The city of fear (part 2)

'For those who don't know I have some S.H.I.E.L.D. news. We have found, thanks to Iron Man's accidental trip away from where he was supposed to be, Captain America. Alive. Frozen in the ice. He's being… brought back to life as we speak, at least that's what we are hoping for,' Coulson says on one breath as soon as everyone is in the room and Bruce closes the doors behind himself.

All the Avengers nod patiently and wait for an elaboration as Clint opens two bags of chips and puts them in the middle of the table, as always.

'We would like him – if he is fit mentally and physically – to be part of the team. Opinions?'

There is a brief moment of silence as everyone seems to consider. Tony has a very set opinion about this, but Iron Man isn't the one to volunteer to speak first; it's easier to distance him from Tony Stark this way.

'Do I get to be his sidekick?' Spider Man asks first, grinning under the mask, and Clint covers laughter with a chuckle. 'If yes, then yes. Well, if no, then still a yes.'

'Well, I asked for professional opinion and you know it perfectly well, but if we are on this, you are aware that it would depend on his decision only, don't you?' Coulson asks unfazed, not even grinning. It's just something he has to deal with every day, Tony knows, the reality of being Clint's secret boyfriend.

'I probably don't know more than the comic book and urban legends, but that would be so freaking cool,' Clint quips in before putting a handful of his favorite Cheetos into his mouth and gaining a disbelieving and resigned look from Coulson.

'Given all data we have on him, he would be a great asset,' Iron Man says. Natasha and Bruce only nod in agreement, though Bruce's face is a bit ashen and he's biting his lip like he always does when he is upset. Not really surprising.

'Good. No objections – at least this one time,' Coulson concludes and sits down. 'Now, we've been receiving some strange energy readings in New Mexico…' he starts and a story goes from there.

A story that, according to S.H.I.E.L.D., screams aliens. Or rather Asgardians, as the readings are very similar to those registers when Thor came by the previous time. His supposed-to-be girlfriend is working for S.H.I.E.L.D. now, so she was the one to notice the changes first. So, apparently Thor is going to pay a visit, unless it's some monsters from their realm what would be completely uncool.

No one has any idea why Thor wants to come now, but maybe that is better: less worrying for now. There will be plenty of time to worry later, probably.

Coulson decides to take Hawkeye to the base near which the activity has been disrupted while the rest of them is supposed to be ready to come in anytime. Also, Tony gets to travel to Africa twice – there are still some illegal weapons in Southern region, so the mission is similar to those he's had before: come in, blow the weapons up without hurting people, go away. S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to take care of everything else.

In a way, Tony would prefer there were no more missions like that, no more Stark Industries' weapons all over the world – but there are and he's kind of happy that he can get rid of them. It's just exciting. He has always been an adrenalin junkie.

Training goes as well as always, but this once, after it's done, Bruce, already dressed in pants and a shirt, asks them to stay for a few moments, Coulson included.

'I just thought,' he says in his usual half shy, half decisive manner, smiling a bit awkwardly even after all those months of being part of the team, 'that maybe we could get some meal together. I mean, team bonding and stuff. Since we have spent here most of the day here.'

Coulson rises both his eyebrows and the rest of the team looks at Bruce curiously.

'Well?' Bruce prompts, shifting his feet and blinking.

'If I don't have to pay, I'm in,' Spider Man offers first, as always with a grin. Clint sighs theatrically, breaking the slightly tense silence.

'Chinese or Thai or pizza, pretty please?'

Bruce nods as Natasha and Coulson declare their willingness to share a meal; nor surprising, given that they live in the building without a decent kitchen anyway.

'You know I don't eat in the suit,' Iron Man states; it's not that much of a loss, since he's got some great food back at home, 'but I could stay.'

They smile. He does stay. Bruce seems even more thankful than he normally is, that nice beast. Tony loves it all.

Just three days later Coulson sends a message to Iron Man saying You want to be here now. Tony puts on the suit and gets to headquarters in eight minutes; he can guess all right what the uproar is about: Captain America is waking up. Slowly, swimming in and out of consciousness, but definitely waking up, and whole S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to be more of a bunch of fangirls than a professional secret government agency.

Forty three minutes after Tony gets there and two coffees for Coulson, one for everyone else but Bruce, and a lot of nervous talk later Steve wakes up for real.

The whole crowd watching him is behind a new tech one way mirror that is impenetrable also to enhances senses; Tony has tested it himself. Well, Iron Man did.

Captain has been placed in a hospital room, in the end, and not a fake 40s room like the protocol said. Tony knew perfectly well from the beginning that some of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s protocols are completely useless.

Steve acts so – calm.

