A/N: Sorry it took so long, I had to finish the other fic I was writing, and I started writing a novel, and on top of it all I was convinced to write my Master's thesis a whole semester ahead of schedule, and my best friend was in the hospital. My life is a mess right now, but hopefully I'll get back on track now that it's calming down a bit.

Chapter Three – A Lie is Still a Lie, even if you say it to Make Others Feel Better

Lucas couldn't help but want to apologize for what he had said before, he hadn't known that she was one of the students at the school but he didn't know how to approach someone after how they had met. Sharon could tell that he was distracted, anyone could, after she tried to pull him into a conversation about tactical skills.

"Excuse us for a minute," she said pulling him away. "Lucas this isn't like you to be distracted."

"Sorry," he said knowing that he should be focused at that moment, he was among heroes of course he should focus. "It's just that… well you see that girl over there… I said some screwed up shit to her this morning, I mean she was riding her bike and nearly ran me over but I threatened to have her arrested for trespassing."

"Who the brunette? Her name is Riley she's one of the top students in the country outside of your friends."

"That doesn't make her special in anyway to be riding around in the woods like she had been."

"Lucas she was hand chosen by Fury to be in this school, she lives nearby from what he told us, she's been living around here long before the New Avengers Facility was even put together."

"How do you know all that?"

"I read her file the moment Fury put her at the top of the list," she shrugged before walking away.

Lucas thought about it, this girl, Riley, was at the top of the list for the students in the school, how was that even possible. He had never heard of her before, but then again he only made sure that his friends were safe, and anything about the heroes of the world. Everyone else hadn't really mattered when Captain America was a family friend.

"You're thinking too hard," Isadora said as she stood next to him. "I get the game look when I'm trying to code something."

Lucas sighed, maybe his friends knew something. "Hey Iz, do you know who that girl is?"

She watched him for a moment, before her eyes landed on the girl across the lawn. "Riley?" she answered once she realized who he was looking at. "Yeah, she's some kind of genius prodigy but she's not talked about a lot mainly because she doesn't give interviews with any magazine. I only know about her because she was in a newspaper a few months back, something about an exploding science lab."

"A what?"

"Yeah apparently she had been experimenting on some kind of chemical and the whole thing went south, the school is probably happy she's not a student there anymore, but she's really something else if she could blow something up."

The more information he got about Riley the more he couldn't figure out if she was a good person, or a villain in training. He needed to look into it, just to be on the safe side, even if she had been handpicked by Nick Fury. He was on his way to introducing himself to Riley, because the whole keep your friends close and keep your enemy closer theory, when he realized she was gone.

He did what he does best, and that was hiding. He hadn't told Riley everything, but he knew that his daughter was smart enough to realize a lie even when he hadn't said it out loud. Rogers thinks that he forgave him, but in his heart it wasn't forgiveness as much as it was a way to get everyone off his back for a little while. Speaking to his former team was bringing up too many emotions that he had buried. Peter and Vision were the only two constants in his life, Peter always hung around for advice or he was watching a movie with Riley. Vision stayed because somehow, at least this is what Tony thought, it all had to do with what was left of JARVIS. Vision was a part of his family, his real family, and they stuck together even with whatever relationship the android was having with the Witch.

A knock on the door brought him out of his thoughts and he feared the next member of the Avengers walking through the door. Instead he was greeted with the sight of his daughter for the second time that day, except this time she was alone.

"Hi Riley," he said smiling even though his heart wasn't in it.

"You can lie to everyone else in the world Dad, but you can't lie to me," she said glaring at him. "I know it took a lot to come here, to be honest about your position here, but you have to take the steps necessary to heal, please."

"Oh god you're pleading with me, and you know I'm a sucker for it because you know how to get what you want from me, I swear you get that from your mother, the woman would own a shoe store on Rodeo drive if it meant that I did my work."

"Daaadddd," she said looking at him. "No more lies, or else I'm calling Uncle Rhodey to come and sort you out, and he's worse than mom is, I know you miss them but you can't get over the hurt of it all because it was grandmother who had died. But wouldn't she want you to forgive him and start all over, isn't it time to."

Tony looked at his daughter and wondered how she had become the bigger person in all of this, but she had also lived through the aftermath and guilt of it all. She had been there when he thought no one truly cared about it all and between Rhodey, Pepper and Riley, he was able to get over everything that had happened and see that what really hurt was the dishonestly. He hadn't cared about Barnes because in the end it was Hydra who had done all of that to him, he hadn't cared that Natasha had decided to help Steve over helping him, or that Clint had antagonized him, or that Wanda had pushed Vision so far down the complex that it took weeks to fix. What had hurt the most was that they all sided with Cap in the end without thinking about how it would affect him, or that Steve had left him behind instead of helping him.

