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Challenges listed at the bottom.
Word Count: 2230
Post Civil War, sort of. Not canon compliant. Team Iron Man…. mildly salty?
Not Quite Ready
"We're snowed in," Steve said, looking out of the window.
"No shit," Tony replied, rolling his eyes as he strolled away from the window, sitting down on the sofa beside Rhodey.
To his credit, Rhodey wrapped his arm around Tony's shoulders and pulled him close, letting the genius bury his face against the thick jumper he was wearing.
"Could be worse," Sam pointed out. "Could be stuck in one room. At least we have a good sized cabin to hole up in until the storm passes."
Tony snorted, because the space wasn't really helping anything right now. He'd been against the 'team building' nonsense in the first place, and if he'd ever needed an extra reason to hate it, being trapped inside was definitely at the top of his list.
Fucking Fury and his stupid fucking ideas.
Barnes stood in the corner, silent as always, while Natasha carefully built the fire. At least they had wood stored inside, that was something. Clint was sleeping in one of the bedrooms, apparently the least interested in 'making amends', and Bruce—the lucky bastard—had begged off because of his alter ego.
And Fury had allowed it, while taking none of Tony's perfectly legitimate reasons to also skip this stupid thing.
"Rhodey, make the storm go away," he muttered, pressing closer to his best friend.
"Sorry, Tones. I'm right here though. You're not on your own, you know I've always got your back."
…
"What do you mean, there's no wood left?" Rhodey asked, frowning at Steve.
"We were supposed to top up on it today but," he gestured to the window. "There's not much anyone can do about that, unfortunately. We were waiting for it to stop snowing a little."
Tony huffed, folding his arms and pulling his legs up onto the sofa. It was getting chilly though the fire still had embers, and the temperature was only going to drop as night fell over their cabin.
"This blows," he muttered. He really didn't want to be there. He'd thought that if he just brought the Avengers home that he could stop, but the world wouldn't let him. They didn't trust the Rogues, and would only let them help if Iron Man was at the forefront of the battle.
Tony had been trying so desperately to be free of all of it, and had only dug himself deeper.
Rhodey squeezed his thigh comfortingly. His best friend, always so reliable and always there when Tony needed him. He really didn't deserve him.
"This is so boring," Sam said, tilting his head back against the sofa. "Aren't we supposed to be here to talk things out? We should do that. It's… it's something to do, right?"
"Well, anger is supposed to make the blood run hot, so it might be helpful," Tony said, rolling his eyes. "What part of being trapped makes you think now is a good time to open that can of worms, Sam?"
"Well, nobody can run away," Sam pointed out.
"Man has a point," Rhodey said, the goddamn traitor. Tony took back all his nice thoughts, Rhodey was a traitor.
As though sensing the train of direction Tony's thoughts were taking, Rhodey poked him none-too-gently in the ribs.
"It's gotta be sorted one way or another, Tones. Otherwise, why are we here?"
"Under the greatest of suffering, I assure you," Tony replied. "There's nothing for me to say, and nothing I want to hear, so I'm going to go and drown my sorrows in hot chocolate and leave you lot to have your friendship circle."
Rhodey snorted, but didn't stop Tony from getting up. He just… needed a minute. Just a minute.
…
"Are we really not going to go and get him?" Steve asked, when forty five minutes had passed since Tony left for the kitchen.
"Have you heard any bangs or crashes?" Natasha asked. When Steve shook his head, she said, "Then we're going to give him the time he needs. He'll come back when he's ready to."
Steve sighed but nodded his head, drawing his blanket closer around himself. Rhodey glanced around the room, eyeing each person there. He understood why Tony didn't want to be here, but unless he quit the team completely—which in Rhodey's opinion, he should have already done—then he needed some way to move past what had been done to him.
Fury was right in that they couldn't continue as they had been; it wasn't good for anyone, and it was going to get someone killed if nobody trusted each other out in battle.