There are two doctors, Fury and Coulson in the medical room, hovering over his bed, and he blinks, looks around and asks them something. Tony can't lip-read because Captain is at a strange angle and well, still on his back, but he can guess what the question is about, and Fury's answer he can tell and it only confirms his guess:

We won, Fury says.

Captain closes his eyes for a moment and takes a few deeper breaths, then looks around again and speaks up.

Tony can guess some more: where am I?, what has happened?, how is…?

It takes them about ten minutes to get to the bottom of it, and by that time most of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents returned to their work, leaving the hidden room to the Avengers minus Spider Man, and three other people from the medical staff.

'You have been asleep for a long time, soldier,' Tony can read Fury speaking and a moment later one of the doctors clarifies: seventy years. Captain tenses and wriggles in the bed, but Coulson puts a hand on his shoulder to keep him down. Of course Captain could take all the men in the room down in a second, but he obeys and stops moving.

They tell him he needs to stay in medical for at least two more days and go through several tests of different kinds to determine if everything is fine with him, physically and mentally. Captain listens, nods, looks at them and looks away, and, in Tony's opinion, does surprisingly well as for someone who has just been told such a crazy thing.

You are in the future.

It will be a difficult moment of adjustment now, if you believe that adjustment is even possible, but it's not like there has been someone before who could say.

Maybe Iron Man could help, despite being the epitome of 21st century in so many fucking ways but – Tony understands not understanding the world anymore. He has his few months of that, even if it was in a completely different way, but the core of the experience is always the same: you look at the people around you and you cannot understand what and why they are doing, even if it's the smallest things.

You don't know what you are doing anymore; Tony has had a nice share of that, indeed.

It is three days before he meets Captain in person, though, it can only happen when the man is released out of medical. JARVIS is in S.H.I.E.L.D. systems so Tony has instant access to all the data that is uploaded on a file called Rogers, Steve, code name Captain America. It seems that, despite being frozen for like sixty eight years, Captain's super-soldier-serum-injected body is acting as if nothing has happened and he is a more perfect physical state than 99,9% human beings on the planet, what is completely fascinating.

Captain is released and given his own quarters – not furnished with pieces from 40s, but with normal modern equipment – and let out to the real world, albeit restricted to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ for now. Coulson asked him about the Avengers and Captain said yes straight away, but asked for some adjustment period, totally understandable. Coulson agreed, of course, Tony knows the man is such a fanboy that it's almost funny, but he can't even tease him about it. Fortunately there is Spider Man for that.

The Avenges have an emergency Sunday meeting but Iron Man gets to meet the man a day before, mostly by accident. He goes to Africa to one of his missions on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon he comes by to give Coulson a report – and Captain America is in the agent's room, wearing high-waist trousers and a plaid shirt and a sad face. Tony feels a strange compulsion to pat him like a puppy, just like some of the Riverside kids. Funny thing.

'Iron Man,' Coulson greets him and gestures at him to sit on the empty chair. 'This is Captain America.'

'Please, call me Steve, Mr. Iron Man,' Captain says, extending his hand to shake Tony's gloved one. He's about the second person to ever try that, it's so sweet. And – mister.

'I am sorry I can't offer you my name, Steve, but please drop the mister,' Tony offers, shaking the man's hand, careful not to crush the bones in his hands, even if they would be healed in no time. 'It's a pleasure to meet you.'

'Well, everyone keeps saying that, I can only hope I will not disappoint you,' Steve replies with a tight smile and gets up. 'I should go now –'

'I didn't want to interrupt,' Iron Man says, even though Tony hoped to interrupt. 'I just have this to give to Mister Agent here,' he adds and puts the few pieces of paper on Coulson's desk. 'Mission report.'

'We're okay, Iron Man. You know when to come for briefing for the other trip. Now, shoo, I've got work to do, as always. Both of you,' Coulson states, giving Iron Man a hard meaningful stare saying don't let him go. Tony doesn't plan on that, at least not for as long as he can talk with Captain without annoying the man too much. They end up in one of the training rooms, observing young agents and talking.

'Your armor is more amazing than anything I have seen before,' Steve tells him a few minutes into the conversation. 'No tech that Howard has ever made was as amazing. I heard you can fly as gracefully as a ballerina,' he adds with a smallest smirk. Tony grins underneath the faceplate, even though he'd rather not discuss Howard.

'I have been told so, yes,' he agrees. 'Thank you.'

'I heard you made it yourself,' Steve adds, eying the armor curiously.

'I did,' Tony admits. 'It was a hell of a job but what can a man do to be a superhero, you know?'

'I know,' Steve laughs and it sounds honest for the first time. It's going to be okay, Tony decides. Captain America is going to do great adjusting, not only because he has no choice, but also because he really is an amazing human being. Tony almost cannot wait to be in a fight alongside the man.

