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The morning is beautiful and clear. The sun is shining, the New York City skyline is crisp and smog-free, and Doctor Doom has decided to attach a giant dish antenna to the crown of the Statue of Liberty.
The Accords committee is not happy. Whatever-it-is that Doom is doing right in their backyard presents a very clear and present danger. The new Accords Avengers, led by the heroic Iron Man, are dispatched immediately on their first official mission.
Tony and Rhodey are the first to arrive on the scene. Rhodey interrupts the dozen Doombots assembling the giant chrome dish with War Machine's seemingly inexhaustible stream of bright smoke flares fired from under his suit's big shoulder pads. Tony uses his own armor's precision laser to cut through the wiring and metal the Doombots soldered onto the Statue of Liberty's chin.
The Doombots are not happy, and rise as one in an indignant swarm.
The rest of the team arrives on the quinjet, just in time to confront a monologuing Doctor Doom. Doctor Doom makes a dramatic gesture; the Doombots attack.
The new, Accords-approved Avengers spring into action.
And that’s when things stop going according to plan set out by the Accords Committee for the Oversight of the Avengers Initiative.
Iron Fist, a ribbon from his bandana fluttering dramatically in the wind, powers up his fist and punches a Doombot. He misses...and hits the sandaled foot of the Statue of Liberty. A jagged crack races up Liberty’s dress. There is an ominous creak.
At the base of the statue, Spider-Man has webbed seven bots--and gotten Jessica and Luke tangled in a web of mutual pining. There's a lot of frantic apologizing and even more muffled, angry yelling.
Meanwhile, Vision went in for a daring rescue of a food truck at the beginning of the fight, and even with his Iron Man suit sensors, Tony honestly isn’t sure where the android is right now. War Machine is too busy trying to keep a large chunk of the Statue of Liberty from falling into the ocean to be of any use.
Which leaves Tony as the only hero left standing (hovering) to face Doctor Doom and his Doombot minions. Tony would worry about the odds, except the bots themselves are slowly flying around Ellis Island with an air of general uncertainty, like a swarm of bees that thought there was a nosy bear around, only to discover that the bear had gotten its head stuck in a pickle jar on its way over to the hive. An occasional Doombot fires a token laser at one of the Avengers.
Doctor Doom floats over to hover next to Tony. They watch the scene below for a few minutes in silence.
“So,” Doctor Doom says.
“Don’t,” Tony says.
“This is your new team, then?”
Down below, Iron Fist goes flying over the railing and into the water. A pack of Doombots has grabbed the wiggling cocoon bundle that is Jessica Jones and Luke Cage and is slowly trying to abscond with them. Vision is still nowhere to be seen. Hovering a dozen meters to Tony’s right, Doctor Doom is taking out a blocky Doom-style phone and seems to be taking a video with it.
A notification blinks on the inside of Tony’s helmet. The Accords committee wants an update.
—
Eventually, Doctor Doom sort of drifts off, his Doombots trailing behind him like awkward floating ducklings, back to their lair.
The Avengers have saved the day yet again. Apparently.
—
The team’s first outing as the official (and trademarked) Accords Avenger could have gone better.
"You had permission to stop Doctor Doom, not break the Statue of Liberty,” General Thaddeus Ross’s voice booms from one of the speakers in Tony’s living room. “To superhero jail with you!"
—
Well, no.
Ross doesn’t say that.
Instead, Ross says stuff like “property damage” and “national monument” and “doesn’t count if the criminal just gives up and wanders off half-way through the battle.” Other Accords committee members eventually interrupt the lecture with other words, like “team training” and “valuable learning opportunity.”
Tony is back in the penthouse of Stark Tower. Feet on a table, his chair balanced on its back legs, he mostly ignores the call. He’s the leader of the Avengers now (go him), and one of the perks of being the leader of the Avengers under the new Accords is that while his presence on the call is mandatory, his participation is not required. Tony's more than fine with that, and he ignores Ross’ threats in favor of watching #LibertyBrawl trend on social media. It’s not like Ross can do anything to him about this. Ross would never admit it, but he needs Tony.
