Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Hi, everyone! Welcome back. Not much to say about this chapter. The title comes from the band America's song You Can Do Magic. It's one of my favorite songs by them, ngl. Very good.

Anyways, hope you enjoy. Until next week,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~the heavy souls 'verse~

~life in technicolor ii~

~chapter 4: you can do magic~

The next several days, Tony stuck mostly to his personal labs where only a select few people (read: basically everyone except the Rogues) could enter, his office at R&D where he knew anybody that wasn't working for him wouldn't dare bother him, or the penthouse. He spent time with only those close to him, which meant mostly Penny, Matt, Natasha, and May, even if he did feel a little concerned that he was spending too much time with his daughter. He wasn't going to stop by any means, but he didn't want to parentify her like Mary had, however unintentionally it had been. He wanted her to be her own person, not codependent with him when he, Evelyn, and Anne were already concerned about her bond with Harley and how close they were, given their age.

Tony worked on his projects, none of them Avengers-related for a change, solely for SI. He drank too much coffee, and didn't get enough sleep. After bidding his daughter a goodnight, he waited until FRIDAY told him that she was asleep to break out the alcohol, not drinking enough to get drunk, but tipsy all the same. He brushed his teeth thoroughly and guzzled mouthwash later, to keep the smell of alcohol off of himself. Then he went to bed at a time that was really starting to become too late for him in his late forties, as much as he hated to admit it. When he woke up the next morning, he repeated the process all over again.

He was a coward, through and through.

He couldn't help but wonder what his old man would think about him right now, if he could see him. Howard Stark had been a lot of things, but a homophobe was not one of them, at least in relation to his time period. If he would've had a problem with Tony, it would've been because of how he was acting now: mopey, depressed, avoiding Steve altogether. "Get it together," he could practically hear his father saying inside his brain. "The man almost tried to kill you, but you know what you're doing is right. It's for my granddaughter, your daughter. Avoiding the issue is only going to make it worse. You know what I used to say."

"'Stark men are made of iron,'" he quoted under his breath, before letting out a weary sigh. "You know, dear old Dad, it's at times like these that I really wish it wasn't you that would come to me. Mom was so much better at these kinds of things."

"Talking to the dead?"

He jerked. "Jesus Christ, May," he hissed as he turned around, looking at his kid's aunt. She was smirking at him as she walked over, looking like the cat that had caught the canary. "Did you really have to do that?"

"If you hadn't been too busy staring off into space, you would've heard me," she quipped. She looked over his shoulder. "What are you working on?"

He looked down. "Nothing that I can't work on later," he decided. He closed out the holoscreen. "What are you doing here? I thought you didn't get off work until three."

"I did."

Tony stared at her. "You're joking."

She hid a smile. "FRIDAY, what time is it?"

"A quarter until four, Ms. Reilly, and Boss."

He nearly groaned. "Why didn't anybody come down to get me?"

"Because that's not their job," May told him smugly. "And if you were really interested in that, you would hire another PA."

"Nobody could replace Pepper."

"Well, there you have it." She offered her arm out to him, and he locked his in hers. "I've heard you've been enjoying your own company lately."

"Pepper told you that, didn't she?" he muttered as they made their way over to the elevator.

She hummed. "I heard it from a little birdie."

"So, FRIDAY then."

His AI, at least, had the decency to apologize. "Sorry, Boss."

He metaphorically waved her off. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." The elevator began to go up. He was grateful for this: it meant he could get a change in the conversation. Since he'd apparently spent the entire afternoon in his lab rather than a couple of hours like he'd intended, a recurring theme ever since the Rogues had arrived, he hadn't seen Penny since that morning. "How's my kid?"

"You two are just as bad as each other," May commented dryly. "I don't know. She was just getting back from her afternoon patrol when I got here. But, you know she'll be happy to see you."

He did.

Sure enough, when the elevator doors opened up to the penthouse, Penny was sitting on the couch in a black Queen t-shirt she'd stolen from his closet and a pair of black sweatpants, working on what looked to be homework. It did kind of surprise him sometimes, the fact that she still continued to wear black and darker colors besides her opera mauve. He knew it was probably because of what she was used to, and also probably because she got comfort from wearing the color like other teenagers her age did (it was predictable, something you didn't have to worry about color-coding with, and etcetera), but it still surprised him. Sometimes, he thought, since it was the color she had worn as Lolita, she wouldn't want anything to do with it.

