was the first time Tony was giving physical comfort to another person in a long time.
It should bother him way more than it was — it really should. His mind should be screaming in protest at the situation, already coming up with twelve different ways for him to slide out of the embrace and walk out the door.
It didn't, though.
No.
Wanda touched him, and there was only silence.