Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The breath catches in Natasha’s throat from where she sits in her hotel room. She’s avoiding being caught after turning on Tony. She believed Steve, when he said he told Tony the truth. But, she hacked his suit to watch what happened, hoping maybe her decision would drag the avengers back together even if she didn’t have a place among them anymore.

Tony throws the first punch, as anyone who just watched someone murder their parents would do. But, Steve doesn’t stop attacking him. By the time the video cuts out because Friday no longer has a connection, Natasha has her phone out.

The number to Pepper is dialed before Natasha even has time to doubt her choice. The woman could arrest her, but she has to get help to Tony. She can’t let him die, because she made a bad call. Because she made the worst call. The tone rings in her ear.

Finally, the call connects, and the woman’s voice fills her ears. “If this is you, Ms. Rushman, I’d think twice before you speak.”

The dig at the first time that she lost Tony’s trust should hurt her more than it does. Her whole body feels numb. “You need to get someone to Siberia. You don’t trust me, hell I don’t trust me, but I was watching Tony. Believe whatever reason you want to, but please he’s hurt, and I have no faith that Steve will call for backup. Pepper, I’m begging you, please send someone.”

There’s no noise from the other end of the phone, and Natasha feels the tears build up behind her eyes. She blinks them away. The red room couldn’t get rid of the submissive inside her, but they could teach her how to bury it. Right now, that side of her won’t save Tony. Right now, that side of her will only cause Pepper to distrust her further.

“Where are you?”

“What?”

Pepper’s sigh travels through the phone. “Friday confirmed your story, which means for some reason, you want Tony alive. I don’t trust you, but until I know why you were willing to save him, I’d prefer to keep the government from killing you.”

“Pepper, I’m Natalie Rushman, Natasha Romanoff, and Natalia Romanova. If I don’t want them to find me, they won’t,” she replies before hanging up the phone. Perhaps, that olive branch would have been enough, but Pepper isn’t the one that she needs forgiveness from. Pepper isn’t the one she betrayed. Pepper can’t stop the voices in her head from shouting at her that she hurt one of the few people she could bring herself to trust.

The trace on the phone will lead them to this hotel room, so she drops the phone on the bed. She grabs a tiny piece of paper and scribbles a note for Tony, if he even bothered to read it, and she left. She slipped into a store for a new hair dye. The blonde had worked wonders when she was on the run with Steve, but that wasn’t who she was anymore, or who she could pretend to be. A nice brown color that seemed to resemble the bark of trees would be plain enough that no one would draw attention to her.

She dyes her hair in the bathroom of a gas station with the door locked firmly shut. The color would drive her nuts, but she needs to figure out what her next step was before she went any further. She could run to Steve, but he would be a little peeved that she hadn’t been caught like the rest of the rogues, but he wouldn’t ever bring that against her.

Tony understood that after everything the red room had done to her that she needed to be allowed to sub in public settings. That she needed someone to hold her accountable even for her job as an avenger. Because if she didn’t, she’d fall back into the normal trance of never letting anyone have that kind of control over her. Steve didn’t understand that. He believed that submissives were only supposed to kneel in the bedroom.

That almost makes her laugh even on the run just thinking about. The man who came from the time where submissives were never supposed to stop kneeling, believed that they should never kneel outside of the fun times was just too good. Sometimes she feels like she must have pissed off some deity to end up in this position, other times she realizes that she managed to dig this grave on her own.

If she wants to have a chance to be a better person in the next life, then she’s going to need to come up with what she wants. Nothing has ever terrified her more.

Chapter Text

Tony barely got out of the hospital after a week and a half. His entire sternum was shattered again, because someone who knew his medical history, knew his past, chose to slam a vibranium shield straight into it after already ripping off the entire protective face covering. Not to mention being stuck in a metal suit in Siberia for an hour gave him severe hypothermia.

As if all of that wasn’t enough, once he was conscious and able to ask a decent amount of questions, he asked Pepper how on Earth she was able to send someone so fast, and she froze. That’s how he knew some shit was going down that Pepper really wanted to keep hidden from him, but he was not going to let her do that. They were not in a relationship anymore; she had made that abundantly clear to him.

After he threw that into her face, she admitted the truth. That Natasha Romanoff, the woman who enabled Captain America to come damn close to killing him, was the one who sent in the cavalry to save him. All he really wants is a chance to ask them all why. Not Rogers, he understands Rogers even if the truth is ugly and horrible and proves a whole lot of nasty factoids about the man that America idolizes.

But, Natasha, he has questions for. Why did she save him again? Why after her entire battle to win his trust did, she betray it? Did she know about his parents? Did she lie to him too?

Barton causes him to ask a whole bunch of questions too. Like what happened to the damn retirement plan? When did Tony and his relationship go to such shit that he lost all ability to hold a civil conversation with him? What did Tony do to deserve such hatred? Seriously, Barton might hurt him more than Romanoff, because at least with Natasha, he can blame himself slightly.

