A/N: And here is another chapter and we're finally getting towards the point of the story. More or less. :)
A/N2: To Rye...if you're still reading, I apologise if swearing offends you. To be honest, I've actually been making a conscious effort in this story to keep the language at a 12A sort of level so when I read your review I did a quick scan of the story in case I'd missed anything, but the strongest thing I could find was 'hell', which where I'm from isn't really counted as swearing. (Actually, where I'm from, far stronger words are generally used as punctuation, but that's another issue.) Anyway, I'm sorry if that bothers you, but to be honest, I'm going to use the words that the characters would so I have no intention of changing it to 'heck' or something like that. Besides. In the comics there's been alcoholism, cannibalism, incest and an Iron Man/Black Widow sex tape, so I don't think a couple of people saying 'hell' would get me anywhere near canon!
There was a noticeable tension in the air from the moment they landed back on the helicarrier, Clint realised. Even as they walked through the corridor towards the meeting room, he spotted people he'd never even spoken to concentrating hard on not meeting their eyes. Automatically his hand dropped towards his bow, and he didn't have to look to know that Natasha had surreptitiously reached for her gun, and Steve's shield was handy.
They'd only been gone three days. What the hell had happened?
He and Natasha had been on a reconnaissance mission in Nowheresville, Wisconsin. Reports of 'something strange' had turned out to be a HYDRA outpost. They'd called Cap for backup, and that still hadn't prevented Clint from being thrown against the wall when one of the agents got a lucky shot with a grenade.
Sprained wrist. It wasn't much, but he wouldn't be able to use his bow for at least three weeks. And Natasha had got a lead on a larger HYDRA base from the grenade-throwing goon, which had led to them being called straight back to the helicarrier for a debriefing/rebriefing and finding themselves in the middle of a whole heap of tension.
And when they walked in the door to see Fury waiting for them along with Maria Hill, Bruce and various members of SHIELD's HYDRA taskforce, the feeling of wrongness only increased.
Maybe it was just because Tony wasn't there...
Fury glared at them until they took a seat.
"Alright, so we got a HYDRA base in Idaho that needs taken care of," he announced. "Normally, the Avengers could take care of it, but with two of you injured, you're going to need backup." He glanced at Clint with an expression of annoyance.
He was about to make some caustic remark, when Bruce spoke up. "Oh, so Tony is still officially on the team then?" he said, his voice bristling with anger. Clint looked over, alarmed, and he thought he could see a tinge of green bleeding into Bruce's eyes.
Noticeably, the other SHIELD agents started edging towards the door, and Clint wasn't sure he really blamed them. Right now, he wished Thor was here. Or Iron Man.
Evidently Steve thought so too. "Dr Banner, you need to calm down," he said in a conciliatory voice.
"I am calm," Bruce spat. "Tony's gone."
Gone? He stared. "What do you mean, gone?" The man was confined to bed, he couldn't just up and leave whenever he wanted.
"He can't have," Steve said, echoing his thought.
"Of course he can," Natasha sighed, before looking at Fury coolly. "What did you do?"
Fury's expression didn't change. "The Avengers need Iron Man."
"Well, he's laid up for the foreseeable future," Steve frowned.
"He said Iron Man," Natasha corrected coldly. "Not Tony Stark.
Bruce nodded his agreement. "Apparently, he told Tony to give the suit to someone else. Tony got angry and left."
"He can't have," Steve said again, sounding just a little desperate and a little fixated. Personally, Clint had no trouble believing that Tony had done something quite that unexpectedly ridiculous.
"He has," Bruce snapped. "He got Jarvis to help him. His plane landed on the helicarrier and a bunch of doctors took him out of here. And SHIELD just let him go!"
"Mr Stark is not a prisoner," Fury said shortly. "He wants to leave, he's free to do so."
Right. Normally if one of them – okay, normally if Clint – tried to leave the hospital before they were officially released, Fury would dispatch a couple of agents to sit on him. "You're that pissed at him?" he asked without thinking.
He regretted it when Fury turned to him with a dead-eyed stare. "The Avengers need Iron Man," he said at last. "There are more important things to worry about than Stark's feelings. Like this Hydra base. Or have you all forgotten?"
