A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews. This is the second chapter. I can already promise that future chapters will be less regular as I am currently on vacation, which gives me more time to write, but also less time to post.

Also, don't be mad at Steve after this. He's a good guy, and I would never make him the bad guy in any story.

I am not a romance writer per se, so don't expect too many pairings. However, expect a lot of 'brothers in arms', 'friendship/friends as family', 'hurt/comfort' and 'angst'. Should any romance arise, I will bring up the tags beforehand, so you can decide whether you want to read those pairings or not.

Chapter 2: I Have No Need of You

The new Avengers completed yet another mission successfully. Natasha and Bucky just defeated the last Doombots, Clint lowered his bow and Sam was on his way to pick him up from the rooftop, Bruce was already changing into the kind and decidedly pacifistic physicist, Vision and Iron Man had effectively reprogrammed the machine Van Doom had built in order to avoid a catastrophe, and were now approaching Steve. Scarlet Witch released the only human assailant on site from her powers. This had worked like a charm.

Two years after then end of the War, the new Avengers were again a force to be reckoned with. Nothing would tear them apart, he would make sure of it. Tony leaving had been the best thing that ever happened to the team; a cruel thought, but true. Tony's innate inability to follow orders, his tendency to chat on and off the battlefield, his unwillingness to listen had infuriated him. He had been a hindrance. Arno Stark was no less brilliant than his brother; he provided them with everything they needed and more; there were no scandals, no snide remarks from the journalists every other press conference, and to the reinstated SHIELD Director Fury's relief, no PR nightmares. Arno also regularly participated in the team building exercises whenever he could. He had even less time available than Tony for simply being together for the sake of friendship, but that was fine; he was a busy man. At least, he did not talk incessantly. They had formed a good, professional if a bit cool relationship, but Steve for once preferred it this way. The War had burned out the tentative bonds of friendship he had started to build with Tony. His close bond to Howard Stark was more than enough for any Stark. Come to think of it, he suspected that his fondness for the business mogul had blinded him to Tony's faults; to hear that they were not related only confirmed his reservations.

However, he hated thinking about his final battle with Tony as he had considered the engineer his friend nevertheless. Hurting him had been hell.

'So was I.'

It had taken Steve a year before he stopped having that particular nightmare. He had never wanted to harm Tony, but the billionaire had become a mere puppet of the government, all too willing to compromise. Steve had been convinced that a person as suspicious of authority as Tony would be on his side. In retrospect, he had had so many misconceptions about the billionaire he clearly had never known the true Tony Stark. Nevertheless, seeing him, or the person he had thought Tony was, leave, hurt.

In fact, it had pained him so much that Steve had refused to say anything to Tony as he left for his exile ('Only Tony would have the opportunity to spend his exile in Switzerland,' Clint had laughed, both fondly and unhappily). He had feared that, if he opened his mouth, he would ask the former heir of Stark Industries to stay.

"Let's go back to Headquarters for debriefing" said Steve.

Arno had been kind enough to provide some new Avengers headquarters very close to the old Tower. Of course, he had offered them to stay there, but not even Arno lived in the Tower anymore. They all said that there were simply too many memories in that house, but the truth was, JARVIS' absence had caused all kinds of malfunctions. Arno had assured them that Tony's code was flawless, and any attempt of overriding the code or installing a new one had resulted in total failure of the system. Steve had the suspicion that this had been Tony's final departing gift.

As they returned to headquarters, Steve actively forced his mind to stop thinking about Tony. He blamed Bruce for it. Even two years after the former billionaire's departure, the physicist still sorely missed him. In fact, he had left the Avengers three times ever since, but had returned every time without giving a particular reason. He seemed unable to forgive himself for having turned the tides of war against Tony's favor.

This morning, right before the alarm had sounded through Headquarters, Bruce had mentioned their old teammate.

"What're you doing?" Clint had asked curiously when they encountered Bruce sitting at the counter deep in thought as he stared at the computer.

"Wishing Tony was here," had been the blunt reply. "He could make sense of this mess of a code."

