I literally wrote this in an hour after reading yet another fic where Tony is trying to keep Peter away from the Rogues and one of them asks, in genuine offense, if Tony really thinks they'll hurt a kid and Tony is apologetic or doesn't answer or feels bad for thinking/insinuating that.

Really?

So . . . have ficlet. I hoped it would be less than a thousand words, but I think we all know that's a pipe dream for me.

Enjoy!

Shameful Truths

Bureaucracy has its place. Tony Stark knows this, he truly does.

He also knows that most of the time, said place is at the bottom of the ocean, with its feet and hands tied to a 12-ton concrete block to make sure it can't escape. Because when bureaucracy pokes its nose where it doesn't belong, life gets unnecessarily complicated and nothing gets done.

Case in point: the Rogue Avengers are currently on house arrest in his Compound while the UN decides what to do with them, an arduous task that has hit five weeks and shows no signs of being resolved anytime soon. In those five weeks, Tony has done some truly impressive gymnastics to keep his mentee/protégé/almost-adopted son Peter Parker away from the group of lying, cheating, murdering, backstabbing thugs because he does not trust them. Full stop. He would trust a career politician to keep a campaign promise before he believed any of them if they said water was wet.

But the best-laid plans yadda yadda yadda meant that Peter arrived at the Compound unexpectedly one Thursday; Tony had forgotten the school was having a teacher workshop, so the kids got a half-day that Thursday and were off Friday. Naturally, Peter headed for his third home, eager to see his mentor/almost-adopted dad.

Because the universe is bored — and, more importantly, FRIDAY is feeling both vindictive and annoyed on her creator's behalf — she decides to ditch the subtlety that clearly isn't working and force Tony to finally tell off the bunch of criminals who are still badmouthing Boss while eating him out of house and home as they wait for the UN to decide if charges are going to be levied. He won't do for it himself, the AI knew; he is too wary of them, now, but he also knows it will do no good. If any member of that group doesn't want to hear something, they don't, and they're even worse when it comes to Tony. So he sees no reason to put himself in a situation that a) requires him to be in their presence and b) will inevitably result in him telling them something they don't like, ending in c) a migraine, petulant accusations, and at least one broken coffee mug.

When it comes to the people he loves, however, all bets are off. When the group first arrived, he'd punched Barton in the kidney while wearing a gauntlet to pay him back for his unforgivable comment about Rhodey's injury and even Maximoff isn't dumb enough to say anything about Pepper.

But none of them know about Peter, a situation Tony is doing his best to maintain.

Has he mentioned the universe hates him?

He is in his lab, elbows-deep in SI's next project, when he gets an alert from FRIDAY that Peter has arrived and is currently on the Avengers' floor.

Where the entire team is congregated, because the universe hates Tony.

He breaks three land speed records getting up there and is greeted by the suit he summoned just in case. Since FRIDAY hasn't said anything about a fight or trouble, he leaves it on sentry mode, takes a deep breath to calm his instinctive fear, and stalks to the door, yanking it open with enough force to bounce it off the opposite wall.

When he sees his son surrounded by a group of angry, suspicious people who are interrogating him without even trying to contact him, his vision goes red and he roughly shoves Barton to one side so he can get to Peter, who is furious and barely keeping himself from webbing the entire team to the ceiling, if the way his fingers are twitching is any indication.

But he is also afraid, though he's hiding it well, and that pushes Tony over the edge. He doesn't even bother to acknowledge his former teammates, who have fallen silent at his furious entrance, and gently lays a hand on Peter's arm.

"Come on, Kid, I have a prototype that's calling my name." The tension in his son does not abate, so Tony tries to add a little levity before the kid accidentally reveals his other identity. "Or it could be Pepper; it's supposed to be in R for testing tomorrow. Either way, I'm being summoned and Butterfingers misses you."

This gets a jerky nod and Peter starts to follow him from the room.

A smart person would see that Tony obviously knows the boy and leave it be, accepting that for now, his questions would remain unanswered.

These are the Rogue Avengers.

"Who's the kid, Tony? And why does he have clearance to be up here?" Steve demands aggressively, his scowl deepening when Tony and Peter both ignore him. Barton moves to block their exit, only to blink in genuine surprise when Tony simply lifts his hand, a gauntlet forming, and in the sudden silence, the sound of the repulsor charging is a crack of thunder.

"Oh, come on!" the archer snaps, clearly offended. "You seriously think I'd hurt a kid?"

Tony stops dead in his tracks and turns, giving the man an incredulous look. When he sees the same offended expression on everyone else's face, he scoffs and raises his hand. A single snap of his fingers results in FRIDAY putting a collage of pictures on the giant TV screen. Each one is of a child, ranging from newborn to just graduated from high school.

There are two shots for each person. One is normal, showing them alive and well. The other confirms their death, often gruesomely. Beside the second picture is their date of birth, date of death, and the name of the Avenger who caused that death.

Horrified silence falls and Tony gives them all a grim smile.

"Yes, Barton. I know every one of you would hurt a kid to get what you want," he says with icy contempt. "Stay away from mine. If you're walking down the hall and you see him, you turn around and go somewhere else until he's past. If he's on the elevator, you take the stairs. If he walks into a building in Jersey, you go somewhere in Pennsylvania. Because if I see any of you within 100 feet of him, I'm going to assume you're up to your old tricks and protect him accordingly. If you don't like that or think you can't behave that much, you know where the front door is. FRIDAY will make sure it knocks you on your ass on your way out."

Without another word, he and Peter, who looks grimly satisfied, leave the room with a quiet dignity that none of the Rogues can hope to match, even Romanova.

Behind them, the silence crushes them beneath the weight of their own culpability as unspoken tension crackles in the air.

It seems like forever before a thin voice, full of shame, whispers, "What have we done?"

The only answer is yet another collage of pictures, a colorful diorama of guilt that suffocates them with its silent condemnation.

They are gone within a week.

~~~
fin