Footpaths (part 6)

Tony sees Steve again on the team meeting a few days later. He looks all right – for a moment Tony thinks much better, but then he remembers he didn't actually see Steve's face in the darkness, other than covered by a patchwork of shadows and softest light.

'Good Morning, Captain,' Iron Man greets Steve, inclining his head slightly. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Natasha entering the room two steps behind Clint. She looks as in control as always which is probably a good thing.

'Morning,' Steve replies, sharing a shy smile with Tony before sitting down in his usual place at the end of the table.

'Since we all know enough details of the past month's mission, I will be skipping that part to tell you about what's planned for the next few weeks,' Phil starts when everyone is seated, not looking up at anyone in particular, but Tony notices the quick look Steve and Natasha exchange. It's probably better not to dig too deep – and his own mission, while everything ended up all right, wasn't exactly what he had in mind.

So, no reminiscing half-failures and necessary sacrifices. Tony finds himself sighing in relief. Maybe it's just his impression, but the team is not close enough yet for that kind of bonding session.

'We've got a mission in a few days – it's a recent thing, I just got the intel last night. Everyone but Spider Man is in, unless you do decide to fly with us to Africa,' Phil pauses, looking up at Peter, who shakes his head for no. 'All right, you can pretend you're not listening then. It's level seven.'

Spider Man chuckles humorlessly and everyone else looks innocent. They all know it's breaking protocol, letting Peter stay and listen to a briefing for a classified mission he won't be a part of, but they are a team.

'We have a potential weapon of unknown source and power in hands of a morally questionable group of scientists affiliated with a terrorist organization. The people themselves are not a threat, we need to contain them, but they seem to have dabbled with something more than they bargained for. There was a… blast, in the middle of a desert in Chad. Not quite nuclear power, but it's dangerous, and what makes it ever more dangerous is that we don't know what it is.'

'So we what, grab the weapon and that's it?' Clint asks, leaning back in his chair and swinging his legs.

'We make sure nothing more gets blown up in the process, yes –'

'Maybe Hulk could swallow the thing this time,' Clint cuts in, flashing Bruce a full smile, and Bruce just sighs theatrically and rolls his eyes. 'Why is it always energy and weapons and unknown source?'

'Yeah, I'd rather have some familiar aliens in NY,' Spider Man declares solemnly, gaining a stern looks form Phil and Steve. Tony just tires not to think about it.

'This isn't something you should joke about –'

'I can't just sit and sulk, Cap. I might not be getting in field on that one so yeah, scold me, but I'd rather fight aliens that I know than something that is who-knows-what –'

'I'll give you time for life approach talk later, please,' Phil interrupts, raising his voice a bit and sounding more bored than anything else. 'Behave. And you, Clint, if you don't feel up to shooting some idiots, I can always send you for a more mundane mission. I believe there is some supervising job available in the North Pole, maybe that's what you'd enjoy more –'

'Firstly, there probably would be some ice monster or Yeti involved,' Clint points out and as silly as it sounds, he's right, Tony decides. 'And secondly, you wouldn't manage a week without me.'

That makes Natasha snicker and she doesn't ever bother to cover it up with a chuckle or something. Bruce rolls his eyes again, making Steve tense. Such a team they are.

'All right, jokes aside,' Tony starts in Iron Man's best serious voice, 'When does the mission start? Are there any more details we need to talk about that won't be in briefing files?'

'We fly out on the 5th, 4 a.m. sharp, Quinjet from the HQ. We'll have enough time to go over everything onboard, so I want you to read these,' Phil says, holding up the grey files with S.H.I.E.L.D. logo in the middle. 'Thoroughly. Understood?'

'Yes, sir,' Clint mutters, not sounding apologetic at all.

'We have some new S.H.I.E.L.D. regulations,' Phil states, picking up a thick folder. 'Which you will completely ignore, as always –'

'I think maybe this time we could try to at least read through them,' Steve says but he doesn't sound too convinced, certainly not enough to make the others believe he really means that.

'We all know we don't play by the rules,' Bruce offers, wiping his glasses on his shirt again.