They finished the briefing and Cap, Bruce and Natasha flew off to deal with the base, leaving Clint free to go to New York after Tony. For the first time, he could see the advantage of being injured.
He stood in front of the elevator to the private levels of the Avengers Tower, and looked unhappily first at the door and then at the key in his hand. This had to still work, right? It hadn't even been a day; Tony probably hadn't even had a change to remove his security clearance, even if he was planning on it.
Of course, the problem with that was he knew what the security measures in the Avengers Tower were like for anyone Tony didn't want to get upstairs. Comprehensive, inventive with just a hint of absolutely vicious. Clint really didn't want to be on the receiving end of that.
No. He really didn't think Tony would have put them on that sort of level of alert, no matter how angry he was. The worst that was going to happen here was that he'd just be refused entry.
Alright. Squaring his shoulders, he gingerly swiped the key across the reader and waited for a tense second, knowing that he was being scanned, assessed and considered. Just in case he was a spy, an imposter or a door-to-door salesman. Eventually, the door slid open and he hurried into the elevator.
"Good morning, Mr Barton," Jarvis said smoothly.
"Hey, Jarvis," he said awkwardly, looking round to spot the pinhole camera on the ceiling. "Did Tony get here okay?" He always felt strange talking to the AI, even after all this time.
"Mr Stark is in the penthouse, resting comfortably," Jarvis told him, and he sighed with relief. That didn't sound too bad then. "Miss Potts is with him."
"Pepper's there, huh?" He raised an eyebrow. "Rather him than me." He seriously doubted that Pepper had taken the news of Tony's latest escapade well. "Can you tell them I'm here?"
"Of course, Mr Barton," Jarvis said obligingly, and a moment later the elevator was speeding upwards.
It had been a little more than twelve hours since Tony had left the helicarrier, and yet somehow in that time the penthouse had turned into a private hospital. Clint walked in to see a doctor talking to two nurses, what looked like some kind of futuristic portable x-ray device, and a bunch of clipboards covered in bad handwriting.
"Mr Stark is waiting for you," Jarvis announced, and Clint smirked to see one of the nurses jump a foot in the air and look around wildly for the source of the voice.
As he walked into the next room a woman in a white lab coat and a mini-skirt walked out, smiling at him in passing. Even in the circumstances, he found himself glancing after her. God, she was beautiful. He'd always had a thing for redheads...
But then he was looking at Tony, lying in a hospital bed, hooked to just as many machines as he had been back on the helicarrier, and looking even more pale and helpless. And glaring at Clint like he was willing him to catch fire.
Pepper was there too, standing in between Tony and Clint, and she didn't look any more friendly.
"Fury send you?" Tony asked intently, and obviously the anger hadn't faded yet.
He held up his hands appeasingly, glancing sideways at Pepper, trying to reassure her that he wasn't any kind of threat. "Nah. This is just me. What, do I look like a SHIELD spy or something?"
"Uh, yes," Tony pointed out. "You might want to work on that."
"Fury doesn't even know I'm here," he promised. Not that he thought Fury would object in any way.
"Then why are you here?" Tony demanded.
Clint pursed his lips. "I live here?" he suggested mildly. "Or have you taken that back?"
Technically, he only lived there part time. With the exception of Bruce, who was sort of homeless, and Thor, who spent half his downtime at Jane's anyway, they all had their own homes to go to. A half dozen, in Tony's case. But somehow, Tony's offer of 'If you're ever in New York and need a place to stay...' had led to them each having their own specially designed luxurious suite of rooms in the tower, and from there they each wound up spending as much time there as not. It was sorta nice all living together. It felt like belonging, and Clint could get used to that. And although the question hadn't been altogether serious, he suddenly realised that he really didn't know what he'd do if Tony had taken it back.
"Listen," he said earnestly. "What Fury said. None of us knew about that. Why do you think he waited until Pepper, and all of us were away?"
"Steve and Bruce - " Tony began.