He even has questions for Wilson, although those questions are primarily just why did you choose to trust Steve Rogers without even checking your own facts? He bets that one doesn’t even know about the rest of the story. Wilson was a therapist, and by the admission of others, a good one. He just fell for the face of a solider with a heart.

One day, he’ll find the rogues, and the first thing he’ll do is just confront them with the truth. The witch won’t survive that long, or at least he hopes she doesn’t. She messes with people’s minds as if they’re all just tiny ants. That being said, if they can actually find a way to contain her, he’ll let her live. Despite the fact that she accuses him of having no mercy, he has just enough mercy to not kill her when another option exists.

He walks into his tower, and his body relaxes. He’ll have to start work on legs for Rhodey. He’ll have to work with the accord committee to figure out the state of the avengers, and he’ll need to make sure that Vision isn’t about to freak out. All of that can wait though. “Friday?”

“Yes, boss.”

“Don’t let anyone try to contact me today. I need the night off.”

“Boss?”

“Yes, Fri?”

“All of my files suggest that this is extremely abnormal behavior. Ms. Potts made me promise to contact her if you did not follow normal actions.”

Tony chuckles at that. He might try to push Pepper away just as often as she pushes him away, but at the end of everything both of them will make sure that the other one is alright any time that they falter. “I tend to be self-destructive after being betrayed, but instead of doing either of those things, I’m going to go down to the lab, make some outlines for all the many things that I need to do in the morning, then I’m going to go to bed before Rhodey gets called in to force me to take care of my health.”

He walks himself into the elevator and it starts heading straight to the lab. The first project he pulls up is the new suit, because that needs massive work. He needs to have a regenerating suit, so that if some super solider decides to try to use brute strength, he won’t be vulnerable for long periods of time. He also makes a note to test the suit against vibranium to see whether he can bulk up the metal enough that it no longer gets immediately destroyed by the rarest metal to exist.

The second project has to be Rhodey’s legs. The man got shot out of the air to support Tony, the least Tony could do was make sure that the man had his legs back. He doesn’t think that’s really fair, because honestly to make up for all the shit that Rhodey has to put up with him for the man deserves far more than a single pair of legs that gives him the function that he deserves. Still, this is a good starting place for trying to make his best friend happier.

The third project should be a containment unit. He doesn’t really have a way to stop the witch from using magic at the moment, no one does. He could probably blast her off the face of the earth, but that won’t go over well with the governments of the accords. They’d probably all want a piece of her after the numerous crimes she’s committed. Including, the ones she did while she was an actual agent for hydra. He’d have thought Rogers would have held a grudge about that at least, but no such luck.

The fourth project, he barely even thumbs open. Just a simple note on the tracking chips for the avengers back when they were a team to see whether he could just plug everything in to give him a location. He doubts that it will be that simple, but then he guesses that if anything in the world actually ended up working in his favor, this would be the one to wish for.

He’s about to open one more file, not really sure what the file is for, but determined to have at least five projects. The next one should really be one for Stark Industries, because they need to have new ideas. They need to make the world believe that Tony Stark being rushed to a hospital shortly after a fight with the avengers wouldn’t cause more problems for the company overall. But Friday’s alarms start going off.

“Sir, it would appear that we have a breach.”

The lack of panic in the computer’s voice reminds him just how little room he’s given her to grow. With almost everyone who wanted him to have restrictions on her gone, he’s close to just lifting them. Honestly, he’d actually gone to court unlike the rest of them to make sure that his tech wasn’t actually seen as evil by other people. None of the other avengers ever bothered doing that much. He doubted that any of them even cared about what was happening. He’d put money on that they’d just as quickly shit blame before taking any of the responsibility over actions like that. He snaps out of his thoughts quickly. “They must be fools if they didn’t shut you off.”

“I don’t think that they were meaning for you to not know about them, sir. The intruder is Ms. Romanoff. She just went to your penthouse and kneeled at the foot of your sofa. She’s not making any moves to defend herself from the lasers I have pointed at her.”

Tony pauses. He could just call Ross, but that would give the man a deep sense of entitlement, and also, he wouldn’t wish his worst enemies on the man. He could call the actual accords committee, but then they’d swoop in to give her a trial and do things by the books. He’d never get his answers. “Do me a favor and ask her what she wants.”

Friday is silent for a moment, and Tony knows that she’s waiting to get the full recording then play it for him down here. He really should just open a channel, but then he has no chance to try to hide some of his gut reactions, and a few of those is all that Romanoff needs to manage to twist a situation back into being in her favor.

“I want to explain and apologize and beg for whatever form of mercy you’re willing to give me after I tell you everything. I can’t reverse my actions, neither can you. But I can try to make amends.” Natasha’s voice sends shivers down his spine.