'S.H.I.E.L.D. won't interrupt, no matter what we do anyway,' Natasha says, ignoring everyone looking at her all of sudden because she hardly ever speaks during the meetings. 'I'd like to see them trying.'

'Director Fury would certainly prefer his agents not dead and not incapacitated,' Phil comments drily, pouring himself some water and ignoring the bags of chips surrounding the jug. 'If you would.'

'We could vote or I guess,' Spider Man says, making the others seem like they're considering it, all of them playing along.

'So, are we doing something here? Is this like a thing?' Bruce says finally, breaking the not so complete silence. 'I just had a thought. It feels like it? Living in the same place, evading S.H.I.E.L.D., eating pizza of all things…'

'Well, I don't know what you'd call it or anything, but it definitely feels like a thing,' Spider Man declares, nodding vigorously, making Tony smile. He isn't sure what exactly is happening, but everyone else seems to be similarly unsure.

'What would a thing mean, exactly?' Steve verbalizes the question hanging in the air, looking at the team one after another. 'I'm sorry, I don't know what exactly you are thinking and what exactly is possible –'

'I think what they have in mind is something alike what you had with your team… back in time,' Phil says, gaining a few approving nods. 'If we're talking about anything. The Avengers can't operate outside of S.H.I.E.L.D., that would raise too many bureaucratic concerns and would be frowned upon, but we could think of something, if you want.'

'What exactly do we want?' Natasha asks, her face not revealing a single emotion.

Tony wonders if he should say something, but it feels wrong. He's never going to belong in here as much as the rest of the team does, he doesn't have time for that, so he doesn't exactly want to have a vote.

'More independence,' Bruce says, wincing slightly, as if remembering something not exactly pleasant.

'Our own terms,' Clint says at the same time that Natasha says choice.

'More working together, not being pulled in opposite directions,' Steve adds, eying Natasha again, understandably, in the last few months she spent more time with S.H.I.E.L.D. than with the team.

'I'm going to appear shallow or something, but I fancy team dinners and, y'know, wrecking stuff together. And rebuilding it,' Spider Man declares, swinging in his chair dangerously.

Tony gulps, wondering if he's supposed to say something, too, and he doesn't really know what. Bruce gives him a look, and Peter too, but when he doesn't speak up for a second everyone turns to Phil.

'So, you want this independent brothers in arms slash family thing. Officially. Don't glare, Natasha.'

Natasha doesn't look anyhow apologetic, but Tony's pretty sure that's because she doesn't mind being included in brothers in arms. They all look at each other a little unsurely, questioningly, but ultimately Phil gets their firms nods.

'I'll see what I can do,' he says with a slight frown. 'And, by the way, you're all invited to our wedding whenever we get to actually have one. I thought we could make it official, since everyone knows already anyway,' Phil adds, turning to Clint on his left.

'Congratulations,' Steve says and Tony can swear he's already planning the ceremony in his head, visually, and Tony is sure that will work out well. But he has to say something, too, he promised Levy he'll clean his schedule for the necessary time.

'I'm sorry to break the spell,' Iron Man says in quiet but firm voice, sounding just a tad more metallic than usually. 'Before we leave it here, I wanted to let you know that I won't be around after we come back from the mission. I'm sorry but I have other engagements this month that can't wait.'

'Of course,' Phil agrees, he surely remembers the conditions Iron Man insisted on when he was joining the Avengers. If feels somehow wrong now when the team expressed the wish to me more than just a team. Well.

'All right, Iron Man,' Steve says, too, a little quieter and glancing at Tony with this pensive look in his face. 'Of course.'

'So, before we get to food and things,' Clint speaks up, gesturing at the miraculously unopened Cheetos bags, 'Is that all? We see each other on Sunday for some ass-kicking?'

'I still prefer training,' Steve sighs and they unanimously decide that it's all set and it's time to move on to the fun part of the meeting.

Tony stays. He knows it's probably not the best of his genius ideas because he has things to do and places to – well, not exactly, but there are definitely things he should be doing right now instead of watching movies, chatting or arguing with Natasha about battle ideas ever crazier that the ones S.H.I.E.L.D. gets involved in – but it feels nice to be here so he just doesn't think about anything else in the universe.