The kitchen had been dead silent as soon as the words had been uttered. Bruce never mentioned Tony, even left the room when his name fell. Arno had stopped trying to talk to him about his brother about two months after meeting Bruce for the first time. The Hulk had even been worse. He had slammed Bucky through a wall on their first mission, and refused to take orders from Steve for quite a while.

"I thought you were an expert programmer and an outstanding hacker with an IQ higher than Tony's," Natasha had interjected calmly. If she had been surprised at the initial comment, she did not show it. Steve loved Natasha's level-headedness. She was a true asset to the team. Her information as a double agent had been crucial during the war. More importantly, Bruce' remaining feelings for her were at least part of the reason why he chose their side. She had rejected any advances on his part, but had accepted his apologies with grace despite the physicist's flight after the fiasco with Ultron. They had even been able to somewhat rekindle their original friendship. The lullaby still worked like a charm, even though the Hulk was decidedly more volatile these days. Steve truly wished for Natasha to find happiness, as she deserved it more than most.

"All true, but I'm talking about Tony who's decades if not centuries ahead of humanity when it comes to coding. To him, it's like breathing: effortless but also essential…" Bruce tense shoulders had fallen and he had lowered his head. "We crippled him." As soon as he had uttered these words, Bruce rose and left the room without another word. Steve had followed him.

"Bruce, is everything alright?"

"I shouldn't be the one to do this," Bruce hissed as soon as Steve finished posing his question. In an abrupt move, he waved the laptop at the leader of the Avengers. "Writing and double-checking these security codes. And frankly, I have no idea when Tony had time to think about them on top of everything else he had to do on a daily basis."

"Bruce, why don't you show them to Arno?" Steve, practical as ever, tried to pacify the clearly agitated physicist. He had known that Bruce had been under stress recently, but the man was incredibly hard to read at times; harder even than Tony.

"Arno barely has time to come and be Iron Man, or do I need to remind you that he has not shown up for the last two Avengers Assembles? They will release the new StarkPhones, StarkPads and StarkComputers next month! Pepper hasn't been able to breathe for the past five months, and I know that Arno is under a lot of pressure. He doesn't have time to look at security codes."

"I understand, I see," Steve interjected hastily. "Why don't we wait until next month?"

"Because there is a lot of very delicate information on our servers and there are a number of technophiles and hackers with a great interest in what we're doing and unless you want them to know about Tessaract technology, we need to constantly upgrade our security. Not just once a month… Once a day at the very least. Tony is one of the best, no doubt. He has to be or Stark Industries would have never been as successful. I know he has written codes that keep out the likes of Doom. I'm trying, Steve, but this is not what I do, and even Tony needed JARVIS to keep on top of things."

"I understand," Steve repeated. "We'll figure it out, I promise."

The alarm sounded less than a minute later, causing Bruce to turn into the Hulk much faster and a lot more explosive than usual.

Less than four hours later, everybody was freshly showered and waiting for him to start.

"You've all done a great job today, well done! Vision and Scarlet Witch, make sure you practice that flying maneuver, it nearly failed today. Iron Man, thanks for coming today, how much…?"

Unsurprisingly, Arno looked apologetic. Unlike Tony, the man actually knew how to say 'sorry'.

"I'm sorry, Steve, but I really need to go. They called for yet another Board meeting, and they expected me there ten minutes ago."

"No, that's fine, go. I'll write a report and send it to you." He did not think about the fact that Tony had built a scanner for him that allowed immediate and flawless translation of his hand- or typewriter-written after-action reports into electronic files. That had been the early days of the Avengers Initiative; he knew how to use a computer now and used them for the reports.

"Wait, Arno!" Bruce interjected. "Before you leave, I need you to look over the security codes for…"

"Use the one for the new StarkPad as a guideline. You'll be fine," Arno replied hastily and, with a quick movement of his right forefinger, moved something from his omnipresent cell phone to Bruce' tablet. "I gotta go now, bye!" With that, he turned around, his phone already at his ear as he left the room.

With Arno's abrupt departure, Steve made sure to keep the debriefing short. Later, when everyone else either left the tower disappeared into their lab, Bucky cooked dinner for just the two of them.