Then again, it was also the color she wore as Spider-Woman, along with the red.

Penny smiled as she looked up at them. "Hey, Dad. Hi, Aunt May!" Getting up, she bounded over to them, pulling her aunt into a hug. "I haven't seen you for a couple of days. How are you?"

May returned the gesture, paying special attention to Penny's hair. She always secretly liked that, however her hair was a part of her that was firmly off-limits for almost everyone. Tony was not usually one of the exceptions, which was fine with him.

"Not too bad," May replied. Coming apart, she nudged her arm. "You?"

"Fine. Good day at school. Afternoon patrol was great," Penny reported dutifully. "What are the plans for dinner?"

Judging by the look on her face, FRIDAY had already told her that Matt and Natasha were going to dine with the Rogues tonight. She was curious to see what his answer was going to be.

He didn't know whether he was going to disappoint her with his answer or make her happy. "Well, since May is here, I thought it would just be the three of us. We'll order takeout, you'll get your meal while we watch TV, then when it's six you'll get to go. Sound like a plan?"

Penny seemed satisfied with this answer. "Yeah, a quiet night sounds good," she said. "I had fun with Pietro and Wanda when they first came here, but...I don't think I'm ready to be interacting with all of them just yet."

Me too, Pen. Me, too.

While she flounced back to the couch, he directed his gaze back to May. "So, what do you want to eat for dinner?"

Her eyes were twinkling behind her glasses. "I think Italian sounds nice, doesn't it?"

He barked out a laugh. "Sì, I would agree with that," he said. "FRI?"

"Your usual orders have already been placed. They will be here within forty-five minutes."

"Thank you, dear."

FRIDAY didn't deign him with a response.

For the time until six, he laid back and spent quality time with two of the five (the other three being FRIDAY, Natasha, and Pepper, though he was adamant that was in no particular order) women in his life. Penny babbled about her school, the book she was currently reading for her English class, what her afternoon patrol had been like, and etcetera. May also had some things to tell, but for the most part, like him, she was content to just listen to her niece talk.

After six o'clock, his time was up. With Penny back out on the streets to finish up her patrol, May rested her face on her right hand and batted her eyes at him. "So, taking the subject back to you," she began.

Tony cringed. "Can we please not talk about 'me?'" He made a show of stretching. "Please?"

"Oh, so now the 'genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist' doesn't like to talk about himself?"

Like she was his sister, he reached over to flick her on the arm. She batted his hand away easily, and for a moment he thought about retaliating, but no. Knowing his luck, trying to get into some sort of tickle fight with her like they were kids would end up with a broken bone on his part. That was just his luck. "I'll have you know, May, I never actually liked talking about myself. But, you know what they say: sometimes, you have to play the part you're given."

She snorted. "And what is the part of Tony Stark now?"

"Genius, billionaire, philanthropist, father, hero," he recited, counting them off with his fingers.

A knowing expression fluttered onto her face. "That's all? There isn't anything else?"

"May."

"Alright." She moved her hand away from her face to dig into her hair. "What else are we going to talk about?"

"Well, you could always tell me one of your nurse stories..."

Of course, like everyone else in the world, Tony never could avoid the inevitable forever.

The Avengers Tower was massive, with ninety-three floors, holding offices and labs for Stark Industries, the main food court as well as two minor ones and various other dining places, and of course the sixteen upper floors for the Avengers and his private ones – aka, the penthouse and his labs. Thousands of people went in and out of it every single day. Even though he'd planned out every floor with Pepper and had remodeled most of the upper sixteen floors after 2012, he doubted that he would ever be able to discover every nook and cranny of the building.

But, despite how large it was, in its own way, it was also small. Avoiding Steve, Sam, Pietro, and Wanda was not only impractical, but also impossible. Pietro and Wanda, obviously, he didn't mind that much. He came across them on the communal floor a couple of times when he couldn't logically formulate a reason for not going there and FRIDAY told him he wasn't around, once in the gym, and once in the R&D Department. The people at SI had generally missed Pietro and Wanda. They were the only two besides him, Natasha, Matt, and once upon a time, Bruce, who liked to hang out with the employees.

"This is so cool," he heard Pietro say on that one occasion as he stepped into one of the labs for the college interns, curious to see what they were working on. Wanda saw him while her brother was busy, and waved at him with a small smile. He smiled back at her. "You really think you'll be able to speed up the healing process with these bandages?"