"Families fight dad and I think it's time for you to bring yourself to forgive them," she said as she stood up and walked over to where he sat behind his desk pulling him into a hug. "Even if it hurts because in the end they need you as much as you need them."

He sighed and held onto his daughter, the one constant in his life outside of Rhodey, Happy, and Pepper, the one person who knew him better than anyone. She was right, his family needed him and he couldn't lie anymore.

"Let's go home kiddo," he said as he pulled away. "Pizza tonight?"

"Yes please, I need a Riley special," she smiled. "Oh and Peter is coming over, he said something about needed an upgrade on something and sleeping over because tomorrow we have to be here at some ungodly hour."

"I doubt that nine in the morning is that evil," he said smiling.

"Says the guy who's normally up at two in the afternoon."

"Come we can grab your bike and Peter on the way out and drive to the house, I doubt there's too many people who would notice me taking the two of you home."

"If they did they wouldn't care about me, they'd thing you were up to something with Peter and I was just tagging along. Hell the last time you two tried something I had to shoot down those spider robot things you two invented," she shuddered next to him and made a face. "I don't understand how you end up mentoring the only hero with the word Spider in his name knowing how much I hate spiders."

"That was just the luck of the draw," he said pulling he into a hug. "I love you kid."

"Love you too dad," she said smiling at him.

"So all of the tykes are off to their room to get ready for bed," Sam said walking into the room Bucky not far behind him. "And I of course had to hear it from this guy over here that you went to talk to Stark."

"Sam," Steve said as a warning. He didn't want to bring that conversation up again, for some reason it still didn't feel like they had actually settled anything. The moment the feeling of happiness died he realized that Tony was good at putting up masks.

"I'm not judging, but honestly you two needed to have this conversation years ago," Sam said as he walked over to the couch in Steve's office at the facility.

Steve didn't know why he still had an office, when they had gotten back he was sure that they were all going to be thrown out. Tony was still protecting them even when none of them had helped him in anyway. There was an ache in his heart from everything that had happened, and maybe it could have all been avoided if he had actually communicated instead of throwing punches.

"Steve, you're a brat," Bucky said making Steve's head shoot up to look at him. "You're always defending the little guys, and honestly this time around it might be a good idea for you and Stark to sit down and talk. A real talk not what you had earlier, because the guilt over it all has been eating at me since that airport fight, since my memories had begun to surface. Since Nat started helping me."

"But you didn't do anything wrong," Steve said, it was an automatic reflex and it had carried him through it all but in the end when everything had been falling apart around him he couldn't figure out where one part of himself began and the other part ended.

"Stevie, I did a lot of things wrong," Bucky said putting his arm around Steve's shoulders. "And yes I wasn't in my right mind but I know that I should have made a decision long before anything happened between you and your new life."

"There's a lot of what ifs running around here," Sam said looking at the two of them. "In the end I think it's time to stop thinking about the what could have been, and start thinking about what could be."

Steve couldn't help but smile, they were both right in a way, the past had a way of creeping up on you and tearing everything down. But now where they were, it was time to let it go in favor of repairing their relationships and trying to make everything better. Steve knew that hating himself wasn't going to fix anything. Things that needed to be fixed were supposed to be talked out with the other person.

"How about we drop by Stark's house and get you two talking?" Sam said to him breaking him out of his thoughts.

"Sam isn't it a little late in the day, maybe we can talk tomorrow after my morning class," he said before sitting at his desk.

"I still can't believe that they want us to teach a bunch of kids," Bucky said as he sat down next to Sam.

"Yeah just imagine what's going to happen when they stand in front of the Winter Soldier, and they all piss their pants," Sam said with the most serious look on his face before he started laughing.

Bucky started laughing after a moment, and Steve soon joined them, because honestly he just needed something to laugh about and not think about having to fix anything. In the end he realized was that he wanted his normal life back, those silly smiles he used to give Tony, the shared jokes, their friendship was what he missed the most.

When they left the school no one had spared a second glance at Riley leaving with her father and with Peter, she had been right about that. Spiderman was Iron Man's protégé, Riley was Peter's friend in the eyes of these people so of course they wouldn't give her a second glance the minute they all piled into the car.

Riley was tired, it had been a long day, and Zay went off with Ned to his house because they wanted to go over some game. So movie night was going to be just the three of them four if Happy joined them, five if Vision showed up. It was these normal days that Riley had dreamed about for so long, and even though the amount of people who knew her true identity was growing, they were still close friends that she trusted the most.

