Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Pepper and I are—” Tony pauses for a fraction of a second while his brain runs rapidly through the ways he can finish that sentence. In the off again portion of our depressingly on again-off again relationship? Hopefully temporarily consciously uncoupled? On a break?

“Pregnant?” asks Steve, perking up like a dog that’s just been offered a treat, and not just any dog, one of those wholesome happy ones like a golden retriever or whatever. Maybe the guy’s just looking for any bit of good news right now, given it’s been one nasty surprise after another the past few days. Tony kind of does want to offer him a treat, or pet him, or something. That’s really not a good enough reason for what Tony says next though.

“Yeah, uh, yeah, we are.”

Steve smiles, not his usual crooked, self-deprecating grin, but the rare full-wattage, real deal. Tony can count the number of times he’s seen it on one hand. It’s never been directed at him before. He fights the urge to squint, unsuccessfully.

“Congratulations Tony!” says Steve with what is honestly an excess of sincerity, who does that, it’s not like the nonexistent Stark-Potts fetus is his grandchild or anything—and what the fuck has Tony done. Pepper is not pregnant. There is no Stark-Potts fetus. Stark-Potts? Potts-Stark? Which sounds better? Probably Potts-Stark to avoid the whole Starkpots situation. They could always just go with Stark or Potts, but Tony can roll with the times, hyphenation is cool and equal and all that. Fuck, that’s not relevant right now. Focus, Stark.

Steve is still beaming at him, which is, honestly, a lot to deal with. He rags on Steve all the time for having a stick up his ass and a constant frown of disapproval and patriotism on his face, but Tony’s not prepared to deal with a happy Steve, and especially not a Steve who’s happy because of something Tony told him about his personal life. It’s at this point that Tony gets that weird combination out-of-body and too much g-force feeling that he always gets when he’s just set off a chain of events that, within nanoseconds, his brain can already extrapolate will lead to disaster. Like, oh no, that was maybe too much power to the thrusters or shit, I just told every terrorist in the world my home address.

Only now it’s I have inexplicably lied to Captain America about having a baby.

Tony has made a huge mistake.

Three weeks earlier:

Pepper is moving on top of him, in the long, slow rhythm that always drives him crazy. They’ve had more than their fair share of office quickies, hasty back-of-the-limo fucks, and I-have-a-meeting-in-fifteen-minutes handjobs, so when it’s night and they’re in their own bed and there’s nothing on either of their schedules for a long, glorious seven hours, Pepper likes to take it slow. It’s been a…pretty long while since they’ve had the time and inclination for it. Been a pretty long time since Tony’s come to bed at a reasonable enough hour for it too.

Tonight though, Pepper is flushed and beautiful where she’s bracing her hands on his chest, careful of the arc reactor and surgery scars, while her hips move at a punishingly steady pace. In the moment, caught up in pleasure, Tony can forget that this round of sex had started off with a dismaying sort of perfunctoriness. No teasing, no banter, barely any foreplay. Tony felt off balance until they got into their familiar rhythm, and now it’s fine, now it’s great, so Tony’s just going to lie here, gripping Pepper’s hips and urging her to go harder if not faster.

She’s making those breathy little gasps that mean she’s about to come, which makes him come, but she doesn’t stop and he thinks he can feel a little twinge on his cock. Whatever it was, it’s lost in the feel of Pepper clenching hot and hard around his cock. After a minute, she pulls off with a satisfied sigh, and a kiss he returns lazily.

Tony flaps a hand around, intending to deal with the condom, but before he can summon up sufficient post-orgasmic energy, he hears Pepper hiss in dismay.

“What is it?”

“Oh it’s nothing—just, the condom broke.”

Tony flails upright. “What?!” Tony hasn’t made it this long sans illegitimate children (that he knows of) while being cheerfully slutty without taking any and all condom failures very seriously. Pepper soothes him by patting his chest and pulling him back to lie down on the pillows.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not like I can get pregnant,” says Pepper, and she sounds breezy, but when he turns to look at her, there’s an unhappy tilt to her mouth.

“Uh, okay. Is this a thing we should talk about?”

Pepper sighs. “Not really.”

They both fall silent. Tony’s been in this situation before, and it’s always led to him hurrying the girl out of his bed to go get Plan B. That he doesn’t want to do that now makes him feel weird, tingly and tight feeling in his chest weird. Or is that a heart attack. It could be a heart attack. He takes a few deep breaths. No, he’s fine.

It would be okay, if Pepper got pregnant. Yeah, Tony would panic, because tiny human, and what makes him think he could be anything approaching a good father, but—it would be okay. The level of okay it would be is shocking, actually. The possible future spools out in his head with shocking rapidity: a baby he gets to watch grow into a small person, a kid who has Pepper’s nose and his eyes...

He’s about to say just how okay this scenario would be when Pepper says, “I think I need us to go on a break.”

“What? Like, a vacation break? Because yeah, I could use one too, but not until the next quarter, R&D needs—”

“A relationship break.” Before the black hole Tony is being rapidly being spaghettified into can fully consume him, Pepper adds, “A totally temporary break! And not, like, a Ross and Rachel break where one of us sleeps with someone else and then comes back all, ‘we were on a break!’ Just a small break until—”

“Until what?”

“Until one of us knows what we want.”

He looks at Pepper, searching for anger on her face, but her hand is gentle where it’s still resting on his chest, and she’s smiling a little, rueful and sad. It should be a relief, but it isn’t. “I don’t—I don’t want anything from you but you, Pep. And I thought—I thought we were doing okay. I haven’t gone out in the suit in months, I know you’ve wanted me to retire Iron Man, and I have. I’ve been here, with you. I’ve been—”

“Working on that BARF thing all the time. Seriously, find a better acronym, Tony.”

“Good acronyms don’t just fall from the sky, I’m working on it, it’s a work in progress! And BARF is something that can really help people, something that’s 100% not a weapon and not an evil robot AI in waiting. I kinda need a win on that front, babe.”

“I know, I know it’s a good thing. I’m proud of you for that. But... I thought everything would be okay, that everything would get better when you blew up the suits. And then SHIELD ended up being HYDRA, and the Avengers needed you, and I get that, I do, fighting Nazis is always a good call, I absolutely support you fighting Nazis. But then Ultron happened, and he was basically your evil alien magic-corrupted robot child with extreme daddy issues, and—”

“Right, yes, thank you, but I did retire from the Avengers after that—”

“Which was the right call for a variety of reasons, and after all that, I thought, now, now things are going to calm down and be okay, and we’ll be okay. But they’re not. Not entirely. I thought, if you could just get past needing to be Iron Man, we could get to a safe place. I don’t think that anymore.”

“What do you think now?”

“That Iron Man was just a symptom, not the problem. Whatever it is you want, or need, you’re not getting it, Tony. Not from me, not from Iron Man and the Avengers, not from your work. And what I want, or need—I need a little time away from you to figure that out. I love you, and that’s all I’m asking for, okay? A little time.”

“I love you too,” he manages to say. “Uh, do you want to start on that time now, should I leave—”

“For god’s sake Tony, I’m not kicking you out of bed. Go to sleep. We’ll be fine, I promise.”

Pepper falls asleep soon enough, but Tony stays awake. The fact that all he wants to do is get out of bed and work on BARF tells him that Pepper’s not wrong. If he got up now, if he finished BARF, he knows what memory he would re-do, how he would change it.

“What is it?”

“Oh it’s nothing—just, the condom broke.”

“What?!”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not like I can get pregnant.”

“Do you want to try? To get pregnant, that is. Because I—I wouldn’t mind that. Us having a baby. Or you know, we could adopt or get a surrogate, maybe you don’t want to be actually pregnant, we can acquire a child via other means….”

“How far along is she, do you know when—”

Think, Tony, think. “Uh, not very, we just found out, so don’t tell anyone. You know, it’s so early, and she might lose—” Tony’s stomach roils with nausea at the thought. Which, what the fuck, is he upset about his and Pepper’s fake baby fake miscarrying? Right, no, that’s probably the guilt from all this lying.

“Of course, of course, if you need anything—”

I need you to sign the Accords, Tony thinks but doesn’t say, because he can play that scenario out easily enough, and there’s a 75% chance it ends in Steve asking did you lie about Pepper being pregnant to get me to sign the Accords?!

“Nope, nothing, just total secrecy.” Steve frowns at him. Tony smiles like that was a normal thing to say.

Steve gets out two questions about when Pepper is due and how Pepper’s doing before Tony realizes he cannot deal with this, he cannot answer this line of questioning without something going (more) horribly wrong. So: diversion time.

“Hey, we should go check on your murderous bestie, right? He doesn’t get a lawyer, that’s crazy, we should definitely go make sure he’s fine, maybe one of us can appoint ourselves his counsel.”

“I think one of us would have to have a law degree for that,” says Steve, but he also gets that much more familiar stubborn jaw of justice look, so whew, crisis temporarily averted. This one crisis anyway, the one Tony just single-handedly caused. Fuck.

Tony is very good at swanning around a place like he belongs there and also owns it, so he figures between him and Steve, he can get them to the holding area to see Barnes. He has no idea what to do after that, but he assumes something else will go horribly wrong by then, which would be fine, honestly. FRIDAY, bless her, already has an in to the JCTC systems, so Tony can find his way to Barnes easily enough, and from there it’s just plowing on ahead with the certainty that no one here is going to pull a gun on Tony Stark.

As Tony walks out of the conference room at a pace that’s just below a jog, not that Steve notices what with his stupid super soldier long legs, Wilson falls in step behind them. “Where the hell are you two going?”

Tony waves him off. “We’re just going to have a little chat with Barnes, get some things cleared up.”

Carter the younger and blonder spots them from the command room and her eyes widen. She nudges Natasha, who glares at them, says something to Carter, and slips out of the room.

“Tony, what are you doing?” asks Natasha, and he wishes he knew. Natasha knows him too well. Her eyes are narrowing and he can practically see her thinking what is Tony deflecting attention from now. It only offers him a very little bit of satisfaction that even her super sky skills can’t possibly help her guess at the giant lie he just told Steve.

“Getting real sick of answering that question. Just going to see Barnes, make sure everything’s above board, you know, no heinous human rights violations, all that.”

“The UN psychologist is on his way to evaluate him, nothing’s happening to him until then.”

“He ought to have access to counsel, Natasha,” says Steve.

“Less talking, more walking,” Tony says, and keeps power walking on. Of course, then they pick up another member for their by now very conspicuous parade, as Prince T’Challa—or, shit, he was king now, huh—comes out of yet another conference room.

“Excuse me, where are you going?”

“Hey, why not, let’s make it a field trip! We are going to see Barnes! Because my good friend Steve here says Barnes definitely didn’t blow up Vienna, so maybe Barnes would like to use his words to tell us that instead of demolishing an entire SWAT team.”

“I do not believe we are allowed in that area, Mr. Stark, and I object to you going in to question the man who murdered my father—” tries T’Challa as he and his really quite intimidating bodyguard fall into step beside them.

“It’s fine, don't worry about it, and maybe he didn’t murder your father! I think we should ask him about that.”

“Sharon can only keep Agent Ross occupied for so long, Tony, so whatever you’re doing—” warns Natasha, but she doesn’t stop them, which means she wants to know how this plays out, or she has her own reasons for going along with it.

“We talk to Barnes, this’ll all get worked out,” he says, with far more confidence than he feels, because literally the only reason they’re going to talk to Barnes is that it’s the one thing that will sufficiently distract Steve, and hey, maybe even make him entirely forget about Tony’s fake gestating bundle of joy!

Of course, he hadn’t banked on four ducklings following him and he still doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. Sure, he does want to know what’s up with Barnes, and the sooner the whole Barnes situation is resolved, the sooner they can get the Accords signed and then maybe Tony will be able to sleep at night. What’s he gonna do when they finally get to Barnes? Whatever, he’ll figure it out. Anyway, T’Challa has some vociferous objections to Tony’s communication-is-key plan, but Tony tunes him out and just forges on ahead, while Steve and Wilson politely duke it out with the King of Wakanda.

Just like he figured, no lackey is willing to stop them, all of them making calls to kick it up higher on the chain, and none of them willing to abandon their own posts. Tony breezes past the polite requests for him to stop and just walks faster, until the guarded doors to the holding area are in sight, and hey, lucky Tony! He helped design these things. He pulls out his phone, casual like, and after a few discreetly tapped commands to FRIDAY, the doors open before the guards can put up much of a fuss.

“How did you—?” starts Wilson.

Tony waves the guards away, saying, “We’ve got access, as you can see, don’t worry about it! We’ll just duck in, have a quick word with the prisoner here—” He sends FRIDAY a quick command to overload and short the doors’ locking mechanism so the guards can’t barge in on them, and ta da, they’re all in!

“My name is Bucky,” he hears Barnes say to the psychologist just before Barnes spots them and his mouth drops open in surprise, and the psychologist twists around to stare at them.

Now that they’re all in here, it’s kind of a tighter fit than expected. “Hey! Don’t mind us! You do your evaluation thing, we were just gonna ask a few questions, make sure no human rights are being violated.”

“This is highly inappropriate—”

Steve busts out the resonant Captain America voice. “It’s inappropriate to not let him have an advocate or counsel—”

“Did you lock us in here, Stark?” asks the scary bodyguard lady, moving towards him.

And Natasha, low and insistent, “Whatever your plan is, Tony, now would be the time—” Tony is, honestly, pretty fucking touched that Natasha thinks he has a plan, and that she’s willing to see how it plays out instead of just rendering him unconscious. He starts to panic about having to lie to Natasha about said nonexistent plan, which, ha, who can lie to Natasha, no one, that’s who, but Tony’s going to have to give it the old college try—

Which is, of course, when the next horrible thing happens: the power goes out.

“That wasn’t me! Swear that wasn’t me,” says Tony immediately. The emergency lights are red tinted, which is ominous, and not really a flattering color for anybody, and also, the flashing is gearing up to give Tony a headache. Also all the shouting. This room is really very small. Tony edges closer to Barnes’ prison box of sadness.

“What the fuck is even going on,” Barnes says faintly.

“This is ridiculous,” snaps the psychologist, then sucks in a deep breath. “Well, this isn’t how I’d planned for things to go, but perhaps it’s more convenient,” and then he pulls something out of his pocket, and starts saying something in Russian.

“What, is it time for a poetry reading?” asks Wilson.

Natasha’s head snaps around from where she’d been trying to keep King T’Challa and his bodyguard from killing Tony, probably, and she stares at the psychologist.

“What’s he saying?” Tony’s Russian isn’t quite good enough to be sure, and this guy’s got an accent. Why would he be saying…longing?

“No,” says Barnes, eyes wide and fixed on whatever the psychologist is holding, as he continues to say what sound to Tony like random Russian words.

“Buck?” asks Steve, and moves towards the glass cage holding Barnes.

“Stop him, please, don’t—” Barnes sounds desperate, and he’s struggling against his restraints now.

“That’s not the psychologist,” says Natasha, and launches herself at the guy. That seems to be good enough for Steve and Wilson, because they go at him too once Natasha’s fighting him in earnest. The thing that had been in the man’s hand turns out to be a book, and it flies out of his hand as he tries to block Natasha’s blows. T’Challa and his guard are trying to get the door back open, which, good luck if the power’s out. Tony and FRIDAY’s bit of hacking may have overridden the door’s emergency protocols. Whoops.

That psychologist is definitely not an actual psychologist, not if he can fight against Natasha like that. The guy tries to pull a gun out, but Steve knocks it out of his hand, and the gun slides across the floor. Wilson dives for the gun, but Tony’s interested in the book that’s landed near him in the struggle, so he slides his foot over to grab it, then sidles up to Barnes’ glass cage. And, interesting, Barnes is just staring at the book with an expression of sick horror.

“So, hey, what is this thing? What was up with the Russian beat poetry reading?”

Tony flips through the book: it’s all in Cyrillic, some German. And, oh, there’s a HYDRA logo. Lovely.

“It’s how they unmake me,” Barnes says, which is, wow, an unhelpful and vague thing to say.

There’s a scream of agony from the fake psychologist, which means Natasha has probably done that thing with her thighs. Tony looks over, and yup. Fake psychologist is on the ground, facing the stern face of Captain America’s judgment.

“You’re not the UN psychologist. Who are you? Are you HYDRA? What do you want with Bucky?” demands Steve.

Not-psychologist starts up with the Russian fridge magnet poetry again, and Barnes cries out. “Don’t let him—!”