They talk for maybe half an hour before Tony has to go; he has a meeting at Riverside scheduled for the afternoon and it's 1300 hrs already.

'I will see you tomorrow in a team meeting,' Iron Man salutes Captain and flies away, leaving the man with his mouth almost hanging open. That's so cute.

Nate ends up spending four hours with the kids, playing and talking and discussing a few things with Miles in the meantime. It's just as amazing and exhausting as the first time, but so incredibly rewarding. Tony realizes he kind of regret he hasn't been doing this all his life – that he hasn't been able to do this all this life. Tony Stark simply didn't have the time and the approach that Nate has: as if there was nothing in the world but him and the kids around, and they seem to totally feel that attitude and are wordlessly thankful.

It's such a beautiful thing.

Tony lets himself think that and honestly, he doesn't give a fuck about the whole world at this point. He doesn't have time for caring too much.

The team meeting ends up to be 20% introductions and 80% discussing Tesseract. It's kind of a spontaneous thing, Steve could probably get an appointment with Bruce and talk about the cube, but since it involves Iron Man, too, and very likely Thor – who hasn't appeared yet, but there are still people monitoring the area in New Mexico and Clint with Coulson are going there again to check up on the situation again – it only seems fitting.

Captain is very angry about S.H.I.E.L.D. experimenting on the Tesseract. Tony guesses he can understand: it's the thing that was a HYDRA weapon and the very reason of a few quite dramatic events of Captain's life – not to mention that yes, it could be such a destructive weapon. Even if S.H.I.E.L.D. is only trying to tap on its power now and use it as an energy source, who knows what could happen. Especially that even with the best scientists on the planet, they don't know for sure what to do, how to act; there are no ready-made answers. Everything is an experiment and those are dangerous.

'I only hope you are not going to regret this, Agent,' Steve finishes and sits down, Coulson observing him closely.

'Of course, Captain,' he replies, sighing and massaging his temples the way he does when he is tired. 'We are going to talk to a few people about writing a program for analyzing the Tesseract's activity to understand it better, there is a team working on that, but what they came up with so far has not been completely satisfaction –'

'I know someone,' Iron Man cuts in before Tony manages to stop himself. All eyes are suddenly on him, because they keep forgetting that sometimes, when he is not wearing the suit, he is supposed to be a normal man, a normal person with a normal life and he can know people. Well, even if that's a bit of a lie on Tony's side.

'Someone?'

'A programmer and kind of an IT genius. I could contact you with him. Nate Rives, maybe you have heard of him?'

'He works on medical A.I.'s now, doesn't he?' Bruce asks, running a hand through his curly hair and offering Iron Man an almost apologetic smile. 'I am interested in those things and his name came up one or twice…'

'Yes, him,' Tony agrees. This feels like a new level of surreal, but hey, Nate could really help S.H.I.E.L.D. where Iron Man cannot because of reasons. 'We have known each other for a long time,' Tony adds, looking at Coulson. Captain's eyes jump from one person to another and he looks slightly confused. Of course he does.'

'Well, I will look into it, but we would be grateful for a contact – just tell me honestly, can that man be trusted?'

'I wouldn't propose anything is he wasn't,' Iron Man replies earnestly, well, as earnestly as a synthetized voice can convey.

That is how on April 11th Nate Rives himself ends up walking through HQ corridors and Tony does a great job pretending to be fascinated with the place he is supposed to be seeing for the first time in his life.

Coulson knows ASL. No one is surprised. Tony is only thankful because it makes the communication – maybe not much quicker, but definitely more fluent and natural. He says he gave a look at Nate's work and it looks impressive for such a low-profile person. Nate smiles, or maybe laughs soundlessly, it's always something in between, and says he enjoys the peace and quiet atmosphere and that it's just one of the things that make him comfortable in the world.

It's the same kind of lies that work on Pepper – Tony hates them, but they are necessary – mixing truth with some false information; there is no way someone will find out which part is a lie. They always believe. Coulson does, too, because Tony speaks the truth: he is enjoying himself much more now than in the spotlight. Of course Tony Stark would never say that, would never even think about saying that.

In the end, Coulson asks him to come over the next day – if you can, of course – to meet with the team constructed of programmers and scientists working on the cube. Nate says that he has the time, no problem, and then they part.

Tony tries not to think what he will have to do when the world will need Iron Man and Nate at the same time: he is going to manage it somehow. He always does.

So the next day, after the meeting that lasted for hours – with Nate typing and typing and typing, argh – Tony leaves the HQ and goes straight to his workshop, asks JARVIS to call Happy and tell the man that he won't be coming for the night. Happy is annoyed with him, but it's not like such behavior is so unusual; he only warns Tony that if he isn't back in the apartment by noon, he is going to go there himself, feed him like a baby and tie him down to bed. Tony makes a mental note to be on time, even if Happy would only do half of those things.