Clint interrupted quickly. " - Cap came out to join me and Natasha, and Bruce was too busy trying not to Hulk out to do anything else."
"Huh." Tony squeezed his eyes shut and his head slumped down onto the pillow. "You really didn't know?" he said weakly. Pepper hurried over to him
"No," he said, swallowing hard, and seeing Tony so vulnerable was painful. "No. None of us knew."
Tony opened one eye and looked at him carefully. "Do you agree with him?"
He hesitated, picking through his words carefully. "It's not a question of agreeing with him...it's your decision, Tony. But I gotta say...if I'm out, no one gets to use my bow. No one gets to touch Natasha's guns. Period."
"It's not the same thing," Tony said, looking away again quickly.
He shrugged. "It's sort of the same thing," he argued. He got the difference; no one was asking for his bow, and no one expected that someone else using it could make all the difference in the world...but he didn't think that Tony should just have to hand over his stuff either. "But my point is, we're all behind you. No matter what, we've got your back. Always."
Tony lay very still, but Clint could see the edges of relief and wonder in his eyes.
Pepper smiled. "Thank you, Clint," she murmured.
He nodded awkwardly, feeling slightly more exposed than he was really comfortable with.
Tony grinned at Clint and the moment was broken. "So if you're not a spy, I guess that means we only have one running around."
"Zara isn't a spy, she's a physiotherapist," Pepper said, sounding exasperated.
"Zara?" Clint asked, frowning.
"She's a physiotherapist," Pepper repeated patiently. "Tony's physiotherapist."
"And a SHIELD spy," Tony added.
"You must have passed her on the way in," Pepper went on, ignoring him.
His brow cleared. "The hot red head in the lab coat?" he asked.
"That's the one," Tony confirmed, and then looked sideways at Pepper. "I mean...there's only one hot red head around here, and I'm going to tell Natasha on you."
"Good luck with that," he murmured. "So, just so we're clear, you're not taking your offer back, right?" he said lightly.
Tony turned his head effortfully. "Mi casa es su casa. Besides. If you guys left, I'd have to get the decorators in again, and those guys hate me."
"They do hate him," Pepper confirmed. "He stole their paint sprayer."
"I needed it for a vital experiment," Tony protested. "Into...painting things."
"Right." He probably didn't want to know.
Tony was beginning to look tired and Pepper shot him a meaningful look. He stretched, and turned ostentatiously towards the door. "I should probably go. I need to let the others know you're okay. Before Steve taps our neighbourhood thunder god to storm the tower and check."
"Right," Tony said slowly, sounding a little uneasy.
He turned back quickly and smiled. "Is it okay if I come back up for lunch?" he asked.
Tony's answering smile was wide and relieved. "You just followed me here to steal my pudding again, right?"
"Why else?" he said mockingly, and as he walked out he felt like at least they'd established that whatever Fury might think, Tony was still, and always would be, part of the team.
Now he just had to call Thor and let him know what was going on. Otherwise before too long it would be raining inside again.
Pepper rubbed at her eyes, downed her triple espresso (her fourth of the day, and oh, God, she was actually turning into Tony) and started walking slowly towards their room. She had to be upbeat and positive. No matter that they now had journalists, lawyers and auditors hounding her day and night, demanding to know just how much of Stark Industries budget had gone on 'Stark's pet vanity project'.
She wanted to scream at them and remind them just how many lives Tony's 'pet vanity project' had saved, but that would only feed further into the 'arrogance' line Senator Boynton was pushing. She knew he was behind this. It was an election year and he'd found an issue he could really get behind. He went on MSNBC and argued that having this sort of power in the hands of unregulated, unscrupulous individuals and corporations was wrong and dangerous; and he went on Fox News and argued that keeping the Iron Man technology out of the hands of the US military was unpatriotic and unAmerican; and everyone listened to him like he was revealing everything that was wrong with the world. Apparently it was all Tony Stark's fault. Who knew?
It was difficult to defend them against this kind of mudflinging when she had so much more important things on her mind. Some of the more insistent vultures were even demanding to talk to Tony in person. And that just wasn't going to happen if Pepper had a say in it - Tony might be doing better but he wasn't up to that sort of verbal fist fight But so far her refusal had only led to media speculation that Tony was brain damaged and at death's door.