"I hope so," said the intern whose project they were, a twenty-two-year-old named Ankita Patel. Tony knew this, because like all of the other college interns working in the R&D Department, he had personally looked at her application before she'd been accepted. She was a student of Columbia, first generation. Her parents were immigrants from the city of Gandhinagar. She was a Biomedical Engineering major, and she was damn good at it. Tony already had plans to offer her another internship for graduate school, so she could get her doctorate and then work for SI properly. Maybe that was a little nepotic (and yes, he was aware that wasn't a word. He didn't care) of him, but sue him: he was willing to do everything in his power to keep her working for him. Her idea of her bandages proved she was going to be going places. "So far, the animal trials have been going well."

Tony could tell by the stiffening of Pietro's shoulders that the boy wasn't sure if he liked that information. "'Animal trials?'"

"No animals are being harmed, don't worry," Ankita assured him. "I don't believe in the harming of animals. Some of the mice that I initially used were ones that couldn't be used in other trials because they had been injured before they'd arrived, for whatever reason. It was a really small sampling, but," she laughed, "it worked. After that, when results were promising, Dr. Stark suggested that I work with a local animal shelter. I wasn't sure about it at first, because I didn't want to hurt the dogs there, but – "

"Everything about your trials has been promising so far," Tony interjected. "You should be very proud with yourself, Ankita."

Ankita flushed with the praise. Pietro, meanwhile, startled, and spun around so fast Tony saw a wisp of blue. "Tony!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you, but I know your answer," Tony reminded him. He nodded at Ankita. "Now that Pietro and Wanda are back, you should probably get used to them popping around quite a bit."

Ankita smiled. "Oh, don't worry, Dr. Stark, they're not causing any problems with me."

"We don't cause any problems at all," Pietro grumbled.

Tony raised an eyebrow. "May I remind you of the incident with the retrofitted arc reactors?"

"Not my fault," Pietro swore.

Wanda laughed quietly.

After he'd poked his head into Ankita's affairs a little bit, Tony left her lab. Pietro and Wanda followed after him, as was their wont. "We haven't seen you in a while, Tony," Wanda noted tentatively. "How are you?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," he apologized. "I've been busy lately."

Pietro looked like he wanted to ask "How busy?" But, he didn't.

"That doesn't answer my question," Wanda reminded him.

"I believe it does, Mary Tyler Moore." As she looked at him, unimpressed, he decided to cave. Just a little. "I've been better," he admitted. "But you don't need to worry about that. What about you two? Settling back into the Tower okay?"

Pietro nodded. "Everything is just as we left it, as you said. Thank you, Tony."

"Not a problem."

They chatted some more after that, and chatted a little bit too the other times he met up with them, but it wasn't the same. Not as it had been, Before.

Not that he had expected anything less.

Tony didn't mind seeing Sam, either. He saw him less than the twins, but each time the other man was amiable. "I know what you're going through," he told him quietly in the kitchen of the communal floor. "Believe me, I do. But you don't have to be a stranger. You know that, right?"

"Yep," Tony replied, popping the "p." He hadn't come down here for much, just to get some fresh fruit for his gluten-free waffles for breakfast, since apparently he'd already run out of them in the penthouse kitchen. FRIDAY was already in the process of ordering more groceries, but he wanted the fresh fruit now instead of later. "I know. But thanks for the reminder, Big Sam."

Sam huffed. "I swear to God, you and your nicknames, Tony."

No, the person he minded seeing, the person who was the reason why he was avoiding the four Rogues in the first place, was Steve. But, as he'd said, the inevitable was unavoidable. It was bound to happen eventually.

It did just over two weeks after the resigning of the Accords. Penny was off for her afternoon patrol, and he'd finally gotten tired of being in the same three places all the time. So he went to the greenhouse garden on the seventy-seventh floor. The floor itself was technically reserved for Stark Industries, but the greenhouse garden was only accessible to the Avengers. It had flowers native only to Russia, which were tended to by Natasha or one of the SI employees when she couldn't do it. It also had herbs and various other types of vegetables, which had originally been planted and taken care of by Bruce. When he'd gone missing in the wake of Ultron, Wanda had started caring for them herself, since she hadn't wanted them to "go bad" on her watch for when Bruce came back. After the Civil War, Vision had taken them over for her. Tony had no idea if she was going to go back to taking care of them, or if the two would be doing it together. He had no idea if Bruce would want to take over for caring of them as well, if he ever came back from where he was. But, no matter.

