The original team sat around the table in Tony's office. Steve allowed himself a moment to reflect on the similarities to the last meeting at the Avenger's headquarters, the last day of their old lives. The team had spent months together agonizing over their decision which in turn brought closer than ever. A twinge of guilt washed over him about his most recent decision. He decided not to tell them he had revealed all to Bucky. He had debated with himself back and forth for hours. On the one hand, the last time he attempted to keep a secret it ended in disaster, but that time he had been compartmentalizing the hurt, shoving it to the side in an attempt to convince himself it hadn't happened. Bucky doing that to Howard was almost as painful as finding out Sam had murdered Natasha, but here in this place, things were different.
This time he came to the decision with his eyes wide open. It was little more than a gut feeling, but he was convinced it was best to keep quiet for now. He asked Bucky to say nothing. He would tell them, just not yet.
"So we heard Natasha's report. Big screw up equals no Iron Man. In fact, it seems, apart from facing Thanos, the team has done little at all to avenge anything, so everyone is asking what we're doing. Guilty conscience maybe?" Tony asked.
"Post-traumatic Stress," Bruce offered. "Survivor's guilt."
"Fear of being used again," Steve said. "If it happened once…"
"Yes. All of that. But what's important, before everything blends together, before they can form cohesive units again, this the time to take them out. We can do this!" Tony banged his fist down on the table. It had been a long time since Steve had seen him this worked up like this. An old fire was coming back to life.
"I hate to rain on the party, but we might have a problem," Rhodey said. "If we come clean, will the public trust us after we kept this a secret? This could be our Sokovia. Anyone up to debating another version of the Accords?"
"Damn it." Natasha said, "You're right." A sick silence descended on the room. Steve had buried his own memories of the events and had no desire to endure that pain again.
Tony drummed his fingers on the table for a full minute. Right before the rhythm reached the point of annoyance, he opted to pace around the room. "What if…?" he stopped, taking time to swerve around on one foot in a single easy motion so he was facing them again. "We could get ahead of the game and wrote our own versions of the Accords first?"
"What?" Steve asked.
"We'll write them, but we won't call them the Accords. We'll call them the Parisian Pacts… but it will sound better in French. Les Pactes de Paris. Les Traités de Paris… individus… extraordinaire… My French is rusty but we'll figure it out." His mind was running ahead of his mouth again.
"Tony," Rhodey said to calm him down.
"We draw up agreements. A separate one for each country. If they meet a threat, they can't face on their own, they call us, but they will accept that if we come in, there might be collateral damage and if there is, we'll pay for whatever… it won't be an oversight. It will be an agreement between two consenting parties. It's up to them to decide if they need us, individually."
"But if they object to the way we did things…" Bruce interjected.
"Then they can hold an open hearing, with due process," Steve offered. "With representation. But what if they don't sign…?"
"Then it's on them, not us. I know that's not how you do things Steve, but we all have to compromise somewhere." A faint voice from his other life whispered to Steve… compromise where you can…
"I don't think anyone would refuse to sign. The countries where these consortiums operate want them out," Natasha said. "T'Challa could lead the way on this. With someone like him on the political side working for us…."
Everyone was looking at Steve, waiting for his input.
"What do you say, Steve? Everything you wanted that got left out of the Accords before, we'll write it in there," Tony was acting like an eager puppy.
"Right now, it sounds, acceptable. There is one other thing... It's no secret one of my main concerns is Bucky, " He said. "He's still an exile, with no freedom of movement..."
"If you go along with this, Bucky will be as free as anyone of you…" Steve realized this was the first time Tony had called him Bucky. The excitement Tony lived for was back. A smile was playing at the edge of his mouth, just waiting to break through. This was worth all the disagreements and bickering, not to mention coming to blows.
"Ok," Steve said. This was the most enthusiastic Tony had been since this crazy adventure began.
Tony let out a little whoop. "We can do this. Bring in the rest of the team. Rhodey, since you aren't War Machine yet, you're our liaison, put on your mean face and get to work. Drafting the treaty and working out the details is your job. And I am Iron Man!"
It was like old times.