After the so-called superhero civil war, the shiny Avengers roster took a real hit. Captain America, Falcon, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and whoever the hell that Honey I Shrunk The Kids guy is…they’re all fugitives now. Which leaves the superhero roster this side of the Atlantic a bit slim.
Tony’s the only OG Avenger left. What’s Ross going to do? Fire Iron Man?
Tony might have no real authority, but Ross has no leverage. Worst comes to worst, Tony can always go back to just being a regular civilian, if he’s willing to give up the Iron Man suit. (Which, no. Just no.)
Or join Steve and his fugitive friends. (Hell no.)
Until then…
Tony stares at the Hammer Tech monitoring device on his ankle and contemplates the pros and cons of throwing himself off the roof of his tower. On the plus side, Friday will be forced to deploy a suit to catch him and Tony can enjoy a short, unauthorized joyride before Friday grounds him again and Ross turns a bright shade of red. On the other hand, Tony doesn't want to give Justin Hammer and his minions the satisfaction of watching Tony’s GPS dot fall off the roof in real time.
Tony pops his chair’s legs back on the ground with a thud and wanders over to the kitchen. The sound of the call follows him through the penthouse. In the living room, the Accords committee proposes a new training schedule for the Avengers. In the kitchen, they start ironing out the dates. Tony grabs a carton of ice cream from the freezer and a large salad spoon from the counter. He levers off the cap: Chocolate Chip Brownie Batter Extreme.
The real tragedy of the day, Tony decides, is that he can't even make it a boozy ice cream. High on the oversight power granted by the Accords, and enabled by Tony’s traitor of an AI assistant, Ross and his minions have managed to put parental controls on Tony’s liquor cabinet.
Tony does not appreciate having to experience the reality of the Accords while sober. This was not part of the plan.
—
Steve was right. The Accords are awful.
The realization is late to the party, and useless too. After what went down in Germany, most of the general public was quick to realize that they don’t actually like superpowered people throwing temper tantrums in public spaces – and then proved it by throwing money and votes at politicians who promised to keep the scary superheroes from trashing their local farmer’s markets.
At which point, Tony had exactly zero political leverage. (So much for amendments.)
Worse, Tony’s usual allies are no help. Pepper Potts, his ex-girlfriend and current Stark CEO, thinks the legalese in the 235-page document is inspired and excellent bedtime reading. Rhodey Rhodes, Accords military liaison and War Machine pilot, practically applauds every time he gets to article 9, subsections A-F about chain of command and review boards. Meanwhile, Friday, another ex-friend and current betrayer, has filled Tony’s calendar with physical therapy sessions, general checkups, and dozens of mental health questionnaires she claims are mandatory for active duty Avengers under the new Accords regime.
It's awful and a clear violation of Tony's human rights.
For the first time in almost five years, Tony is up-to-date on his flu shots. He has a bedtime, courtesy of Friday, and half the time actually wakes up bright and bushy-tailed for his morning jog with Pepper. He stopped drinking (which, he was fine. He didn’t need the intervention, though the cupcakes after were nice) and has a meal plan that he mostly follows.
He’s even given up trying to bribe his therapist after the woman threatened to snitch on him to the Mental Health Review Board Committee of Accords A-holes. Because, apparently, Tony’s therapist has an “ethical duty to her client,” which mostly means miserable and sober hour-long sessions of slowly talking about (1) a couple decades worth of emotional baggage, (2) his crippling terror over an alien threat no-one believes in, and (3) that vicious urge to punch people whose names start with “b” and end with “ucky.” His therapist says they're making progress.
Tony isn't so sure about that.
—
What Tony is sure of is the impending alien threat. And no matter what affirmation mantras his therapist keeps pushing on him, Tony knows that the alien threat is impending.
It doesn’t take a genius billionaire to connect those dots. Where there’s one space army trying to invade New York City through a giant wormhole, there are gonna be others.
The alien armies of the universe have Earth’s coordinates now.