Tony makes his way to the elevator. He drops his head on the side of the wall, already cussing himself out for even daring to try this. But according to Friday, she’s on her knees. She hardly ever went willing into a scene for him when they were on good terms, so if she was willing to put that much trust out there knowing that he could call people to take her even when she’s that close to a scene, then he’ll give her the benefit of listening.

“Friday, take me to the penthouse and lock this tower up. I don’t want anyone coming near us or hearing anything from us. Also, go ahead and block the overrides for the duration of 24 hours, with the only exception being if I’m actually about to die.”

“Sir, this is easily classified as a bad idea.”

Tony gives the camera a wry smirk so that Friday can see his expressions. “Almost everything I do can be considered a bad idea, but if I didn’t have those, I wouldn’t have made Stark Industries thrive, and I certainly wouldn’t have made it out of those caves in Afghanistan.”

The elevator starts moving, and while Tony can still feel the disapproval from his AI, he no longer gets any voiced rebuttal. He wonders if that’s a good sign or a bad sign, then decides that can’t be a priority. Once the elevator stops, he steps out into his living room and makes his way to where he can see Natasha, but she can’t see him without rising from her knelt position.

Natasha swallows harshly when she hears his footsteps, but she doesn’t move from her position, not even to look him in the eyes. That’s not what’s going to help either of them. She betrayed his trust. The only way she’ll even have the right to try to earn his trust back is if she proves that she trusts him still. “Will you listen?”

Tony shrugs. That’s a good question, but not the right one. His actions here aren’t really the ones that need to be questioned. She’s the one who’s broken aspects of this relationship, so she’s the one that has to struggle to make things right. “Will you tell the truth?”

“Will you be able to trust me when I say yes?”

“No,” he answers. The brutal honesty might be the best thing that he can offer her at this point. Nothing else can come close to being fair to either of them.

Natasha’s small movements from her fingers freezes. He can make out the tear streaking down her cheek as she feels that answer hit her.

“But I also know that you can’t lie when you’re in subspace. You value that part of yourself too much, which is why you refuse to submit to anyone you don’t trust. So, the question you should have asked me was will you take me down to the proper level so I can explain things where you can trust them? The answer to that is yes, with a single condition.”

Natasha’s breathing comes out harsh, but she controls it after a couple seconds. “If you try to take me down right now, I can’t promise I won’t drop. I’m not close right now, but that’s because I’m holding on to hope that I can explain to you tonight why I chose the path I chose, and that if I can get you to understand, then you’ll tell me all that I have to do to be forgiven in the personal relationship between us, and how I can earn your trust in the rest of our lives.”

Tony steps forward where she can see his feet and drops a hand into her hair. He wraps her hair around his fingers, and he tugs until her head is angled in an extremely uncomfortable way. He meets her eyes without betraying a single emotion on his face. “That seems like a problem for me, unless you don’t trust me to pull you up from a drop right now.”

Natasha puts up zero resistance to his touch. She craves more than she would ever admit to him out loud after what she’s done, but just being given the option of saving herself causes her to release the tension in her body. “I trust you. I trust you with every single part of me, even the parts that I’ve tried really hard to bury within myself. But you don’t deserve to have to pull me out of my head after all that I’ve done to you.”

Tony’s brow furrows. That sounds like her typical self-guilt after she’s made a bad call on the field. He supposes he could see how she might equate the two, but to have this similar of a reaction causes him some distress. He doesn’t like having missing pieces in his puzzle and right now he’s missing to many to even put together a decent picture. “Are you willing to hear my condition?”

“Yes, sir.” The closest she can come to admitting that she’s already partially in her subspace just from him being willing to touch her, to listen to her.

“If I don’t like what I hear, you will go with the men I call to bring you into custody. You will trust that I won’t let them abuse you, but you will not ask for me. If I agree to give you a shot, you agree that if I am not willing to forgive you or try to trust you again, that you will do the right thing.”

“I made that promise to myself the second that I cam into this tower. I know full well that you could have and possibly should have called them already. This is me trying to fix things, but I don’t know if that’s possible.”

Tony nods. He figured that she had already made some concessions to herself before she came here. He can’t believe that he’s willing to hear her damn explanation. But he needs answers and this is bound to get him some, and in sub space she won’t even stop him from asking follow up questions, so by the end of this, his Natasha Romanoff portion of the puzzle will be completely filled.

He twists her arm to send her spinning to the opposite direction, before walking to sit down on his own couch. He glances down at Natasha for a long moment. She’s been on her knees for longer than he’d prefer already, but she almost always needs to be on her knees to get to sub space. “Straight answers only until you’re down. Use your safeword if you need it. How close to sub space are you?”

He can tell that she wants to fight him on some part of what he said. Knowing Natasha, it’s not the one about simple answers. She likes being able to answer with single syllables. That leaves being upset at having a safeword, and he’s not budging on that. He doesn’t care how fucking angry he is. He will not do anything with a scene without a safeword in place. He doubts that Natasha will ever use the safeword, but she’s done it once before for him.