Spider Man ends up giving Steve photography lesson while Natasha, Clint and Bruce are swapping stories from their travels all around the globe and Iron Man is left alone for a short moment. Then Phil comes up to him, holding a cup of a herb-scented drink, and just stands there silently, observing the rest of the team just like Tony is doing.

'Everything all right?' he asks finally, keeping his voice typically bland.

'Why?'

'Well, I don't exactly get to spy on you and neither does S.H.I.E.L.D., so my only option is to ask if I want to know,' Phil explains and Tony blinks, realizing he just got an answer to something he was wondering about. He couldn't stop wondering if Phil knows. But it seems like he doesn't which is probably good. Tony feels glad, at least.

Iron Man laughs lightly, as lightly as the artificial voice allows, and Tony keeps smiling behind the faceplate.

'I need some real life time,' he offers, rather satisfied with the wording.

'All right. I hope you have a good time, then.'

Tony inclines his head in agreement, thinking that it's pretty much impossible, but he likes how genuine the words are.

'So you'll be fighting Fury to get us madmen even more autonomy than we already have?'

'It might be less fighting than one would expect,' Phil says in a conspiarational whisper, turning the cup around in his hands absentmindedly. 'I think he's secretly fond of you all. Not to mention that he likes New York a lot so he's pretty glad you kept his favorite grill place in Hoboken safe, you know.'

'Little pleasures, hmm?'

'Exactly,' Phil agrees solemnly, just before Clint calls him to tell a story about one time they were in Greece together. Tony gets sucked in the talk, pretending that he's never been to Greece – there are about seven countries in the world Tony Stark hasn't visited.

By the time he gets home he's craving Greek food and Happy thinks it's funny, who knows why.

The sparring session goes all right, even if there are maybe a few more bruises that should be, but everyone leaves the training room knowing that they are ready, as a team, for whatever is going to happen on the mission.

Tony comes back to the HQ later in the evening, or rather Nate does, to check up on Ijon's servers. This time he has some real work to do, making sure that all the hardware is working perfectly instead of the usual pretending to look at Ijon's software.

Clint greets Nate as he enters the building, leaving his overcoat by the door, but then he disappears somewhere so Tony makes his way to the control room alone. He knows that there are only two more people in the house right now and that means he'll have some calm time to get the work done as soon as possible, and then he can come home to a late night dinner with Rhodey. He hasn't seen the colonel all week long and it feels like such a long time. They just got used to being around each other often.

Tony snaps his hand in a gesture that JARVIS knows and explains silently to Ijon so a moment later a quiet guitar tune fills the room and Tony sits down on the floor, holding a mini scanner in his hand – it looks just like the newest generation Starkphones, a metal frame with a transparent holographic interface, and lets the device scan the beautiful piece of technology in front of him. Ijon's hardware was a bit of an experiment as Tony wouldn't offer anyone something as big and complicated as JARVIS. Everything has been working well so far so this is nothing more than a routine check-up.

'Spider Man entered the building and is heading towards this room, Nate,' Ijon informs Tony politely about fifteen minutes later, when Tony is about half done with his work.

'Hello hello,' Peter greets Tony as soon as he closes the doors behind himself. Then he looks around, waving at the nearest camera, and sighs. 'We're secure, right? I can talk stuff?'

'I assure you this room is quite secure,' Ijon offers nicely, making Peter smile behind his mask.

'So, do you like, go home, jump out of the suit, put on glasses and come back?'

'There might have been a dinner involved,' Tony types on his phone with one hand, hardly looking away from the scanner.

'Lucky you. I was working. No time for anything but a sandwich and man, I crave some spaghetti, I really do… But I came by to ask a thing.'

'Yes?'

'If Iron Man won't be around, does that mean you won't be around, too? I mean, I don't know how all those things work with you exactly, so…'

'"I" won't be around either,' Tony types, and then adds, 'but you'll have access to the workshop. I'll make sure my A.I. lets you in and navigates you, just text me in advance so that I have time to arrange things.'

'Oh I do love you,' Peter declares dramatically. 'You're so my favorite.'

