Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. This also includes references to MCU canon, which has a tendency to be more than a bit dark as well as piss people off. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: Standard reminder to everyone that if you do not like a fic, you have the ability to leave without comment. You don't even have to finish the fic before doing so.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 15); MC4A (Year 4)
Individual Challenges: Advice Taken; Tell My Story (Y); Best Stories (Y); La Vie Boheme; Adult Activities; My Favorite Things; SHIELD MC; SHIELD MC; Neurodivergent; Rian-Russo Inversion; Ethnic & Present; Disabled; Zed Era (Y); Old Shoes; Marvelous Cinema; Short Jog (Y); Bucket Listing; Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Green Ribbon
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 15 – Assignment 11
Subject (Task No.): n/a
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Yearly Scavenger Hunt [09](Collected 5 Same Emotion)[x2]; 365 [310](Whistling); Fantastic Beasts [05](Someone being manipulated);
Other MC4A Challenges: WiB [5E](Coat/Jacket); Vocab [5E](Efficiency); Chim [Sulfa] (Emerald; "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas); Hunt [Wi WD (Black; Bi/Pan); Wi Set (Daytime/Outside); Wi Items (Boots; Ribbon/Cord)]; Fire [x1](Pun Master); Garden [Chores (Writing/Reading); Flowers (Emerald); Tools (Boots); Personal Favs (Tony Stark); Blossoms (Yellow); Meterology (Hot); Lawn Sculptures (Jacket/Coat); Duties (Whistling); Reader Digest (Secondary Fandom); Good Night (Secondary Fandom); Palette (Yellow; Blue; Purple); Mixed Bag Saga (Reading); Garden Beds (Daytime); Junk Pile (Desk); Bulbs (Lavender); Seasonings (Annoyance)]; Hang [Phrase 04] (Outside Challenge/Competition; Generic & Games/SE Challenges) Swap [Shoes (Heelies)]
Representation(s): Autistic Tony Stark; Nicholas J. Fury; SHIELD's A-plus Recruitment
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Triton's Domain; Hot Stuff; Second Verse (Persistence Still; Sneeze Weasel; Middle Name; Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice; For the Vine; Lovely Coconuts; Grease Monkey; Lyre Liar; Muck & Slime; Rock of Ages; Uncivil Obedience; Under the Bridge; Where Angels Fear); Chorus (Odd Feathers; Wabi Sabi; Bee Haven; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Tomorrow's Shade; A Long Dog; Larger than Life; Unicorn; Wind Beneath; Abandoned Ship; Turtle-Duck; Call Me Dantes; Sitting Hummingbird; Some Beach); Demo 1 (Easy Zephyr)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: War (Monomania; Orator; Obstruction; Sanctuary; Ennui); TY (Ntaiv; Kulonbozo); Mea (Ennui; Rampant); Share (Passacaglia; Ameliorate); DP (Yearn); O3 (Oust; Orator); SN (Rail; Ameliorate); T3 (Toad)
Word Count: 2295 words

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Just Like Advised
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Tony arrived at the address that Fury had insisted on meeting at with remarkable promptness considering how busy he was and how much he did not actually want to be there. Honestly, if he didn't think they would stoop to kidnapping him a third time, Tony wouldn't even have bothered showing up. As it was, Fury had scheduled the meeting for a moderately convenient time (or at least not entirely inconvenient), so Tony figured that he would at least give Fury the honor of hearing whatever he had to say.

Maybe he would even let Fury finish his pitch this time. He was still on the fence about that, though.

He gave the desolate warehouse an unimpressed look over his sunglasses. Either SHIELD had a lot of funding issues in the six months since Coulson had kidnapped him on the assumption that he would be strong-armed into joining, or Fury was choosing to not roll out the red carpet this time as punishment for turning them down twice already. Of course, if Fury had decided that murdering Tony was a better idea than recruiting him, this place was isolated enough that no one would hear anything short of an explosion.

(To be fair, if anyone took the new reactor out of his chest for longer than two minutes without the proper code, an explosion was exactly what they would get. Tony was not going to deal with another Stane Incident. Considering that SHIELD had already shown no qualms about attacking him, Tony wouldn't put it past them to think they could just take what they wanted like Stane had.)

A few nondescript cars that screamed undercover law enforcement were parted around the brick building. As if that wasn't enough to let anyone and their dog know something was going on, there were a couple of equally nondescript agents in unremarkable gray suits posted in a couple of places. All of this around a warehouse with broken windows and a cracked parking lot was more than a tad bit ridiculous.

