Chapter 5: Changing everything

Soo... the poll is over and the result is... - drum roll please - NO SLASH! Thank you all for your votes and I will write for those who voted for Slash a story later with FrostIron that will take in a similar Universe but where Tony and Loki are together!

Enjoy!

Phil, Clint and Natasha were sitting around Tony in his workshop – the only room where no one could see or hear them according to Tony - watching the young man that had grown over the years on their hearts (even if Clint and Natasha would never admit that to anyone outside their circle out loud) and thought about the things Tony had just gone through before he could escape with what Tony called the Mark I.

Yinsen wasn't with them, Tony had asked Happy Hogan with whom he still had contact if he could let his friend stay with him till they found him something that wasn't paid by SHIELD and he had agreed without asking why Yinsen even needed a place to crash.

Tony himself was now working on an improved version of the metal suit that had gotten him out of the cave he had been held in. To anybody else it would seem like Tony was working like nothing ever happened but the three people that were like family to him could see how sometimes Tony's eyes would glaze over and he would have to shake himself free from wherever his thoughts had brought him to.

Minutes ticked by till Tony's hands stilled and he slowly looked up from his work but didn't make eye contact with Coulson or the other two, which alarmed them even more. Tony never backed down from a challenge and be it the one to look another person into the eyes!

"…Phil?"

"Yes Tony?"

"I… I think someone from SHIELD must have told Obadiahabout me. Th-The people that held me knew what I can do! They knew that I am Tony Stark, even though the rest of the world thinks that I died six years ago! Th-they couldn't- shouldn't have known!" Tony was rambling now and he turned his head so that he was starring at Coulson. You could see the fear, confusion and anger in these dark eyes and he had unconsciously place one hand on his arc reactor that kept him now living instead of his real heart. It hurt the older Agent to see Tony that way – Tony who was always all-smiles and stupid farce to cover his real feelings and genius towards everyone that had met him (but he still couldn't hide them from Coulson, Clint or Natasha – they knew him to well for that).

Tony carried on with his rambling and the more he said the more the anger in him grew. "What fucking good did it do that I was kept here 'to protect me' if guys out there know that I'm alive and want to use me to build them powerful weapons?! I can't do this shit anymore! Weapons with the name Stark shouldn't land in the hands of guys like them!" Tony took a deep breath and looked at his two big brothers and his big sister with determination they had never seen that clearly in his eyes before. "Phil, Clint, Natasha, will you help me with something… something really important?"

The three spoken to exchanged looks and Clint was the one who spoke up first. "What do you need us to do?"

Tony gave them a dark smirk and said: "I want to show the whole world how alive and kicking I really am and take Howard's company back since it's my rightful inheritance. And I want you to help me accomplish that. Phil you could forge papers for me to give me a back round for the years I was 'dead'. Clint if you would I would like you to play my bodyguard 'Iron Man' the first few days - with the help of the suit to hide that I'm normally in that suit. And Natasha I would like you to have an eye on someone I have chosen to help me with the company. I had already contact with her and she seems pretty bright but till I'm sure she won't stab me in the back I want you to be my shadow."

"You had contact with an outsider?!" asked Coulson worried.

"Yes but I didn't tell her anything about me. I already checked her and she is perfect for the job of an assistant."

"How long have you planed for this?"

"The thing with Clint playing bodyguard and you my shadow? Just now. The idea to 'return to the living' was something I had planned as soon as Fury told me I would engineer stuff for them and would be protected by them. It felt too much like a prison to life in forever so I planned to leave SHIELD eventually but Phil knew that, didn't you?"

Coulson ignored the looks Clint and Natasha were giving him and replied instead: "I had my suspicions. I know that you would love to be free from SHIELD."

"But you never told SHIELD, why?"

Coulson scoffed "As if I would ever grass up on you to Fury since you are my little brother – not in blood but still. And family sticks together, which is why I will help you with your plan too."

A smile grew on Tony's face that threatened to split it into two and he looked at his best friends to hear their answers.

"I'm in since that means I get to try your new invention. Besides the four of us are family."

"You can count on me too младший брат*." Said Natasha in agreement. "But what will we tell Fury about Clint and me being absent? He is the Director of SHIELD after all. He will find out about it eventually."

"No he won't! I have everything planed perfectly. Jarvis!"

"Right away sir."

Holograms lightened up and Tony explained his plan in detail to his three 'co-conspirators' as you could call them since they went behind SHIELD's back.

The world – like expected – was shocked to find out that the Anthony 'Tony' Edward Stark was still alive but DNA couldn't lie and so the press jumped at these news like hungry sharks that had smelled blood.

After a small fight for Stark Industries - which was won with the help of Tony's charm and secretly Coulson's ability to handle any kind of paper work – Tony accomplished it to regain the company as it had been stated in Howard's testament that he was supposed to inherit and no one could say anything against that. As soon as it was his, he began to change a few things like stopping the production of weapons, in their stead increasing medical and energy research, as well as firing Obadiah Stane (since he gave Tony the creeps and he had found evidence that Stane had something to do with Afghanistan). Sadly Obadiah's plane crashed on his way to his new home in west America (a feat accomplished by Natasha's sabotage) and he coincidentally had been accompanied by the SHIELD Agent that had been the one to inform Obadiah of Tony's presence in SHIELD (he had wanted to collect the money that Obadiah had promised him for the information).

Tony also hired a young woman around his age named Virginia 'Pepper' Potts who became his assistant and he contacted Happy Hogan who surprisingly happily agreed to become Tony's boxing trainer as well as driver.

Some old men who had a bit to say in the future of Stark Industries protested against the changes at first but quickly quieted down when they realised that they could be fired any second too.

On Tony's side was right at the beginning a figure that became to be known as Iron Man, Tony Stark's bodyguard – who was in reality Hawkeye – in the world. Later Tony accomplished it to program the suit so that Jarvis could move it around even if no one was using it and also using Iron Man's speech pattern so that no one would get suspicious.

Sometimes Tony would slip into the suit and fly to places where his company's weapons had landed where they weren't supposed to be and also destroyed the whole terrorist organization that had kidnapped him. This was all Tony's doing but to the world it seemed like Iron Man did it which was exactly as Tony had planned it. After a few weeks of Hawkeye playing Iron Man when it was necessary the whole world – including SHIELD – thought that Tony and Iron Man were two separated identities.

Talking of SHIELD: Fury had been extremely pissed when Tony had told him that he had enough off being some kind of puppet to SHIELD who built their tech and sometimes took on the part of one of their assassins. When Fury had brought out the argument that he was part off SHIELD Tony told him straight in the face that he had never been an official agent and had never signed some kind off contract that tied him to SHIELD. After that Tony had walked straight out of Fury's office and out off SHIELD and right into the next chapter off his life…

* младший брат means little brother in Russian, Natasha's nickname for Tony (her way of showing her sisterly affection for him)