Here we are with the next chapter of Mending What Was Broken- apologies for the delay in getting this out. I've got a few written and life just got away with me!
As always, all characters belong to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I merely use them for my own enjoyment. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter Twenty-Two – Confrontations (Wanda)
The talk with Pepper had put a few things in perspective for Tony and he knew now that unless he got some of the things weighing on him off his chest, he was going to need to confront the issues that were bothering him most, and that meant some serious talks with the other Avengers.
Unless he dealt with all the underlying issues he had with his former teammates, then he would never be able to re-form the Avengers as a proper team that worked well together. The sniping would just carry on, and Tony knew he wouldn't be able to move past what happened.
As it happened, the first one presented itself when Tony returned to the Tower after his meeting with Pep, in the form of his Sokovian red-head colleague- Wanda. He found her in his workshop pacing madly, muttering to herself, hair flying wildly behind her.
"Wanda?"
She whirled around and stared at him in fury. "How dare you run out like that! We've all been worried sick about you!"
Tony bit his tongue on the angry retort that almost burst out. "I was only in a meeting with Pepper, and besides, I'm fully healed thanks to the cradle- no worrying necessary."
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Healed or not, Tony, anything could have happened to you! The Tower was just under attack days ago and you disappeared without informing anyone where you were going!"
Barely keeping a lid on his anger, Tony calmly explained. "I don't need to tell anyone where I'm going, Wanda. I've been looking after myself for over a year, and many years before any of you came along, so I find it a little hard to believe that I suddenly need a bunch of babysitters. If you must know, I was in a scheduled meeting with Pepper, you know, the CEO of my company? So, technically, someone knew where I was. You don't get to rock back up into my life and then start making demands. I don't answer to you."
Wanda swore in Ukrainian. "I was worried, Tony! Anything could have happened to you!"
The last string of Tony's patience snapped. "You worried?" He hissed. "Worried? Where was your worry when you were pulling two-tonne cars on my head? Or when Vision hit Rhodey with his beam and left him paralysed? Oh, wait, I know, how about when you were gallivanting across Siberia with Barnes? How about then, Wanda?"
"You locked me in the compound!" Wanda screamed, her fists clenched.
"To protect you! There were cities of people baying for your blood over Lagos! I was terrified of what people would do if they got a hold of you, so I asked Vis to keep you on the compound to make sure you were safe!"
"And The Raft?"
Tony winced. "Yeah, that one was on me, I admit that, and I was so relieved when Rogers busted you out of there. You've done nothing to show me you're even sorry for the airport! Wanda, my suit is strong, but a two-tonne car could have seriously injured me! And not to mention you pulled several of them out of the parking lot. Not once have you even apologised to me."
She stalled in her tirade and frowned. "We were all at each other's throats over the Accords, there were differing opinions on what was best to do, and that led to us all fighting."
Tony snorted indelicately. "Bullshit, Wanda. The real fighting began because Rogers decided that protecting his little bestie was more important than bringing him in for questioning over Vienna. If he'd just been smart then everything would have been sorted out in a matter of hours, instead, he made everyone that didn't sign the Accords a fugitive."
Red magic sparked from Wanda's clenched hands. "Steve was protecting his best friend! There was a kill order out on Bucky, he would have been shot on sight!"
"That's a fucking lie, Wanda! There was never a kill order on Bucky! Is that was Steve told you? Are you really that fucking stupid?" Tony bellowed.
Screaming in rage, Wanda's magic exploded out of her and Tony registered too late that she wasn't wearing her gloves. The red struck him in the chest, his arc reactor flickering dangerously as it seemed to be steadily drained of power. He gasped weakly, his chest in agony as the electromagnet started to fail and the shrapnel crawled towards his heart.
"Tony! No, Tony, I'm sorry! Stay with me!" Wanda sobbed above him.
"Miss Maximoff, move!" FRIDAY yelled from her speakers, a suit of armour shoving her out of the way as it held another arc reactor to replace the failing one. With shaking hands, Tony managed to get the dead one swapped with the new one in a matter of seconds. He commanded FRIDAY to stop the alert she was about to send out to the Tower residents and sat up, breathing heavily.
"Sir, I really think you ought to get yourself checked out," FRIDAY fussed.
Tony shook his head. "No, Fry, I'm fine, I promise. Just give me a few moments to get my breath back and I'll be right as rain."
He spied Wanda on the floor staring at him like he was a wounded, wild animal that would attack her at any moment. Rage burned through him at her irresponsibility not wearing her gloves, and he was ready to tear into her when he spied the shaking hands and self-loathing glint that appeared in her eyes.
"Wanda?" He called softly.
She flinched, shrinking into herself. Tony moved a little closer and treat her the way she was looking at him- as if she were a wounded animal. Choking sobs sounded through his workshop as Wanda broke down crying, her whole body trembling with her sobs.
Tony inched steadily closer under he could wrap his arms around her. She fought him, begging him not to touch her for fear her powers would harm him. Tony carefully avoided letting his tongue waggle before his brain kicked in, the words you already did ready to spew out, but he was able to stall himself.
"It's okay, Wanda, I'm not hurt, everything is fine, deep breaths," Tony murmured in her ear. "No harm done, take nice deep breaths for me."
Slowly, Wanda started to calm down, her hysterical cries subsiding into quiet sobs muffled by the material of Tony's shirt as she cried into his chest. She clung to him and her hands gripped so tightly in his shirt he was sure the creases would never be ironed out.