And this is where Tony needs the Accords to shine. He's pinning his hopes on this one specific provision in the Accords. Namely: the newly established committee responsible for dealing with alien threats.
Steve and the other Avengers never took the threat seriously. But here, now, Tony has a second chance to convince the world the aliens are still out there.
So. Needs must.
It’s Saturday. Tony sits at a big, mahogany table in one of the many rooms in the UN building in midtown Manhattan, testifying to the Accords subcommittee on Extraterrestrial Threats of Non-Human Origins. Every ten words, the table mic crackles. Tony uses breathing exercises his therapist keeps pushing on him to cope.
Saturday is also the one day of the week that Tony gets to take Iron Man suit out for a spin with War Machine.
Except Wakanda chairs this particular committee and King T’Challa refuses to delegate the work. And this is the only day over the next three months that His Royal Majesty is going to be in the States. Running a secret country and hiding fugitives from the law makes for a very busy calendar. Apparently.
(Yes, Tony is bitter. And yes, he keeps it off his face and out of his voice as he presents his case. Because the threat is real. He has no doubt in his mind that - )
“- the aliens are coming,” he finishes to the silent room.
The ambassador from Norway taps her pen twice against the table and passes a note over to the Chairman. T’Challa glances down with a small frown and nods. The gray-haired representative from the US military tilts his mic away and leans over to murmur something to them.
Friday will copy and clean the audio-recording for Tony to listen to later, but he doesn’t actually need it to read the room. Tony can see it loud and clear in the delegates' expressions, in the slant of the questions they’ve been sending his way all afternoon.
The committee doesn’t believe him.
Or they don’t care.
Or they don’t want to deal with the bureaucratic nightmare that comes with believing and caring. Otherwise, they might actually have to wrangle some sort of resolution to put in front of the 193 member states for a vote on the Alien Question.
“Thank you for taking time out of your day to speak with us, Mr. Stark,” T’Challa says, and his tone is respectful, appreciative. It's still a brush off. “You have given us much to consider.”
Tony wants to chuck the small cup of pens and his very expensive (and explosive) watch at the King of Wakanda. But apparently the therapy is working, because Tony behaves and the proceedings wrap up.
Rhodey catches up to Tony in the hallway.
“I’ll keep working on it on my side of things,” Rhodey says, easily rolling along beside him. That’s code for sorry, man, this sucks, and it’s also code for I’m going to talk to more people today. No flying today.
So Tony grunts and texts Happy to pick him up.
—
The Accords subcommittee isn’t wrong. Everything is simpler if the aliens just don’t come.
(Except they are coming.)
But Tony has no actual proof. The ache in his bones doesn’t count. The nightmares about black skies and vast armies aren’t evidence.
(The proof will be the next invasion.)
So in his spare time, Tony quietly launches an extra dozen cheerfully-branded telecommunications satellites into orbit. He convinces Friday to let him build more suits, and then automates the fabrication sequence. Then he convinces her not to tattle on him for the new and improved Iron Legion hanging out in the murky waters of the Hudson River, just in case.
Friday is skeptical, but eventually agrees that it’s important for Tony to have a hobby. The therapist even said so at their last session.
In between Stark investor calls and the occasional mandatory Accords shindig, he putters around his workshop, drawing up schematics of spaceships he’s not allowed to build and daydreaming of weapons he probably shouldn’t invent.
—
Aside from the occasional Doctor Doom attack on the Statue of Liberty, Tony isn’t exactly doing a lot of superheroing these days.
The Accords promised accountability, a unified Avengers, and the legal protections and support the team had always so desperately needed. The committee votes, and the Avengers get deployed. Simple. The red tape isn't supposed to be a problem.
Except, turns out, Steve was right about the red tape too.
By the time the Accords committees get enough votes to approve Iron Man’s deployment, the crisis is usually long past. Sometimes, the crime is over. Sometimes the bad guys run away after making some noise. But usually, the local law enforcement (or a local vigilante) takes care of things.