"You okay?" his best friend approached him gruffly, but Steve could see his friend's concern.

"I'm fine," he smiled, but Bucky's raised eyebrows quickly wiped the smile off his face. "Tired. The War destroyed so many bonds… I'd do it again in heartbeat," he reassured the other man quickly, who had not looked worried at all and was now distinctly amused by his antics. "But I wish sometimes that Tony never built the Iron Man armor. Even his absence drives a wedge between the Avengers. If he had never been part of the team, everything would be easier."

"Would you really want to miss him entirely, though?" Bucky asked; his head tilted to one side. "I'm not talking about what he did for the Avengers, I'm talking about never having met the man."

Steve sighed and lowered his head, "No, I wouldn't." He closed his eyes when a comforting hand squeezed his right shoulder. He could be himself around Bucky: just Steve Rogers, unsure, tired and weak. He did not have to be Captain America.

His enhanced hearing alerted him that someone was approaching very quietly, and he braced himself instinctively. It took him less than a second to know who it was.

"Is everything alright?"

"I'm not sure," said Bruce as he entered, his tablet in his hands, looking tense but unsurprised that they had heard him come closer. In an instant, both super soldiers were at his side.

"What is it?"

"This code is all wrong. I… I looked the code Arno handed to me and…" Bruce' speech was halted and strangely uncertain. "I don't think he wanted me to see this, or even expected me to recognize it, but some of the security code in the new StarkPad is backwards. I have seen Arno's codes before: they are clean-cut and flawless, almost sterile and impersonal, but perfect. Tony's are more chaotic, almost alive and yet, somehow gentle if that makes any sense… I still don't know what went wrong with Ultron. I think the Tessaract messed with Tony's original code, but I digress," he continued hastily once he saw Steve's very stern expression. "The point is: this is not Arno's way of coding. It looks like something Tony would create, but more impersonal and cold. I don't like it, and this must be in all the new StarkPads and possibly all new Stark technology. I'm not sure what it is, but I think it could be dangerous and I need to discuss the issue with an expert."

"Whom would you ask?" Steve asked, already suspecting the answer, and inwardly cursing all Starks and their fixation on virtual things. He should have known that Arno was as hopeless as his brother. He should have simply banned the man from becoming an Avenger.

"Well, I wouldn't dare ask Arno about it for obvious reasons. He's far too good not to know exactly what he coded. Reed Richards perhaps or Hank Pym, but I can already tell you that they won't know more than I do. This… this is Stark technology, and Tony knows Arno's mind better than anybody else."

"You want to show the code to Tony," Steve concluded. "Are you sure that this is necessary, or do you simply want this because you wish to see Tony?" Steve cut right to the chase, which was met with a look of disbelief.

"If I wanted to see Tony, there is no force on Earth that could stop me from seeing him, not even you, Captain Rogers," was the growled reply, and the green tinge to the doctor's eyes told Steve rather blatantly who was in control at the moment.

Then why haven't you visited him before?" Bucky cut in apparently unimpressed, but Steve knew him well enough to see that he was bracing himself for impact.

The green disappeared all of a sudden and brown eyes blazed, displaying both anger and anguish so painful, it made Steve wish for the Hulk to resurface.

"Because I betrayed him! Because I thought he was wrong, and I wasn't listening. I thought I knew the price we'd pay, but I didn't! I didn't know that Tony was facing either a trial for treason or retreat into exile in case he lost! Because I didn't do a damn thing when he was forced to turn his back on his home," Bruce visibly deflated. "The Other Guy misses him so much, he swum halfway across the Atlantic to get to him and we nearly drowned. Tony almost got him to talk to me, almost… I was this close," his right forefinger and thumb were almost pressed together, "to finding peace, but now the Other Guy only surfaces when there is something to smash. Yes, I want to see Tony, but what the hell am I supposed to say to him?" Bruce waved his hands in a helpless gesture, before he continued in a low voice, "This is not about me, or about my guilt, this is business and the feeling that I will regret it if Tony never looks at the code before the new technology is published. This is Avengers business, and we should meet with a former member to avoid a catastrophe."

A/N: Do you want me to continue?