“Need a scale, sir.”

Tony should have seen that coming. Once she’s this close she can’t bring herself to start explaining what she feels because that will drop her quicker than actually screaming that she’s the reason that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. “One to ten scale. One is that you’re barely holding onto a mask that resembles submission. Ten is that a kind word with praise for coming to me is going to drop you the rest of the way.”

He’s expecting the truth to be somewhere around six. He doesn’t think she’s anywhere near faking it anymore with him. Both of them have seen the other one in positions of stress too many times to come close to being able to lie about emotions without having severe consequences.

“Nine.”

Tony pauses then nudges her forward with the hand in her hair until she’s practically bending into an arch to settle her head on his lap without moving from the knelt position. If she’s that close, then she wasn’t kidding about wanting to explain and apologize, and then beg. Maybe he’ll reverse the order on her. Begging will drop her and give him an excuse to give her just enough praise to keep her from dropping.

“Beg me, Natalia. Tell me what you want. Not to explain and shit. Tell me what you want at the end of this.”

Natasha twists her own head in his hands to bury her face into his leg for a moment before pulling back where he can hear her speak clearly. “Please, sir, I want your forgiveness. I want to be good. I want your praise.” Fuck, even she knows that was weak, but she has no clue how to vocalize what she wants. “I want to make up for my actions, because I need you. You were one of the few people that I was willing to trust, and I fucked up. I fucked up because I trusted someone else.”

That’s the second he knows that she’s hit her point. She would never admit to trusting someone else and being burned for it without sub space. She would call it a bad call, or that she miscalculated a play. His hand turns soft and strokes through her hair. “Shh. I make no promises, but I assure you that this was the best choice that you’ve made since Berlin. You’re on the right path.”

Natasha stares up at him, because he hasn’t given her any orders to do anything else. “Please, sir, can I tell you where I think it begins and ends, then you tell me where blanks are.”

Tony admits to himself that her plan might be the easiest. Part of him just wants to start with the questions, but if he gets the background first, he might not have to ask so many repeats in order to get a variation of the same answer with different meanings behind them. “Tell me what happened.”

“I didn’t know it then, but things started all the way back when we took down shield to take down hydra. We were in their bunker, and we found out that your parents died because of hydra. More specifically, we found out that they used the winter solider to do their dirty work. I wanted to tell you immediately, but I also didn’t want to be the one to tell you. You were my dom, you were the person I went to when I didn’t know what to do like this. I was lost.” She pauses for a moment just staring at him.

Tony wonders why she would stop right there. Then, he realizes that she’s waiting for him to respond to the story in some fashion. He tightens his grip in her hair because right now all he’s gotten is that she was scared, which is a valid emotion for the situation, but if that’s the only reason that she’s done what she’s done, he’s going to kick her out. “Nat,” he warns.

“Steve realized that he could manipulate me. I thought he was taking pity on me. He swore, he promised that he would tell you. I thought that would be a blessing because then I could still be yours, and you could be angry at me if you wanted, but I didn’t have to force you to be angry at me. Sir, he promised that he told you. He told me that’s why you were pulling back from some of the missions. I didn’t realize he lied until Siberia, the same time that you did.”

Tony drags her up to where she’s dangling by his strength alone. She’s no longer able to hold herself in that position. “Are you telling me that Steve Rogers didn’t just lie to me, but to you?”

“Yes, sir. Yes. I never would have kept this from you. I swear it. I couldn’t handle the idea of telling you, but I would have. I would have locked away every trace of the submissive inside to do it, but I would have come to you and told you everything. Please tell me that you believe me, please.”

Tony’s eyes flicker and he pulls her onto the couch where she can be curled up against his side. He can’t quite reason to himself why he wouldn’t just keep her kneeling, but he just can’t handle that at the moment. “Yes. I believe you, Natasha. Tell me what happened in Berlin.”

Natasha curls into Tony without thinking. “When the fight first began, I took on Clint. I mean both of us were unenhanced, the most human. I figured that if we fought each other then it wouldn’t be so bad. I thought maybe I could hold the family together if I could keep us from actually trying to injure each other. Neither of us were fighting as hard as we could have, so Wanda used magic to crash me into something that would hurt me, told Clint he was pulling punches. I was hurt, and I realized that while I was trying really hard to make sure that no one got hurt, they were trying to take us down. When I saw Steve and Bucky running for the plane, I blocked them. But Steve didn’t hesitate, he wasn’t going to back down for someone he claimed to love, someone he claimed to want to protect. I knew I had to move, if I didn’t he’d have killed me. Then, I saw T’Challa coming, and I realized that if I let them fight, that someone was going to die. I couldn’t handle a teammate dying, I couldn’t take that much red on my ledger, and I couldn’t ask you to take the decision for me because the witch destroyed my way to contact you. I made a bad call. I attacked T’Challa instead of anyone else.”