...Or the Ex-Vengers pop out of the woodwork, tie everyone up, and then bounce back to wherever they’re hiding. (Wakanda. They’re hiding in Wakanda. Obviously.)
So, Tony has all this time to work on himself and his company. Green energy is moving forward in leaps and bounds. He's revolutionized solar panels. He’s learned three more languages and invented a new kind of microprocessor. He's brushed the dust off of five very promising anti-alien-invasion projects and the last investor demo meetings was the most polished and shiny it's ever been.
Tony just wishes people would stop being weird about it. Just last week, the Board of Directors threw Tony a surprise party: something about the budget and investment accounts, which are soaring from the extra cash Tony isn’t spending making city-scale repairs in foreign countries. There’s even a cake. (Why is there a cake?)
Pepper is practically bubbly whenever she stops by with business for Tony to sign. She keeps inviting him to the latest musicals and has managed to lure him to two shows that month already. Every Saturday morning, Rhodey and Tony take their suits for a spin around the city for Accords-approved “test flights” before grabbing lunch with Happy, Harley and Peter on the roof.
(And, fine, Tony didn't completely hate that part of it.)
Even Friday’s snark is down by almost thirty-three percent. The AI is surprisingly cheerful, even when foiling Tony’s half-hearted attempts to hack the GPS tracker on his anklet (or the liquor cabinet, or the locked down suit, or the firewalls keeping him off Tweetok…).
Tony’s happy that everyone’s happy, really. It’s just…Tony is just so damn bored.
The Accords are clearly a mistake.
(Tony hates when Steve is right.)
—
Life goes on, under the yoke of the Accords.
Sometimes, Tony imagines leaving his billionaire life behind and striking out as a supervillain vigilante. He daydreams putting frosted tips in his hair, buying a tiger, and sticking a pirate flag on one of his yachts. In between projects, Tony doodles schematics of a flying Iron Fortress (not actually made of iron, but very dramatic-looking anyway) and runs simulations with Friday, who doesn’t snitch on her boss’ villainous aspirations.
Unfortunately, Tony likes the view from his penthouse apartment. He likes the way the barista at the coffee shop scrawls his name in large and loopy cursive on the cup. He doesn't want to give it all up for a life on the run.
Plus, if Tony gives up on the Accords, Steve will use that dumb little flip phone to call and say, “I told you so,” and “You can join us on the run” and “I forgive you” and Tony will spontaneously combust. From spite.
Tony's stuck.
“Pepper, let’s just buy New York City and secede from the country,” Tony says. They’re jogging down one of the many paved paths that curve through the park. It’s the perfect morning to plot political takeovers. “If I’m in charge, I can get diplomatic immunity.”
“Isn’t that just for royalty?” Pepper asks.
“I’d be king of the Big Apple.” Tony considers the pavement in front of him as they jog, then corrects himself. “No, emperor.”
Pepper makes a thoughtful sound. “Pricey. We can probably clean the slate in next year's elections, but we’re gonna have to wait for the housing bubble to burst before we do anything in real estate.”
“Okay, the market crashes, then we buy the city,” Tony says, pausing to stretch at one of the crosswalks. The light turns green again, and they’re off again. “My first act as supreme ruler of New York will be to ban Ross from my city.”
“I want the title of royal vizier.”
Tony has decades of experience in business. He knows a good deal when he sees it.
“You’re in.”
—
But the shiny future of Emperor Tony and Dread Vizier Potts is a long way off. And the present is decidedly more mundane. And boring.
So when three men in ski masks jump out of the bushes just a few meters in front of them, the jolt of adrenaline that goes through Tony feels laced with maybe an inappropriate amount of relief and excitement. Finally, something’s happening, and it’s not a last-minute committee video call date with Ross.
The masked goons all wear these big puffy black coats and black track pants, and matching black ski masks. The shortest one of the bunch menaces Pepper with a big taser that Pepper could eat for breakfast with Extremis.
“Both of you, get your hands up!” Shorty yells, his voice distorted by some sort of voice device. “No one needs to get hurt!”
Instead of obeying, Pepper pulls out her own taser out of her purse and menaces Shorty back.