The algorithms that Bruce and the two other scientists created are really good, perfect, but they are far from enough to track all of the cube's activities and the other three guys have not been able to do a proper analysis of all the other data that the Tesseract – is, it seems to emit so much power of different kinds, containing so much information, that the codes get tangled and far from efficient, but – Nate can make it better.

Tony didn't create the one and only really functioning A.I. for nothing.

So, him and JARVIS go to work and it's exhilarating.

It takes Tony two more days – nights are civilly spent in bed, in the apartment, even if Tony is not getting much sleep – to finish the codes; now it only needs to be tested on the cube itself, but Tony is sure everything will work fine.

It does, Coulson texts him a few hours later. Nate cannot come because he's too new and not even officially part of the organization – despite his priceless help and involvement – so he can't get into a Security Level 7 facility.

Instead he is sitting in a room with Bruce and one of the programmers, staring at the giant screens where the data is displayed: everything works as it should. Nate has been proclaimed a genius, half-officially, and gained kind of a worship of the rest of the tech division of S.H.I.E.L.D., even though they have never really met in person. It's nice. It's the kind of attention he feels okay with.

'You have been here all day – how about we get something to eat?' Bruce asks Nate and Tony wonders how does that work, people being so nice to him. Even if it's Bruce, someone he knows as Iron Man.

'Yeah, sure,' Nate types. Bruce offers him a small smile and leads him to the mess and then Nate Rives meets Clint and Natasha.

He and Natasha are polite and pleasant, circling around each other; he and Clint kick off as perfectly as Tony and Clint would. Plus, Clint knows ASL, too, so the communication, again, is on a different level. Bruce and Natasha just raise eyebrows when the two man engage in a heated discussion about S.H.I.E.L.D., Clint insisting that Nate should work for them and Nate saying that he doesn't want to because he doesn't like people. Clint makes a face.

'You should at least be a consultant, then, if you don't want to work here normally.'

'Possible?'

'Coulson knows,' Clint signs back, grinning. Of course, Coulson knows everything.

Being employed a consultant doesn't sound too bad, Tony decides. In fact, it would be perfect.

Coulson agrees and Nate Rives thanks him with such a pretty smile while Tony is kind of laughing inside, but only kind of: they are just letting him in now. Of course he has access to all their data and information anyway, but it's nice to be invited.

Sharing time between Iron Man, Nate's voluntary jobs, the S.H.I.E.L.D. one, Riverside, and Tony Stark's post-mortem projects – it sounds like a good way to live his life.

The next few days pass quietly, Tony is calmly working on a new suit and a few upgrades to the old ones, as well as is writing an A.I. for the team he's collaborating with – they are building a robot but it's one of the medical things, so he doesn't feel too bad about it not being him creating the bot – and he spends evenings with Happy and Doc sometimes, running and cooking and talking and even drinking, sometimes, a bit.

Iron Man goes for another mission, it was planned for later this month but Coulson and Clint need to go to New Mexico again as there are some more disturbances that might mean Thor or aliens, again, Thor preferably, but no one can be sure.

When Tony leaves Coulson's office after briefing and submitting his op report, he sees Steve waiting in the hall by the window, staring out of it and looking… lost. Steve does that a lot.

'I was hoping to catch you,' he says and Tony is glad that the helmet doesn't let Steve see the surprise on his face.

'Hey, Steve – why? Do you need anything?'

'No, I just thought we could… talk or something, if you have time, you know…'

'Okay,' Tony says in Iron Man's voice. 'Why me, though? You live here with Clint and Natasha and Bruce, so I thought –'

'They are busy,' Steve replies, turning away from the window. 'I was hoping – if you really have time – if you could help me with some things, you know, 21st century things?'

'I thought someone was teaching you stuff?'

'They are, but you know, I am pretty behind and it all seems messy and they – they keep staring at me as I was an alien.'

'I know that feeling,' Iron Man laughs easily and the sound makes Steve react just like Bruce did when he heard it for the first time: it makes him smile widely, eyes glimmering with amusement, and cock his head. 'Anywhere is particular?'

'It's a nice day,' Steve murmurs, looking almost guilty all of sudden. 'And they won't let me out yet, not that I don't understand because I can hardly figure anything here, not to mention outside, but I like my freedom, you know.'

'Well, let's go to the roof then, at least you will get some fresher air,' Tony says and turns around to get to the elevator. He could fly, but he doesn't want to leave Captain behind.

'Bruce told me what you said to him one time,' Steve starts when they are outside, engulfed by the strong wind, with sun shining brilliantly and illuminating the whole city and the ocean; the building isn't very tall, but it's nicely situated and the view from the top is really pretty. 'That you are just a man underneath the suit. Do – do people tend to forget that?'