"So what movie should we watch?" she asked as they drove down the road. "We still haven't seen Rogue One, because we've been waiting for Peter to come over."

"Yes, we have to see it, I yelled at Ned the other day for trying to spoil it and he said it's been out for months so why haven't I seen it yet," Peter said to her from the front seat, turning around to look at them in the back.

"Eyes up front Pete," her father said. "Happy doesn't like it when you turn around like that."

"Sorry," Peter answered turning around.

Riley couldn't help but laugh, it was just like her father to protect everyone even in the car. The ride took another ten minutes but once they were home Riley excused herself change into something more comfortable. The whole day had been one whirlwind to another, and she knew it was going to take some time to get her life straight, especially when she was trying to fix the damage that had happened during the civil war.

"God I hate that name," she said once she was in yoga pants and an oversized shirt. Civil war implies that eventually there's a chance at fixing things right, if she read history correct once wars end all it took was two parties to reconcile right. She wanted her father to have the people he saw as family to come together once again.

She walked back downstairs as soon as the pizzas arrived and sat down in the living room, it was normal for them to eat take out while watching movies. They ate in the dining room when one of them cooked something just so they could talk and have a normal conversation. Those were usually family dinners with Uncle Rhodey, Zay, and her mother. Other than that they usually found something to watch and ate their food on the couch or the floor.

"So what's it like?" Peter asked sitting next to her. "Being the daughter of the great Tony Stark."

Riley couldn't help but smile, she had gotten so used to having Peter around that conversations with him felt natural. Now that he knew the truth it would probably become a regular occurrence, since he spent more time with her and her dad than anyone else outside of family.

"Well I get prototypes of all of Dad's tech," she smiled for the first time since she met Pete she could actually say dad around him. "I have my own lab, and he lets me do whatever I want. FRIDAY was created by me, so of course when he decided to use her after… well you know… and you're A.I. was modeled from her and JARVIS together, so of course you get a parenting A.I."

"I didn't know FRIDAY was yours, it must be weird though, you grew up here," he said gesturing towards the room, but she shook her head.

"I grew up with a family in the city, that's why my last name is Matthews, the people who act as my parents in the public are normal, they're nice, and whenever I have vacations they let me stay with my dad," she was grateful towards the Matthews for everything they had done. "After Afghanistan, I started having nightmares about losing my dad, so I started staying with him more often, until the Avengers started. I went to boarding school just to stay close, Mrs. Matthews works in the S.I. legal department, my mom set it up."

"Who's your mom?" he asked and she smiled.

"The one and only Pepper Potts."

"Your mom is the CEO of the company, and yet you were kept in the dark from everyone."

"Pretty much, remember my dad wanted me to have a normal childhood, but I doubt he factored becoming a superhero into all of that."

Peter leaned back into the couch as the movie started and looked back at her, "Sorry your dad picked me to join him during the… you know."

"I got over it… in a way," she smiled. "You want to see something that not even my dad knows about?"

"Can we take the pizza with us?"

"Yes, we'll be back so just take a slice or two," she smiled before taking the one she had been eating in her hand and walking off. "Come on Spiderboy."

"It's Spiderman," he said standing up.

"You're under twenty-one so you're still a boy, and plus if you want in on this family, nicknames and teasing are a part of the package."

"Your dad calls me Underoos," he said smiling. "What's your nickname?"

"I don't have one like that, he calls me sweetheart, mini-me, sometimes princess when he wants to," she shrugged her shoulders. "I think it's his way of inducting a person into the family… well with the exception of the bad guys, at that point he's just trying to annoy them."

Riley walked off, grabbing onto Peter's arm and dragging him towards the entrance of her side of the workshop, usually when the guys were there and she was there as well the windows would be blacked out. Her mother hated that she tinkered like her father, but she made sure that every safety protocol was in place for her. Riley keyed in her code and watched as the windows went from black to clear. Like her father's workshop you needed codes in order to get inside, but Riley put in her own safety measures, for times when she was working on her Iron Warrior armor.

"This is pretty cool," Peter said as they walked inside.

"Yeah, but not as cool as this," she said as the back wall opened up to show her armor. "My dad doesn't know it exists, and if he does he hasn't said anything about it."

While Riley was downstairs with Peter, Tony was finishing up some paperwork he had taken with him. Why he'd ever agree to actually head up a secret government agency was beyond him and he couldn't reason with himself about it either. The door to his office opened as Vision and Rhodey walked in.