“Nope. Last thing this situation needs is the Winter Soldier wreaking havoc,” says Natasha, then she swiftly knocks the guy out, and restrains him with zip ties. She carries those around with her? Tony can’t tell if that’s weird or pragmatic. Barnes slumps in relief where he’s still strapped into the sadness cage’s restraints.

“What do you mean?” asks Wilson.

“Trigger words. A nice convenient shortcut to getting your brainwashed operative to do whatever you want. The Russians were fond of using them with sleeper agents. Barnes, do you know this guy, is he HYDRA?”

Creepy, thinks Tony, and keeps flipping through the book: diagrams and schematics of the cool robot arm—interesting, Tony will come back to that—a disturbingly thorough list of the Winter Soldier’s abilities and limitations, and okay, this seems like way too many pages dedicated to all manner of torture and horrifyingly inhumane medical experimentation, Tony needs to stop looking at this book now. Panic is clawing its way into the pace of his breath. He slams the book shut.

“No, I don’t, not that that means much. I didn’t even remember about the words until just now,” says Barnes, looking sick.

“Yeah, you’re not supposed to,” says Natasha with sympathy.

“So who is he?” demands Steve, and Tony can help with that.

“Let’s see,” He snaps a photo of the not-psychologist’s slack and vaguely pained unconscious face, and sends it to FRIDAY for analysis and facial recognition.

“This is all starting to seem like a trap,” T’Challa says. “What did you do to the doors, Stark?”

Tony raises his hands. “It’s not my trap. I just overrode the door’s emergency protocols to keep us from being interrupted in here, I could undo it if there was power. I wasn’t expecting,” he gestured at the unconscious guy and the still red emergency lights, “any of this.”

Natasha doesn’t seem entirely convinced. You could just admit it now, says the exasperated voice in Tony’s head that sounds a lot like Rhodey. Nip this mess in the bud and say you suffered a brief fit of insanity in lying to Steve about how Pepper’s pregnant, you panicked, tried to distract Steve and now all this. Yeah, no, Tony’s not doing that. Not now that it turns out it was actually a good thing they all got down here to stop whatever not-psychologist had planned to do with murder wind-up doll Winter Soldier here. And here Tony had thought the best distraction he could have hoped for was Steve and Barnes getting emotional at each other.

Wilson crosses his arms and gives Tony a deeply suspicious look. “Just decided to pay a visit to Barnes?”

“Steve was pining for him, I couldn’t take his sad face any more.” FRIDAY pings him, and shows him the results of her search. “And hello, everyone, meet Helmut Zemo, formerly of Sokovia’s EKO Scorpion unit. He is definitely not Dr. Theo Broussard of the UN.”

There’s a polite sounding siren from the speakers then, and an announcement plays, first in German, then in English and French. Ah, Europe.

“There is currently a city-wide power outage caused by an explosion at a power station. Please remain calm and stay where you are until full power can be restored. Thank you.”

Natasha comes over to peer over Tony’s shoulder at his phone. “No HYDRA ties…he fought in the Battle of Sokovia…where his whole family died,” she reads.

Oh. You’d think Tony would be used to this by now, but he’s not. It’s a full-body hit every time. “Great, that’s great, another person here to tell me I killed their family in Sokovia.”

“Doesn’t seem like this guy was that interested in talking,” notes Wison.

Both Steve and Natasha frown and exchange one of their “we’re team leaders” looks of concern. “Another person?” asks Steve.

“Some woman from the State Department, her kid died in Sokovia, she showed up after my talk at MIT just to tell me she blames me, I’m the worst, etc. Do any of the rest of you get that kind of thing? Or am I just lucky?”

“From the State Department. Secretary Ross’s State Department,” says Natasha, voice flat.

Tony squints at her. “Yeah. What do you—”

“Secretary Ross, who basically ambushed us with the Accords, and gave us an ultimatum.” Somewhere in the part of Tony’s brain that's not still shrieking about lying about Pepper being pregnant, shrieking about what he’d seen in that book, writhing in miserable guilt over, ha, all his life choices, or trying to work out Zemo’s deal, a portion of the big picture is illuminated by a lightning-fast flash of understanding that’s there and gone in less than a moment.

“What the hell are you suggesting? I looked him up. Her kid really was one of the casualties.” Much good it did, but Tony had thrown some money at a scholarship in the kid’s name. It hadn’t particularly made him feel better.

“The truth is often a more effective manipulator than lies,” says Natasha.

“Manipulator? Just say what you mean, none of this spy shit, Natasha,” Tony fires back. But he thinks he gets what she means. Fucking Thunderbolt Ross.

“Alright.” Natasha meets his eyes, her face carefully neutral and her eyes grave. “Ross is manipulating you to push the Accords through, get us all on board. You’re the weak point.” Natasha nods towards Steve and Sam. “After Insight and SHIELD’s collapse, Steve’s not going to trust any higher ups anytime soon, same for Sam. I’m not reliable enough, being a spy and all. Rhodes is still in the military, he doesn’t need much pressure, he has a chain of command he has to follow. Thor’s off in space, Bruce is missing, Clint’s mostly retired, Wanda’s too junior on the team and Vision’s not human…that leaves you.”

Yeah, Tony’s maybe starting to see the shape of the big picture. But— “You said you would sign the Accords.”

“To buy us time, to be on the inside of whatever the hell is going on. I don’t trust Ross. I don't understand why you do. You know what he’s done to Bruce, what he tried to do to him.”

T’Challa has been listening with interest, and now he puts in his own two cents. “The Accords were drafted up with UN approval. That’s why Wakanda signed on. Some level of oversight is necessary for all of you.”

Tony throws up his hands. “Yes, thank you! Ross or no Ross, the idea is sound. We need accountability.”

“We’re not going over this again, not now. Focus,” says Steve in his stern Captain America voice. “What did Zemo want, and why was he using Bucky? Is any of this linked to the Accords?”

“Yes, let us focus. Why did you kill my father?” T’Challa asks Barnes, his face set and furious.

Barnes just looks like the most tired man alive. “I told you: I didn’t.”

“Your highness—majesty? Whatever—he didn’t kill your dad. Barnes was in Bucharest at the time of the bombing,” says Wilson, then he looks at Zemo. “Someone sure wanted us to think Barnes did the bombing though.”

“So, okay, he wants revenge for Sokovia. He frames Barnes to draw him out or get him caught, get Steve where he wants him and then…? What, he uses the trigger words and gets Barnes to go after Steve and whatever other Avengers show up?” Natasha shakes her head. “There’s no guarantee any of that would work, or that it’d end in anything other than Barnes dead or in custody. We’re missing something.”

Natasha’s right, but Zemo’s still unconscious, so they can’t ask him. Tony is honestly starting to lose interest at this point. They’ve caught the guy, he can explain his evil villain plan to Natasha once she works her interrogation magic. Tony will apologize to the guy for his dead family, because yeah, that one was kind of on him. Still, Tony has more pressing problems: he has to acquire a baby and/or get Pepper pregnant, which requires ending this “break” he and Pepper are on, and he has to do it soon. Like, within a month or two. And two months is stretching it, that’ll only work if he manages to convince Steve that Pepper literally just found out she was pregnant this week. There’s the Accords too, of course, but whatever, Tony can handle Ross and get everyone back to the table. They just need to buy time.

Tony tunes back in to hear Steve say, “If it’s all connected, then maybe Ross and Zemo are working together, and framed Bucky to get more support for the Accords. You know, another dangerous enhanced individual, clearly the Accords are necessary…” Steve trails off, looks at Barnes, who’s clenched his eyes shut, face set in an expression of pain. “Buck? You okay?”

“The book. I—he’d have had to get that from Karpov. My—handler. In Siberia. There was a base, they kept me—there were other Winter Soldiers.”

“What. Please don’t tell me you have evil clones running around,” says Sam.

Barnes gives him a confused look. “What? Why would you even—? No. HYDRA got new samples of the serum, they gave it to five of their best. They figured they could topple whole countries with them, bring about the new world order. I was the old model, defective. The new ones were supposed to be perfect. But they were worse, couldn’t be controlled, nearly killed me and Karpov. HYDRA stuck them on ice, I guess. They’re probably still in stasis in Siberia. If Zemo got the book from Karpov, maybe that’s not all he got.”

Everyone takes a minute to contemplate this scenario. One compromised Winter Soldier who wasn’t actually all that keen on the brainwashing and murder had done enough damage. Five actual HYDRA true believers? Yeah, that would be bad.

“So he sends those Winter Soldiers after the Avengers. It’s win-win for Zemo no matter what, if revenge is what he’s after. Either they kill us, or the collateral damage is big enough that we get shut down. And using Barnes makes it personal against Steve,” says Natasha.

Kind of overly complex as revenge plans went, but not bad if you were a normal human looking for a way to take the Avengers out. Zemo might even have gotten away with it with no suspicion falling on him, Barnes taking the fall for all of it. Except—

“Where the hell did HYDRA get the serum? If they had it, why aren’t we overrun by Nazi super soldiers?”

“There were only five samples,” says Barnes, almost absent-mindedly. He’s frowning, brow furrowed, and then he flinches, closes his eyes.

“Buck?” asks Steve, putting a hand on the glass of the box.

“I’m trying to remember—” All the color drains from Barnes’ face, and he shudders convulsively against the restraints.

“Bucky! Are you okay?” Tony eyes the box of sadness. There has to be a way to bust in if Barnes is about to have some kind of fit in there. It’s meant to be bulletproof, and he doesn’t have a gauntlet with a repulsor to blast into it, but maybe—

Barnes opens his eyes and looks at Tony, horrified, before his expression shifts to a sickened sort of despair and disbelief. It’s the kind of expression Tony’s seen on his own face, in the bathroom mirror after nightmares. It’s the look on his face when he realizes it was a nightmare, yes, but it had actually happened too.

“Howard,” says Barnes hoarsely, and Tony’s about to correct him, a little more gently than he would anyone else because he has some sensitivity, okay, he knows the poor guy’s brain has been fried and scrambled, he’s holding the proof of it in his hand, but Barnes continues, “Howard had it, in his car. They sent me on a mission, and I—”

“That wasn’t you,” Steve interrupts, low and vehement. Barnes just lets out a short and sharp laugh of disbelief, and shakes his head. His eyes are wide and wet with horror.

“I know. But I did it.”

Tony’s a genius, so he can take these disparate, half-complete pieces of information, and form a complete picture. “You killed my parents,” he says, and it even comes out mostly calm.

The thing is, he’s been all but sure for years now that it wasn’t an accident that killed his mom and dad. He’d thought it was Obie, for a while, and then when he’d first gone through all the SHIELD and HYDRA files Natasha dumped, he’d wondered if it hadn’t been HYDRA. He’d told himself it didn’t matter: dead was dead, and he was helping to take out HYDRA anyway. It feels like it matters more now that he’s staring at the guy who did it.

“HYDRA killed your parents, Tony,” says Steve, and Tony whirls on him.

“You knew?”

Steve meets Tony’s eyes. “The virtual Zola we talked to…he suggested it was true. We never got confirmation. I’m sorry.”

“Got anything to say for yourself, Barnes?”

“There is nothing I can say to make this better. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he says in a low and shaky voice, and yeah, fair enough. That doesn’t really make anything better at all.

“Tony—” starts Steve, but Natasha stops him, murmurs give him a minute.

He’ll need longer than a minute. Fuck. Tony can’t deal with this right now. He looks down at the book he’s holding. He knows, objectively, that Barnes hadn’t been in control of his own actions. He’d gotten that briefing, thanks, and a quick skim of this book of horrors had driven that home. But his mom. His dad had apparently been driving around with a trunk full of super soldier serum, what the fuck, but his mom, she hadn’t been a part of any of this, she’d—

He thinks he understands now, what it feels like for Bruce to hulk out, how rage can build into something so explosive it has to find some monstrous outlet in the body. Tony knows what could happen next. He can kill Barnes: he can use the trigger words, tell Barnes to do anything he wants. He can help Barnes out of that bulletproof glass box and then put a bullet in the man’s swiss-cheesed brain. It might even be a mercy for Barnes, the best way to decommission a dangerous weapon. He could get the shot off before Natasha or Steve could reach him, and Tony’s aim is not great in a firefight, but at point blank range, it’s perfect. Of course, if he does that, Steve will kill him. Tony’s sure of that.

So, alternate option: he can make sure Bucky Barnes is locked away for the rest of his unnaturally prolonged life, or maybe executed. He’s the Winter Soldier after all, he’s assassinated a couple dozen people. It would be justice, right? Some people would think so, anyway. But then Steve would be sad, and even if he doesn’t try to jailbreak Barnes, there’s a high probability that someone will decide the Winter Soldier’s too valuable to let languish in a prison cell, they might as well put him to use, and who cares what Barnes has to say about that. And Tony tries to be responsible about weapons nowadays. So no, maybe not that either.

He opens the book again. Barnes was right. It’s a manual of unmaking. A careful and dispassionate series of instructions and suggestions for keeping the Winter Soldier at optimal functioning. You wouldn’t think it was about a human. Tony thinks: he should have fought harder, he should have remembered Howard, he should have tried to escape, like I did, I didn’t break, I didn’t give in—But there it is, in the book: all the ways the Winter Soldier disobeyed, the ways to enforce compliance. Like troubleshooting a malfunctioning machine. Only Tony treats his machines better than this. If the Soldier begins evidencing returning memories, return him to the chair for a wipe….if the Soldier becomes aggressive, punishment is necessary….if the Soldier attempts suicide again...Tony can’t read any more. He closes the book and looks up at Barnes. To his credit, Barnes meets Tony’s eyes without flinching, and this would be easier if Barnes was a dead-eyed shell of a person. But he’s not. There’s no fear in his eyes, just pain and resignation, and the kind of total exhaustion Tony has seen in the faces of refugees and disaster survivors.

My parents were murdered, thinks Tony, testing it out. The man in that glass cage did it. Or, no—the man in the glass cage was the gun some Nazis used to murder my parents. And yeah, Tony’s destroyed plenty of weapons in his time, but not a weapon that’s a person, staring him in the face.

Zemo must have known. Using Barnes like this wasn’t just to get access to the other assassin popsicles or fuck with Steve, it was meant to fuck with Tony too, it was meant to tear the Avengers apart, from outside and inside. Well, fuck that, and fuck Ross too. Tony doesn’t like to be predictable. He’s not really sure what the hell to do about Barnes, but he’s sure as hell not going to do anything like what Zemo had expected him to.

“This is what Zemo wanted,” says T’Challa into the tense silence. “A cycle of vengeance. I’m sorry, Barnes. I should not have rushed to judgment.”

Barnes just shrugs and nods wearily in response. “It’s alright. I’m sorry about your father.”

There’s another silence, and Tony’s breath feels too loud in this too-small room. “So…are we good or not?” asks Wilson eventually.

Basically simultaneously, Steve and Natasha give Wilson disbelieving and/or disapproving looks. Barnes looks deeply pained and a little like he wants to die. Tony has to suppress entirely inappropriate laughter. This fucking team. He doesn’t want to lose them.

“Yeah, we’re good. I’ll process all this shit later.” This is probably a lie. Whatever, Tony’s busy. He has to get back with Pepper, and convince Pepper to have a baby. Hopefully that’s actually, like, physically possible for her, didn’t women have a biological clock, wasn’t it harder to get pregnant the older you were, and oh my god, he’s being sexist, maybe it’s his sperm that aren’t up for the job, shit shit shit, Tony is so fucked, and also he has to fix this whole Accords mess, goddamnit. “So: what’s the plan from here?” he says with a smile. Judging by how concerned Steve and Natasha look, it’s not a great smile.

“We get out of this room,” says T’Challa’s bodyguard.

“We get Bucky out of that box,” says Steve. He’s looking at Barnes like Barnes is the only person in the room. Ah, Steve, so single-minded.

“We bring this Zemo man to justice for the murder of my father, the king of Wakanda,” says T’Challa, who’s real committed to the whole Inigo Montoya schtick, Tony’s kind of jealous. He can’t kill his father’s murderer. Tony stares at said murderer, who just looks really sad and tired.

“We figure out how to stall on the Accords, we figure out what this Zemo guy and Ross are up to, we deal with the other Winter Soldiers, and none of us get arrested again,” says Natasha, and Wilson nods.

That’s—wow, that’s a lot. And Tony also has to deal with his whole Pepper’s pregnant lie. He has to sort of lean against Barnes’ box of sadness and then maybe slide down until he’s sitting and just, like, really focus on his breathing for a minute.