She clenched her fists tightly and willed herself to calm down. She'd got their own lawyers going after the source of those particular rumours.
Again and again the question had been 'Do the shareholders approve of pouring all the company's profits into building Tony's Iron Man?' And that was plain unreasonable. For a start, Tony still owned a controlling interest in the company, and Pepper herself owned a reasonable percentage of the rest – Tony had never been stingy with bonuses, even back when she was his assistant. What they were talking about were Obadiah's shares, now passed out into the world. Even dead he seemed determined to ruin everything Tony had built.
Tony was doing better at least. Most of the time he ranged between obsessive determination, struggling through physiotherapy exercises with Zara until the pain brought tears to his eyes, and working on new designs and refining products, to try and up their revenue stream, even a little; and crippling fits of depression that left him too exhausted to even open his eyes, until all Pepper could do was hold his hand and hope he could hear her.
Really, he almost certainly could do with talking to a professional. But he'd refused to even consider it after Afghanistan, and he'd been just as vehement this time around. At least this time he was cooperating with the doctors.
On the whole though, she thought that moving back home had been good for him. No matter that her first thought, when he had texted her from the air ambulance had been 'I'm going to kill him'. Leaving the helicarrier wasn't the most stupid thing he'd ever done but it definitely made the list. Even as he'd been running for her car, desperate to get back to the tower to meet him, she'd been imagining all the things that could go wrong. All the many, many things. His injuries were still so vulnerable. Too much movement, he could completely paralyse himself for life. He could even die.
But he'd been fine. Weak and exhausted and shivering with effort and shock, but by the doctors' description, as fine as anyone could be after something so foolhardy.
She'd helped get their bedroom turned into a hospital room, made sure the medical staff had everything they needed, made sure Tony had everything he needed, and then she'd locked herself in the bathroom and had a good cry.
It had been cathartic. And when she'd walked back through and Tony had looked at her with that guilty kicked-puppy expressions, she was able to take his hand and tell him it was okay before he even tried to say sorry.
He'd told her then what had happened. And Pepper could see it from Fury's point of view, but she could also see how Tony felt and that would always be more important. Not to mention Fury had waited until Pepper had gone and Tony was alone and drugged, before making his move. Her mouth twisted; she was very angry about that.
She'd brought a recliner into the bedroom and landed it beside Tony's hospital bed, so she was right there if he needed her, and she had breezily ignored Tony's suggestion that she'd be much more comfortable sleeping in the spare room, and he didn't need his hand held every second of the day. Because that was never going to happen. She'd left him alone once, and look what had happened.
Tony had fallen asleep even before his analgesia infusion was set up, but Pepper had lain awake, wondering what happened next, wondering if SHIELD would try and take the armour by force, wondering darkly who they'd send. And then Clint Barton had arrived the next morning and all her fears had been laid to rest. She could have hugged him.
Thor had arrived shortly after that, gingerly holding an impossibly enormous bouquet of flowers from him andJane, which Tony had allowed in the room only once he was sure it wasn't going to eat him in the night.
"Asgardian killer flowers," he argued. "It could happen."
"We purchased these from a lady named Rose," Thor said, sounding hurt. "She said they were what was traditional."
Sales people had a way of seeing Thor coming. Pepper still remembered with dread the Great Encyclopedia Delivery. "They're lovely," she'd said with regard to the flowers, looking pointedly at Tony.
The rest of the Avengers had returned once their mission was completed, and they'd all immediately come up to visit, supportive and scolding by turns, and with each new face Tony grew brighter.
They'd kept visiting over the next week. Pepper had to admit, the Avengers were good for him. No matter how much he might act like he didn't need people, the truth was Tony liked being part of something. Pepper knew that – her and Rhodey aside – everyone that Tony had cared about in his life had betrayed him or abandoned him, sooner or later. It was going to take time for him to fully accept that these...superheroes, if Tony absolutely insisted...weren't going to do the same. At least Pepper didn't think they were. And if they did, she swore she'd find some way to make him pay.
