With Rhodes in recovery, everyone went back to a routine that suited them and the situation. Everyone except Tony. When they landed in New York, he had Peter stay for a couple of days to get checked out and told both him and Aqua to stay put. He never once told them where he was going, but Aqua had a pretty good idea. He had wanted a chance to talk with Cap, so he was probably off looking for him.

He never said anything to her, but she found out quickly what he had done: he restricted her access. It started small. Aqua would try to access a couple of cameras near Rhodes' room in the infirmary, but was shut out. She figured Tony just wanted Rhodes to have some privacy, though why he restricted Aqua, she wasn't quite sure. It was a few days later when she tried to get access to some more dangerous training equipment, things she would train with every day even without some sort of supervision, that she realized her restriction was much more extensive than she realized.

"What's going on?" Peter had found her arguing with the AI.

"Friday won't let me into some of the training equipment." She stated, looking confused and a little upset. She needed to figure what was going on. She began moving toward her room.

"Hey, maybe Mr. Stark just wants everyone to take a break? I don't think we should worry about it." Peter was sweet, but he didn't know how the compound ran. Aqua was allowed to train whenever she wanted and with whatever she wanted, the only exception being access to bows and arrows without Clint and chemicals in Bruce's lab. She gave him soft smile but continued in her quest.

"You can follow if you want, but I'm going to figure this out." Peter nodded and took her hand, sticking to her pace as she led him towards her rooms. Those who saw them holding hands gave them some kind of smirk or smile and went about their business. Aqua blushed a little with each face they encountered, but Peter didn't seem to notice.

Once in Aqua's room, they both moved to her desk. She quickly pulled up the interface.

"Friday, pull up access identifiers."

"Sorry, Aqua. You no longer have access to the information." Aqua stood there, dazed. She stared at the screen that had bright red lettering – ACCESS DENIED. She looked down to the desk, her thoughts running wild. Why did Tony change my access? Why wouldn't he tell me about it?

"Aqua?" Peter was looking back and forth between her and the display, a concern littering his face. "What's going on?"

Aqua turned and began pacing.

"Aqua?" No reply. She didn't even really hear him./

"Aqua!?" He took her arm and her head snapped up. "What is going on?"

She stared at him and thought for a moment longer. Peter moved his hand from her arm to her hand, causing her to through a questioning look downwards, but it slowly turned into a smile. She looked back up, but her smile had diminished as her eyes met Peter's. She squeezed his hand and moved to her desk once again.

"Tony restricted my access." She tapped a few areas, trying to get to another section of the interface. "When he set me up and told me about the access I would have - teaching me everything I should access, everything I could access but maybe shouldn't, and everything I couldn't access – he said he would only take it away from me if I ever did something untrustworthy and we talked about what would be taken away. But –" there were couple of tears in her eyes, but not enough to fall.

"I'm sure that you haven't done anything that Mr. Stark wouldn't talk to you about. It's been less than a week since Germany and the access thing just happened. There has to be something else going on. What if the higher-ups are making him change things? Or maybe there's some kind of observation happening, and Tony is hiding the fact that you have the access by restricting it for a couple of days and you've just never realized it happening in the past?"

Aqua chuckled. His ability of rational imagination is amazing. She turned to him, a small smile evident, and just shook her head.

"We both know I would have noticed that." She tapped the display's power and began moving toward her bedroom.

"Aqua, release the breath." She stopped, looking back. Peter brought his shoulders up with a breath and then dropped them as he exhaled, motioning for her to do the same. She hadn't realized how tense she was. After repeating the motion until she performed it as well, Peter walked over to her, pulling her into a surprising, but cathartic, hug.

"I'm gonna take some time, go for a swim, maybe take a nap. I'll see you later?" Her words were spoken into his shoulder, but he heard it all the same. He nodded and released her from his embrace. Aqua made her way through her office door, heading toward her pool.

Peter watched her walk away. He turned toward the empty area that the display appears in, then made a determined walk out of Aqua's room, on a mission of own.

Tony was in his lab when Peter stormed in, only to faulter just slightly at the sight of him. He was sporting bruises, cuts, and a black eye that Peter knew weren't there when they left Germany. With Peter stopped in his doorway, Tony raised his good eyebrow questioningly.

"What can I do for ya, kid?"

Peter straightened himself and took a deep breath, beginning to walk forward.

"It's about Aqua, isn't it?" Peter stopped again, clearly confused, but realization hit as this entire thing was started with Tony. Peter began walking again.

"Yeah, it is." Tony looked back at his work, wincing at the pain some movements caused.

"Well, where is she? Why isn't she here?"

"She's having a rough time of it. See, the person who trusted her suddenly took away the sign of that trust, except the person hasn't told her why, making her think she's done something so wrong she's not deserving of an explanation from the person she has trusted most."