“Um. Are you, uh, okay?” asks Barnes. Tony looks up at him. Barnes is looking down at him with what appears to be genuine concern, his eyes wide and sincere and sad. It makes him look about sixteen years old.

“I’m fine! How are you?”

Barnes blinks. “That’s—really?”

“Do I not look fine?” That came out really high-pitched. Tony clears his throat.

“No.”

“Well, I’m fine!” Tony snaps. Everyone stares at him. “Right! Planning! On it! Barnes can’t stay in custody, it’ll be open season for whoever wants a Winter Soldier of their own.”

“I should maybe stay in this box,” says Barnes with the distant calm of a man who would like to check out from life. “Or a better box. A freezer. That’s—that would maybe be best. For everyone.”

Steve, standing on the other side of the box, puts his hand on the glass, like he’s Kirk and Barnes is Spock, and one of them is about to die of radiation poisoning. “What, Bucky, no—”

“I’m not safe—”

“You’d be safe with me, with us—”

“That’s not what I mean, Steve. I’m not safe for anyone else. Ten words, and I’m a weapon for anyone to use.” Barnes shakes his head, frantic now, all his calm gone. “I can’t, I can’t live like that.”

“I can’t, I can’t live like that.” Pepper’s shaking her head, sharp and decisive, but her eyes are wide and something close to terrified.

“Pep, honey, if we stabilize Extremis, you’ll be fine, you’ll get all the benefits and none of the unfortunate, explosive side effects—”

“No! You say that, but you don’t know, you can’t be sure. I want it out, Tony. All of it.” Even as she’s trying to keep her breathing calm and her heart rate down, there’s a faint glow building under her skin, like the embers of a banked fire. Tony can feel the heat radiating out to where he’s sitting next to Pepper on the hospital bed.

“Hey, hey, take a minute, calm down,” he says, as soothing as he can. Pepper glares, but she takes a few deep breaths, and the glowing heat subsides. “I know this is scary right now, but this is kind of an opportunity too, if you keep Extremis, then—” You’ll be safe, he wants to say. No one could hurt you. You’d be untouchable, invincible, and I won’t ever, ever have to relive those few seconds where I thought—

“If I keep Extremis, then I will never, ever stop being afraid. Do you understand that? I will never stop worrying that one day, if I get annoyed or angry enough, or, or, if something just goes wrong inside of me, that I’ll literally explode and kill myself and who knows how many innocent people around me. That I’ll hurt or kill you.” She shakes her head again, wrings the hospital blanket in her hands. “No, Tony, I can’t. Don’t you dare ask me to.”

Tony takes her in his arms. She’s still too warm, like she has a fever.

“Okay. Alright. We’ll get it out, I promise,” he says, and kisses her forehead.

“That crazy asshole Killian did this to me, and I want it out.” Pepper brings her hand up to rest carefully on his chest, on the outline of the reactor. She always touches it so lightly, as if it were fragile. As if it could hurt. “If you could get the arc reactor out without dying, wouldn’t you want it gone?”

Tony brings his own hand up to cover hers. The reactor itself doesn’t hurt, can’t. But he feels the weight of it all the time, the ache in his sternum. He still wakes up scrabbling at his chest sometimes, certain there’s something sitting on him, or that there’s some wrong thing lodged in there. And yet the thought of taking it out inspires almost as much panic as first waking up with a car battery attached to his chest had.

It hurts, but it’s mine, says some small voice inside of him. It hurts, but right now, it’s safe.

An idea sparks in his head. The problem with removing the reactor always been the race against time between taking the reactor out and the shrapnel heading towards his heart. No surgeon has been able to confidently say they could beat the shrapnel, and the modifications to his chest cavity from the reactor make a transplant too risky. But if he buys them enough time with a limited, targeted use of a stabilized Extremis...it could be done. He could get the reactor out, and have a whole and normally functioning heart again.

Said heart starts pumping faster, from excitement and fear both. The arc reactor hums along, only very faintly audible. He’s not sure he’s ready to let it go.

By the time Tony returns to the present and calms himself down from his totally-not-a-panic-attack, he’s missed much of the Barnes-related planning. That neither Natasha nor Steve have called him on it means they’re worried he’s going to lose his shit. And yeah, Tony’s losing his shit, just not the shit they think he’s losing. He lifts his head from his hands, and thunks his head against the glass of Barnes’ box of sadness.

“Hey, give me a recap, Barnes.”

Barnes leans over and peers down at him with some concern. “I’m gonna bust out of this box, and then me and Steve are headed to Wakanda, because T’Challa says they can maybe fix my fucked up head.”

“Really? No offense, but Wakanda’s main export is some, admittedly, very nice textiles. How’re they gonna help?”

Sure, there’ve always been rumors that Wakanda’s sitting on a massive pile of the really astonishingly rare and expensive vibranium, and there’s always enough dubiously obtained shipments of the stuff floating around Africa to lend some credence to the idea that there’s a mine or stockpile of it somewhere on the continent. But as far as Tony knows, Wakanda’s a small, isolated third world country. Well, security through obscurity isn’t a bad way to get Barnes out of here and keep him under the radar.

“I believe Wakanda can help Sergeant Barnes, more than any of your people can,” says T’Challa. Tony can't figure out if that’s an insult or not.

“Dealing with Zemo will buy us time with Ross and the Accords. We can tie up implementation until there’s a full investigation into Zemo and his possible HYDRA ties. Tony, you’re going to have to—” Natasha starts, but she’s interrupted by Zemo jerking back into consciousness. “Barnes, get yourself out of there before the power comes back.” She crouches down to Zemo’s level and smiles at him. It’s a lovely smile, but Tony knows from experience that it’s also inexplicably terrifying when directed at you. “Hi, Helmut Zemo of EKO Scorpion.”

“Widow.” He starts trying with the Russian trigger words again.

Natasha’s hand darts forward to grip his throat. “Uh uh, none of that now. Your accent is terrible, Helmut. So, revenge, huh? Sorry your family died in the Battle of Sokovia, but that’s no excuse for the bombing in Vienna. Are you working for anyone?” She released her hold on his throat, and he coughed.

“No excuse? You have no idea. I lost everything, and you all deserve no less—”

“You’re not the only one who’s lost people. Most of us don’t deal with it via mass murder,” says Steve.

“Oh? Is that not what all of you Avengers are doing? The Winter Soldier killed your parents, Stark, and Captain Rogers here hid it from you. Did you know there’s—”

“That’s old news, Helmut,” Tony interrupts. “I know, Steve knows, we all know. We’re good.” Actually, Tony’s pretty pissed about the lying thing, now that he thinks of it. But given what Tony just lied to Steve about, he’s not really in a position to chuck any rocks at his glass house of patriotism and repressed feelings. Though if he confesses, maybe he can gloss over it all and just say, “hey, now we’re even, right?”

Zemo looks gratifyingly shocked. “What?” Barnes starts pulling himself free of the restraints. It doesn’t seem especially hard for him. Ugh, super soldiers. Between Steve, T’Challa, and Barnes’ efforts, the front wall of the box of sadness gives way, and Barnes is free.

“We also know about Karpov, Dr. Broussard, and the other Winter Soldiers in Siberia,” says Natasha in a bored voice.

Steve nods and looms intimidatingly. “We had a very productive conversation while you were unconscious.”

Rage contorts Zemo’s face into something ugly. “What?” he repeats.

“Did your whole plan hinge on us not communicating with each other like adults?” asks Tony. The look on Zemo’s face is answer enough. “Oh my god, it did!” Wilson offers him a hand up, and Tony holds his hands out to everyone for high fives. No one takes him up on it. So much for team-building. “Hey everybody, good job, we used our words and we derailed this guy’s whole revenge plan, we are so great. Next up, figuring out the Accords!” The power comes back on, and everyone flinches and covers their eyes for a second. “Wait, how are we getting Barnes out of here?”

Tony never does find out how the hell they smuggle Barnes out, but T’Challa and his people apparently manage it, and Zemo’s a convenient scapegoat. It means Barnes is still a fugitive, but that’s really just a return to the status quo, and it’s probably safest for all involved if Barnes’ legal status is worked out with Barnes himself in absentia. The Avengers’ portion of the plan is to raise holy hell with Agent Ross and his entire chain of command about Zemo, and it helps that they’re totally justified in doing so, because Zemo’s been on a globetrotting murder and terrorism spree for the past few days and he still managed to waltz on into the JCTC like he belonged there.

Tony calls Rhodey.

“Hey honey bear, we need to buy some time on the Accords.”

Rhodey sighs. “Cap and Falcon still holding out?”

“Yeah, and Natasha has some concerns too, and I agree with her. Secretary Ross is up to something. Oh! Also, we have to go to Siberia and deal with some frozen Winter Soldiers, because it turns out Bucky Barnes was not behind the Vienna bombing, but he did kill my parents while being HYDRA’s freezer-burned murder puppet. I don’t really have the time or the energy to process that right now, so let’s not talk about it. You up for a nice flight to Siberia though?”

“Yeah, okay, I’m gonna call Cap and Natasha,” says Rhodey and hangs up. Rude. His phone rings, but it’s not Rhodey, it’s Wanda.

“Why am I under house arrest?! Vision says I can’t leave! Why did Steve and Sam get arrested?! What is going on?!” Tony winces. Right. He had told Vision to keep her in the compound, which, in retrospect, was maybe a move that could be misconstrued. Should he have told her she was grounded, young lady, or was that inappropriate?

“Sorry, sorry, things are moving fast, and I just wanted you to—” Tony stops. He really did get played.

“I’m getting some pressure from above about Ms. Maximoff. Now I know what happened in Lagos was a tragic accident, but with the optics, and this Vienna bombing…if she doesn’t sign the Accords, she’s going into custody, and I won’t be able to do anything to stop it.” Ross had seemed genuinely concerned and getting Wanda into the Avengers had been hard enough. Tony hadn’t doubted him. He should have.

“She’ll stay on the compound until this is all worked out, okay? We just need a little more time on the Accords.”

What the hell is Ross up to?

“—Sit tight for a little bit, things were moving fast. You are not under house arrest, I’ll tell Vision. Don’t worry, we’re working everything out. Call Cap or Nat, they’ll give you your marching orders. I’m retired, remember?”

Wanda snorts. “Sure you are.”

And yeah. That’s the problem. That’s been the problem.

“I thought you were done, Tony. Retired. In a consulting role only.”

“I am, I totally am, Pep, it’s just Rhodey’s not available for this, and the team needs more air support for this mission—”

“Just one more time, you promise?” Pepper shakes her head. “I have heard that so many times by now, Tony. This does not count as retirement. Constantly putting the armor back on and going out to fight bad guys doesn’t count as retirement, it’s not even a sabbatical, you’re just, I don’t know, on-call but only for things you want to be on-call for—”

“What am I supposed to do? The team needs me!”

“There’s always going to be an excuse.”

“I didn’t know you hated Iron Man so much.”

“I don’t—okay, first, don’t talk about yourself in the third person, second, I don’t hate Iron Man or you or whatever. You just always say you’re giving it up, or letting it go, but you never do. You just have to commit one way or the other, I have to know where you stand about it. I thought you were supposed to fully step back after Ultron.”

“Because of Ultron you mean.”

It’s a bitter pill, an irony that twists in him like a knife. That, after all, had always been the point of Ultron. To build something that could take Iron Man’s place, even the Avengers’ place. Something to keep the world safe. Now he feels like he should have been more specific, should have read the non-existent terms and conditions. If you successfully make Ultron, you can step back from being Iron Man. Terms and conditions may apply. Terms and conditions like Ultron may or may not turn out to be evil. There is no guarantee that ‘stepping back from being Iron Man’ will happen for a reason you like.

Pepper goes quiet then, and it’s a tense, unhappy sort of quiet. “I know you’re trying to do the right thing,” she says eventually.

“But?”

“You’re just building more weapons.”

Rhodey and Tony go to Siberia alone, on the pretext that they’re trying to find the escaped Winter Soldier. It’s not even, strictly speaking, a lie. It’s just that they’re going to find Winter Soldiers, plural. Now, when it comes to what they’re going to do with the Winter Soldiers when they get there...that’s a big fat ???? Tony feels like he should be able to come up with something, but about 30% of his brain right now is devoted to the whole lying about Pepper being pregnant issue and attempting to find a solution thereto, while another 30% is giving him a spinning beachball while dealing with the whole murdered parents issue, and the remaining 40% is trying really hard to prioritize among the many moving parts of their current shitshow.

Steve, Wilson, and Natasha had been for collecting what intel they could, then blowing the whole base, including the Winter Soldiers. Tony and Rhodey had agreed, except for the part where they blew the probably still-frozen Winter Soldiers up.

“Seems like the kind of thing we ought to have oversight for,” Rhodey had said. “And I’m not feeling so great about just straight up killing the other Winter Soldiers, not if there’s any chance they’re like Barnes.”

“Ross has okayed you going there, hasn’t he?” Steve had fired back. “Listen, it’s your call. Review the intel when you get there, and make your own judgment about what you want to tell Ross, and what you want to do with the Winter Soldiers. So long as they’re not loose endangering civilians, anything else to do with them will keep. We’ve got our hands full here with Zemo and stalling on the Accords, and I’ve got to get to Wakanda.” Steve had paused then, face softening from its hard lines. “I’ll only ask—can you please destroy the chair, the one they used to wipe Bucky?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we can do that,” Tony had said.

On the way to Siberia, Tony and Rhodey try to hash out some plans for what they might find, but there are too many unknowns. There’s still the possibility that the whole thing is a trap, and they can’t rely on Barnes’ limited intel, given the amnesia and trauma factors. Zemo had gone silent, so no help from that corner either. When Tony and Rhodey finally get to the right coordinates, they do a flyover and scan the base, and there are no signs of life. If it’s a trap, maybe it’s one that had relied on Zemo’s presence. There’s an energy source humming away down there, but that’s it.

“I don’t care if we’re both wearing the armor, we’re not splitting up in here until we’ve cleared it,” says Tony as they make their way inside the base.

“Yeah, wasn’t planning on it.”

It’s your standard creepy underground HYDRA base at first, and it has the feel of a place long abandoned. Tony checks the readings on the armor’s HUD.

“Guessing the highest energy use is where the assassin popsicles will be,” he says, so they head down and down until they get to a cavernous room where, yep, there are five frozen super soldiers.

“Okay, this is some mad scientist shit right here,” Rhodey murmurs. There’s something grotesque in the way the soldiers are preserved, in seeing people stored away like this in a poorly lit silo.

“I was thinking Matrix,” says Tony, because the whole dark, dystopian aesthetic with people shoved in capsules kind of reminds him of it.

The soldiers are definitely still frozen, the cryostasis units still powered on and the readouts showing full functioning. He can’t tell much of anything about the soldiers themselves, though the expressions on their faces are a little too angry, too forbidding, to suggest a peaceful frozen sleep. The tanks make them look more like specimens in formaldehyde. There’s an empty cryostasis unit looming at the end of the room. Barnes’ home sweet frozen stasis pod home for the past however many decades, presumably. They keep moving through the base.

There are cages in one room, human sized, which doesn’t suggest anything great about HYDRA’s treatment of its super soldiers. And then there’s the room with the mind wiping chair. The thing looks like the most nightmarish dentist’s chair imaginable. There are, Tony notices, heavy, reinforced straps for the arms and legs.

“Christ,” mutters Rhodey over the comms. “They stuck Barnes in that thing and fried his brains, huh?”

“Yeah. Electroshock therapy, only a lot worse.” It’s a monstrous piece of tech. Tony’d been asked to look at the one recovered from the HYDRA base in DC, and before Natasha had told him what it was and that he should destroy it, he’d thought it was a particularly torturous electric chair. It’s an easy call to destroy the thing. Tony fires his repulsors at it until it’s nothing but smoking slag, which feels good enough that he definitely wants to blow up the whole base now.

“So, uh, Barnes killed your mom and dad? How are you, uh, dealing with that?” Rhodey tries.

“Didn’t I say we shouldn’t talk about that? Anyway, I’m currently dealing with that by displacing my anger onto that torture chair and this entire Soviet hellscape.” Tony fires at the chair again. The slag sparks a little, glows a dull, hellish orange.

Rhodey sighs. “Alright. As long as you know what you’re doing, I guess.”