'Yeah. They do. Or rather they don't really think about it: they know I am not a robot, but they don't seem to think of me in the categories of a normal human being. But that's okay: I am far from being that when I am in the suit. It was – it was a choice I made, you know.'

'Everyone treats me like Captain America here,' Steve confesses, lowering his voice and walking up to the edge of the building to look at the traffic down on the streets. 'Even if they call me Steve. I know it's because they seem to know Captain America much better, from the stories and the comic books and everything – I have heard enough legends about myself so far, you know – and no one knows me, really. Not many people used to knows me even back… back in my times. Just my commandos and a few others from the military. When I went to war I – I left nothing behind. No family, no friends. I took with myself all I have been.'

'You miss it,' Iron Man concludes, still standing a few steps behind the captain.

'I think it's only natural,' Steve admits. 'They were my friends, and now – I was given a folder with their data. They are all dead, every single one of them. Some lived as long as ninety. But now they are gone. They had families, kids and grandchildren, and I… I don't want to meet with those people.'

'Understandable, Steve,' Tony replies. 'They are strangers. You owe them nothing. They don't even know you exist, because you shouldn't exist.'

'You are the first person to tell me that, you know?' Steve laughs bitterly, turning around to look at Iron Man. 'Everyone else seems to think I am too fragile to hear something like that said out loud. As if I was going to break.'

'I don't think you are going to break,' Tony assures him, even though the artificial voice doesn't really convey emotions and it sounds just flat. 'I know you are stronger than that. Even if it must feel like everything has happened only weeks ago.'

'You don't realize how much I appreciate you talking with me normally, you know?' Steve laughs again, in the same humorless way. 'Everyone seems to avoid that – well, they wanted me to talk with a psychologist or whoever, I don't really know what is the difference, but I am not going to talk to a stranger freely. Maybe that's the outdated me, but it would feel wrong… But yeah,' he adds, rubbing his wrist with the other hand nervously. 'It feels like losing them just a few days ago, a few weeks, like – such a short time.'

'You are allowed to grieve,' Tony says solemnly, even if it gets lost on Iron Man's voice. He kind of wants to go and strangle all those S.H.I.E.L.D. specialists now; he thought they would be smarter than avoidance and awe, the two last things that Steve needs now. He needs – he needs something to hook him to this reality and Avengers might be the thing, but it comes with time because the team is a continuous thing and they meet too rarely to be a proper foothold.

'Yes, I guess…'

'I would offer you a hug,' Iron Man says, standing impassively; Tony would like to do something with his hands, with his fingers, like he usually does, but it's rather impossible in the suit. 'But you know, I am all metal now and it would be awkward.'

For a fraction of second Steve looks like a beaten puppy; he is too perfect to be real.

'I don't know, could you?...' he asks, turning his head away and blushing slightly, as if it was something shameful. Now Tony really wants to hit someone for fucking with the kid so much – Steve is just so lost and scared and young and they should take care of him if they are claiming the right to keep him in the HQ and control his life –

'Sure,' he just says, walks up a few steps and pulls Steve into a hug. It is a strange experience, he can't really feel the heat of Steve's body or the strength of his embrace, but he knows it's all there, and at the same time he has to control himself not to hurt the man with some piece of the suit that is definitely not made for human interaction but for battles or flying high in the sky whenever Tony feels like.

Steve rests his head on Iron Man's shoulder and it takes him over a minute to pull away.

'Can we be friends?' Steve asks when he takes a step back and looks at Iron Man with a small smile. Tony blinks a few times behind the faceplate, bewildered.

'Just like that?'

'I don't know about how it works nowadays, but – what more do we need?'

'Point taken,' Tony agrees, laughing lightly. JARVIS conveys it perfectly through the synthesizer. 'I am not too good at making friends, so I wouldn't really know, but okay. Friends,' he states extending his hand and Steve grasps it strongly and shakes it.

Even though it's going to make Tony's life more complicated, it surely will, he is sure it will be worth it.

On Monday Tony starts the next two weeks of radiation, but he is feeling – well, not too bad, thanks to all the meds that Levy and Doc insist he take.

The work is going well: he has finished all the suit upgrades and is slowly building the new Mark, completely invisible thanks to new better panels he's been working on for three months, they are the most tricky parts, and the new repulsors that give really minimal amount of light and sound. He can't wait to have it finished: he will be able to spend hours, hours and hours in the air without anyone noticing anything, and flying is, and always will be, one of the most amazing and rewarding things. He signed the consulting contract with S.H.I.E.L.D. and it means he can work from wherever he wants as long as he gets the job done; it'll makes things easier if there is a conflict of interests between being Iron Man and Nate.