Clint slouched into the room, looked around at them all, and then dropped into the seat beside Natasha. "Take it we're stuck?"
"Little bit," Natasha agreed. "Hopefully it won't last too long though."
Clint shrugged. He'd been despondent since returning to the states. His wife had served him divorce papers almost the moment he'd stepped in the door, and while he was still allowed to see the kids, he'd been floundering a little in the face of all of their anger.
A noise at the door made Rhodey turn his head, and he saw Tony walking in slowly, a tray held in both hands. The warming scent of hot chocolate quickly filled Rhodey's nostrils and he smiled.
Tony placed the tray on the table between the two sofas, and grabbed two of the steaming mugs, handing one of them to Rhodey before he sat back down beside him, immediately tucking himself into Rhodey's side.
"Help yourselves," he said, waving his free hand to the mugs. "There's enough for everyone, but if you want sugar or anything, you'll have to do it yourselves."
Rhodey glanced at him.
"Yours is done to your taste, obviously, Honeybear."
A murmured round of thanks sounded as each Avenger took a mug.
Tony looked at Steve. "Okay. Talk."
…
"I'm sorry," Steve said softly, his eyes on Tony. "I'm sorry for hiding the truth from you for so long, I'm sorry for not trusting you, and I'm sorry for fighting you when I knew I shouldn't. I… should have restrained you, I know that. I lost my head, Tony, but I swear that I never wanted to hurt you."
Beside Tony, Rhodey snorted.
Sam cleared his throat. "Tony… what if Rhodey is ever in Bucky's position?"
"I'll burn the world," Tony said, confident and utterly sure of his words. "The problem though, Sam, is that it's never been Steve protecting Barnes. It's that he knew, and hid, that Hydra had murdered my parents from me, and then he let me find out in the worst possible way."
"I was scared," Steve said, running his hand through his hair. "I was scared that you'd go after Bucky, instead of Hydra."
"Is that what you think of me?" Tony asked, shaking his head. "I'm a lot of things, Rogers, but a hypocrite isn't one of them. I know that Barnes isn't to blame. I understand that. I have no real problem with Barnes."
Tony noticed Bucky look up at that, clearly surprised by Tony's words.
"But you—"
"Watched a video of him killing my mother when he was right in front of me, only hours after watching my best friend fall through the sky, and then learning that you—a man who I was supposed to be able to trust, who'd given me shit for keeping secrets—knew about it all along. Can you really blame me for losing my shit?"
Natasha shook her head, looking away. Sam blinked and then looked at Steve, at a loss for words, because in that context, was it any surprise that Tony had lost it?
"Wait, what?" Clint asked, looking between them all, the first spark of… anything in his eyes that anyone had seen for months. "How in the hell did I miss all this?"
"And then," Rhodey added, tone controlled but icy, the utter rage in him chilling the room even further despite what Tony had said about anger running hot. "Instead of restraining him, the two of you fought him. You disabled his suit, you almost killed him yourself, Rogers, and then you left him to die in a freezing cold bunker, trapped in an unresponsive suit. What happened to no man left behind, Rogers? Or does that only count when the man isn't Tony?"
"Rhodey—"
"No," Rhodey said, shaking his head at Tony. "He's a goddamn soldier, Tones. He knows exactly what I'm talking about, and even if you don't think you're worth it, I damn well know you are."
"I'm sorry," Steve whispered. "So sorry, Tony."
There was a long silence, and then Sam cleared his throat again. His eyes were troubled when they looked at Steve, but he turned back to Tony. "Why did you sign the accords, Tony?"
"Because the Avengers need oversight," Tony said. "Look at the police, the army, any group of people that can do what we can do needs people looking out for both the interest of the people and the interest of us. The accords meant that when we were invited in, we weren't to blame for any of the lives lost. We weren't to blame for the damage caused to the buildings, to the economy, to peoples lives. We would be there to help, and do what we could, but ultimately, we'd be following the same rules that any other law keeping service."