Once they’ve made a full sweep of the place and determined it’s empty of any active threats, they get to intel collection. The base’s systems are old, not updated since the 90s, but Tony’s ready for that and manages to get FRIDAY into the systems to siphon out all the data. While Rhodey checks out all the analog stuff and FRIDAY does her thing, Tony takes a closer look at the cryostasis chambers. They have their own generators, so they’re insulated from a power failure in the whole facility, and they can be moved, if it comes down to it. Tony stares at them, no closer to any viable plan for dealing with them. Were they like Barnes, unwilling weapons? Barnes seemed to think they’d been volunteers. Are they too dangerous to leave alive? Should they be destroyed like all the other weapons Tony’s destroyed since he became Iron Man? He turns away from the Soldiers, goes to rejoin Rhodey.

Rhodey’s carrying a crate with a bunch of files and video tapes tossed into it, and he has the pinched face look of unhappiness.

“Uh oh, what is it, honey bear?”

“So Barnes wasn’t wrong about these other Winter Soldiers. You know how they put down dogs that have been used in fighting rings? Yeah.”

“Uh, who’s Barnes in this dog fighting analogy?”

Rhodey shakes his head. “The bait dog, sort of. They tossed him in the cages and let the others have at him, as a test, I guess.”

Well, that was fucked up. “Okay, so are we putting down the assassin popsicles? And uh, I guess, sending Barnes to a nice farm upstate with a loving family where he can possibly be rehabilitated? Because the only farm I know of is Barton’s. I mean, I guess Wakanda counts, sort of. They have…goats and things. Sheep.”

“Listen, that’s not all I found.” Rhodey sets down the box, his lips pressed thin, and rubs at his face. “There’s security footage of—of your parents being killed.”

“Of Barnes killing them.”

“The Winter Soldier killing them,” corrects Rhodey gently.

Tony wants to say there’s no difference, but he knows that’s a lie. He’s read too much of the Winter Soldier’s manual of use to believe that.

“I want to watch—”

“Hell no, Tony, you are not watching it.” Tony’s about to object, but Rhodey continues. “I think the trap might have been you watching it.”

“What?”

“Zemo could have come straight here, let the Winter Soldiers out and sent them against the Avengers. He didn’t. He wanted all our attention on him first. So, he frames Barnes for Vienna, gets the Avengers all involved and Barnes caught, then he busts Barnes out, runs here knowing we’ll follow, and he makes sure you find this. You understandably lose it, go after Barnes, Cap protects him or goes after you if you hurt him, Zemo lets the Winter Soldiers out anyway against all the rest of us and—”

It’s not exactly a clean plan, but Tony sees the gist. Even if it relies too much on too many unpredictable human variables, the end result would always be chaos, entropy. Steve and Tony set against each other. “No matter what, it ends in a shitshow and the team broken apart. A bunch of us dead, even,” Tony concludes.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

A cycle of vengeance, T’Challa had called it. And ha, poetic justice, maybe, given they’re Avengers. But Tony’s sick of it. He’s sick of being tugged back into it again and again, even when he’s trying to do the right thing. He’s sick of his fucking weapons being the falling domino that starts it all. He makes weapons that kill Wanda and Pietro’s parents and fuck up Sokovia, who decide that Strucker’s their best shot at helping Sokovia and getting back at him, and then he helps make Ultron who wrecks Sokovia, and Zemo’s family is killed, and Zemo comes after him and Steve, and…where the hell is it supposed to end? Someone has to stop it. Tony has to stop it.

“We’re not doing any of that,” says Tony.

“Alright. I’m on board with that.”

“Yay, we foiled Zemo’s evil plan!” They high five each other, because Rhodey understands how team-building works, and Tony magnanimously ignores how Rhodey rolls his eyes.

“Still leaves us with the Accords. And whatever’s going on with Ross,” says Rhodey, which really harshes Tony’s temporary buzz of righteous success, and only reminds him that he still has to deal with all that bullshit and his whole Pepper’s pregnant lie.

“So we agree that in theory, the Accords are a good idea, right?” A plan is forming in Tony’s mind.

“Right.”

“But it has been pointed out to me that Ross is sketchy and not to be trusted, and this whole process has been less than ideal. Steve and Natasha think Ross wants us superhero types under his control.”

“Yeah.” Rhodey squints at him suspiciously. “That’s not necessarily nefarious though. I know he was shitty about Banner, but that was kind of a unique circumstance.”

“That’s what I figured too. Or hoped, I guess,” Tony admits with a grimace. “But he’s pushing the Accords real hard, and he’s put us in a spot where we have to say yes. Natasha’s suspicious as hell about it, and so is Steve. I want to say they’re just being paranoid, but…”

“SHIELD ended up being HYDRA.”

Tony nods. “I don’t think Ross is HYDRA, but something’s going on there. We’ve gotta figure out what Ross is up to. So let’s give him the Winter Soldiers and see what he does with them.”

Rhodey blinks, tilts his head. “That seems...risky.” Tony waves that concern away.

“We set up a failsafe, of course. I can rig the assassin freezers with trackers, and introduce some roadblocks to defrosting. Hell, I can sabotage the freezers, make sure the popsicles don’t come out alive. If Ross wants pet superheroes to control, let’s give him some, see what he does with them, while we try to hammer out something on the Accords.”

“This seems awfully close to throwing something shiny and telling him to look over there while we make a run for it. Or entrapment,” says Rhodey as he crosses his arms and frowns. He’s coming around though, Tony can tell.

“It’s not entrapment if we’re doing what we’re supposed to do. We’re turning over dangerous weapons and/or criminals to the proper authorities!”

“Alright. But I’m rigging up these failsafes with you. Last thing we need is five Winter Soldiers on a rampage.”

They check in with Natasha, who sounds pretty harried. “Do you know how obnoxious it is when someone keeps trying to kill themselves during an interrogation? Zemo’s pretty creative, I’ll give him that.”

They tell her the plan, such as it is, and she doesn’t necessarily approve, but she doesn’t disapprove either, so Tony counts it as a win.

They call Ross next, and tell him they’re working on dismantling the base, and that they’ll need a pickup for sensitive HYDRA-related evidence. Ross sounds pleased when he tells them a task force is on its way. They get the failsafes and trackers rigged up, and Tony slips some time-wasting code into the cryotubes’ defrosting programming, then he and Rhodey take turns hauling each tube out of the base.

Once they get all the cryotubes and evidence clear, they blow the base. Before they do, Tony takes a picture of the pile of mostly molten slag that was previously the evil mindwiping chair and sends it to Steve. He’s not entirely sure why: a peace offering? An acknowledgment that he did what Steve asked him to do? This counts as your birthday present fyi, he texts Steve afterwards. Steve only responds thank you.

Blowing up the base is a hollow catharsis, nothing like destroying the Ten Rings cave in Afghanistan, or the other bases and weapons caches he’d blown up afterwards, when he’d first used the suit. This place is only a building, empty of anything but the memory of evil and the weapons used to perpetrate it. Whoever had ordered the hit on his parents was probably dead already, or caught up in all the HYDRA raids from the past couple years. It’s all Tony’s got though, so if he goes a little overboard with the missiles, he figures he’s owed. Rhodey doesn’t say anything, anyway, and only plops one heavy armored hand on his armored shoulder when he hears Tony’s definitely-not-crying harsh breaths over the radio.

Tony takes video of the base blowing up, and sends that on to Steve too. Show Barnes, is the text he sends with it. Maybe it’ll mean more to him.

Despite what some people might say about engineer’s disease (thanks, Bruce) and not learning from his mistakes (Rhodey), Tony is excellent at pattern recognition, and he knows that there’s only so many times you can repeat an experiment that disproves your hypothesis before you realize you have to either redesign your experiment or rethink your hypothesis. So he knows he’s not getting Pepper back via grand gesture. He’d blown up all the damn suits, he’d gotten the arc reactor out, he’s given her extravagant gifts, he’s tried giving up Iron Man again and again. That all works for a while, until it doesn’t. Until Tony fucks up again, trying to do the right thing and failing. Until Pepper realizes he hasn’t changed, not really.

They usually end up back together anyway, sure as gravity, knowable as orbital dynamics. They swing close, then far, then close again, and the only thing they’re not sure of is if it’s an unstable orbit, if one wobble is going to lead to a catastrophic collision, or if some foreign object will throw them out of their orbit. And that’s fine when it’s just the two of them in this closed system, but if Tony wants to bring a baby into this, they have to be stable, they have to be solid. Tony’s not sure how to make that happen, not in six weeks or less.

Pepper said he has to find out what he wants. Well, he’s pretty sure he knows what he wants right now: Pepper and a baby. Their baby, not any random baby. But, shit, is that another symptom of Tony’s grand, overarching fuckedupness? He can’t inflict that on a baby. Look how well that’d turned out for his dad and him.

Well, he has to start somewhere. He texts Pepper: I am resolving the current avengers crisis with COMMUNICATION and I think it’s actually going great. Already foiled one evil villain plan! How are you?

Maria told me you blew some stuff up in Siberia. Sounds more like Ironmanning than communication to me. Tony winces, and there’s a long pause. Then another text, I’m fine. Had she taken too long to answer that? Did the period mean she was mad? Was she really fine or was she just putting him off? Texts were the worst.

In my defense, it was a HYDRA base. Also it was emotionally meaningful and I’ve had a breakthrough or something idk.

What was your breakthrough?

That revenge is bad and i should stop perpetuating a cycle of violence.

That’s a good start.

With Zemo in custody, Ross having taken the frozen super soldier bait, and the Accords temporarily on hold while the UN tries to figure out what the fuck is going on, Tony finally has the time to spare for his whole having to acquire a baby situation. There’s a pretty constant countdown clock running in his head, ticking on towards his deadline for getting this baby the old-fashioned way: five weeks and some change to get back with Pepper, convince her to try for a baby, get her pregnant, and then whew, problem solved, he won’t have lied to Steve in a fit of inexplicable insanity! Easy, right? That all just relies on Tony managing to figure out what it is Pepper thinks he needs, Pepper figuring out what she needs, Tony convincing her they should have a baby, and Pepper even being able to get pregnant at all.

Tony’s fucked.

Okay, okay, he has other options! Other options that do not involve invoking Steve’s “I’m so disappointed in you,” and “how could you do this??? What is wrong with you??” faces!

Option one: tell Steve Pepper lost the baby and she's really upset about it so Steve can never, ever mention it to her, or anyone else, ever. This is, Tony is aware, the easiest and most logical option, the one that will make it like Tony had never even blabbed out the stupid lie in the first place. It’s also, somehow, Tony’s absolute last resort. He should probably think about why that is, but no thanks, he’s done enough self-reflection.

Option two: adopt a newborn in about eight months? Pretend it’s his and Pepper’s, but oh no, he and Pepper broke up and she…doesn’t want the baby? That might work, if only Rhodey wouldn’t immediately find out what a lie it all is, and also Pepper would definitely know and Tony doesn’t want to break up with Pepper so…yeah, no.

Option three: tell Pepper what he’s done, throw himself on her mercy. It wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s ever admitted to Pepper. Probably one of the most embarrassing though. Also, this seems like a bad reason to have a child. He can just imagine it, little Tony or Pepper Jr., wide-eyed and adorable, asking about how they were born. Forget when a mommy and daddy love each other very much… or even you were a surprise present! It would be Well, your daddy lied to Captain America, and then roped Mommy into the con…

Option four: wait eight months. When Steve asks about the baby, just look at him blankly and say, “Baby? What baby?”

Tony has a horrible feeling that he’s going to end up going with option four eight months from now.

Tony cannot go with option four, because Steve texts and calls him from Wakanda. Steve texts and calls him from Wakanda a lot. And not even for just Avengers-related reasons, for personal reasons. Tony would have said they were friends before, not friends like him and Rhodey are friends, but a step above colleagues for sure. He’s not so sure he thinks that now, given the whole “I didn’t tell you who killed your parents” thing, and the sheer contrast with Cap’s current actually friendly behavior. Tony’s not sure what's warranted the change. Steve thinking Pepper’s pregnant? Steve feeling guilty? Or maybe it’s that he has Barnes back. Hell, maybe he’s just bored hanging around Wakanda while Barnes sees a bunch of shrinks. Whatever it is, Tony’s hearing more from Steve than he has the entire past year.

“Hey Tony. You have a minute? I’m not sure what timezone you’re in, sorry—”

“Hey, yeah, it’s fine. What’s up? We’ve got Ross on the hook, we’re just waiting for a tug on the line, I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve got something.”

“I know, I got your email.”

There’s an awkward pause. Tony rallies. “How’s Wakanda?”

“Different than I expected,” says Steve, with suspicious dryness. “But really gorgeous. And T’Challa has been very kind. How are you, how’s Pepper?”

“Me? I’m good, fine. Pepper’s good, she’s, uh, gestating. Our embryo. You know.”

“Good, that’s good. Um, thank you, again. For the picture you sent. And the video. It meant a lot to us.”

Hello. Tony raises an eyebrow at that. Us? Not “me and Bucky” or just Bucky? Interesting. “Sure. I thought—I thought Barnes might need to see it. I, uh, know what it’s like, a little. After you’ve been, you know. A prisoner somewhere.” Steve lets out a shaky breath.

“I really am sorry I never told you, Tony. I just—there wasn’t evidence, one way or another, and I—I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk him,” says Steve. His voice sounds different, somehow, more low and quiet than Tony is used to, maybe.

“I get it. He means a lot to you.” More than the team does, thinks a small, bitter part of Tony. More than I do. But hell, Tony can’t say he’d do any different, if it was Rhodey or Pepper or Happy.

“He does. More than I can say,” says Steve, low and fervent.

“He sure spent a long time playing hard to get though,” notes Tony, a little cruelly. It’s impressive, actually, how long Barnes had managed to stay off the radar, given the kind of people who’d been looking for him.

Steve sighs. “Yeah. Took him some time to get his head straight, remember enough. Then he was just trying to stay safe. To keep me safe. He’s always—he always tries to keep me safe, no matter what.”

“Yeah. I know how that is.”

“Tony, you have to go, you can’t stay here.”

They’re both filthy and smell like smoke, there’s about fifty assorted federal and military agencies who want to talk to them, plus their people from SI, but Tony doesn’t care. His priority is Pepper.

“What, why? C’mon, I’m not going anywhere, honey. You think I can let you go right now? I’m emotionally fragile, okay, I watched you seemingly plummet to your death.”

“I know, I’m sorry, but Extremis—”

“Yeah, that was super hot. Get it, because it was both extremely sexy and, literally, very high in temperature—”

Pepper laughs, and sure it’s a little hysterical, but still: a laugh! “Tony, no, come on. I could very literally explode at any moment, just, just leave me in the Hulk room, or, somewhere in the middle of the desert, or the ocean, I don’t know—”

“I am not leaving you.”

“It’s not safe, I’m not safe right now, you have to leave. Please.”

There’s an ember-like glow kindling in Pepper’s eyes, and the heat that’s building between their bodies is distressingly literal, rather than figurative. He rests his forehead against hers anyway.

“I love you,” he says.

“I know. I love you too. And that’s why you have to go.”

“I’ll figure this out, Pep, I’ll fix this. I promise.” Some part of him wants to hold onto her, even if she burns him. But after one more kiss, he lets her go, and he goes.

It’s a little weird, being in regular, non-Avengers related contact with Steve. Tony would appreciate it more, if only it wasn’t because of a giant lie Tony told. And if only Steve didn’t keep reminding him of said giant lie.

“Is everything going okay with Pepper and the baby?”

“It’s, uh, really not a baby yet. You know, it’s still so early, and, really it’s more of a collection of cells that may or may not—”

“Please tell me you don’t talk to Pepper about your baby like that.”

“You’re so old-fashioned,” Tony groans, hoping to derail this into an argument. “I swear, if you’re about to lecture me about making an honest woman out of Pepper—”

“I’m not! I know things aren’t like that anymore. Not that I understand why you haven’t married Pepper yet—”

“Jesus, are you my grandmother or what? Not that I ever knew my grandmothers, but I feel this is what it would have been like.”

“I’m just, you know, happy for you. Both of you. I know things have been rough for you, since Ultron. Before Ultron, even. I think this will be a good thing.”

Shit. Tony’s throat gets tight. Now he’s having actual emotions. Now he’s thinking about how, yeah, things have been tough, and yeah, he kind of really would like a kid. He remembers Harley, who’d been a nosy little brat, sure, but who’d still stirred up some vaguely paternal feelings in him. They still emailed some, actually. Tony’s not sure he’s cut out for anything more hands on. Howard hadn’t been. But he wants to try.

“Hope so. Not sure I’m great dad material, honestly. Have you noticed that like all of the Avengers are orphans? That’s weird, right? Like, on a statistical level? I should look into that.”

“Sam’s mom is still alive. And I think you’ll do fine, Tony. You’ve just—you’ve just got to be there for your kid.”