As soon as he put his signature on the papers, Coulson presented him with Level 7 clearance because – quote – S.H.I.E.L.D. is the best agency out there, but we were sorely lacking a man like you and we have a lot of work waiting to be done. It's a lot of work including a lot of secrets and it's fun to have them handed to him on a silver platter.

Tony ends up spending half of his working time on his personal projects and half on S.H.I.E.L.D. and the voluntary jobs, but Happy and Doc – and JARVIS, most of all JARVIS – make sure he gets a lot of rest, especially during the two-week courses, so a few days into the radiation he finds himself with a few morning hours to fill, even when he adds a meeting with Steve every few days, during which they talk history, tech and science.

JARVIS has a much as locked him out of the workshop; Tony has to agree that it's probably for the best, but it's still annoying, even after all these months, not being able to work like he used to. Kind of difficult if you are a workaholic and love your job.

A sudden idea and one telephone call later he finds himself waiting at Riverside's doorstep, waiting for Annik to come out with the youngest three and go for a walk. All the other kids are away, school and kindergarten respectively.

When the woman walks out of the building, Tony can't help but wonder how does she do it by herself: Lino and Leila, the seventeen months twins in a double pushchair, and Mikayla – a big girl, two years already – holding her hand and seeming eager to just run off. Annik probably has her own superpower.

'Let's go to the park, it's just ten minutes' walk and the kids love it there,' she tells him and offers a smile. He nods in agreement and a moment later there is a little thing clinging to his leg. 'They adore you, you know? It's like you have some magical magnetic power,' she laughs. 'Mikayla, please?'

The girl looks between the two adults, wriggles her hand out of Annik's grasp and offers it to Tony. He freezes for a moment, unsure what to do – unsure why the kid would just trust him so easily, just like that? – but Annik gives him an encouraging smile, so he locks his hand around the small one and they start walking.

Mikayla can't read, obviously, so Annik works as a translator between Nate and the girl, but really, they don't need too many words when they play. It's one of those I would have never done this experiences for Tony: a playground filled with children, shouting and running, and their mothers, it's at least 90% mothers, trying to half-heartedly control the mess and looking as if they were enjoying themselves a lot in the middle of it.

That isn't so strange to understand when Tony finds himself enjoying it, too.

It's as far from Tony Stark's life as it gets and he loves it.

When they are start walking back, Annik notices that Mikayla is tired – she would never say that herself, Tony learns, and he likes the girl even more because that is so like him – and Tony ends up carrying her, the girl basically sitting on his hip, with is arms wrapped around her small body, and he doesn't mind at all when his back and his chest around the reactor is achy for the rest of the day.

'You were such a great help,' Annik tells him when they are back. 'If you ever have some time, you are always welcome here,' she assures him.

'I will try to come by,' he types and smiles, waves Mikalya a goodbye and goes back home taking the subway. Subway is something new, too, a big change from Bentley with a chauffeur waiting 24/7, but it's thrilling. So many things seem new and worth discovering all of sudden.

At the beginning of May Thor finally comes back to Earth – Tony knows it straight away 'cause JARVIS is always following S.H.I.E.L.D. communication channels – and the next morning he is in New York with Coulson and Clint. Avengers' meeting has been postponed until the two members are back, so as soon as they reach the HQ, on May 3rd, everyone is called in. Tony would rather spend the day in bed, but he manages to get up, take a cold refreshing shower; a few pills and a bowl of hot soup later he is ready to go.

One great thing about Iron Man is that no one will exclaim you look terrible! or ask are you okay? as soon as they see him. Tony appreciates that a lot.

'I being grave tidings, my friends,' Thor starts as soon as all the Avengers are in the conference room. He doesn't seem anyhow surprised by the two new teammates, he must have been briefed by Coulson before. Of course. 'My brother, who is, sadly – beyond reason – is preparing an attack and I am afraid it is vengeance on the planet that I hold dear. I have been trying to come here sooner, Son of Coul has informed me you were aware of my fruitless attempts, I was forced to find a new means of transportation, differing gravely from what I have used previously, and it took me a long time to succeed. But here I am now bearing the news, and I want to assure you that I will not leave you until my brother is captured. We do not know where he is at present. We only know he will attack Midgard and I am obliged – I desire – to aid you with preparations for the battle.'

'Wow, that's a great thing to hear first thing in the morning, you've got to admit,' Spider Man comments dramatically, rocking the chair he is sitting in back and forth.

'First thing? That's not fair –' Clint starts, but Steve's look makes him shut up immediately.

'A battle. With whom, exactly?' Captain asks in his serious commanding voice, observing Thor guardedly.

'I do not know, Captain. For that I am sorry. None of my messengers have been able to tell me; only Loki has been sighted, here and there, bragging and asking, disputing about war and kingship, but he can create emanations of himself and therefore telling his real place of residence is impossible.'