The greenhouse garden was peaceful. It offered a beautiful view of the city, and was nice even on a miserable day. The remnants of the water mist used to nurture the plants became condensation on his skin, but he didn't care about that as he settled into one of the three wicker chairs in the room, all focused around a table. He saw a book sitting on the table, which was probably one of Wanda's. The mist couldn't be good for it. But he was too tired to get up and go all the way up to her floor to give it to her and then come back, so for now he closed his eyes. He would get to it later.

Honestly, this was one of the things he didn't like about getting older. The grey hair, he didn't mind. The wrinkles, he could live with. But six hours a night no longer being enough sleep for him after all of the sleepless days – sleepless weeks – he'd pulled off even up to only last year irritated him. Thirty-one wasn't an old age to have had a child (that he didn't know about for years) at, for Christ's sake. He should have more energy than this! But, alas.

He didn't fall asleep. He kept his eyes closed and let his body relax, but as always, his mind was going to fast for him to do more than anything else. There were so many things to worry about. Ross was at the forefront of his mind; the Secretary of State had been quiet ever since the signing of the Accords, which he didn't like. Thunderbolt was definitely planning and plotting, as always, and that couldn't mean anything good...

Suddenly, he heard the door to the garden open. This was followed by a short, "Oh."

Steve.

Tony opened his eyes, sitting up. Steve was standing just in front of the door, which had closed behind him, looking chagrined. The table and chairs were positioned in such a way behind the plants you couldn't immediately see who was sitting at them. That was probably why he had come in, if Tony was willing to be lenient with him.

But he wasn't sure if he was actually all that willing.

"I'm sorry," Steve said awkwardly. He moved to turn around. "I'll just – "

Tony grunted as he stood up. He grabbed Wanda's book off of the table. "No, it's fine," he said back. "I was just about to leave myself." That was a bald-faced lie, but whatever. "You can have the room."

Steve instinctively stepped aside for him to leave, and he thought that would be that. But then the captain cleared his throat. "I haven't seen you around for the past two weeks," he prodded.

Irritation bloomed up inside him. Couldn't Steve see he didn't want to talk to him, didn't even want to be around him? "No, you haven't."

Tony wanted things to be left at that. But, of course, the traits he'd previously admired in his ex-fiancé were coming back to bite him in the ass. "You know, I don't have to stay here," he began uncertainly. "If you'd rather me stay with Rhodey at the Compound – "

He wished he had a set of sunglasses on him right now. Not only were they good at blocking out the sun and flashing cameras, but they were also wonderful at obscuring his eyes. His mother had always said he had such expressive eyes, and he knew that was something that was still true to this day, as much as he hated it.

"I don't really care what you do," Tony bit out, ignoring the urge to look Steve dead in the eyes as he said it. "As long as you follow the requirements of your pardon, you can do whatever you want. Actually, you can do whatever you want outside of that, too. I'm not the boss of you." Not anymore, although I never really was at all.

He saw Steve frown out of the corner of his eye, since he was looking at a point to the upper right of his head instead of at him. "Tony..."

"What do you want, Rogers?"

Steve flinched back at the usage of his surname. His lips thinned. Nevertheless, he said, "We need to talk, Tony."

Tony played dumb. "About what?"

"You know what," Steve replied. "I know that we're not...together now, and I know what I did, but – "

"Then you should know exactly why I don't want to speak to you," Tony rebuked heatedly. He really did not want to get into it right now. "Look, I needed you to come back here. I need you, and Sam, and Pietro and Wanda, to ensure Penny's safety. But I don't – I have nothing to say to you. You left me, Steve, when I needed you the most. You almost killed me! What on Earth makes you think I would want to ever talk to you again after that, unless I really had to?"

Steve said nothing to this.

Tony scoffed. "You can have the room," he repeated. He held up the book. "I need to get this back to Wanda. If I need to speak to you again, you'll know when I come to you, not the other way around."

He didn't stay long enough to hear the other man's response.

. . .

. . .

At least just as soon as the incident had occurred, it was over. That was the only credit he felt like he could give to Steve right now.

Word Count: 3,731

Next Chapter Title: half empty girl