His kid has to exist first. “Sure.”

“Um, listen, I know you said not to tell anyone about Pepper being pregnant—” Tony’s stomach drops. He is going to be in the shit if Steve has utterly failed to keep this secret. “But I mentioned it to Buck, who’s not gonna tell anyone, I promise.” Oh thank god. Of course Barnes won’t tell anyone, he barely knows anyone to tell.

“You two are a real package deal, huh?”

Steve goes quiet for a long moment. “Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

“Uh, how’s he doing, by the way? He said the Wakandans could help him? How are they…doing that. Because I thought Wakanda was mostly about the sheep, and the gorgeous vistas.”

“…Yeah.” Tony narrows his eyes. Steve sounds shifty. “The waterfalls are really amazing. And Buck is doing alright, the doctors are still looking at the Winter Soldier files, seeing how they can help with the trigger words. Just being somewhere safe is helping a lot though.”

“Not to be racist, but they’re not doing some woo-woo alternative medicine business, right? Though what do I know, maybe what Barnes needs is a vision quest or whatever.”

“I don’t understand that reference.”

“It’s not really a refer—you know what, never mind. Good talk, Cap, I’ve gotta get going.”

“Give Pepper my best!”

Tony’s coming up on week three of being stuck in Europe, shuttling between Berlin, Vienna, and Geneva while the investigations into Zemo, the Vienna bombing, and the old HYDRA base in Siberia gather steam, and the Accords lose it. Natasha and Wilson are working on the investigations, and covering for Steve’s somewhat conspicuous absence. For his part, Tony’s making plenty of progress on stalling the Accords; that just takes raising a stink about this provision or that amendment, and Ross is distracted enough to have dropped his ultimatums, which is suspicious in and of itself. What he’s not making progress on is acquiring a baby. He and Pepper text, for reasons more business than personal, and he gives her what updates he can on the situation so she’s not caught out when the press or shareholders ask her what the hell Tony is doing. He types out and deletes any number of attempts to bring up having a baby. Every text he does send is just a reminder of his total failure to do anything about this baby acquisition situation.

Steve’s texts are a constant reminder of his failure too, which, honestly, not much of a difference from Steve’s role in his life pre-defrosting. Tony desperately tries to turn the subject from his non-existent bundle of joy to the Accords, but Steve saves those arguments for lengthy emails with his extensive commentary on the text of the Accords. His texts are…friendly. Awkward, but friendly, nothing like the terse and business-like texts Tony used to occasionally get from Steve.

Is Pepper going to have a baby shower? I’d love to go if all this is resolved by then.

I thought you didn’t like parties.

I like some parties.

I’ll let Pepper know.

Steve sends random bits of advice gleaned from the late Mrs. Rogers and Mrs. Barnes, who had apparently birthed dozens of babies between the two of them, both their own and other women’s, and who had apparently been founts of knowledge on all things pregnancy-related. When Steve calls, Tony’s treated to reminiscences of Mrs. Barnes’ last pregnancy, when Steve and Barnes had been eleven and twelve. A twelve-year age difference screams accident to Tony, but accident or not, Steve talks about baby Eleanor with open adoration, no indication that she was anything but wanted and loved.

“Bucky liked to complain about her, but god, he adored little Ellie, and he was so good with her. There was one summer, when Ellie was just two or three, we looked after her more often than not. Bucky’s dad had to work, obviously, and Winnie had her hands full looking after Nana Barnes, plus there were the other two girls to look after and work besides, so we did a lot of babysitting.”

“‘We’? Why did you get roped in?” When Tony was that age, he’d have run away before spending a summer babysitting.

“Well if I wanted to spend any time with Buck, I had to help, didn’t I? I didn’t mind. Ellie could be a handful, but she was such a sweet kid. The letters she’d send us during the war—” Steve breaks off then, and Tony hears a faint sniffle. Shit. Baby Ellie would be, what, eighty something now? If she was even still alive. “Sorry, I’m rambling on, you don’t care—”

“No, it’s—it’s okay. Is she still, uh, have you—”

“She died. In 2006. A stroke.”

“I’m sorry.”

Steve sighs, long and deep. “It’s just us now. Me and Buck, I mean. Since Peggy—” Steve pauses. Tony has no fucking idea what to say. It’s all too awful. Sorry you and your bestie have lost everyone else you ever loved? “Anyway, it’ll be nice, to have a baby around. I guess I’ve, uh, missed it. Sorry if I’ve been weird about it.”

“No, no, it’s fine, I get it.” Tony is a horrible person. If there’s a god, surely they would fucking smite Tony right now for lying to Steve about his fake baby. “I’m just gonna put you down on the potential babysitters list now,” he says, because he has to make it worse. He wants to throw up. This whole tapestry of lies is just getting ever more horribly detailed.

“Thanks, Tony,” says Steve, sounding genuinely touched.

Steve even sends Tony pictures of Iron Man onesies. They are the cutest fucking thing Tony’s ever seen, and he absolutely wants his fake baby to wear nothing but Avengers-themed onesies. It’s infuriating. In a fit of pathetic desperation, he saves the links to said onesies. FRIDAY judges him for it: Oh, bossman, she says with frankly far more pity than an AI should be able to manage.

Tony takes to asking after Barnes just to avoid any talk of babies, and Steve answers carefully the first couple times with bland he’s alright, thanks or getting rest, the doctors say he needs to sleep more. But when it’s late at night or early in the morning in Wakanda, Steve gets a little more confessional.

The doctors are going over the Winter Soldier files to see how they can help Bucky. I’m trying to support him through this, but I can’t look at those files without losing it.

Yeah, I got a glimpse of them. They’re grisly stuff. That’s an understatement.

He’s the one who lived it and I’m the one falling apart just knowing what they did to him. Then, after a few seconds, Shit, I’m sorry, you don’t need to hear this. You should want nothing to do with either of us. It’s nice that Steve realizes that. Tony could take this as an out and say you’re right, friendship over, but Steve is trying, and Tony is trying, and the hell if Tony will let Zemo’s stupid plan work in any way.

I can’t guarantee being buddy buddy with Barnes, but you’re not getting rid of me that easy.

As gratifying as it is to finally get an invite to the Steve Rogers sharing hour, the whole tapestry of lies situation makes Tony want to entirely avoid talking to Steve in a desperate effort to keep himself from somehow making things worse, but that’s literally not possible given that they’re all effectively mid-mission. When Tony gets a ping on the trackers on the Winter Soldiers showing they’re on the move, he has to call Steve.

“Hey Cap, heads up, Ross or someone has the freezer burned assassins on the move, I’m sending you the tracking data now. No defrosting started yet, so no need to go wheels up or anything, but I thought you should know.” There’s a long silence. “Steve?”

“Sorry, Steve’s out right now. He forgot to take his phone. Um, this is Bucky.” Barnes’ voice is rough and tentative, like he’s not used to talking much.

“Oh. Hey, Barnes.” Another too-long pause.

“I’ll let Steve know. About the Winter Soldiers. And, uh, thank you. For the video you sent, and for blowing up that base.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” snaps Tony. “But you’re welcome,” he adds a little more gently. “So…how are you doing? With the, you know, unbrainwashing. Brain…dirtying?” Tony puts his face in his free hand and grimaces. This conversation is going so great.

“Okay,” says Barnes eventually. “Oh, uh, congratulations. Steve said you were expecting?”

Barnes is really goddamn trying at this whole social niceties thing, and Tony wishes he wouldn’t. This would be easier if Barnes stuck to monosyllabic acknowledgments and just ended the call, no obnoxiously sincere thank yous or congratulations on your fake baby. Thus far, Tony has only lied to Steve about this. It’s the one saving grace of the whole situation: that it hasn’t ballooned out to involve any of the rest of the Avengers. Tony can still, theoretically, disentangle himself from this web of lies. But how. Tony has got to talk to someone else about this, but that would necessitate telling them about the lie, which would only make everything worse. If only Bruce were around. But Barnes knows. And Barnes is more or less a disinterested party. Plus, he probably feels bad enough about the whole parent murder thing to do whatever Tony asks, up to and including lying to Steve.

“Uh, about that…hey, let’s switch to FaceTime for a minute,” says Tony. “You know, a video call, do you know how—”

“I know. Um. Why?”

“I get the feeling you’re not that used to talking and this might go easier if we can see each other’s faces.” Tony doesn’t know if it will, actually, he just needs more feedback than Barnes’ long, inscrutable pauses.

“Alright,” says Barnes, and a few seconds later, they’re staring at each other’s faces. Barnes fumbles with the phone for a couple seconds before he settles on a decent angle, and Tony gets a proper look at him. He looks tired still, and sad and worried right now, but some tension on his face has eased since Tony last saw him. What did he look like when he killed your parents, wonders some vicious, howling part of him. He swallows, shoves it down. It doesn’t matter. He’s not going to dance to Zemo’s tune. Barnes raises his eyebrows in an okay, I’m listening expression.

“So. You cannot tell Steve this. Not to play dirty or whatever, but I’m calling in one of my ‘you killed my parents and you owe me’ favors here.” Barnes blinks and tilts his head, biting his lip in apprehension, but he still nods in acknowledgment. Tony takes a deep breath and says, “Pepper is not and has never been pregnant.” It’s a weird relief to say it, but his chest still feels tight. Barnes just looks confused.

“Okay? Did…Steve misunderstand or something…?” Honestly, it’s kind of sweet that Barnes has immediately jumped to the most benign explanation. You’d think life would have beaten this poor bastard down enough for him to assume the worst. Now Tony feels bad that he’s about to snatch what small amount of innocence the man has left. Jesus, he’s a monster.

“No, Steve didn’t misunderstand. It went like this: we’re at the JCTC, in a conference room, and I’m about to try to convince Steve to sign the damned Accords, but of course we have to get some small talk out of the way first, and I was about to say Pepper and I were on a break, but before I could finish the sentence, Steve said, ‘Pregnant?’ and I just—went with it.”

“You…lied,” says Barnes slowly, his forehead still furrowed with confusion.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!”

“You’ve kept on lying?”

“Yes! Obviously!”

Barnes looks utterly baffled. “But—why?”

“This is not helping me,” says Tony, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Right.” Barnes just stares at him. “Um, when Steve first found me in Bucharest, he asked if I knew him, and I said I read about him in a museum.”

“How is that relevant.”

“You’re not the only one who told Steve a stupid, easily disproven lie?”

Tony nods. “Okay, thank you, we’re sharing now, that’s great. I need a solution here. Work with me, c’mon, let’s brainstorm a fix.”

“I’m guessing you’ve already considered the obvious solution of just confessing to Steve,” says Barnes, lips twitching into a very small smile, and Tony scoffs.

“Did you just confess to Steve after your stupid, easily disproven lie?”

“Yes.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah, when we got to Wakanda. Said I was sorry, that I only lied because I thought it was safest for both of us, that it might make him leave before the shit hit the fan.” Barnes’ eyes are wide and sincere. He’s not bullshitting. Or if he is, he’s really good at it.

“Oh. That’s…well-adjusted.” Is the hideously traumatized, brainwashed cyborg assassin more well-adjusted than Tony? If so, fuck, that’s depressing. “I can’t confess to Steve.”

Barnes accepts this with a nod. “Okay. You should talk to your girl then.”

“That’s—no.”

“Why not?”

He explains the whole stupid situation to Barnes, from Pepper and him going on a break to his current ridiculous predicament, and why he cannot just “talk to his girl.” Barnes is quiet and attentive, probably because he hasn’t yet had enough exposure to Tony to know when to tune out. Tony knows he rambles, okay, he’s more than familiar with the vaguely glazed look of the person who got lost about three conversational digressions ago. Once Tony finishes, Barnes is quiet for a while.

Eventually he says, “People lie for two reasons: either because they want to make someone do something, or because they want the lie to be true. Which one was your reason?”

Tony wants to say I didn’t have a reason, I just said it, it was a momentary mental break. He even wants to say it was just a ploy to distract Steve, get him to sign the Accords. But those would just be lies he wants to be true. Like the lie about Pepper being pregnant. Tony sighs.

“You’re obnoxiously good at this.”

Barnes smiles a little, and it mostly shows in his eyes. The change it makes to his face is startlingly sweet and boyish. Barnes shrugs and says, “There’s an easy way out of this, you know. Steve thinks it’s weird that you’ve been so insistent on it being a secret.”

Shit. Tony winces. “Really?”

“I told him it wasn’t weird. A lot of women lose the baby in the first few months, don’t want a fuss being made until they’re sure. Happened to my mom a couple times.”

“Yeah. I just—can’t. That’s an even worse lie, you know?” Barnes nods like this is reasonable. “I’ve gotta talk to Pepper, don’t I.”

“Yup.”

Before Tony talks to Pepper, he does manage to come up with a few more ways out of this mess. Most of them are unlikely to work, for various reasons: he doubts Wanda would consent to mind-whammying Steve, and same for Vision. He probably could build a robot baby, but as much as he loves his bots, even Tony is aware that an accurate robot baby is creepy as fuck, and still runs up against the problem of Pepper and Rhodey knowing. All his other ideas are basically tripping further down the merry road to supervillainy, and no thanks, he’s gone far enough, never let it be said Tony can’t learn his damn lesson.

He does have one face-saving idea left though, and he thinks it’s the only one he can stand: he can tell Steve that he and Pepper had jumped the gun, gotten a false positive. It’s still a lie, but it’s the one closest to the truth. He’s got a pretty narrow window for that though, and it’s fast closing. If he waits much longer, the lie will strain credulity, even with the excuse that Tony’s been busy with their current shitshow.

While Tony watches the blip showing the Winter Soldier trackers move towards the Atlantic Ocean, he calls Pepper.

“This better not be an ‘I’m about to die or do something extremely stupid’ call,” she says as soon as she picks up. Tony frowns. She sounds stressed.

“No, I’m fine, not about to do anything terribly dangerous at all. Just sitting here watching blips on a screen, promise. Is this a bad time? Or, we’re on a break, shit, are we not supposed to talk—”

Pepper sighs. “We can talk. What did you want to talk about?”

“So, I’m not done doing what you asked, you know, figuring out what I want or need or whatever, but there’s one thing I do know I want. And it’s not, I’m not pressuring you or whatever, but you were right, there’s something I’m missing, and it’s not about the work or about the Avengers—”

“Tony,” Pepper prompts, a little impatient. Not a good sign.

“Right. Remember when the condom broke? That night, you know, when you—”

“I know,” interrupted Pepper, her voice tight.

“Well, uh, I thought, after—that, um, I wouldn’t have minded if—sorry, I’m not saying this right.”

“It’s okay.”

“Right. I thought, if I could redo it in BARF, say what I really wanted to say—”

“You still haven’t come up with a better acronym?”

“I’ve been busy! So busy! Anyway! I thought, if I could redo it, say something else, I’d say that we should try to have a baby for real, not just have a whoops the condom broke moment.”

“You want to have a baby.” Pepper’s voice is carefully flat.

“Well, not as in I, personally, want to be pregnant, that’s, you know, not physically possible given the—” He hears Pepper suck in a frustrated breath and he hurries on, “Right, that’s besides the point. I would like to have a child. With you. And I know that I, that we, have other stuff to work on before we can even think about that, but uh, I wanted you to know. That that’s a thing I want. A family, our family. It doesn’t have to be a child you birth! I respect your bodily autonomy and if you, if we, can’t get pregnant, there’s adoption or surrogacy or whatever, those are all options I am okay with. Just. You know. Putting it out there.” Tony has to kind of put his head between his knees and breathe after all that.

There’s a long silence. Tony wonders if he’s just irreparably fucked things up between them. This is like stepping out of a plane in the suit without being sure if he has power or not.

“Is this that thing people do where they think a baby will fix all their problems?” asks Pepper eventually.

“No? Maybe? I don’t know. I just—I’ve been thinking about my parents a lot lately, and about what I want. I always thought Dad didn’t want me, or he did, but he wanted the idea of me more than, you know, me. He wanted a legacy, an heir. Someone to be him, but better. Not an actual child. And me, I don’t—I don’t want that. The company’s the company, and my work’s the work, and that all, that stands on its own, and it’s ours, but. What I want—”

He thinks of Harley. He thinks of having a kid like that, a little smart ass who’s smart and brave, a kid who trusts him, a kid who’s not just some carbon copy, but a person all on their own, made up of equal parts Tony and Pepper. He thinks of not repeating his dad’s mistakes. He thinks of what he and Pepper have already built in Stark Industries, and how Pepper is right, that isn’t enough.