Tony froze as she told her side of the story. He needed to know more because right now, his anger was going to die down. He’d punish her for daring to question the orders he gave her, and for making him believe that she hated him, but he’d forgive her after everything. “I’m going to ask you questions. Are you going to be okay with that or do you need me to wait until morning?”

Natasha’s body shakes where she lays against him. “Please finish this part tonight, so I know where I will be before I come up.”

Tony’s hand goes back to stroking her hair as he pushes it down and across from her face. “Did you ever go down for Rogers?”

“We were a team, a family. Despite, the fact that he refused to do anything out of the bedroom, he was still where I went sometimes, especially when you were in a relationship with Pepper. I didn’t want to cause strain, and while Pepper was okay with the most of us, but she still had a problem with me.”

Tony’s eyes close because that’s enough of a defense that he’ll get the charges against her dropped in seconds. He could save her without expending any additional effort after this conversation, and he knows he will. He’s going to take her back. “We’re going to have to work to make up for what we just broke, Natasha.”

“Whatever you ask for that is mine to give.”

“I’m going to punish you, and it won’t be fun for you. That will be for the fact that you left without word. Let me be clear, you would not be in trouble and being punished if you had come to me right after that fight. I would have kept you safe. The rest of it will be proving that I can trust you on the field again. I’ll give you tiny tests, you’ll never know what they are or were. You’ll never know if you pass or fail. I’ll know, and I’ll keep them going until I can trust you again. Do you understand?”

Natasha nods automatically. Words have never come easily to her and today is no different in that sense.

“Words, Nat. I need words. I need your utter consent.”

“I understand.”

Tony sighs in relief. He’d been waiting to see whether she’d actually submit to whatever consequence he dreamed up. He knew her hard limits, so that was easy enough to ignore. Her medical stats were higher than the average human, so he’ll need to increase stats slightly, but he wants her to understand she did wrong, not to be terrified of upsetting him.

Natasha gives up trying to maintain her composure an her body slump down against Tony. “Will I be allowed to know my punishment?”

Tony twists to stare down at her. That is one of the main things on her hard limits, she needs to know what’s coming otherwise she flashes back to the red room where she was never allowed to know what would happen next. “Yes. I might be angry at you, but I will not break the limits that you have placed on us.”

For a second she looks like she’s about to speak, but then she just leans into Tony’s side. The silence proving that she needs to let him leave after braving the storm to get here.

“I won’t punish you tonight. I need time to figure out what I’m willing to use on you in return for you being forgiven after this kind of tension between us. While, I’m thinking, I’m telling both Rhodey and Pepper what’s happening, and I’ll take care of starting the trial for the Accords.”

A nod follows his proclamation, and before he can comment on her not speaking, she begins. “Of course. Do you need me to leave until the punishment, so you can talk to the council without harming your reputation?”

“Ms. Romanoff, I managed to do many things over the course of a minute including buff up the protections in this tower. As long as you don’t leave the tower until boss gives you the okay, no one will know you were here,” Fridays states. Her voice brings a certain calm to Tony.

“Can you stay without running or will you claim this is a fancy jail like Wanda?”

Natasha flinches at his words. “I agreed with how you handled Sokovia and Lagos. I was trying to train her, but she didn’t always listen. I should have protested her being in the field.”

Tony sighs. “Perhaps. Perhaps, we shouldn’t have let her in the first place. She was hydra, willing and able.”

“People deserve chances. I have to believe that otherwise I should just dig my own grave.”

Tony presses a kiss to her forehead. “Some people want to change, you’re one of them. Maybe Wanda will prove me wrong. I would be happy if she did.”

Natasha pushes herself off his side, despite the fact that even Tony could see the fact that she didn’t truly want to have to leave her spot.

“Natasha, you came to me willing to kneel and let your fate be decided by me alone even before you knew that there was even a chance that I’d be merciful, you can stay beside me for as long as you need tonight.”

Natasha shakes her head at him with a soft smile crossing her face. “I knew you’d offer to let me explain. You let me in after what Fury ordered me to do, if you were willing to forgive that betrayal when we had nothing between us when I started lying, I was willing to put good money that you’d forgive me this time as long as I was willing to accept whatever punishment you decided to give me.”

“Will you? Accept whatever I decide, or will you ask me to let you run?”

Another smile pops up on her lips. “Once upon a time, I met a man who had just told congress to go fuck themselves. I wrote a report that said that he was narcissistic, a bad team player, and would be horrible for all government work. Do you know why I wrote that, Tony?”

“You made a bad call, Rommanoff.”