"Really, today is the day you decide to pull a stunt like that?" Rhodey said sitting in the chair in front of the desk. "And of course I don't hear about it from you nooo, I have to hear about it from my own kid because I couldn't be there myself."

Vision stayed quiet nodding along with Rhodey. "Viz if you're going to say something say it," Tony said looking the android in the eye.

"I agree with Colonel Rhodes, it would have been prudent to advise us on the course of action you were going to take," Vision said.

"Sorry, it's just that well I made a promise to Riley and in the end I wasn't thinking beyond that promise."

Vision nodded and stood up. "That is understandable, now if you'll excuse me, I will leave you two alone to have your conversation."

Tony groaned knowing that Vision was actually leaving him so that Rhodey could yell at him, it was the only possible outcome to all this which also meant that they had planned this beforehand.

"So your kid convinces you to come out as the Director, which in the end means that you would have to face the rest of the team, which also means that people would either despise you or come looking for you and force you to deal with the shit storm from that ridiculous war."

Tony nodded at his friend, "Riley wants to come out to the world as a Stark, this was one of the contingencies to that plan," he said shrugging his shoulders. "No more lies to anyone."

"Okay well I didn't hear about that part of the plan."

"That's because no one really knows, I promised my kid sometimes, and well I guess in the end if I have to deal with whatever was left over I will deal with it."

"It's a lot to take on Tones," Rhodey said looking at him. "I know the team feels guilty over a lot of things, but since you won't really talk to them they sort of just stare at the blank space you left behind. War Machine isn't Iron Man, not matter how much they look alike."

He nodded, and he knew it was the truth, but he also knew that there was still a lot of work to do to get them to where they were before all of this happened. He also needed to deal with his feelings for the Avengers, as well as his own feelings for everything else.

"You want to stay for dinner?"

"Sure, Zay and Ned were playing some game so they won't notice I'm gone for a while."

The two of them walked out of the office, paperwork forgotten because he could always get back to it in the morning. When they reached the living room both Riley and Peter were missing, the Pizza sitting on the coffee table with the movie playing in the background.

"Fri, where's my kid?" Tony asked looking around the room to see where the two teens could have gone off to, and he hoped it wasn't anywhere near Riley's bedroom. All of a sudden the realization that his daughter was friends with mostly guys reared its ugly head.

"Riley's in her workshop boss," FRIDAY answered. "She's showing Mr. Parker some of her projects."

He sighed, his miniature melt down avoided. "Tell her to come up so we can watch the movie."

"Will do sir."

"You're afraid," Rhodey said smiling at him. "You're afraid of your daughter getting a boyfriend."

"Stop it," he said looking at the man. "This doesn't go beyond this, I like Peter but I'm also not opposed to kicking his ass if he hurts my girl."

"What if the guy she ends up with isn't Peter?"

"Don't put those thoughts in my head please, it weird enough to deal with a teenage girl who on chance blows up entire science labs, and get recruited for the Avengers Academy by Nick Fury."

"The Matthews must have had a hard time explaining that one."

"Yeah well I threw money at it, and she doesn't go to that school anymore anyways, she already has a master's, she only went to that school because I wanted her to have a normal life, everything else was done through correspondence."

"She's smart just like her dad, but she's also got the patience of a saint like her mother."

"That she does."

When the two teenagers returned and they started on the movie for the second time, the four of them settled in. Riley and Peter on one side, Rhodey on the recliner on the other. It didn't take long for them to fall asleep on top of each other, exhausted from the long day.

Natasha still wasn't convinced about anything Stark said, she wanted to sneak up on him again and have another talk with him. This time without Steve interrupting them. Her guilt was her own, she left him behind and went with Steve, and even though she had been on missions with Steve for a long time. Tony had been the first Avenger she had met, and one of the first friends she had made outside of Clint.

Sneaking around when you were dating an ex-assassin on the other hand wasn't very easy and although she gave him the slip at the compound, he found her regardless.

"I know you feel guilty over a lot of things, but shouldn't we sleep first, we still have tomorrow and Steve told me that they set up some kind of weekly dinner thing," James said next to her as she walked through the woods behind the compound. She knew that Stark's house was on the other side.

"I can't sleep, haven't been able to for a while," she said giving him a half smile. "You should know."

"Yeah I know, especially since we only seem to sleep when we're next to each other, but when everyone in the compound is moving about at all hours it's hard to actually sneak around."

"If we told them about whatever we are, would they understand, I mean Steve knows but he only thinks this is a recent thing."

"How about, for now, we just deal with what's happening right now."