“I want to make something that’s not a company, or a weapon, or about anything other than us. A family.”

He’d tried to build that with the Avengers, to limited success. At best, they’re a dysfunctional family who don’t spend all that much time together, who can never quite fully connect. He wants to say it’s Steve’s fault, that Steve’s just a standoffish, self-righteous dick, but he’s heard Steve talk about his family now, heard the real warmth in his voice as he talked about the Barneses and his own mother. He’s heard the wistful pain in Steve’s voice when he said it’ll be nice to have a baby around, and thinks now that Steve maybe meant it’ll be nice to have a family again. Tony’s not the only one who’s still grieving the loss of a family, and dealing with it badly. So maybe it’s been Tony’s fault instead, for pushing too much, for Ultron, for avoiding making the family he really wants and that Howard’s legacy convinced him he shouldn’t have.

Tony has to try now, even if it makes him feel like he’s in freefall, headed for the ground at terminal velocity, still not sure he’s got the power to pull out of this dive.

Pepper doesn’t say anything for a too-long moment, and when she finally does, her voice is watery. “You’re right. We have other stuff we have to work on before we can even think about any of that.”

Ah. So this is what it feels like to pancake against the ground at terminal velocity, emotionally speaking.

“Right. Of course. I know that, I’m—I’m still working on that.”

“You blew up a HYDRA base in Siberia, Tony.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. And that’s—we’re in a bit of a volatile situation, here, with the Accords, and this Zemo guy, and figuring out what the hell Ross is up to—”

“And once this volatile situation is resolved, there’s going to be another one, and another, and you’re not going to—and, jesus Tony, Secretary Ross? Really? The same Thaddeus Ross who wanted to use Bruce as his own personal Hulk? That’s the guy you thought should oversee these Accords?” She says it with more viciousness than Tony’s used to from her, and he wishes he could see her face right now. Something’s wrong.

“Not anymore! Obviously! But the Accords are a good idea, the Avengers need some actual oversight, not this cobbled together thing we’ve got going now where sometimes we play nice with the alphabet agencies and sometimes we don’t, and SHIELD sort of kinda exists to liaise but also doesn’t. I’m just—I’m trying to make it so I don’t have to be Iron Man. I’m trying to break this cycle, okay, and I think I’m doing pretty great given I just found out HYDRA killed my parents and used the Winter Soldier to do it, and I didn’t go on a revenge spree, or even yell at Barnes about it—”

Pepper makes a strangled noise of frustration. “You just want someone to stop you. I don’t know why you think Ross or the Accords will do it, when I asked, and even that wasn’t enough.”

Oh. What’s left unspoken is what makes you think having a child would be enough. And yeah. Tony’s worried about that too.

“I’m just trying to fix things.” He laughs, tired and bitter. “Feels like that’s all I’ve been doing, since Afghanistan: trying to fix things. I know it hasn’t been working out so great lately.”

“You’re not just fixing things, Tony. It’d be fine if you were just—but no, you made yourself a weapon to deal with your trauma. Some of us don’t deal that way.” The words ring out sharp and harsh over the phone line, and they make Tony suck in a surprised gasp of air, a little like he’s been punched.

“That’s not why—” he starts, but he can’t finish the denial. Tony knows Iron Man is a weapon all on its own, but he didn’t make the armor just to deal with his trauma. Sure, he feels safer with it than without, and sure he used it to destroy his captors and all his irresponsible weapons, but…his train of thought decides it does not want to go down that track, not yet. A stifled sniffling sound punctures their brief silence. “Pep, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t talk about this with you right now,” she says in a wobbly voice, and hangs up.

Tony knows better than to call her back, but FRIDAY lets him know Pepper’s safe and fine, shows him security footage of her walking briskly through the halls of Stark Tower, no sign of how upset she’d been just minutes ago. He watches for a few minutes, follows her on the security feeds back to her office. She’s as impeccably put together as she always is when she’s on the job: not a hair out of place, makeup perfect, steady on her towering heels. When she gets to her office, she stops, stands for a minute, covers her face with her hands. Her shoulders shake just a little, and then she drops her hands, lifts her head up, and sits at her desk, calm and composed again.

If they weren’t thousands of miles apart, if they weren’t on a break, Tony would hold her. He’d ramble on at her, which he knows she inexplicably finds charming, until she was ready to tell him what was wrong, and they’d go back and forth, back and forth, until they fixed it. He wants to fix this. He’s not sure how. As Pepper has pointed out, he’s gone past fixing things.

You made yourself a weapon to deal with your trauma. Some of us don’t deal that way.

Tony figures out Extremis in one near-delirious two-week rush. Pepper and her doctors assure him she’s okay for now, that the danger is low so long as she stays calm and avoids physical exertion, but Tony still feels like he has a ticking clock to race against, and this is Pepper’s life, so he works like he hasn’t worked on a project since the first iterations of the Iron Man armor. He figures out how to stabilize it first, then how to neutralize, and then he spends a couple nerve-wracking days running simulations and animal tests before running to Pepper with the solution.

“So, last offer, I can stabilize it instead, and you too can be a superhero—” he says, only half-joking.

Pepper cuts him off. “No. Absolutely not. Don’t even joke about it.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He holds her, kisses her apologetically a couple times. “Just—you haven’t even thought of it?”

She twists out of his arms a little and looks at him incredulously. “Why do you think I would want this? I didn’t ask for it! It’s just this awful thing that happened to me, that some psycho did to me, and I don’t want it, I don’t, I don’t care what kind of superpowers I could have.”

“Hey, shh, I get it, it’s okay. Of course you didn’t want it, but you know, now that you’ve got it, isn’t it worth maybe considering—”

“No. I need it out, Tony. I have no desire to be a superhero! You can get it out, right? Please tell me you can get it out, I need for all of this to be gone, I need it to be over—”

“Of course, sure, it’s just a matter of neutralizing the nanotechnology parts of Extremis after I reprogram it to roll back most of the changes it’s made to your DNA. It’s like a virus for a virus, pretty cool actually—”

“Most of the changes?”

“Getting rid of the blowing up part of things is actually the comparatively easy part, that’s a discrete set of changes to your physiology that can be undone without messing with anything else. You’ll be unconscious for a few hours while that’s all happening. Super strength should go too. It’s the regenerative abilities that might stick around. Anything it’s already fixed is staying fixed—”

“Well, that’s fine, I don’t mind that—”

“—but I can’t guarantee you’ll be back to baseline human healing,” Tony admits. “Don’t want to tinker with that too much, honestly, I might mess up more than I fix. Really, there’s a lot of potential for medical use here, if only there wasn’t so much danger of people blowing up or burning to pieces during the initial introduction of Extremis.”

“That’s alright, I guess. I just—I hate feeling this dangerous, Tony. I hate feeling like I could hurt people, I don’t want to hurt people, or, or be violent—”

“I know. I get it, I do. We’ll get it out, I promise, and you’ll be back to normal. It’ll be over.”

Tony’s saved from any more unwelcome self-reflection or contemplation of the imminent demise of his relationship with Pepper by the trackers on the Nazi assassin popsicles pinging as they come to a stop. After weeks of being exactly where Tony had expected sensitive evidence and/or frozen supersoldiers to be stored while assorted agencies and task forces tried to figure out what to do with them, their movement is notable enough for Tony to keep an eye on. He frowns when he sees where they’ve ended up: in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Did their transport crash? Is there an aircraft carrier there? He calls Rhodey.

“Hey, are there any of our aircraft carriers or anything at these coordinates?”

“Let me check. Why?”

“It’s where the Winter Soldiers have come to a stop.”

Tony pulls up satellite feeds, searches for one that will give him a good look at what should be a barren stretch of the cold Atlantic. There’s too much cloud cover to get a clear look, so he switches to the thermal view, and sees that there’s something there, big as an aircraft carrier. Huh.

“There shouldn’t be anything there according to the Pentagon,” says Rhodey. “It’s not Fury’s secret helicarrier, is it?”

“Hill will know, let me ask.” He calls her. “Hey, is Fury lurking around the northern Atlantic in his secret helicarrier? Or, I don’t know, a secret submarine, does he have one of those?”

“No, why?”

“Just trying to eliminate some possibilities, don’t worry about it,” he says. He’s about to hang up, before he remembers that Hill and Pepper are friends. “Hey, is Pepper okay? She sounded upset earlier and for once I’m not sure if I was the one upsetting her.”

“Don’t drag me into your relationship drama,” says Hill immediately. There’s a meaningful silence. “You’re not…entirely the reason why she’s upset,” she allows. “And that’s all I’ll say.” Huh. Tony can’t tell if that’s encouraging or not.

“Guess we’re doing a fly-by, I wanna see what’s out there,” Tony tells Rhodey, and Rhodey concurs.

They let the rest of the team know where they’re headed and why, and Steve has Vision monitor comms in case they need backup or a bail out. An hour from their ETA to mystery spot in the ocean, Tony gets the ping from FRIDAY that someone’s trying to defrost the murdersicles.

“So they definitely didn’t just crash,” says Rhodey grimly.

When they get to the coordinates, they’re greeted by—nothing. “What the hell?” mutters Tony.

“There’s something down there, check the thermal view.” Tony does, and he sees it. It’s not a submarine, it’s too big for that, so what the hell is it?

“Alright, time for a swim.”

So they take a dip into the Atlantic and find what looks like some sort of underwater base.

“Okay, this seems…ominous and sketchy,” says Rhodey. “You think it’s HYDRA?”

“You know how they like their branding, I don’t see any octopus logos. Let’s get Vision here, he can phase through and take a look around in there.”

While they wait for Vision, they fly in a lazy holding pattern and Tony keeps an eye on how defrosting the Winter Soldiers is going. Thanks to Tony and Rhodey’s “improvements,” it should take anyone trying to thaw the Soldiers out over a day to manage it, and if they try to override the protocols, the cryopods will fail and the Soldiers will die. Meanwhile Rhodey makes some calls to try to figure out where the Winter Soldiers are supposed to be, and no one can tell him anything. Suspicious.

“Let’s just ask Ross himself,” Rhodey suggests eventually, frustrated.

“Direct, I like it,” declares Tony, and calls Ross. “Hey, do you know where the frozen Nazi assassins are? We seem to have lost track of them, which is a cause for some alarm.”

Ross sighs. “Hello Mr. Stark, how are you doing?”

“Great. Where are the Winter Soldiers.”

“Let me check on that for you,” says Ross and puts him on hold.

“FRIDAY, track his signal,” he murmurs.

“On it, Boss,” she says, and then after a minute, “He’s where you are. Can you not see him?”

“Well that’s interesting,” Rhodey says.

Ross comes back on the line. “There’s nothing to worry about, Stark, it was just a communications mix-up. You know how it is with all these different agencies and branches of the military involved, one person forgets to let one bureaucrat know, and suddenly everything’s in chaos. The evidence is en route to the European HYDRA task force’s facility.”

The European branch of the anti-HYDRA task force is in Brussels, not in the middle of the damn Atlantic. Which is apparently where Ross and the Winter Soldiers are. That Ross is lying about that is not a good sign.

“Whew! That’s a relief. Thanks!” says Tony and disconnects the call. “He’s lying his ass off,” he says to Rhodey.

When Vision finally arrives, he takes a swim and phases into the base, then reports back. “This facility appears to be a prison. The security measures are quite in excess of what would be required for standard human prisoners.”

“Are there any prisoners being held there now?” asks Rhodey.

“No, Colonel Rhodes, no prisoners apart from the Winter Soldiers who are still in stasis. The facility is fully staffed, however. And Secretary Ross is here.”

Tony hears Rhodey suck in a breath. “I do not like this. There’s no good reason for Ross to be doing all this with so much secrecy. You hear anything about this place or something like it? ‘Cause I haven’t heard a damn peep in the DoD. This thing is pretty damn big, you can’t build an underwater prison in secret.”

“I got some inquiries about whether SI wanted to bid on a detention facility for the superpowered....” says Tony, digging up the memory. “I know SHIELD had a few, that’s what everyone’s been using so far. Pepper said no to bidding on building a new one, said it would be a shitstorm in the press, not in line with our new corporate values blah blah, and I agreed with her. I didn’t know it’d be anything like this.”

“Making a law that requires people to register and a prison that can hold them at the same time...doesn’t look good, Tones. I might’ve given Ross the benefit of the doubt before, but now...”

“No. Shit, no, it doesn’t look good.”

“Alright. Pull the plug on the Soldiers, I’m not feeling great about waiting to see what Ross will do with them otherwise.”

For a few seconds, Tony wants to resist, argue: these HYDRA assassins carry his dad’s last success with them, the seemingly perfected super soldier serum. And yeah, the serum makes people into weapons, but Steve’s proof that it can do good, and it could cure people of who knew how many things….If they could just study the frozen soldiers, figure out the serum—Tony could do it right, he could do it safely, and then—it’s the same rush he felt when all the boundless possibilities of Ultron opened up in front of him. And that’s enough to make him stop. What am I doing? Why the hell do I think this will go any better than Ultron did? Jesus, he has a problem. He has to fucking stop.

You just want someone to stop you, you just want someone to stop you, you just want someone to stop you. Pepper wasn’t wrong. Of course she wasn’t. She never was.

Yeah, alright. He’s got to stop himself. Tony sends the command to the virus he’d hidden away in the cryostasis pods. In the next few hours, they’ll all be beset with a cascading series of errors that will, oh no, too bad so sad, lead to the fatal failure of the defrosting process.

“Done,” he tells Rhodey. “Vision, can you stick around, make sure the Winter Soldiers stay dead?”

“Of course.”

“You think the UN or the World Security Council know about any of this? Or, hell, the President?” asks Tony as they fly away.

“Let’s find out.”

Turns out, the UN, the World Security Council, and the executive branch of the US government do not know about Gitmo-under-the-sea for superpowered people. Its existence, when taken into account along with certain provisions of the Accords, is pretty damned alarming. Tony’s not really looking forward to the Capitol Hill shitshow that’s sure to ensue.

“I thought that if one of us didn’t sign the Accords they just had to resign from the Avengers!” Tony tells the team the next day. The Avengers are all on a conference call to go over their plan of action.

“I can see why you might think that,” says Natasha, in a tone that suggests she can see why, but she thinks he’s deeply stupid for it. “It’s this language here that’s, hmm, concerning. ‘Any enhanced persons who do not sign the Accords shall resign their positions from the Avengers Initiative or any other Government Agencies effective immediately. If any such enhanced persons who are in violation of the Accords are deemed a threat to the public safety, they shall be held in an appropriate facility until such time as they are no longer a threat to public safety or they are no longer in violation of the Accords.’”

“Right, but that means being, like, a maniac on a rampage or whatever, not just—”

“I’m pretty sure that some people think I’m a threat to public safety just for existing,” says Wanda.

“What constitutes being a threat to the public safety isn’t specified. There’s absolutely no guarantee anywhere in the Accords that that definition can’t or won’t be abused,” says Steve, and it’s his firm Captain America voice, not his Steve Rogers sharing hour voice. Tony hadn’t realized how different those were until now. “Now that we know there’s a whole secret underwater prison ready to hold enhanced people, you can see why I’m concerned.”

“The UN and the World Security Council wouldn’t just…toss people in…” Tony loses confidence in what he’s saying before he can even finish the sentence. Ross had obliquely threatened just that with Wanda.

“What part of recent or not so recent history suggests that to you,” says Steve flatly. “I’m not opposed to any oversight at all, Tony, but the Accords as they are don’t inspire confidence.”

“Our trust in institutions isn’t real high, Stark,” adds Wilson. “Y’know, on account of that time we found out that they were infiltrated by Nazis at all levels. Also, just wanna point out, institutions don’t have the best track record with us minorities.”

Tony wants to object: they’ve burned off a lot of HYDRA heads, and not everything is about surprise secret Nazis. The Avengers aren’t the only incorruptible organization, they have to trust someone. They have to have limits, checks on their power. He’s got all the arguments lined up, and they’ve already gone over most of them, ad nauseam. But Tony can admit that “sign or go to the prison under the sea” isn’t the ideal check. Tony remembers what Pepper said again: you just want someone to stop you. As is becoming increasingly clear, Tony’s the only damned one of them who needs to be stopped. The rest of the team just wants to stay out of prison and keep superheroing. If Tony can’t superhero it up himself, he can help with that.

Rhodey sighs, deep and heavy. “Yeah, alright. We’ve gotta start over.”

“I concur. A flawed process leads to flawed results,” says Vision.