“No, Tony. I knew everything I wrote in that report was a lie, but I also knew that if I had written the truth, that Fury would have destroyed Tony Stark. Maybe you wouldn’t have agreed to make weapons for the first year, maybe two, but he would have shown you dead agents over and over again, until you did. You were a good man, and SHEILD was not good. I didn’t know HYDRA had them, but I did know that they weren’t the same good you were.”

Tony blinks. They never talked about her time as Natalie Rushman. Not once in the many years in the tower had she ever broached the topic about what had happened back when they first met. Back when Pepper was still his girlfriend and the one he thought he was going to marry, she had told him that Natasha had probably told him to do whatever he wanted that night to push him over the edge, but hearing that he didn’t believe that. “Will you still answer me truthfully?”

The flinch wasn’t concealed. She let him see that weakness this time. This time she’d make an effort to never lose the trust that he was placing in her again. “I tried really hard to never lie to you after the first day. I couldn’t break away form the job, but I also managed to only lie about what they were ordering me to do. So yes, I will always answer you truthfully.”

Tony huffs out a laugh. She pretty much answered his question for him, but he’d still like to hear her say it after everything. “When I asked you what you’d do if you only had a day left to live?”

“Whatever the hell I wanted,” Natasha finishes, a brighter smile gracing her face as her gaze turns to him. “That was the truth, Tony. I had plenty of days where I thought they were my last, but I still couldn’t do a single action that I wanted. I still had to play the role, because if I didn’t then maybe it wouldn’t just be on the chopping block, maybe they wouldn’t deign to give me a quick death. If I knew right here and right now, that I would die tomorrow, nothing would stop me from flying straight to wherever I could find a trace on Rogers, and I’d pay him back.”

Tony shakes his head. “Go to bed, Natasha. You won’t die tomorrow; I’ll make sure of it. My suits, my tower, nothing will target you here unless they have a death wish. But I suppose you should know, that all of the rogues are currently in Wakanda.”

Natasha tilts her head to regard him. “If you were Fury, that would have been a indirect order to go take care of the threat. You aren’t Fury though.”

“You will be your own person here, Natasha. Even if I have to retrain you to know what that means. I gave you that, just in case your need for revenge was stronger than your need to be forgiven. From what I know of your past, I’m not sure whether or not I could ever let them live for taking away my autotomy knowing what I’d been through.”

“If I stay, and I manage to earn both your forgiveness and your trust, I won’t have to get my revenge today, you’ll help me get it later,” she replies before slipping into the elevator presumably down to her own floor.

Tony rubs his face. Of all of the things that he was semi-prepared for, this was not one of them. He expected to have to be the one to offer the olive branch to any of the rogues if he wanted them back even if he was the party that was wronged in all of the situations. “Fri?”

“Yes, boss. I could still end her for you and erase the entirety of the conversation, so that it looks like you ordered her dead the moment you knew of her presence.”

“No, not this time, baby girl. This time we’re going to try to be better people than we were before. We’re going to give people chances with conditions, that way if shit ever goes down again, I’ll know who was always on my side, and who was lying because that was easier. Natasha, I never had enough of a read on her to understand the choices that she made, but now I will. Lock down the tower residential areas, no incoming calls, leave the outgoing calls because I’ll need to make some tomorrow morning.”

“As you wish, boss.”

With that taken care of Tony drags himself over to the bed to get at least two hours of sleep before he has to start dealing with everything else again. Why does it seem he can never catch a break?

Chapter Text

Tony wakes up in the morning, feeling far more tired than he thought he would. All of his dreams had been filled with the different things that had happened during the civil war, including the way that Natasha had stood beside him as he argued for the accords. She didn’t betray him until that last moment, which he still had some questions about, but those weren’t questions that he could force out of her. She would have stood aside to save herself, that part makes sense, but the fact that she took down T’Challa to prevent anyone from dying could even be seen if she believed that Bucky had been innocent, but that’s not what she told him.

He picks himself off the bed and puts on an outfit meant for the lab, because he didn’t think he’d be leaving the lab until later tonight when he figured out what he means to punish Natasha with. Given the fact at this point, he’s not going to punish her for her actions at the airport, because just as no court would find her guilty after that, neither would he. No, he’ll punish her for running, because both of them need the stability of knowing that the other one will come home to them at the end of everything.

He gets into the elevator and almost sighs when he realizes that he’s going to need to tell both Pepper and Rhodey that he plans on giving Natasha a chance to prove herself. Pepper will be angry and probably accuse him of thinking with the wrong body parts. Their relationship may have ended, but the love they share still exists, and Pepper will see this as proof that Tony would have never turned away his team for her. Rhodey on the other hand will just be concerned that Tony is going to end up getting himself hurt.

He should probably get the call out to Pepper first, since Stark Industries still has the stock value to worry about, when the announcement comes that Natasha will be on the team of new avengers. He can even sweeten the deal with her by mentioning the fact that they can mention that Stark Industries will start to get into the prosthetics business.