Tony stroked her hair, carded his fingers through the curly strands and shushed her gently. When the sobs eventually stopped, he gently tipped her head up with a finger under her chin, a lop-sided smile on his face. Her eyes were bloodshot, puffy and glassy from crying. Tony pressed a kiss to her forehead and sighed.
"Wanda, where are your gloves?" He asked.
She lowered her gaze and shrugged, face flushed red. "Dunno."
He bit back a chuckle at the teenage attitude she displayed. "Did you lose them?"
Wanda mumbled something that was probably a yes. Tony rolled his eyes when she winced. "Sorry."
Tony smiled. "Don't worry, it won't take long to make you some more, I still have the readings and schematics on file. Please don't lose these ones."
She nodded and heaved a sigh. "I'm sorry, Tony. You're right. I should have apologised the day we arrived back at the Tower for the way we treated you- for the way I treated you. I was angry, I was hurt, and I was scared. We'd been attacked, and Steve was so focused on getting answers to what had happened to Bucky that we started losing faith in him."
Wisely, Tony kept his mouth shut as Wanda talked, finally getting some information from them.
"We were injured, Clint badly as you know, our spirits were broken, we'd been left fugitives and had nowhere to hide anymore. In the end, it was Vision who suggested we return to the Tower, knowing that even though you were furious with Steve, you wouldn't deny the rest of us somewhere safe to stay."
"How did you know I wouldn't take the rest of you in and just send Steve and Bucky on their merry way?"
She shrugged. "We didn't, but it was a risk we had to take. Clint was in a bad way and he needed help."
Tony chuckled. "Bird brain wasn't that terribly hurt, most of it looked worse than it really was."
"Still…but getting back on track. I've been nothing but a brat to you since I got back, and for that I'm sorry, Tony. You took me in despite everything I did in Sokovia and I repaid you by behaving like a spoilt child when things went wrong. Instead, I should have been listening to you, and realising that everything you did was to keep me safe."
"Better late than never, I suppose," he teased.
Wanda slugged him gently in the arm and hugged him. "Thank you, Tony. I promise I will be better from now on, I won't behave like a stroppy teenager."
Tony laughed and ruffed her hair. "Good, because I'm not cut out to play daddy and this whole strict parenting thing is really hard. It's bad enough between FRIDAY and the kid. I have to ask, though, did you find anything out in Siberia?"
They settled on the floor against one of Tony's workbenches, their backs pressed against the wood and their legs straightened out alongside one another. Wanda rolled her shoulders and her joints popped, Tony winced for her and popped his own. Silence reigned until Wanda finally broke it.
"Yes, and no. Steve was sure that if we returned to the bunker that you were in we would find something that was missed before. But, when we arrived inside, the bodies of the other soldiers Zemo killed were already gone. I guess that when I think about it, that should have warned us that something was amiss, but it didn't really. Steve wanted to plough on and see if we could find anything. I mean, if those soldiers were being kept alive in stasis then someone had to be there watching their vitals to make sure everything was okay."
Tony nodded, he knew that made sense. As good as certain technology was, there was never a guarantee that all would be fine. There was every possibility that something could have failed and one, or all, of the soldiers might have died. So, it stood to reason that someone was placed there to monitor them.
"We got as far as the chamber where you saw the video of your parent's car crash that we got ambushed. They just came from all over. I can stop a lot of bullets, Tony, but I couldn't be sure I could stop all of them, there were so many HYDRA agents there."
"You're positive they were HYDRA?" Tony asked.
Wanda nodded. "Yes, they wanted 'The Asset'. That's what HYDRA called all their weapons, Bucky told us."
"Right. What about their build? Were they well built or sort of wiry, like the night at the fundraiser?"
He waited as she quieted, her face clouded in thought. "Erm…I'd have to say somewhere in the middle. Not wiry, like Bruce, more like you, or Vis, strong and muscular, but not built like Steve or Buck."
Tony nodded and filed the information away for analysis later, hopefully it might help with building on just who was doing this, and why.
"But they were well formed and prepared, the spray of bullets was insane, and though we managed to fight our way out of there, it wasn't without difficulty. I don't know if there was something in there they didn't want us to find, or if they just wanted to get Bucky back."
There was a moment's silence before Tony answered. "I haven't got the full picture yet, I'm still trying to put it all together, but if I'm being completely honest, I'm not entirely sure that either of those answers is correct."
Wanda frowned at Tony. "What do you mean?"
"The HYDRA agents that gate-crashed the fundraiser were of similar build to the ones you described. HYDRA agents, the ones who went into the field, were either extremely well-built, or they were enhanced in some shape or form. So, the ones that you all came across in the bunker are likely to be part of the same team that crashed the fundraiser. I think it runs deeper than just wanting their Asset back or hiding information."
"Huh…I didn't think of that, you might be onto something. What can I do to help?"
Tony rubbed the back of his neck. "I know you hate it when I refer to the AI parts of Vis, but if there was any way that he could merge what he saw that day with FRIDAY's data banks I could put more together."
She smiled and nodded. "I understand, I'll speak to him and get him to do it. And it's not that I dislike it, Tony, it's that you usually want it for something dumb. This is important and you have a genuine need of the information."
Tony watched her retreating back with a dumb-struck look, feeling a little of a cad that her words rang with a hell of a lot of truth. He deserved that one, he reckoned. Still, he'd managed to air things out with Wanda, and they seemed to be on better ground. One Avenger down, so many more to go.