“I’ll take point on this,” says Tony. “I’m supposed to be retired anyway, right? I’ve got an army of lawyers, and connections or whatever, and you all know I don’t want you all in superhero supermax. So. Let me handle this. Please.”

“You’ve got a lot on your plate already, Tony,” says Steve, and now he sounds less like Cap and more like the Steve who calls from Wakanda to ask about how Pepper’s doing. He’s definitely referring to Tony’s fake baby right now. Fuck.

“I can handle it.”

“Alright. Let the rest of us know how we can help.”

Is you wanting a baby now like that week you really wanted a therapy dog before you got distracted and then forgot you ever wanted a therapy dog in the first place?

Tony’s about to text back, I never wanted a therapy dog, before remembering, yeah, there had been a week where he’d really, really wanted one, and also, briefly, a therapy parrot, which probably proves Pepper’s implied point.

No! I have had vague thoughts about this for months! And then more specific thoughts for weeks now. He is also, at this very moment, googling things like newborn adoption and New York foster parent requirements in between efforts to fix the Accords. The countdown clock in his head is now at FOUR WEEKS ONE DAY EIGHTEEN HOURS FORTY-SEVEN MINUTES AND COUNTING TO MAKE A BABY OR YOU’RE FUCKED. Also, about what you said. How I just want someone to stop me. I think you were right. I’m working on it.

Yeah? Do I even want to know what you stopped yourself from doing?

Dad perfected the super soldier serum right before he got killed and HYDRA stole the serum and used it to make new non-brainwashed Bucky Barnes winter soldiers and Ross kind of stole those frozen super soldiers but I made sure that he can’t use them for nefarious purposes by sabotaging their cryostasis units instead of stealing them back to try to recreate the serum.

I’m...proud of you? I guess?

Now I’ve just got to fix the Accords and come up with a better form of oversight for the Avengers. Diplomacy not weaponry!

Pepper just sends him some heart emojis back. Tony should find this an insufficient response, but instead he’s kind of tearing up a little.

Can we start thinking about it now? Making a family?

I’m thinking about it. Just give me a little more time.

Tony’s not sure what to do now but wait. If this was any of the other times Tony was trying to convince Pepper to do something with him, he’d be bombarding her with emails and texts and bringing it up at every opportunity during every conversation. Like that time he wanted to buy an island. He’d even done enough research to settle on exactly which island to buy! But Pepper had nixed it: we are not going to be the kind of rich people who own an island, Tony! Tony had kept sending her woeful emails with photos of beautiful islands attached for a couple weeks, but eventually he’d let it go, because really, it wasn’t that important.

This is important. He needs advice.

“Hey Cap, how’s Bucky Bear doing?”

“....you probably never want to call him that to his face. Hi, Tony. He’s doing good, actually, the doctors think they’ve got a viable way to deactivate the trigger words.”

“Good, good, that’s great. Can I talk to him?”

“I—that’s up to Bucky, I guess. Why do you want to talk to him?” Steve sounds wary, which is probably fair, but still stings a little. What does he think Tony’s going to do?

“Not really your business! But don’t worry, it’s nothing awful, c’mon, ask Barnes. He knows I won’t bite.” There’s some muffled murmuring then Barnes comes on the line.

“Hey.”

“So...how are you.”

“Not bad. Um. How are you?”

“Fine, fine, I’ve had some uncomfortable personal revelations, but fine.” There’s silence on the other end of the line. Sure, Tony had been the one to call him, but couldn’t the guy make an effort? “You are not great at small talk, are you?”

Barnes sighs. “I used to be good at this, I think. I just—can we switch to video again?”

“Sure thing, Tin Man,” says Tony and a few seconds later he’s greeted by Barnes’ quietly amused face.

“I got that reference,” he says, with a small quirk of amusement on his lips. He looks a little less tired than when Tony had seen him last, and there’s some new light in his eyes. Hope, maybe. It leavens the pain that’s still evident on his face in the tightness around his eyes.

“So. I took your advice.”

“How’d it go?”

“Wait,” Tony leans forward towards the phone camera. “Is Steve gone?” he whispers.

Barnes raises an eyebrow. “He’s gone.”

“Super hearing is a thing! Is he gone-gone or just in the other room?”

Barnes rolls his eyes a little, but he duly cocks his head in a listening sort of pose, then nods. “He’s gone. Promise. He’s big on giving me privacy and space and shit. So how’d it go?”

“Not...terribly? But not great either. She said there’s a lot we have to work on before we can start thinking of starting a family.”

Barnes nods. “It’s a big decision.”

“Haven’t got that long to make it, one way or the other.” And that’s presuming Pepper can even get pregnant, let alone right after they start trying to make a baby. Tony is such an idiot. There’s no way he can pull off this insane lie.

“Listen, if you tell Steve—” Barnes stops, bites his lip. “Well, I’m not saying he won’t be mad, because he will, but he’ll come around. He won’t hate you, not if you tell him you lied because you really did want Ms. Potts to be pregnant.” Tony would say this is a sad, half-hearted attempt at making the best of a shitty situation, but Barnes seems to genuinely believe it. He can apparently manage an earnest look as potent as Steve’s.

“I feel like you’re overestimating the amount Steve likes me,” says Tony wryly, and Barnes frowns, shakes his head.

“Steve’s always been...prickly. Used to be worse, if you can believe it. He does care though.”

“So your advice is to come clean, I take it.”

“Yeah. Nothing good’s come of any of us lying to each other. Or to ourselves.”

“You’re a regular fount of wisdom. Read a lot of self help books while on the run?”

“If there’s one thing amnesia is good for, it’s perspective. You see all your shitty choices from the outside in when you’re remembering them again. And I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

Yeah, that sounds pretty hellish, even if you don’t take all the torture into account. “Okay, so say I tell Steve: he’s gonna be mad, sure, but I’m used to that, arguing is our main method of communication. He’s gonna be sad too and I’m not sure I can handle that.”

“You’re gonna have to. It’ll be on you,” says Barnes, not unkindly.

“He wanted to babysit,” groans Tony. “Is he even any good at babysitting?”

Barnes snorts, but he smiles too, eyes crinkling up. “Not really. He’s awkward as hell about it. He tries real hard though, and he’s real careful with babies.”

“Like your little sister. Ellie,” says Tony, and some petty part of him means for it to wound, and it does. Barnes takes in a shuddering breath, nods. The naked grief on his face is terrible to see in the brief moment before Barnes can mask it. “Sorry,” adds Tony. There’s no satisfaction in prodding at Barnes’ grief. HYDRA, Tony realizes, took both of their families from them.

“I’m pretty sure you never have to apologize to me for anything, given the circumstances,” Barnes says in a low voice.

“There’s video. Of you killing my parents. It was at the Siberia base.” Barnes pales, but he doesn’t look away from Tony. “I didn’t watch it, Rhodey said I shouldn’t. Said that was probably Zemo’s plan: manipulate us all into a position where I see that, go after you, Steve goes after me...you can guess how that would go, probably.” Barnes grimaces and nods. “Anyway, I’m not doing that, any of it. It’s just this cycle of people hurting each other that always leads to more people hurting each other and even worse shit, and I have to stop it, it has to stop.”

Barnes is looking down now, his expression unreadable behind his hair. He nods again, but doesn’t say anything for a long, long moment. “It always ends in a fight,” is what he says eventually. “I'm so tired of—I don’t want to fight. Steve asked me why I didn’t—why I didn’t go after HYDRA, after, and I—it’s like you said. It’s just this fucked up cycle, and I can’t, I don’t—I don’t want to hurt people.” The words pour out of Barnes in a low, shaky rush. He’s nothing like Pepper, but—

“Pepper said the same thing.” Barnes looks up, confused. “A while back, there was some mad scientist with a grudge against me. He’d developed this thing, a sort of nano virus, that’s kind of like the serum you have. It’s called Extremis. He wanted to use it to make, you know, a new kind of super soldier, it was this whole mess—anyway, he kidnapped Pepper, injected her with it. And Extremis, it’s dangerous, if it goes wrong, you literally explode, so Pepper wanted it out. Even when I got it stabilized, when there wasn’t any chance of that, when it could just give her badass superpowers, she wanted it out. Said she hadn’t asked for it, didn’t want to hurt people. Didn’t even want to feel like she could.”

“Yeah, I—I know what that’s like,” says Barnes, the words coming out thick and tear-choked.

“I figure you do,” says Tony, as gently as he can manage. “You and Pepper would get along, maybe. Listen—” starts Tony, unsure if he’s about to say the right thing or not, but fuck, Barnes looks so fucking sad, and Tony remembers Steve’s quiet, pained admission. It’s just us now. Me and Buck. “HYDRA took both of our families, okay? Zemo wanted to do it again, just because he lost his family. So I say fuck ‘em. Let’s just—make a new family.”

“What?”

“A family can be a billionaire playboy philanthropist, an amazing CEO, a Rhodey, a Captain America, and a recovering former assassin! And, whatever, assorted other Avengers, if they want. It’s the future, Barnes, we’re progressive like that. Or wait, can I call you Bucky? I feel like we’ve bonded enough for me to call you Bucky.” Bucky nods, a dazed and disbelieving sort of look on his face. “And oh my god, this’ll piss Zemo and any HYDRA assholes off so much, can you imagine.”

Bucky laughs, and maybe it’s a little hysterical, and maybe a few tears escape his eyes, but he laughs for a long minute. When he’s done, he leans his elbow on the table in front of him and rests his chin on his hand, giving Tony a watery smile that’s still a little sad around the edges.

“Yeah, okay. Fuck ‘em. I’ll even babysit, if you want, when you have a kid. Promise I’m better than Steve at it.”

On the way to a meeting at the UN, Tony calls Pepper. “Pep, I know the whole having a baby, yea or nay thing is still unresolved, but heads up, I basically just adopted Bucky Barnes.”

“What?”

“You know how I tried to like, lure Steve into the Tower with a really great apartment and also promises of my sparkling company and a lot of team building, and it didn’t work, and I thought it was because Steve is a no-fun fuddy duddy who hates me?”

“Yes, and I told you, Steve doesn’t hate you and he’s not a fuddy—”

“Right! Yes! I know that now! It turns out he was just really sad and lonely!”

“That’s—well, I guess it’s better late than never that you eventually got to that emotional epiphany,” Pepper sighs. “What does this have to do with you adopting Bucky Barnes? Didn’t he murder your parents?”

“While brainwashed by HYDRA, I’m being an enlightened person who’s beyond the destructive cycle of revenge and not blaming him for it. He apologized too. I mean, how do you apologize for a thing like that, but he did try and he was very sincere.”

“That’s very mature of you Tony, I’m proud—wait, go back to what you adopting Bucky Barnes has to do with Steve.”

“Oh, right, so anyway, Steve was missing his family—the Barneses, that is, him and Bucky are just really close, I guess—which is why he was all sad and reclusive, and when I was talking to him the other day, he said ‘it’s just me and Bucky now,’ and it was all very heartbreaking.” Tony gracefully elides any mention of babies, fake or otherwise. “And then I talked to Bucky, who is also very sad, and I realized HYDRA took both our families, right? Mine via murder and his via...the implacable march of time or whatever.”

“Oh no,” says Pepper, soft and sad. “He’s getting all his memories back and having to deal with that and having lost the people he’s remembering...that’s so awful, Tony. I mean, I know all of it is awful, I saw part of those Winter Soldier files—”

“You did? Why did you—”

“You can’t just say the man killed your parents and expect me to not want to look into that.”

“They’re...not fun reading, Pep.”

“I did find that out for myself, yes. It’s—it was awful. I didn’t get very far before I had to stop.”

“Yeah, whatever therapists he’s seeing in Wakanda really have their work cut out for them.” Tony frowns, curious again what the hell they’re doing for Bucky over there and if it’s working. BARF could help Bucky too, maybe. He makes a note to ask King T’Challa. “He reminded me of you. After Extremis. He just—doesn’t want to hurt anyone, didn’t ask for this whole super soldier business. So I had some, y’know, emotions, and told him, fuck HYDRA, we’re a family now. Um. If you’re okay with that.”

Pepper laughs. “There’s not really any take backs on offers of family, Tony,” she says, but she sounds fond. “I’m okay with it. Is he--what’s going to happen to him? What’s Steve doing? And what is going on with the Accords and Secretary Ross? Jim and Maria have been giving me some updates but even they’re not entirely sure what you’re up to.”

Tony can’t wipe the smile off his face now. “I’ve got ten minutes before I go make a nuisance of myself at the UN, so let me catch you up….” he says, and gives Pepper the kind of rapid fire update she’s used to from him. She keeps up, of course, and puts in her own very welcome two cents, and it’s perfect, it’s them, it’s exactly what he’s been missing.

The high of talking things out with Pepper and getting the UN to agree to scrap the Accords and start over, this time with the Avengers involved in drafting them, only lasts about as long as it takes him to remember he still has to confess to Steve. He wonders if he can convince Steve that he’d been talking about a metaphorical pregnancy. Probably not.

He’s gotta rip this band aid off before he heads back to the States. The fact that he’d rather be testifying at a congressional hearing about Secretary Ross’s “misconduct and potential obstruction of justice” and “overreach of his responsibilities as Secretary of State” and “misappropriation of government resources” says a lot about how little he wants to talk to Steve, but the longer the lie goes, the worse it will get. Steve’s own lie of omission about the Winter Soldier was proof enough of that, and Tony’s not a good enough person to not throw that in Steve’s face if he gets too mad about this whole pregnancy lie.

He’ll just...get a quick strategy session/pep talk in with Bucky before he talks to Steve.

“Hey, Cap, can I talk to Bucky?”

“Hi, Tony. Hey, good job with the Accords at the UN—”

“Thanks. You’re gonna have to show up at some point, the excuse that you’re tracking down the Winter Soldier is just not gonna fly for much longer, especially not now that the Hague is involved what with Zemo and all. Listen, I’m gonna want to talk to you more in a bit, but can you put Bucky on the line first—”

“He has his own phone, you know. And I’m sorry Tony, I really do want to talk to you more about all this, but Bucky’s about to undergo a treatment to clear out the trigger words so...”

Shit. Tony can’t ‘fess up now. That would probably be even more of a dick move than the fact that he lied in the first place. “Yeah? What treatment? Never mind, give my best to the Terminator, we’ll catch up later. Call me once you know if it worked or not.”

He heads to DC to raise a ruckus on Capitol Hill with Rhodey, and it’s a little like walking into a room that’s on fire and full of screaming monkeys throwing shit at each other. But hey, he saved the president’s life that one time, and also the world once, plus he’s very rich, and that’s enough to keep him from getting hit with too much of the metaphorical shit. He dutifully testifies at the hearings and goes to the meetings and drums up support for a new Avengers Initiative, now with bonus oversight and international and interagency support, and even manages to squeeze in some quiet meetings about Bucky’s whole Winter Soldier situation. Tony is fixing shit, and for once, he’s doing it via diplomacy and using his words instead of with weapons. It feels pretty damn good.

He even checks in with Steve a couple times, because what the hell, it’s taking multiple days to get Bucky de-murder roboted? Steve just texts, it’s going alright, but it’ll take a few days.

Not enough information! What are they even doing?

I can’t tell you that, I’m sorry. T’Challa asked me not to. But Bucky will be fine. There’s a long couple minutes where the … blinks on his phone screen. This is really fucking hard. All i can do is watch and be there for him and it’s so fucking hard. Sorry, im sorry, youre busy, don’t worry about us.

Tony frowns. He’s definitely worrying about the two former popsicles, even more now given Steve’s abrupt breakdown in proper punctuation. Steve usually treats texts like short, exquisitely grammatical letters. But Tony doesn’t know what the right thing to say here is. He knows he wants to demand more information. After a futile attempt to figure out if there’s an appropriate emoji for this situation, I’m here if you need anything is what he settles on. Presumably Steve will call or text Wilson or Natasha if he needs actual, competent emotional support. Just after he sends the text, Pepper calls him.

“Hey, you’re in DC right now, right?”

“Yeah, hey Pep. What’s up?”

“Can you come to the Tower?”

“Ohohoho Ms. Potts, is this a booty call? Wait, no, are we still on a break? I mean, either way, I’m okay with a booty call. Or no booty call. This can also just be about business.”

Pepper laughs, but it sounds a little nervous. “No, it’s not a booty call. And—the break is over, I think.”

“Yay!” Tony cheers. “Wait, is the break over because we’re breaking up?!”