The other two goons - Tall and Taller - have their beady ski-mask eyes set on Tony. They carry no weapons, which immediately rules out most of the terrorist group watch-list members that Tony's pissed off over the years. He wonders if this might just be the unicorn of Tony Stark kidnappings: a simple, money-grubbing, civilian-style, snatch-and-grab-for-ransom.
“Is this a kidnapping?” Tony asks, stepping off the grass and veering to the side as the two men separate to try to flank him. They don’t seem inclined to answer. At his side, Tony thumbs his watch and it unfurls to wrap his hand in a gauntlet. “Are you open to some constructive criticism? I have some suggestions for your next kidnapping, if you’re in a good place to absorb the feedba - ”
Taller lunges forward.
Tony fires.
At the last second, Taller dodges and the repulsor blast flattens a scraggly looking bush. His hand knocks Tony’s out of the way before he can fire again, and Tony dodges out of reach. On her side of the path, Pepper dances back warily to get out Tony’s line of fire, one wary eye still on Shorty and their taser standoff.
“Did Hammer send you?” she asks. “I’ll triple his offer. And get you full health coverage if you promise to testify.”
The goons don’t seem convinced. And they’re not talking, which smacks of professionalism, and that worries Tony.
“I think they’re after me,” Tony huffs, because Shorty seems content to keep Pepper back, even as the other two seem to be trying to corral Tony further off the path. The two men are bigger, badder, and - based on the last couple dodges and grabs - definitely ex-military or military adjacent. The goons are big and Tony doesn’t have his suit. But they’re clearly under orders not to hurt Tony. Tony has no such compunctions.
He dodges a grab and, finally, slips in under Taller’s guard to punch the man in the gut, hard. (Happy, Tony’s favorite boxing partner, would have been proud.)
Except the punch does nothing.
Beneath the puffy coat, the goon must be wearing kevlar, because ow.
“Stop playing around,” Shorty yells over, voice impatient even through that metallic buzz of a voice filter. “Just grab him.”
Tall makes another swipe at Tony, and misses. “If you think it’s so easy, you grab him. Let’s swap.”
“Chatter,” snaps Taller. Tony is nothing if not a fast learner, and goes for a throat punch this time. He misses, but almost gets Taller’s ski mask.
“Tony, can’t you just summon the suit?” Pepper sounds exasperated from her side of the path.
“I’m trying.” Tony’s suit is at the tower and Friday hasn’t responded to either one of Tony’s emergency alert signals. “Can’t you just set them all on fire?”
“I can’t just set people on fire!”
This turn in the conversation seems to give the goon squad a moment of pause. They redouble their efforts. Things move fast after that. Tall snags Tony’s jacket just long enough to yank Tony off balance. Taller takes the opening. He scuttles forward and wraps two giant, puffy-coated arms around Tony.
The fight goes downhill from there.
There’s a confusion of movements and jabs and elbows and the sound of zip ties and Tony’s hands are suddenly tied behind his back.
And, honestly, okay, Tony’s not struggling that hard, because this is the most interesting thing that’s happened to him since Germany and they’ve been weirdly careful not to hurt him during the scuffle. Plus, Tony has a location tracker on his ankle (and his watch, and phone, and his upper deltoid muscle, and in his artificial sternum…). So it’s probably fine.
All in all, the entire altercation from start to capture takes less than three minutes.
“Tony!” Pepper calls out, and he catches a glimpse of her on the other side of the park path, looking completely exasperated, one hand on her hip, the other still holding her taser. And then there’s a bag over Tony’s head and he’s thrown over someone’s very beefy shoulder.
“It’s probably fine,” Tony calls as his kidnappers hightail it deeper into the park.
“We have a meeting!” Pepper yells back. “In half an hour! You can’t get kidnapped now!”
But, apparently, he can. (Tony Stark is a rebel and a badboy and does what he wants.)