The word-vomit surprised even Peter as it poured out of him, leaving both of them quiet and tense. Tony's forehead creased as he tried to comprehend everything that had just been said. He had been planning on restricting Aqua's access, however, because he was off fighting with Rogers and finding out Barnes had killed his mom, he had put it on a to do list. Friday must have completed it for him. But here was Peter, the kid he never thought would question him or defy him, standing up for Aqua. Tony debated just taking on the blame and see what Peter would do or say for her.

"What do you know about this?"

"Well, Aqua told me that her access came with trust and that if you were ever going to take away access you would talk with her first about what would be taken away." Peter had moved closer, getting caught up in his speech. Tony got weirdly annoyed when the kid started to pace. "Except, clearly you haven't talked to her because she was almost crying just looking at a display that glared red with Access Denied written across it. But we both know she wouldn't cry in front of someone, let alone me, so she asked to be alone for a while."

They both went quiet for a bit. Tony felt like shit. He should have talked with her before leaving or postponing everything to when he got back, which was his original idea, but sometimes Friday takes things into her own hands and completes any tasks that she can for Tony.

"Look, kid, you're not entirely caught up on how things happen around here. And this is one of those things that you probably shouldn't be involved in. What I will tell you is that Aqua is like a daughter to me; I've practically raised her. What access I decide to give her or take away is on me. Not her and definitely not you. I will handle this." At the end, Tony made a 'shooing' motion, meant to be a sign for Peter to leave, but he just crossed his arms and stood his ground. There wasn't going to be an easy out on this one.

Aqua had decided to float in the pool for a while. She didn't want to hear what was happening in the compound, so she couldn't sit at the bottom like she usually loved to do.

Why didn't Tony talk to me? What did I do? Is it happening – are they slowly getting rid of me? Was the suit just a teaser? What is going on?

Her thoughts were running wild, all circling around her fear of Tony getting rid of her or her not being good enough to stay. Tears were running from her eyes into the pool; she could feel the two solutions mixing and she tried to focus on that. But her thoughts wouldn't let her.

She began to close herself off, putting up a wall. What she hadn't realized was that a physical wall of ice was beginning to form in response to her emotional wall. It grew from the edges of the pool and moved outwards and up the walls, locking everything in place. The doors to her living room and bedroom were locked open while the door leading to the main hallway was frozen shut. Physical manifestations were rare, but if her emotions were strong enough, they could do a lot of damage.

The ice muffled the sound of some knocking on the door, and since Aqua was laying on the top of the water her hearing was average, not registering someone trying to get in. She didn't move as the door was roughly thrown open, just barely breaking the ice covering the hinges. She turned to her side as Tony gave his thanks to the guy who had helped him open the door. Tony carefully made his way to the pool, trying not to slip as he took his phone from his pocket and his watch/communicator from his wrist to join Aqua in the pool.

He walked right up to her and brushed her hair from her face.

"What did I do?"

"You didn't do anything."

"You promised we would talk if I ever did something and you wanted to take away access. But you didn't talk to me. You just took it away."

"Are you really that upset about losing access?"

"No. I'm upset because you always we would talk, and I would have to lose a portion of your trust in order for this to happen. But I don't know what I've done, and you haven't talk to me about it, so now I'm just lost, and my imagination is running wild with everything I've done to lose your trust. And –"

"Shhh. Breathe. Can I say something?"

Aqua nodded.

"You didn't do anything untrustworthy. I simply felt like you had a little bit more than maybe you were really ready for. I had put it on my to-do list for when I got back, but it looks like Friday had taken the job on herself. I took a look at what Friday restricted and she took away more than I had planned. And I was going to talk to you before I did it, but again, I was gone, and Friday decided to do it herself."

"You just randomly decided that I had a little too much? And put it on a to-do list?"

"Well, it was the incident with Germany that triggered the thought. I feel that, for a 15-year-old, you shouldn't have been able to command the pilots to fly you to Germany without my full consent. Your access allows that to happen, though. So, I want to reign in some of those types of access. Like I said, Friday took away a lot more than I was planning. And yes, I put it on a to-do list. Sorry to say, but this whole Cap and Barnes thing was a little more important that restricting your access, but I also didn't want to forget. I wasn't expecting Friday to do anything on that to-do list."

"So, you're not mad at me?"

"Of course not." Tony motioned for her to sit up. She did and lowered herself a bit into the water, bringing herself to eye level with Tony. "I promised back then that we would talk, and I promise to do that in the future as well. You're just too important to me to allow you free-reign. Okay?"

Aqua nodded. She understood then what had happened. She still felt weary about it, but she would try to believe him. Tony pulled her face closer to his and gave a small kiss on her forehead.

"Come on. Let's unfreeze the room, get out of the pool, and dry off. Peter heads home today."

Aqua gave a small smile. She took the ice from the walls and doors, made stairs for both of them to use, and once out the pool, dried them both. Peter was waiting outside her door, stuff in hand. Aqua gave him a hug, which he returned. Tony grabbed Peter's suitcase, allowing the teens to walk hand in hand to the front entrance where Happy was waiting for Tony and Peter.