'How do you know he is not bluffing?' Clint ask, this time more seriously. Well, no Cheetos on the table, it already means the situation is unusual.

'I trust my messengers with my life,' Thor states firmly and no one has any doubts regarding that. 'Also, I know my brother. You, mortals, do not think the way we do. I have seen him doing great things, but I have seen him doing foul things, too, in bouts of madness. And I fear this is the case now. He is envious of my future kingship and won't stop by himself.'

'Do we have any way of telling when and where he will attack?' Coulson asks, rolling his sleeves up and undoing the top button of his shirt; it's going to be a long debate.

'I expect him to strike within a month. As to the place, he surely will lead his army to wherever he will do most harm to hurt me more. He knows I will come to aid people wherever it might be.'

'That doesn't help us much,' Bruce murmurs. He is strangely calm, given the situation, but that's only for the best.

'I will tell you all about my brother that you need to know and maybe that shall let us all find an answer together,' Thor informs them and starts talking.

The meeting lasts for two hours before they get a break, but there is still so much to talk about, so probably another two hours or more ahead. Tony is nursing a headache despite the medicine that he took, and he knows he won't be able to focus properly if he lets it be like this, so he sneaks off during when everyone else is getting food, asks JARVIS to black the cameras out, and half-lifts his faceplate to put a few more pills into his mouth and drink some water. When he is back in the room Bruce asks him if he isn't hungry and he, very honestly, says that no, he couldn't eat right now anyway.

Not a good moment, really, but he can't just run away now and stay in bed when the fucking world needs saving.

The next two hours pass quickly: they talk, shout, argue, talk some more, and make a few important decisions. The whole S.H.I.E.L.D. and other secret agencies are going to be on alert, every active member prepared to fight in case of need, and the Avengers are scheduled to meet twice a week for training to perfect their teamwork, especially including the two newest members.

Tony feels only like sleeping for a month without a break at the moment, definitely not fighting and training and waiting, waiting, waiting, but life is a bitch.

Luckily, the next morning is his last radiation in this cycle, so he's only going to be better for the next three weeks. He can only pray to whatever force might be out there, asking for the battle to not take place later than in three weeks, when he might be almost-fainting and trying to sleep off nausea and headaches.

The schedule tightens now: Friday afternoon, Nate spends about eight hours working on a security system for the Tesseract, since it is likely to be a target. They don't have a way to shut off or activate the cube yet –the research has been proving rather helpful, but they need time – so the only thing they can do is suppress it as much as possible. That's a collaborating work between the R&D and the programming team, but Tony feels like he is doing most of the job there. Not that he's complaining.

Iron Man asks Thor why can't he just take Tesseract home, when it's something Loki desires, but apparently with Loki who is going to attack the Earth for sure, Odin staying in Odinsleep and Thor in Midgard, the cube would be too easy for Loki to find and steal from Asgard.

Tony decides it's a bit messed up, but there is nothing he can do other than work as well as possible and he does exactly that. His teaching dates with Steve get cancelled until further notice.

On Saturday, Nate goes to Riverside and acts as if nothing has happened. Well, nothing has happened, really, and there is nothing he can do to make the kids anyhow safer.

In the evening, JARVIS locks him out of the workshop.

'I understand that there is a difficult situation, sir, and it might endanger the whole planet, but you cannot work efficiently when you are so tired. Don't forget that I monitor your vitals all the time, sir. You can't fool me,' the A.I. tells him and Tony wonders why does he even let JARVIS sass so much.

But he is really fucking exhausted.

'The world can wait half a day,' JARVIS adds and calls Happy who comes to pick Tony up. Happy sighs theatrically when Tony almost crawls into the car and sinks into the seat lifelessly. Happy wakes Tony up when they are back in the underground garage and drags him to the elevator and then into the apartment and Tony sleeps for twelve hours straight, without eating or showering or taking his clothes off; he only finds his shoes by the bed when he wakes up at 0500 hrs feeling much more alive.

Doc and Happy are sitting in the kitchen, as if it wasn't such an early hour, playing Monopoly, special Stark Industries edition from a few years back when the company had its 70th birthday. Okay. Playing monopoly, eating club sandwiches and drinking tea; the tea, it is totally Scott's doing.

'You feeling better, boss?' Happy asks as soon as Tony comes into view, even though he doesn't even raise his head.

'Yeah,' Tony admits weakly, he doesn't like to admit when he is not feeling good, he's never liked that. He should have got used to that by now, but well. 'Thanks for yesterday,' he adds quickly as he walks across the kitchen. Happy still doesn't look up, but he is grinning now. At least one good deed for the day: make someone smile.