'Happy to hear that,' Tony offers, flashing Spider Man a smile, and moves to cross off the next point of his to do list.

The mission is simple, in the end. The scientists don't oppose too much and it's easy to detain them. The weapon turns out to be a small metal ball, definitely human-made, but not a very recent invention; Iron Man puts it into a special power-draining containment box that was made post-Tesseract and heavily tested, so it's secured.

When the Avengers arrive they take care of the weapon and lay low for the rest of the evening and night, waiting for sunrise to allow them to do a final check on the area before leaving it. Tony flies a few miles away in his suit, so that he can take it off and stretch his limb, and he lets Steve follow him and bring some food.

It's too dark to sign, without any lights but the stars for miles and miles, so Tony types a thank you on his phone and hands Steve the device when he accepts a sandwich.

'I thought you should't have to do this alone, since I know,' Steve offers between bites of his own food and Tony can imagine his small unsure smile that he's seen so many times before.

'You didn't have to steal Hawkeye's bike and follow me miles into a desert,' Tony types and he has to admit to himself that R&D did a great job with the vehicle; Tony wouldn't mind getting a lift himself.

'It was an unique experience, I've got to admit, but it was really swell. I mean, you all tell me to try all I can in this 21st century, right?'

'I guess,' Tony agrees, trying not to get the phone's screen too greasy. 'I don't think I can get any closer to the team, you know,' he adds. It's probably not the best moment to talk about heavy stuff, but putting it off isn't probably a good idea either. 'I wouldn't feel comfortable, lying to them even more. I'm sorry. I know it's important to you.'

'You have the right to keep your identity secret and you can be as involved as you feel okay with, Nate,' Steve replies slowly, saying Tony's other name in a soft voice. 'But we'll all understand. We don't exactly have lives besides this thing we're doing here, and you, it's – it's a different story.'

Tony doesn't think it's exactly like that, but Steve's words are close enough to the truth so he types a yes and resumes eating his food.

Steve doesn't even realize, but Tony is very glad he doesn't have to sit all alone here in the middle of the cold desert. He's very good at not remembering things, but cold deserts are still a no-thing, so a familiar face, a familiar voice, are very helpful.

'When we go back to New York –' Steve says a few minutes later, breaking the overwhelming silence, but he's interrupted by a green pulsating light coming from one of the armor's sensors.

'Someone is in proximity,' Tony types quickly and a few seconds later he's in the suit, flying over Steve who is driving Clint's super motorcycle back to the makeshift base.

'There is a group of twenty people heading here from south, I don't know who they are an if they are armed, but if I were to guess, I would say they are.'

'How far?'

'Three miles out. What do we do?'

'We can't leave it here until we're sure there is nothing else we should get hold of,' Steve decides, grasping his shield's handle tightly. 'So no flying off. We need to know who they are and what they are doing here.'

'Will do. Clint, Bruce, you get inside and make sure no one gets out of the jet. Iron Man, track their steps as closely as you can, updates every two minutes. Captain, you stay with me outside. Natasha –'

'I'm moving,' she interrupts Phil is a firm voice, as if she didn't want him to voice what he was going to say, then she jumps onto Hawkeye's bike and drives off as silently as possible. Tony follows her from the air, full stealth mode engaged, flying high enough that noticing him is impossible. He gives position updates, as asked, and watches Natasha as closely as his HUD allows.

'J, are they armed? Well, scratch that, how are they armed?' he asks when he's getting pretty close to the group and his sensors can detect more details.

'Guns, rifles, paralyzing devices, sir. They appear to be wearing bulletproof vests.'

'Black Widow, they have vests,' Iron Man forwards, descending slightly. She is only doing reckon, far away from the men not to be in danger, but Tony still doesn't like all this in the middle of the overwhelming darkness.

'Roger that,' she replies in a whisper.

There are a few moments of silence before he hears her voice again, a bit tighter than before.

'We can get back to the Quinjet,' she says, again in a whisper, and Tony sees her turning the bike around and making her way back to the base. He follows her, reporting to Coulson and listening to Natasha telling Clint details he'll need to take out the man before they can get too close and try to do something unexpected and potentially dangerous – they have to assume the worst – and then maybe a mile from the Quinjet, she stops.