—
The kidnappers seem to have great appreciation for the classics - from their black on black outfits, to the bag on Tony’s head (that smells like oranges, for some reason) and the jolt and thud when they stuff (with surprising care) the last great Avenger into the back of what sounds like a big (probably white) van. There’s shuffling as someone climbs in behind him. The wrist watch that turns into an Iron Man gauntlet is yanked off Tony’s hand, and there’s a jangle of the chrome watch hitting pavement, right before doors slam shut with a loud clang.
“Definitely a C+ for execution and artistic interpretation,” Tony says as he’s grabbed and manhandled into a hard, bench-like seat. “I have a red carpet thing tonight. At night. In the dark. Lots of alleyways around, very atmospheric. It’s just not a proper kidnapping when you grab someone in the daytime.”
“Not our first rodeo,” says the filtered, robotic voice of the kidnapper sitting next to Tony. One of the other men mutters something, but it’s drowned out when the van swerves and someone lays on the horns.
“You sure? Don’t get me wrong, I love the puff coat look, good coverage, very huggable,” Tony says, because one of the FBI hostage negotiations consultants Stark Corporate hired in the late 90’s said it was important to build rapport with your kidnappers. “Six out of ten, very James Bond villain meets Winter Wonderland, but in a cozy way that says ‘forgettably approachable.’”
Deciding that the kidnappers are sufficiently flattered, Tony asks, “Since we’re all in this together now, will you tell me where we’re going?”
“No.”
"Well, what about who hired you? I'm probably going to meet them soon anyway, right?"
"No."
That's not helpful. Tony frowns inside his kidnapping bag. "No, as in, I'm not going to meet them? Because that just seems rude all things considered. Is it Ross? Did Ross tell you to grab me? Seems wildly unnecessary. He could have just called."
But that seems to be the limit of the kidnapper's patience. They ignore all of Tony's questions no matter how he pokes and prods at them. The kidnapper's tight grip on Tony’s upper arm doesn’t slacken as the van starts and stops its way through New York City traffic.
Tony wonders which of the shiny new Avengers are going to be assigned to track him down. Assuming Ross approves the rescue mission. Which…
Okay, maybe Tony didn’t think this whole kidnapping thing through.
Tony’s life just got a bit more complicated.
But at least it’s not boring.
—
The kidnappers unload Tony out of the van more than an hour later. City traffic being what it is, Tony suspects they are still in NYC. There are steps, and squealing hinges and more steps and one of the kidnappers sort of grabs and carries Tony through a short drop and all Tony can tell by the end of it all is that he’s somewhere underground.
When they get to their destination, Tony is unsurprised to find himself plonked down on an uncomfortable chair.
The air is heavy with damp, and there’s the faint sound of some sort of kidnapping lair sludge making its way down the wall and dripping into a puddle somewhere to his left. The wooden chair creaks when Tony shifts his weight. Somewhere to the far left, there is a tense, murmured conversation happening.
The band on Tony’s ankle gives an angry buzz, then stills. There’s a faint rumble in the distance that swells and then fades. They’re definitely underground. No signal.
No wonder Tony’s tracking anklet is pissed. As far as anyone knows, Tony Stark has just dropped completely off the radar. Tony takes a long pleasant moment to meditate on the vision of an angry, red-faced Ross yelling at Justin Hammer on an emergency Accords Committee call. Tony just hopes somebody records the call (for quality assurance purposes, of course) so that Tony can hack and watch it later.
Footsteps draw closer and circle around Tony. He feels pressure, hears a snip of something being cut, and his hands are freed from the zipties. The bag is pulled off Tony’s head and he blinks against the dim light.
Bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling, check. Damp, crumbly looking walls and exactly zero windows, check. Cracked, dingy concrete under his feet, check. (These kidnappers really dig the classics.)
Except, Tony's hands are free now. And with their faces uncovered, Tony very clearly recognizes the goons.
Shorty is Clint.
Tall is Sam.
And circling around Tony’s chairs to come to a stop in front of him is the international fugitive known as Captain America.
Tony has been kidnapped by Steve Rogers.