She sighed, it was hard to keep a mask up in front of the man. "Fine, I wanted to talk to Tony, we did get interrupted by Steve bursting into the room, even though they needed to talk but still."

James nodded and took her hand. "Well I guess I need to have a talk with him as well, so we can do this together for once."

They reached the back gates of the house, it looked like someone was home because there was movement in the living room, as though the television were on. Someone was walking around before moving towards another room. She saw Tony standing in the kitchen drinking a glass of water his back to the counter.

"I don't think it is prudent for you to be sneaking around back here Agent Romanov," Vision said coming from behind her making her jump as James pulled out a knife. "Hello Sergeant Barnes. Shall I announce your presence to Mr. Stark?"

"I thought you weren't JARVIS?" she said smirking at the android.

"I'm not, but seeing as how I still have him inside of my mind, as well as the fact that I haven't left Tony's side since the war, only whenever I went to visit with Ms. Maximoff, then I still have some of Mr. Stark's trust."

Natasha couldn't help but cringe at the fact that Vision had said what he did. She had lost Tony's trust by helping Steve, and lost him as a friend when she didn't return to his side after everything that had happened.

"Can you please tell him that we would like to speak with him," James said answering for her. He knew her better than most, he was the only person she truly put down her defenses for because they had known one another the longest, though no one else would know that part of their lives.

Vision showed them to the library that sat on the other side of the mansion, away from where Tony was, he was in a way protecting the genius and Natasha felt herself slowly wavering because she had helped cause this.

Tony woke up feeling hot and thirsty, when he looked around he saw that Rhodey had left at some point, and the three left were covered in blankets. Vision must have tucked them in, which made him smile because he knew there were parts of him with JARVIS still inside. He got up and put Riley's head on one of the cushions moving her legs behind Peter who had fallen asleep on the other side of the long couch. Before walking over to the kitchen to get some water, he must have been tired, to fall asleep like that on the couch.

"Sir, Agent Romanov and Sergeant Barnes wish to speak with you," Vision said from behind him making him jump. He panicked for a moment because Riley was in the house and her existence was still a secret. "I've put them in the library."

"Thanks Viz," he said. The android must have known that the location of his kid had to be kept a secret. He patted him on the way out of the kitchen and made his way towards the library on the other end of the house, checking in on the kids on his way.

When he reached the doorway he saw the two people he hadn't expected to show up at his door standing in front of a bookcase looking around.

"To what to I owe this pleasure?" he said sitting down on one of the old leather couches. "Considering I didn't invite you over which means you're here for another reason."

"Guilt, mostly," Natasha said. "I know you and Steve talked but I wished I would have gotten the chance to say more before he burst into the room."

"I actually don't care anymore, someone told me recently that I have to learn to move forward, families fight and that it's time I bring myself to forgive you, because my mother wouldn't want me holding a grudge against people I considered my family."

"That's it, it's been eating inside of her this whole time, and some other person tells you to move on and you listen?" Barnes said making Tony shrug his shoulders.

"I trust this person with my life, something I once did with the Avengers, and something I hope that one day I can do again. But that person tells me how it is, they've been putting me in my place for years and I rather listen to them then do something stupid."

"Was it Pepper?" Natasha asked with a smile on her face. "Or was it Rhodes?"

"Neither, it's not someone I've introduced any of you to, and with good reason because they wouldn't appreciate how I have the tendency to ignore their request, but that one request is something I'm going to listen to," he said sinking into the couch. "I'm sick of fighting, I get that Barnes was brainwashed, and that you all feel guilty, but families fight. I'm done trying to keep my feelings bottled up, I'm going to move on. Dinners with the kiddos, meetings, actual talking like I said to Rogers, and maybe one day this will all just be a distant memory."

"I would like to meet this person one day, if they can get the great Tony Stark to actually do something that doesn't involve him ignoring the request," she said walking over to him. "And I am really sorry, for all of it."

"I know, I know… but maybe when we get comfortable with one another again, you can tell me why you showed up with Barnes and not Rogers… because I'm sensing something is going on with the two of you and no one really knows the extent of it all."

"Well if you're going to keep this mysterious person a mystery, then the same goes for whatever James and I have."

"Oh first name basis, this is serious," he smiled at her. "I love a challenge."

"Yeah so do we," Barnes said making Tony laugh.

"Well I'm off to bed, someone said something about a nine A.M. class that apparently I have to oversee tomorrow."

They said their goodbyes, and Tony all of a sudden realized that Riley was right, he felt lighter. Families fight all the time, so he guessed it was time to finally put it all to rest.