In the meantime Tony continued to wear that hidden expression of surprise and delight every time Bruce linked his lab up to Skype so Tony could at least what what they referred to as mad science, or every time Thor came bounding in with Natasha's laptop because he'd discovered LOL Cats and nothing was going to stop him spreading the joy, or every time Clint snuck him a cup of coffee, and Tony celebrated going against the doctors orders, even though Clint had quietly admitted to Pepper that actually it was decaf and it was fine, he'd just figured there were more harmful ways for Tony to rebel.
The point was, they got him. And that might just be what was giving him the strength to carry on.
And Tony, being Tony, hadn't said 'Thank you' or 'I love you guys' or any of that stuff, but he'd designed Clint a quiver that would apparently allow him to put his hand on the arrow he needed a second faster than before. That didn't sound like much to Pepper, but Clint had gazed at it like all his Christmases had come at once.
Tony expressed his emotions by fixing things that didn't need fixing. That was why Pepper's car did two hundred miles to the gallon. (And if they could just find a way to make the technology cost less than the space shuttle, they'd never have to worry about the company again.) That was why her cell phone could get a signal at the bottom of a nuclear bunker. Unfortunately they'd found that out the hard way. And that was why she was expecting the rest of the team would have some equipment upgrades sometime soon.
Her mind had wandered, she realised suddenly. She'd promised Tony she'd be away for half an hour at the absolute most, while he had his physio session with Zara but the telecon had made her so mad and it was almost that time now.
She hurried into the room and paused as Zara looked at her with a sort of understanding disapproval. She'd agreed to stay out of the way during Tony's sessions. Apparently she was a distraction.
"Sorry," she muttered.
Zara nodded and turned back to Tony, carefully pulling the blankets back over his legs. "Now, Mr Stark, you mustn't feel disheartened," she said cheerily. "I know it feels like you aren't making any progress, but really it's early days."
Tony barely nodded. Pepper made a mental note to tell Zara that talking down to Tony was never, ever helpful.
"Thanks, Zara," she said as the woman passed her.
Zara nodded again. "I'll see you tomorrow, Mr Stark," she called.
Pepper waited until the door closed before pulling the chair up next to the bed and sitting down beside him. "So," she said after a moment, squeezing his hand.
He looked up at her for a second and then turned away. "You know, your position as CEO and your shares...you'd still have those even if we split up."
She stared at him. "Oh, really?" she said, trying to keep her voice light but she was still able to hear the sharp edge. "I'd never considered it could be otherwise."
"I just wanted to give you options," he said.
"Options," she repeated flatly. "Options to leave you, you mean."
His fingernails were digging into his palm, she noticed, but when she reached out he pulled his hand away. "We need to start being realistic - "
" - realistic?" she interrupted, incredulous and angry. "You've never been realistic about anything in your life. And mostly you've been right. So if you're telling me - "
" - I'm not going to get better, Pepper," he said, low and anguished, and she took his hand quickly and this time he let her.
"We don't know that," she reminded him gently. "The doctors said it would be months before we know for sure."
"But I see the way people look at me," he said in a whisper. "And I've seen my x-rays and I've read up on what that means...if I'm going to be stuck here for the rest of my life, I don't want you looking after me."
His words were unbelievably hurtful, but Pepper forced herself not to react. "Alright," she said instead, her voice steady. "Alright. Suppose for a moment we start to assume that you're not going to get better. So what do you do? Are you going to stop taking your medication? Are you going to stop trying at physiotherapy? Are you going to stop designing whatever you're designing for Bruce?"
"It's a new electron microscope," he said, as though he couldn't quite stop himself. "He said he was having trouble getting anything with fine enough calibration."
She nodded. "Are you going to stop trying?" she pressed again. "You really want to give up?"
He jerked suddenly, as if that had hit him harder than he'd been expecting. "I don't give up," he snapped.
"Well, neither do I," she answered swiftly. "And if you really think that after all these years I'm giving up on you then you've finally lost your mind. Besides," she added, with a tiny smile. "Have you actually managed to discover your social security number, Mr Stark?"