The New Avengers team is something else that he needs to deal with, because while Rhodey has agreed both to the council and to the team to be the leader, they need more members than War Machine, Vision, and Iron Man. If he’s redeeming Natasha, then one of his first tests for her would be to read files with him and choose who the hell they think they can end up working with. The Accords has plenty of files that they’ve suggested. Technically, Spider man is on the list of backup, but his underage status gives him certain protections from having to deal with most of the issues.

“Friday, call Pepper before I fall down another rabbit hole of issues that I need to deal with before the end of the next month or so, or before the next alien attack.”

The dial tone starts ringing, and Tony knows that he’s getting the cold shoulder because of the fact that Natasha is in their tower without having been punished. He expects that Friday will be much happier once Natasha has accepted an actual punishment instead of hypotheticals. Her punishment needs to actually show her the error in what she did, so he’s going to stick away from the things that actually turn her on, because he doesn’t need the signals to mix in her head. Unfortunately, that rules out a lot of things, because enjoying the pain was one of the only ways that Natasha managed to survive the red room.

“Tony? Are you alright? I knew I shouldn’t let you leave the hospital so soon.”

“Pep, light of my life, calm down. I’m fine, but we need to talk about things that I’m going to do that might both boost the stock value and decrease it.”

“Dammit Tony, you haven’t even done the press conference to assure them that you’re alive after they all saw you flown in on a stretcher after a mission against the rogues.”

Tony nods. He forgot that he needed to make that press conference, but that would be a wonderful time to gain some publicity for the black widow, so that’s a positive sign. “In my defense, they tie together.”

“Start explaining, Tony, so that I can make a plan to try to minimize the damage of whatever you do.”

“Natasha came by, and I’ve decided that I’m giving her a chance, because honestly, she trusted the wrong dom. We all know that you can’t be blamed for something like that. Instead, I’m punishing her for not coming to me immediately after that happened, and we’ll work on trust between the two of us.”

Pepper blinks on the screen for a moment before laughing. “I knew that you would end up forgiving her. You forgive too easily, Tony. They’ll hurt you again.”

Tony considers just ending the call and letting everything stay the exact same at this moment. But, Pepper was one of his truest friends, and he couldn’t just let her keep going down the path that they were on. “Just like you did, you mean. You asked me to choose, Pepper. There is no difference between me and Iron Man. I can’t stop saving people any more than you can handle me putting myself in danger.”

“You are comparing me asking you not to make me deal with never knowing when or if you’d come home to your friends refusing to listen and betraying you,” she asks in a deceptively calm voice.

Tony knows that if they were still in a relationship, he would have actually given in right then to avoid a fight, but he needs to draw lines with everyone that hurt him after what happened. “Yes, I am. You definitely didn’t hurt me as much Steve did, but with any of the others, I’d say you hurt me more.”

Pepper freezes on the other end of the call as she stares at him. “We weren’t good together, were we?”

“We’re pretty great as friends, with you as my fierce protector from the legal and business aspects of the world, and me the rich billionaire with hundreds of design ideas.”

“Does that mean you have an idea for me that I can run by the board to distract them when you decide to start working on Natasha,” Pepper asks.

“We’re going to enter the prosthetics division of the market. Leg braces will be the first design but that won’t be the only thing I invent once I start working on this field.”

Pepper nods. “I’ll sell it to them, Tony and warn Natashalie that if she hurts you again, I’ll find a way to end her.”

Tony laughs. He has no doubt that somehow Pepper would actually manage to destroy Natasha. “Will that be all, Miss Potts?”

“That will be all, Mr. Stark.”

As the call ends, he turns back to his computer where he has the notes from Jarvis on Natasha’s hard and soft limits. His best bet would be to find one of the things that she checked as only for punishment. The cane might work for both of them.

Then, he pulls up the leg brace diagrams for a moment to tinker with them. While dialing the number for Rhodey, he tweaks the design plan. First things first, he’ll invite the man back to the tower to try the design, then mention what he needs next.

“Hey, Tones, everything good over at the tower?”

“Oh, everything is peachy here. I have some designs for your leg braces, so I’m going to need you to come back by soon.”

“Normally, you’d be telling me to get on the next plane out of here, so that means you also need me to run something by the accords council.”

“Don’t worry, I’m also going to end up calling our team of lawyers in the next couple of hours. We’re going to turn Romanoff in to have a proper trial, and we’re going to make sure that she wins the trial.”

“Why?”

“Better than Pepper, you’re not already yelling by this point. She was scared, and the red room broke her, Rhodey. She’ll claim that she’s fine, but she’ll be lying. Steve used her fear against her, and while I don’t have all the answers about why she stopped T’Challa, someone would have died if she hadn’t, and that wasn’t what we were trying to accomplish.”

“You going to punish her?”

“Yeah, but not for the airport. Only for not coming back to me when she had the choice.”