'Black Widow, what's happening?' he asks, turning around and descending slightly. 'The hostilities are moving closer towards you. Black Widow?'

She doesn't reply, for a moment Tony isn't sure if her comm is all right, but JARVIS assures him that everything is working.

'Natasha?' he tries, but there is still no response. 'Coulson, what is going on?'

'I don't know,' Phil says, sounding distressed. Natasha isn't the one not to follow a command, they all knows that, when he trust the commander and she trusts both Can and Phil.

'I'm going down,' Iron Man declares and gets to her in less than ten seconds, landing as delicately as possible, making sure not to create a cloud of dust as he lands. 'Natasha?'

'Agent Romanov's vital signs indicate that she's in distress, sir,' JARVIS supplies and Tony swears quietly, kneeling in front of Natasha so that he doesn't loom over her.

This is too private to talk about the open channel, so Tony asks J to patch him through to Clint only.

'Clint, I think he's having a flashback. She's not responding. Any triggers?'

'Fuck,' Clint swears loudly, making Tony wince. 'Fuck, I didn't think – it was in '05, we both almost forgot about that but yeah, desert and darkness and all this, we've been in a similar situation before and nothing ever happened and I just never thought she'd be –'

'Okay, okay,' Tony says calmly, nodding at JARVIS to cut off the comm, and puts his gloved hand over Natasha's. She's clutching the bike's handles, breathing too fast. Tony knows breathing too fast too well.

She lets his hand touch her, but then she flinches away and JARVIS tells Tony that the group is only 0.8 a mile away and with a flat surface like the desert, it's close.

'I'm sorry, Natasha, but I can't wait for you,' he tells her. 'Okay? Do you understand? I'm going to get you out of here,' he says, waiting for her to respond for a moment and when she doesn't, he moves quickly, wrapping one arm around her and keeping her close to the armor's chest. He leaves the bike behind, it doesn't matter much now and he couldn't balance flight dragging it with himself.

It's colder up in the air, Tony realizes, and the speed doesn't help with it, but the airflow makes Natasha snap out of the flashback, at least enough to suddenly starts struggling against Iron Man's grip.'

'I'm sorry, Natasha. Calm down, please,' he says, JARVIS making the voice as soft as possible. 'You're safe. I have to keep you close or you'll fall. We'll be back by the jet in half a minute. Breathe, okay? Breathing is good. It actually works. Please,' he adds, noticing that she reacts slightly to the word, and true to his promise they are at the base thirty seconds later.

'Captain!' Tony calls, remembering that night Steve and Natasha came back from the last mission. 'Take her inside,' he instructs and Steve obeys without slightest hesitation, making Tony blink in surprise. 'Clint, I need you with tranq shots, okay? I can do twelve at once. We need to make sure no one does anything funky. All right?'

'Sure thing,' Clint mutters, already running, and a second later he jumps onto Iron Man's shoulders, just like they practiced. It was more of a joke than an actual fight move but they know it'll work this time.

It takes the hostile cars a few minutes to get close enough for Tony and Clint to put their plan into action, moving instinctively, complementing each other; they are too fast for the men to react and before they know it, all of them are out of their vehicles and unconscious on the sand.

'2:21 a.m., sir,' JARVIS answers Tony's eye movement-asked question. 'The sun won't come up for another few hours.'

'I just want some sleep, I guess. Not that I could get any with all the adrenalin buzzing in my head, but you get the idea.'

'I do,' the A.I. replies and then falls silent, letting Iron Man exchange a few quick words with Coulson.

They spend the rest of the night under cold and penetrating light of long-range reflectors while Coulson makes use of his language skills and interrogates the men, as soon as they wake up from the tranq coma. It lasts until dawn and Tony listens closely, letting JARVIS translate everything for him, and makes a few rounds in the air to make sure there are no more surprises waiting for them. He collects Hawkeye's bike and intimidates the guests – who claim to be a protection detail for the scientists that arrived a little bit too late – and makes sure Bruce doesn't get too angry by asking him endless questions about his recent research and correspondence with Doctor Foster.