'JARVIS won't let you get coffee before you eat something substantial,' Doc offers when Tony stands in front of the coffee machine. 'We didn't force you to eat anything yesterday, but that's not gonna happen today. There is soup on the stove. Heat it up for yourself, kiddo,' Doc finishes and goes back to his game, humming loudly and sipping his tea.

It's cream of asparagus with parmesan and cream and bacon pieces, so Tony eats a full bowl and a half even though he doesn't feel hungry; he knows, rationally, that his body needs it, though.

'Plans for today?' Happy asks when Tony is done with the soup, putting a mug of hot cocoa in front of him.

'Iron Man has an emergency training with the rest of the team –'

'You should skip this one, boss, really –'

'– mostly strategy, baby,' Tony finished, glaring. 'I will be fine. And Nate has a meeting with his team in the evening. Apparently Fury decided that we need a brainstorm with the R&D guys, I can't phantom why, I could do more work by myself that the three of them do together with their teams,' Tony whines, but the other men just roll their eyes and make him drink the cocoa and swallow some medicine.

Everything goes just a planned until it doesn't.

Nate Rives finds himself face to face with Captain America – well, he is not in the costume, so maybe it's Steve Rogers – as they almost bump into each other.

'I am sorry, agent…' Steve starts, looking at Tony's chest for the ID that all agents have pinned to their S.H.I.E.L.D. suits or hanging from their necks. Nate doesn't have one and he can't say anything, so he just smiles apologetically, takes the tablet out and quickly types a message, each of his movements followed by curious eyes.

'Nate Rives. I'm not an agent, just a consultant. I don't speak, hence this graceless form of communication, unless you know ASL.'

'I don't know what it is,' Steve admits, blinking, as he stares at the small screen.

'American Sign Language,' Tony types quickly. 'Honored to meet you, Captain,' he adds. Steve smiles.

'Call me Steve. I might be Captain, but only in the uniform,' he adds firmly, offering Nate a hand. This is becoming a thing.

'Call me Nate, then,' he types.

'So you are a consultant? I haven't met any yet.'

'I am the one and only,' Tony informs him, grinning mischievously. 'I am a programmer, I write computer programs and I am damn good at that, Everyone wants me. S.H.I.E.L.D. too, but I can't have them all of me,' he adds. Steve snickers when he reads the message and Tony's eyebrows shoot up. He hasn't known Steve for a long time, but he would rather expect him to be at least slightly disapproving.

'Got that,' Steve sounds amused; maybe he is in good mood because the training with the team went well, Tony has to admit. 'I wasn't given a choice, you know,' he says jokingly, but it is totally sincere underneath the surface.

Tony smiles a bit awkwardly and sighs.

'Sorry, but I need to run now. There is some work I need to get done for Fury,' he types and after a moment of pause adds 'I hope we run into each other sometime ;)'

Whether Steve knows or not what emoticons are Tony doesn't know, but given how much time he spends with Clint, Tony would rather vote for yes.

'Yeah. Sure. Nice to meet you,' Steve replies, nodding, and Tony waves at him and disappears. He doesn't have any work to do now and even if he did, the two mother hens back in the apartment won't let him do anything more strenuous than go for a walk. It's just that minimizing the contact as Nate makes it easier to be around Steve as Iron Man; less things to control, less things to think of.

The next three weeks pass in anxious anticipation of the inevitable.

Tony tries not to let the restlessness affect him too much, but it's rather difficult. He wishes he could do something more, something special, to prevent anyone or anything he cares about from harm, but there is still no telling where Loki might strike, so any kind of attempt of evacuation will be rather futile and might end up with people panicking.

Nate goes out for a walk with Annik a few more times and visits Riverside every Saturday, as somehow he's managed to work his schedules around that appointments. Iron Man trains a few times a week with the whole team and with each member individually. Tony checks S.H.I.E.L.D.'s data, trying to pick out anything unusual, anything that could be an answer anyhow, and observes how the whole secret world – the part behind the scenes – is waiting, waiting, waiting for something to happen.

Captain America doesn't run into the mute consultant again, Nate insists on teleconferences instead of real meetings because honestly, he mostly works by himself anyway. Fury and the rest of the guys have to agree because Nate is too good to say no to him.

Iron Man and Steve don't get much time together, but when they do, they mostly talk about practical things, what means the ops they were parts of, the strange work stories, and sometimes they gossip about the teammates, but only a bit. It's a strange kind of friendship, when no one knows the other half really closely, Steve doesn't even know Iron Man's name, but somehow they make it work.

A/N: Thanks to everyone who commented. I am so so grateful for every line you drop me! It really is such a great motivation.

So, here we have a few meetings and a few hits for the future... and we part at the eve of a battle :p I hope you enjoyed this piece, too. Let me know? :)