"The accords—"
"Did you even read them?" Tony asked, his eyes returning to Steve. "Because as far as I'm concerned, none of it was about the accords, and all off it was about Barnes. And that's fine, Steve, but own your mistakes. Own your reasons and don't try and bullshit everyone else into thinking that you were doing it for anything other than your own agenda."
"Ross—"
"Has been removed," Tony interrupted again. "As was always the plan, which I would have told you, if you'd given me a chance. The accords weren't perfect, but they were coming and nothing would have stopped them. We could have worked together to make them what we wanted them to be. Instead I had to do it alone. Instead, I had to do the best I could with what I had, because my team were gone."
"Why didn't you contact me?" Clint asked, his tone quiet. "When it all went down. You didn't even try and reach out to me, Tony."
"You were out. You had a family, Clint. You think I wanted to be the one that went to Laura and the kids to tell them that Daddy wasn't coming home? You… you were out and you were happy with your family. That's why I didn't call you. And I don't regret it."
"I think we should take a break," Rhodey said. "Theres a lot for everyone to digest, and it's cold and it's late. We should… all go to bed and talk some more tomorrow if we can't get out of here."
Sam nodded his agreement, and Tony was happy to be done. He'd said his piece, it was up to Steve what he did with it.
…
Three in the morning found Tony and Rhodey back in the living room, huddled together under both of their blankets. Natasha smiled at the sight, and her smile only widened when Tony lifted the end of his blanket for her to join them.
She threw her own blanket onto the pile, and slipped beneath them, curling up beside Tony.
As the clock slowly ticked towards morning, the others trickled in one by one, joining the huddle of warm bodies. They moved to the floor when there were too many of them to sit on one sofa, the cushions from both sofas spread out to give them some cushion.
"Is there anyway for us to go back to what we were?" Steve asked, voice quiet but travelling in the silence.
"I don't want to," Tony replied. At the wounded sound Steve made, Tony elaborated. "We don't need to go back. What we had then… it clearly wasn't strong enough, because we splintered like cheap wood."
"So we try again," Steve said slowly. "We move forward and build something better, stronger than what we had before."
Tony leant around Rhodey to meet Steve's eyes. "We can try."
…
With the help of the Iron Man suit, Barnes' metal arm and a handy penknife of Clint's, they managed to get the door open when the sun had risen overhead of the cabin.
The snow was still too deep to try and travel in, but they could, at the very least, get enough wood to last them another night until the snow melted some.
Not that Tony was helping. Instead, he and Natasha were making snow angels, because why the hell not.
When they returned inside, Rhodey was kind enough to make more hot chocolate while the others warmed up, and Tony found that for the first time since they'd arrived at the cabin, he had hope that they could work things out.
He still didn't trust Steve, he was still wary of Barnes and Clint, and he knew that in battle, he'd still lean heavily on Rhodey in the War Machine armour to be his back up rather than the others.
But… but he didn't want to leave the team. Not until they'd tried everything.
Tony… he wasn't ready to give up. Not yet.
Written for:
Record Collection: 15. Snow
Time Machine: 12. Huddling for warmth
Amber's Attic: 2. Make snow angels
Elizabeth's Empire: 19. Huddling for warmth
Bex's Basement: 5. Huddling for warmth
Marvel Appreciation: Thor: Kind
Lyric Alley: 17. Trying so desperately to be free.
Forecast: 17. Reliable
Naughty Or Nice: Naughty, 29. Huddling for warmth
Write Letter's To Santa: Prompt 6. 8. Snow
Big Dinner Bash: 4. Parsnips - "This is so boring."
Toy Making: Toy Train: 1. Huddling for warmth
Pop Figures: Marvel: 243. Hela: "I'll burn the world."
Hogwarts Talent Show: Fire Breathing: "Is that what you think of me?"/ Huddled Together for Warmth / Penknife / Hope