It was all about as subtle as Tony had come to expect from SHIELD. Honestly, finding out that his father and Aunt Peggy had both been founders of the organization did explain a lot. Neither of them were exactly known for blending in, so creating an organization that only nominally worked in the shadows was par for the course. That a retired army officer was the third founder made that lack of subterfuge make even more sense. Maybe it was just that Tony had spent too much time with Rhodey over the decades and the branch rivalries had rubbed off on him. Or not. Good ol' Thunderbolt Ross was army, after all, and a prime example of everything wrong with the grunt force.

"Very inconspicuous ride, Stark," Coulson commented after he had opened the door.

The guard that had been posted there had called him over the comms as if there was going to be a plethora of visitors to their super secret hideout. Coulson had opened the door a distinctive three and a half minutes later. That was just long enough to give the appearance of not waiting without having actually been not waiting, as if that wasn't one of the first things that Howard had bothered teach Tony about managing business negotiations. The mild judgment was another of dear old Dad's tricks, designed to put the receiver in a defensive frame of mind with maximum efficiency. Tony would lay good odds on being left somewhere and made to wait on Fury.

Sure enough, Coulson showed Tony to a large room with an industrial table and a couple of uncomfortable office chairs. Around the room were a few large tech crates with ultra-thin monitors set up in the stored power base. The information being displayed had nothing on what Tony had glimpsed on Coulson's better tour back after the fight with Stane, but it was still mildly interesting for the first two minutes. That was mostly because of the news report on one of the monitors about the repairs to the Flushings event grounds. Not that the displayed emerald map with multiple yellow emblems marking several SHIELD operations both nationally and internationally wasn't fascinating in the scope of its illegality.

Did no one realize that he had eidetic memory? Or was this some trick designed to misled him?

Bored, Tony turned one of the two paper files laid out on the table towards him. Avengers Initiative, huh? That sounded only mildly more interesting than when Fury broke into his home to invite him six months ago. No sooner than Tony had decided to open the preliminary report, than a hand appeared to push it back onto the table.

"I'm not sure that I want you looking at that," Fury said as he took the file back and sat down on the other side of the desk. He had on his leather duster, which was showing a few signs of the salty air and California heat was beginning to wear on it. His military style boots were faring only slightly better. Tony resisted rolling his eyes, but it was still close. "I'm not sure it pertains to you anymore."

Tony gave Fury an unimpressed look. Did Fury honestly think that Tony was going to believe that? First, they harass him while meeting repeatedly with Stane. Then they kidnapped him while trying to commandeer both his personal services and his resources. When that didn't work in their favor, Fury personally broke into his home in an attempt to intimidate him into working for them. When that didn't work, they sent in the barely disguised honeypot.

Human Resources and Legal both had their hands full getting that little SNAFU fixed. The paralegal that Natashalie had poisoned was finally stabilized, though, even if it would likely be another few days before she was likely to be released from the hospital. Tony got the impression during their conversation that she would be more than happy to press charges against the spy, especially alongside Stark Industries. He, Happy, and Rhodey had a bet if SHIELD would stand by Romanoff or use her as a scapegoat.

"Now this on the other hand," Fury continued, picking up the other folder, "is Agent Romanoff's assessment of you." He held it out to Tony, who refused to take it. Fury heaved a sigh as if greatly disappointed and set it back on the table to slide it over to him. "Read it."

"Personality overview: Mr. Stark displays compulsive behavior," Tony read aloud. Was he supposed to be shocked by that? He had been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder when Ana had taken him to a shrink shortly before he was six. Most people with OCD show some kind of compulsive behavior, especially during periods of extreme stress. He had been reliably informed over the last few days by both Rhodey and Pepper that dying of blood toxicity counted as extreme stress. "In my own defense, that was last week."

Fury just maintained his impassive expression. Tony was starting to get the impression that Fury didn't get why that part was a bit funny. Was it possible that SHIELD did not manage to get any of his established medical records? Tony should see about allocated more funds into the bank account that was for JARVIS' personal projects. He clearly deserved some kind of reward.

"Prone to self-destructive tendencies—" Tony couldn't keep the incredulity out of his voice. Was this really the best that SHIELD had to offer? Rhodey's out of context comments cherry-picked from his assessment to Turner were better than this! "I was dying. I mean, please, aren't we all?" Fury looked annoyed and not the least bit understanding. Well, if it was going to be like that, Tony wasn't likely to be invested in the conversation either. So he continued reading the amateurish report. He actually had to pause, uncertain if he was reading it correctly, even for a report that he had already determined was bullshit. "Textbook… narcissism? Greed?"