“No! I mean, we’re not breaking up, or at least, I’m not breaking up with you, I just want to talk, or not talk-talk, you know, not in that ominous way that people say, ‘we need to talk,’ I really just have to tell you something and I don’t want to do it over the phone—”

Normally, Tony finds Pepper’s babbling adorable and delightful. Now he’s kind of worried. “Woah woah woah, slow down, Pep.”

She sucks in a breath. “Right. I’m making this worse. Please just come to the Tower? And don’t freak out.”

“Right. Okay, not freaking out, I’ll be there in, like, an hour.”

Tony’s freaking out. He calls Happy.

“Hey, Pepper’s alright, right?”

“I’ve got eyes on her right now, she’s fine, on a conference call. Why?”

“Nothing, no reason, just, y’know, anxiety, haha, you know me. Has she been fine? Since I’ve been in Europe?”

“Yeah, a little sad and worried on account of what all is going on with those Accords, but fine. Is there a security threat I should know about? Because I have been on high alert, and Pepper is in the best of—”

“No, no new threats, we’ve got all that handled. Thanks Happy, I’ll be at the Tower soon, bye.”

It would take way too much time to get one of the jets fueled and off the runway, so Tony just flies to New York in his armor. He’s about to head straight to the Tower when he thinks, I should get Pepper something, shouldn’t I.

“FRIDAY, send me the address of the best-reviewed florist that’s closest to the Tower.”

“Sure thing, Boss,” says FRIDAY, and after a couple minutes, she directs him to a florist a few blocks away from the Tower.

When he gets there, he parks and locks the armor on the sidewalk and rushes into the florist’s shop. There are tasteful and elegant bouquets and floral arrangements on display, but there aren’t as many flowers around as Tony would expect from a store that’s supposed to be devoted to selling them. The employee behind the desk blinks at him in surprise.

“This is a florist, right? Where are all the flowers?”

“Uh, most people order online or over the phone, and we just deliver the flowers. Not many people actually….come into the shop.”

“Okay, but you do have flowers, right? That I can purchase in this establishment and then leave with?”

“....yes?” she says uncertainly, then she straightens her spine and nods decisively. “Yes. What kind of occasion do you need the flowers for, Mr. Stark? Birthday, anniversary, sympathy…?”

Tony opens his mouth to answer, but he’s not sure what this occasion counts as, actually. He frowns.

“...Apology?” ventures the employee.

Hey, there’s an idea, maybe he can send Steve a “sorry I lied about Pepper being pregnant” apology bouquet. But he’s not apologizing to Pepper right now, apart from the general “sorry about my everything” that is the default state of their relationship.

“No, not right now, but let’s put a pin in that, I might need it later.” Tony wanders around the small, expensively minimalist shop. The arrangements are all pretty, because flowers are pretty, but they seem kind of...sterile. He sniffs at a few of the bouquets. Some of them don’t smell much at all. Are they fake? He pokes at one of the arrangements suspiciously.

“Okay, so….proposal?”

Tony stops. Oh my god. Should he be proposing? Are proposal bouquets a thing? He pulls out his phone.

“Happy! Do you still have the ring?”

“Yes boss, in my pocket. Wait, oh my god, is it time?!”

“I don’t know! Maybe! I’ll keep you posted.” He hangs up and turns to the employee. “So, I wasn’t planning on proposing, but depending on how this is about to go, maybe. I mean, she said she needed to talk to me, but not like, the bad ‘we need to talk,’ so really, I have no idea what’s about to happen, I just feel like I should show up with some sort of gift or whatever. Is there a bouquet for ‘we were on a break but now we’re not, yay’?”

“I can make you a bouquet for that.” She peers out the shop window to where the Iron Man armor is gleaming in the sun on the sidewalk. “Guessing you don’t want to be carrying a vase while you’re flying. Give me a few minutes, I’ll put something together for you. Any color or flower preferences?”

Shit, he doesn’t know. “Nothing too funeral-y. And nothing that looks like it’d be in the Stark Tower lobby.”

“Got it,” she says, then disappears to the mysterious “back” of all shops where all the interesting stuff you actually need is.

Tony paces the shop and ponders proposing to Pepper while the florist works her magic. Should he propose? It’s true Happy’s been carrying a ring around for just that occasion for literal years. Tony’s just never been able to bring himself to actually propose. There’s always been some new disaster, or he’s told himself he should wait for some sign from Pepper that it was the magical right time. Now maybe isn’t the right time either, depending on what Pepper has to tell him.

He contemplates about three dozen potential scenarios ranging from “I have cancer” to “I’m resigning from my position as CEO” to Pepper proposing to him. He’s midway into a catastrophizing spiral about what if Pepper is dumping SI when the florist comes back out, carrying a large, vibrant bouquet of yellow and blushing peach-colored flowers. Tony automatically classifies all bunches of flowers as pretty, and this one is definitely that, but there’s also a sort of exuberant joy in this particular arrangement of pretty flowers.

“How about this?” asks the florist.

“It’s perfect,” says Tony, and forks over an exorbitant amount of cash, plus a hefty tip.

“Good luck with Ms. Potts!” calls out the florist as he leaves.

It’s pretty awkward flying with the bouquet, but it’s not a long flight to the Tower, so he manages it without losing too many petals or flowers. He heads straight to the penthouse as soon as he’s out of the armor. Pepper’s already there, pacing back and forth, still wearing her heels and work clothes. The brisk clacking sound makes Tony inexplicably nervous.

“Hey, Pep,” he says, and she whirls to face him. For a second, he’s reminded of Pepper’s face when he’d stepped off the plane back onto US soil after Afghanistan. He’d never understood what people meant by someone glowing until then, at least not outside a radioactive context. After seeing Pepper waiting on the tarmac, he got it. She’d glowed, then, even through her tears. She’s glowing now, even though she looks pretty nervous too. It eases his anxiety a little, and the rest of it drains away when she smiles at him.

She comes over to take the flowers and kiss him. Tony’s not even annoyed at how she’s towering over him in her heels, because her kiss is sweet and heated, nothing like a goodbye.

Tony really wants to make out some more, because it’s been a long couple of months, but Pepper pulls away to say, “The flowers are lovely, thank you, Tony. Let me just go get some water for these.” She shoots him a distracted smile over her shoulder as she heads towards the kitchen sink. Tony follows her. “So how was DC?”

“A shitshow. But a shitshow I think I can work with, especially with Ross out of the picture.”

“That’s good news. And how are Steve and Bucky? Are they still in Wakanda, do you know when they’ll be coming home?”

Tony raises an eyebrow and watches Pepper pull a vase from a cabinet and fill it with water. “So you really are on board with adopting them, huh? There’s still the little matter of Bucky’s fugitive status to work out. And they’re doing something in Wakanda to get the HYDRA triggers out of his head, Steve said it might be a couple more days until they know if it’s worked.”

“Oh, we’ll get things worked out for Bucky, the poor man was a POW, he doesn’t deserve to be in prison for that. And Natasha and Sam, what are they up to?” She fusses with arranging the flowers in the vase.

“Pep, Pep, Pepper, look at me.” She turns away from the flowers and looks at him, biting her lip. “You said you had something to tell me?” He puts his hands on her hips and tugs her in close.

“Yes, yes, I did,” she says, but doesn’t say anything else.

“So, we were on a break, but now we’re not…”

“Are you done with Iron Man?”

“I am really, actually going to retire Iron Man for anything other than literal world-ending emergencies. And, okay, maybe I’ll still fly around a little, but it’s just so convenient sometimes—”

Pepper snorts. “Seriously, Tony.”

“Seriously. No weapons. Iron Man, Ultron—they’re just more weapons I’ve been fucking up with, that I’ve been building to deal with, you know, my trauma or whatever. I’m stopping, okay? I’m stopping myself for once. So time for diplomacy and bureaucracy and meetings! I’m like the only Avenger good at all of that, so....”

“I think you can do a lot of good that way. I think that’s what the Avengers need most from you, actually. I’d hoped, back when you built them the suites in the Tower, and the base upstate that that was the role you were going for.”

“Yeah, well I’m sticking with it now, we’ll see if it does more good. I’ll at least fuck up in new and exciting ways.” Pepper chuckles, and slides past him with the flower vase, walking over to set it on the coffee table by the couch. She turns it around this way and that, precise and fussy. Tony’s getting more nervous just looking at her, so he follows her, sits on the couch and grabs her hand to tug her onto the couch with him. “So what is it, Pepper? What did you have to tell me? C’mon, spit it out, I’m going crazy here.”

“Right. So, you know how you said you wanted to have a baby?” She takes his hand and squeezes it, really kind of hard, actually. Shit shit shit, she hasn’t found out about his crazy lie to Steve, has she? No, can’t be, she’d be way more mad.

“Yeah…”

“And you know how the condom broke that one time, a couple months ago, and I said you shouldn’t worry about it because I can’t get pregnant?”

“Uh huh….”

“Well. I was, apparently, mistaken about that. Dr. Cho said Extremis—well, anyway, surprise? Congratulations? I’m not sure what’s appropriate, really, but anyway, we’re having a baby.”

“I—what?” Holy shit. Tony discreetly pinches himself. Yes, this is real.

“I really hope you were serious about wanting to start a family, because I spent a few weeks freaking out about this, and wondering if I should get an abortion, or if this was even safe after Extremis, and if either of us are even cut out to be parents, but honestly, this is probably my last chance for something approaching a healthy pregnancy, and I spent a long time thinking this was never going to be an option for me, so I am going to have this baby. I hope you’ll raise it with me, but if not—”

He stops her with a kiss. “Yes. Absolutely. Holy shit.” He puts a hand on Pepper’s stomach. A Potts-Stark fetus is gestating in there. Cells are dividing and dividing and soon there is going to be a whole little person. His lie turned out to be a prophecy. “Is it—are you both okay?”

“We’re fine, it’s fine, my due date is in January, and everything’s going normally, according to Dr. Cho.”

They stare at each other in wide-eyed delight and a healthy amount of terror. “We’re gonna have a baby,” says Tony.

“We sure are,” says Pepper with a teary smile. Tony sort of tackles her against the couch, and attacks her with kisses. Pepper laughs and pulls him in close. “The break is over, the break is definitely over, and I did actually miss you—”

Some time later, after they’ve moved things from the couch to the bedroom, Tony jerks upright.

“Ring! I was going to, I was thinking of—proposal!”

Pepper tugs him back down. “I’ll say yes, obviously, but ugh, not right now, Tony.”

Pepper sleeping next to him is a great incentive to go to bed, but he’s still got the dregs of jet lag, so when he wakes up in the early hours of the morning, he grabs his phone and heads to the kitchen. He has a text from Steve: it’s done, it worked. Bucky’s okay. Call when you can.

Tony grabs a smoothie from the fridge and calls Steve. For the first time in weeks, he can do it without panicked guilt and frantic denial of said panicked guilt wreaking havoc inside him. The relief is almost as good a high as his post-orgasm chill. Steve picks up after a couple rings, and for the first time in a while, Tony’s not preemptively wincing and bracing for a new addition to his tapestry of lies.

“Hey Tony, thanks for calling.” Steve sounds tired but happy, and he’s using his Steve Rogers sharing hour voice, not the just business Cap voice.

“Of course, how’s Bucky? You said it worked, whatever mystery thing the Wakandans did?” Tony’s still pretty wildly curious about just what that mystery treatment is. Maybe they have some drug derived from the native species of Wakanda….

“Yeah, it worked. Wasn’t easy, but it worked. The doctors want to keep Bucky here a few more weeks, they can help some more with the amnesia and brain damage from the wipes. But give me a few more days, and I can come back and help with all the Accords and Zemo fallout.”

That’s a relief. They can definitely use Cap’s help with getting things back on track. Tony already starts mentally shifting parts of his to-do list onto Steve. “Good, we can use you here in DC. And Wakanda’s probably the safest place for Bucky.”

“They’ve been really kind to him—to us—here. T’Challa’s a good man.” Steve pauses. “Listen, Bucky told me what you said to him.”

Tony tenses. He is going to lose it if Bucky preemptively spilled the beans to Steve about the pregnancy lie. It would serve Tony right, probably, and it would be pretty hilarious, in a horrible sitcom kind of way, but still.

“I said a lot of things to him, what thing in particular?”

“About being a family.” Whew. Disaster averted. But oh no, now it’s feelings time. “I—thank you. For that. It—means a lot. To both of us.”

“Yeah well, don’t make a big deal out of it. Hey, can I talk to your freshly debrainwashed hunk of defrosted beef? If he’s up to it, of course.”

“That’s—you know, I think I prefer Bucky Bear out of all the nicknames,” says Steve with a sigh. Tony grins. “Hold on, let me get him. And seriously, he has his own phone, you don’t have to always call me to talk to him. I’ll send you his number.”

“Hey, Tony,” says Bucky. There’s something lighter in his voice, something in his tone that suggests he’s smiling.

“Congrats! You can’t be turned into a murderbot anymore! You feeling alright? Steve won’t tell me what the hell they’ve been doing to you over there.”

Bucky laughs a little. “I’m feeling pretty great. And sorry, T’Challa swore us to secrecy, and I’m not getting on that man’s bad side again. Did you, uh, tell Steve the thing yet?”

“No! Because I am like unto a prophet, Bucky Bear!”

“Um, what. Also, what the fuck, never call me that—”

“Pepper really is pregnant! I am really, actually going to be a father!” Oh no. Oh, that knowledge is really settling in now. “Oh my god, I’m going to be a dad.”

Before he can get a really good panic worked up about that, Bucky demands, “Wait, really? Are you fucking with me? It’s not nice to fuck with someone who has brain damage.”

“Hello, welcome back, Bucky Barnes’ sense of humor. And no, I’m not fucking with you! I promise!”

“You are the luckiest man alive,” says Bucky with wonder.

“I know. So, I’m on a roll, I’m calling it: we’re gonna have you back home, free and clear, by the time this baby is born, you can count on that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Seven months later:

Grace Potts-Stark is the best thing Tony has ever seen in his entire life. She is tiny and perfect, and Tony can’t get over how he’s going to get to see this very small human grow up and learn and become a full-fledged person. A person who he and Pepper made! It’s amazing, it’s like building his bots, but squishy and organic and more. Tony can’t stop looking at her, or at Pepper, who’s still tired from pushing a tiny human out of her own body, but looking so damn beautiful that Tony can’t stand it.

Rhodey and Happy get first crack at visiting with the lights of Tony’s life, but after they finish crying entirely appropriate tears of joy over her, he calls Steve and Bucky to come to the Tower medical suite to meet Grace too. Super speed must be involved, or maybe they’ve just been lurking around the med suite, because Steve and Bucky get there in a couple minutes, wide-eyed and a little flushed.

It’s hilarious watching two hulking super soldiers try to make themselves a little smaller as they shuffle into Pepper’s room, as if their sheer muscle-y size will disturb the baby in Pepper’s arms. Pepper beams at them.

“Hey, come meet Grace,” says Pepper.

Steve and Bucky creep closer. “She’s so tiny,” whispers Steve.

“She’s gorgeous, Pepper, congratulations.” Bucky leans carefully down to kiss Pepper’s cheek. Tony’s run of predictive powers had held true: after a lot of legal and political wrangling, Bucky had come home—free and clear—a couple months ago, and had proceeded to become fast friends with Pepper.

“You want to hold her?” Pepper asks Steve, who hasn’t taken his eyes off Grace yet.

“Oh no, she’s so small, and I’m, I don’t want to—”

“C’mon, you’re not going to crush her with your ham hock arms,” says Bucky, gently elbowing Steve.

Pepper hands Grace over, who stirs and makes a fitful little noise, and Steve takes her very carefully in his arms while Bucky murmurs quiet instructions on how to support her.

“Hey Grace, hi.” Having a child has clearly broken Tony because instead of immediately making fun of Steve’s baby talk tone, it instead makes him tear up. Were pregnancy hormones catching? He thinks they’re maybe communicable.

Bucky leans into Steve to look at Grace, slipping his metal arm around Steve’s waist. Steve’s expression is stuck on a sort of tender and terrified wonder, but Bucky’s just smiling, as wide and unshadowed as Tony has ever seen him smile. He looks over at Pepper, who’s gotten a little misty-eyed at the sight.

Right now, Tony thinks there’s no choice he’d rather have made than to make this family. It’s weird and sometimes fragile and it took a hell of a lot of work. But he gets it now, that saying about how the best revenge is living well.

He nudges Bucky, grins at him. “Fuck HYDRA, and fuck Zemo. We won.” Steve and Bucky both laugh, and Steve shifts a little to press a kiss to Bucky’s temple, then, gently, to Grace’s head.

“Yeah, we did.”