There was a pause and then he answered the way she was hoping he would. "I'm beginning to think you're hiding it from me, Miss Potts."
She leaned over and kissed him, her hand resting just above his arc reactor.
"Don't make me leave," she whispered. "We can get through this together, I swear."
In response he kissed her again. "I've mostly been right, huh?" he said teasingly after a second.
"If pressed, I'm going to deny ever saying it," she told him with a grin.
She was well aware that he hadn't actually promised anything. But right now, she'd take even the smallest victory.
Tony wasn't the guy who sat around waiting and worrying on other people. Simply put, that had never been his role. In the last few years, he'd mostly been the one people were worrying about.
But now he was lying holding Pepper's hand tightly, watching the news as Jarvis scanned for more information, knowing all the while that he should be out there.
The call had come in the middle of movie night. A full on HYDRA attack in downtown Los Angeles, led by some guy in a green costume calling himself Baron Strucker, and his army of seemingly invincible super soldiers.
An army of men who were just as strong and fast and agile as Steve. Only these ones didn't seem to feel pain, and any time the camera got close enough to show it, their eyes were glazed and dead.
Tony had robots who were more alive than these guys.
The other Avengers had all been in his room when the news came on, watching Shaun of the Dead. Ten seconds later and it had just been him and Pepper and a half empty bowl of popcorn.
They carried on watching the news, and with the sight of every civilian screaming and trying to run away, every new explosion, every time the camera cut away to avoid showing the bodies...Tony knew that he could have been there by now. Knew that he could have made a difference. Iron Man could have made a difference.
And then the Avengers arrived, and despite the relief in the reporter's voice, for Tony, that was even worse.
He had to watch, helpless, as Captain America was thrown from a building, as Hawkeye dived desperately to avoid Baron Strucker's gunfire, as a small army brought Hulk down... He saw blood and bruises, saw the pain, saw them struggling and he imagined how Iron Man could have stopped it.
This was hell and he couldn't stop watching.
Thor was hit by some sort of energy weapon and fell to the ground unmoving. Cap leapt in and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him into the shelter of a nearby building, and Tony couldn't even tell if Thor was alive or dead.
Natasha was left alone in the middle of the street, firing desperately, and Tony could see them coming at her from the building above, and he reached out a hand automatically, as though he could somehow blast them from here, but they swarmed over her and she was hidden beneath a pile of bodies.
He heard Pepper sob beside him but he didn't look round, staring dry eyed at the screen as Hulk roared and threw the super soldiers aside long enough for Natasha to scramble to safety.
The battle raged on and eventually the super soldiers seemed to burn out, slumping to the ground one by one, and Baron Strucker escaped from the roof in some sort of jet aircraft so high tech that even Tony couldn't identify it.
Iron Man could have caught up with him.
The camera panned back to the Avengers, standing huddled in the street. Thor was still down, and Cap and Natasha weren't looking much better, and they looked hurt and they looked beaten.
Iron Man could have helped.
Iron Man should have been there.
He closed his eye briefly and realised he'd already made the decision. "Jarvis?" he croaked. "Get Fury on the line."
Pepper looked round at him alarmed. "Tony..."
"What is it, Stark," Fury's voice rang out abruptly from the phone by his bedside. "I'm busy."
"Whoever you had in mind to be Iron Man, send them over," Tony said hoarsely. "I'll get armour designed and made for them."
There was a long pause, and when he spoke, Fury sounded almost hesitant for the first time since Tony had known him. "Thank you, Mr Stark, but we can just use one of your old suits."
He laughed mirthlessly. "Alright. If whoever you had in mind has the exact same reflexes, body mass and inside leg measurement as me, he can have my old armour. Otherwise, send him over and I'll armour him up. He can even choose his own paint job."
"I'll call you as soon as I've briefed the candidate," Fury said shortly. "Thank you, Mr Stark."
He rang off.
Pepper sat on the edge of his bed and put an arm round him, but thankfully she didn't speak.
Tony thought that right now, if anyone said anything, he might just start crying.
He had the weirdest feeling he didn't exist anymore.