He makes sure Natasha is okay and when JARVIS assures him Steve is with her, Tony leaves them to themselves.

At eight in the morning all the men are secured inside the Quinjet holding cell and while it wasn't designed for that many people, certainly, they can wait there under Natasha and Coulson's watchful eyes as the rest of the team does the planned reckon.

They have to wait for another plane to get all the prisoners out of the desert; Quinjet definitely cannot fly with twenty additional people.

S.H.I.E.L.D. plane number two arrives on 11:24 a.m. and Phil writes that into the mission logs and goes out to greet the pilot and security team.

'Next time we take two planes and I'll make sure Director Fury gives us his blessing with a happy smile,' Phil mutters, draining a cup of coffee Clint made for him in three gulps. 'I'm not waiting around for someone to come by again.'

'Who'll be the other pilot?' Bruce asks, pressing his lips together and eyeing Clint, as if he wasn't sure he'd trust anyone else.

'I will,' Natasha declares. She's looking as composed as always, but she gives Tony a slightest nod that he appreciates a lot more than a thank you from anyone else.

'I won't be coming back to the U.S. with you,' Iron Man says some time later, when the planes are ready to take off. 'Something came up.'

That's not exactly a lie, there is some intel he needs to check out and a few people he wants to talk to. It's just not sudden or recent, given that JARVIS in Mark VIII is still doing his job following some people on the continent. A nameless face, like Nate's, will be much better for asking questions than Iron Man's.

'I will see you tomorrow at the debrief,' he adds, nodding at Phil – they decided to put the meeting off a bit as everyone needs some space right now – and earns a permission to leave.

The next few hours are more boring than anything else, but with JARVIS directions and previously gathered information, Tony manages to talk to a few people who are willing to share some information for a sum of money that he agrees to without a blink of an eye.

He gets a few names, real names, the piece that has been missing so far, and orders JARVIS to run appropriate searches straight away. It will take hours or maybe days, depending on how well the people have been hiding, and he's pretty sure it won't be any conclusive evidence yet, but it's a step in the right direction.

Back at home, he sleeps for twelve hours straight and mutters annoyed words at Happy who wakes him up for the debrief.

'I'm sorry, boss, I wouldn't wake you up if you hadn't promised to do several not very nice things to me if you are late for the meeting,' he explains, not sounding apologetic at all, and hands Tony a comfortable outfit he can wear under the suit. 'I'll have dinner ready when you're back,' he adds and disappears, leaving Tony to himself and a clock, telling him that he has exactly fourteen minutes to get to the HQ.

After the debrief Iron Man is making his way to the rooftop when Natasha runs up to him and tells him to stop, crossing her arms on her chest.

'I wanted to make sure we're clear about one thing,' she says in low voice that makes her sound dangerous. 'I'm grateful for what you did and how you behaved about the thing during the op, but if you keep messing up with Steve, I'm going to make sure you regret it.'

'It's not –' Tony starts but she doesn't listen.

'I know he keeps coming after you and he keeps insisting, but just tell him off finally or agree to whatever he wants of you.'

'I did.'

Natasha gives him a long assessing look before speaking up again, this time more calmly.

'I know. But he's still – he's still lost. So don't hurt him.'

'I'll try,' Tony assures her firmly and she nods, satisfied, and disappears.

He flies back, takes off the suit, puts on some clothes appropriate for the cold weather and goes outside, leaving a voice message to Happy. He makes his way across the almost snowless frost-bitten streets, taking random turns and not looking at the street names or at people's faces, letting his thoughts run, trying to figure out how not to hurt Steve and not to ignore him, either. He doesn't come up with a good answer because there is this one thing at the back of his head, always, a voice telling him that in the end he'll just be a liar.

So instead he thinks about the blueprints he's been working on, about the story Rhodey told him last week, about the cold feeling at the end of his fingers and toes, tries his best not to hyperventilate in the meantime, and he simply gets lost.

A/N: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed yourselves, especially all my new followers. Please, if you have a second, leave me a (tiniest) comment saying what you think because it's the most precious gift you can give :)