Sam looks like he’d rather be anywhere but there. Clint is perched on a rickety looking stool at the back of the dimly lit utility room, as far from Tony as he can get. Their black masks are in a pile on a small, cheerful blue duffel bag in the corner. They’ve abandoned their black, puffy coats, too. That pile is larger.
“Are you okay?” Steve asks, crouching down in front of Tony’s chair. He looks rumpled and nervous. “Sorry for grabbing you like that.”
Tony considers the apology. Then he punches Steve in the nose.
Steve startles back, more surprised than hurt. “Tony!”
“Yeah, okay, that settles it,” Clint says. “I’m checking him for weapons.”
“Clint, you don’t need to - “
But Clint is already there and patting Tony down. Tony is too busy glaring at Steve to care.
“What the hell is this?” Clint has gotten down to Tony’s feet and is staring at the Hammer Industries tracking anklet. A small red light blinks placidly.
“Indentured servitude through Hammer Tech,” Tony finally bites out, because his hatred of Justin Hammer just slightly outweighs how pissed he is at his former teammates. “This is how they think they’ll finally break me.”
The anklet gives another angry buzz, loud in the suddenly tense and silent room.
For the first time, Clint’s badass mask cracks. He looks upset. “It’s hurting you?”
“Yes,” Tony agrees. “In my soul.”
The sympathetic expression vanishes. Clint stands up and stomps back to his rickety stool.
Steve sighs. “Tony…”
“What the hell do you want?” Tony asks, back to glaring at Steve. “And if the answer starts with ‘P’ and involves lawyers and fancy documents to let you back in the county, the answer is no. All the president’s men couldn’t make me testify on your behalf, so you can take your pardons and shove them where the red-white-and-blue don’t shine.”
“Waste of time,” Clint sing-songs from the back of the room. Steve gives him a quelling look. Sam pretends he hasn’t been edging his way to the exit for the last minute and fifteen seconds.
Steve lets out a breath and kneels in front of Tony. His expression is serious. Earnest. Tony feels his temper spiking again.
“The next words out of your mouth better not have anything to do with your flash-frozen murderbuddy, because I swear - “
“No, no, there are bigger things at play here,” Steve says, gently, and Tony’s burgeoning tirade falters. “I’m sorry about how things turned out, but now we need to move forward as a team, because there’s something big coming.”
“Bigger than the chip on your shoulder?” Tony says, but his mind is racing and he can’t quite pull off the biting edge the words need. Steve broke a highway, an airport and UN’s patience for his bestie. What’s bigger than Bucky?
“I…I know you probably won’t believe me when I tell you this, but… we’ve been gathering intel and we can’t be fighting each other anymore, because…” Steve takes a deep breath, and, despite himself, Tony feels tension climb up his spine. Whatever has driven Steve out of hiding and away from his popsicle bestie’s side, it has to be truly bad.
Breath catching, Tony braces himself.
“Because, Tony…” Steve’s voice has an almost desperate need to convince Tony to believe him. “We need to be ready for the next alien invasion.”
Tony stares at Steve, trying to process that. “What.”
Steve thinks that is a question.
“I talked to some experts in…well, the place I’m staying,” Steve stumbles over the words here. (It’s Wakanda. It’s obviously Wakanda . ) Then he rallies and looks at Tony with a clear, blue gaze. “We’ve gone over the footage from our fight with the Chuitari and the data they’ve collected from the SHIELD info dump, and T’Ch- …I mean, we have an expert who says…well, he’s been talking to others, the picture that’s coming together, it’s…Tony…I’m so sorry, I know this is unfair to just show up out of the blue and upend your world, after everything that went down between us, but…”
Steve closes his eyes against the heavy burden of knowledge. “We… Tony, we believe the aliens are coming back.”
“Oh,” Tony says faintly. “The aliens are coming back. Of course.”
And then he punches Captain America in the nose again.
“Fuck!” Steve rears back, hand going to his nose, which is, unfortunately, not even bleeding. “Stop hitting me! This is real. I know it’s a lot, but you have to believe us.”
Tony can practically feel his supervillain origin story taking shape around him.