Maybe Fury's annoyance was with Romanoff's subpar performance. Tony was fully aware of his mental and moral defects, and yet Romanoff had somehow managed to find two issues that he didn't actually have? How did she even managed to come up with this stuff? How did she managed to miss his actual flaws? It wasn't like he went out of his way to hide them!

"Okay, here it is. Recruitment assessment for the Avengers Initiative: Iron Man, yes." Tony closed the file as noisily as possible without crumbling or tearing the papers. He flashed his media smile at Fury. "I gotta think about it."

"Read on," Fury ordered in a flat tone. Tony eyed him speculatively. It might be a growing impatience causing the flatness, but Tony had read some of the reports from the last week. Fury had been a very busy pirate. Tony's voice tended to go wonky when he was exhausted. To buy himself time to process the idea of Fury and him potentially having anything in common, Tony decided to follow the order, opening up the file again.

"Tony Stark, not—not recommended?" Tony blinked rapidly in surprise at the utter stupidity of what he just read. That settled it. Fury's annoyance had to be with Romanoff. "That doesn't make any sense. How can you approve me but not approve me?"

There was more that he was tempted to say. He could ramble on about having fixed the ARC reactor or the new thing he had started with Pepper that had the potential to be something really good. He really hadn't expected SHIELD to suddenly change their tune after such a heavy handed recruitment drive. It was making his brain (which was not quite free of toxins let alone recovered from the damage) sputter a bit.

Thankfully, Tony managed to keep his tongue from wagging long enough that Fury heaved a disgusted sigh and stood up from his chair to perch on the edge of the table. The position had a lot of exaggerated casualness to it at the same time that it put Fury above Tony. He would be forced to look slightly upwards to maintain the trick that made people think he was making eye contact with them. Fury leaned slightly towards Tony, creating a faux degree of intimacy. If Fury had been a woman in a dress or blouse, it would have also given Tony a decent view of his breasts.

That was one of Aunt Peggy's negotiation techniques. Fucking hell.

"Now, we do understand that you are attempting to improve yourself—" Fury paused when Tony failed to hold back his snort at that comment. He took a deep breath before continuing with the same flat tone that Tony now recognized as deliberately neutral instead of anything else. "We recognize that you are attempting to improve yourself, so right now, we would only like to use you as a consultant."

Oh, that was their plan, wasn't it? Maybe Natashalie wasn't as incompetent as he thought. Maybe she had seen how many unresolved issues he had surrounding the approval of the adults from his childhood. Fury must be banking on SHIELD being a last chance extension of them from Tony's perspective. Too bad Fury didn't realize just how transparent his motivations were to someone who already knew all of the tricks, possibly even better than he did.

Howard and Aunt Peggy had nothing on Jarvis, let alone Ana.

Tony stood calmly. It put him on eye level with Fury. For something to do with his hands, he zipped his hoodie up until it covered the faint glow of the new reactor and adjusted the drawstring cord so that they were a bit uneven. He squared his shoulders in the way that Ana had taught him during their singing lessons. He gave Fury a small smile as he held out his hand to the Director of his father's vanity project. Fury's confusion only barely showed through the cracks in the mask of his stoicism as he took the offered hand.

"I accept," Tony began, pausing long enough that the tension in Fury's shoulders began to leave, "your recommendation to not include me in the Avengers Initiative. It's a good move, actually. I'm glad that you've finally seen the light. Third time's the charm, right?" Tony dropped Fury's hand to pat him once on the shoulder before stepping back. He was more than ready for this whole deal to be over. "Glad we had this talk about how much you agree with me that I'm not a good fit for your secret boy band."

Tony turned and began striding his way out of the room. He heard Fury call out his last name. So he waved dismissively over his shoulder at the man. He didn't need to look back to know Fury had to be glaring at his back.

"I'll let HR know to expect a call from SHIELD about a consulting contract."

Then Tony popped up on the wheels of his heelies to let his momentum carry him fully out of the room and down the hall, whistling as he went. He was very thankful that past-him had had the forethought to work a small motor powered by an even smaller reactor into each shoe. The pink, lavender, and blue lights that signaled that the motor was working were also helpful in the dimness of the hallway. The only way that the move could have been more cool would have been if he could have slurped some kind of drink as he had done so.

Maybe he should stop into a coffee or juice shop on his way back home.

This called for a celebration, after all.