Rhodey shakes his head. “I don’t agree with your decision, but I’ll support it. I’ll take care of the things here with the council, but I’d appreciate if you passed along to Natasha that if she betrays us again, I will personally figure out a way to put on a suit to beat her to pulp.”

“I will personally lay down at your feet to assist you, if I hurt him,” Natasha offers while stepping into the lab with a plate of sandwiches in one of her hands.

Rhodey pauses to turn his gaze to where she stands. “Kneel.”

Tony comes close to snapping that she doesn’t have to follow that order if she didn’t want to. He’s not the dom that she’s agreed to accept rules from, let alone orders through a phone. She’d submitted for Rhodey a couple of times when things went really wrong on a mission, and both Steve and Tony were busy trying to patch up other subs that were worse off after the mission.

Which is why he actively gasps, when Natasha goes down on her knees in a fluid motion with the sandwiches still balanced in her hands. “Sir?”

Rhodey smiles back at Tony. “Give her what she needs. She’s sincere.” Then, the dial tone ends as he hangs up the phone.

Tony comes close to just ordering her back out of the lab because she wasn’t supposed to be there at any point during the day, still she looks much calmer since Rhodey told her to kneel. For that and the fact that he needs to give her the punishment early otherwise that would cause her to breakdown long before the punishment even started. “Why did you come down, Natasha?”

“Food. You don’t eat often when you’re in the lab working on something, and I wanted to make sure that you ate.”

Tony runs a hand down her hair, just to watch as she relaxes at the calming touch. That’s one of the many reasons he knew from the start that he was going to forgive her without question. “Good. That’s a good thing.” He reaches down and pulls the tray of sandwiches up to the table of the lab and sets it aside.

Natasha stays still, not leaning into the touch, although the tension in her shoulders suggests that she wants to.

“I’m going to stay in here until 7. Friday, set an alarm for 7 that you aren’t allowed to accept codes to ignore.”

“Yes, boss.”

“At 7, we’re going to your floor, because despite what you claim, you feel better in your own space during a punishment than in your dom’s. Trust me, I keep tabs on those kinds of things by checking with other times something like that happens. For your punishment, we’re going to do a caning. 30 strokes, no more, no less, and you won’t have to count. I’ll have Friday flash the number at us from somewhere that both of us can see. Any questions.”

Natasha’s breathing was more shaky than it had been before, and he doesn’t need her sending herself into sub drop over something that he could have prevented, so he keeps his eyes firmly on her. She holds herself stiff for a moment, before nodding. “No questions.”

Tony decides that this would be a good time to push for information because if he can’t trust her than all of this is worthless. Less than worthless, this was pointless. “Why did you freak out right then?”

The blink tells him that she didn’t even realize that she had shown a physical reaction to the thoughts running through her head. “Haven’t been down since the so called civil war, I’ve been putting off most of my emotions. Not sure which portion actually caught me off guard, sir.”

Tony taps her cheek, which is her only warning before he slaps her across the face sending her to the left by a small amount before she can regain her standard. “I am not sir. You’re allowed to call Rhodey that because he lets you. I will not be your sir, what will I be, Natasha?” This time he manages to keep his voice firm while correcting her instead of letting it slide.

“Tony. I call you Tony, whether we’re in a scene or not, you are always going to be Tony.”

Tony graces her with a smile. He’s confident that she knows as well as he does that this doesn’t really deserve praise, and that she hates when she gets praised for doing something that she should just be expected to do, so he doesn’t bother giving her a single word. “Leave. I’ll be upstairs, when it’s time.”

He grabs a sandwich and plops himself down in front of a screen. He pulls up the emails and starts reading the few that Pepper actually left to him for when he was out of the hospital. The one from Harley puts a smile on his face. The kid was threatening to kill whoever hurt Tony enough to put him in the hospital. He wonders what response he’d get for saying that it was Captain America, but he can’t burn that bridge yet. He knows what the endgame is, and he can’t have a separated army when that enemy comes.

Instead, he types up a standard response that says don’t threaten to kill people and to watch his back. Distantly, as he types to the boy, he wonders whether Natasha would mind going out there to make sure that none of the many people who want Tony Stark in their pocket have figured out that this boy has a hold on him that isn’t going to be broken easily by any means.

Once, he finishes that email, he pulls up a draft and starts typing out an email to his lawyers to get Natasha cleared for her part in the wiping out of shield. That was a shitshow beyond words, but since they’re going to try to mend fences, and because she had just found out that Hydra murdered his parents, he was just going to let that one slide. Especially since at the time, Natasha had no reason to believe that Steve wasn’t going to loop him in pretty soon afterwards to take care of the problems.
That email gets sent pretty quickly, and he pauses wondering what to start next. He doesn’t want to start any of the other projects quite yet, because if he gets sucked into a project and doesn’t end up getting out of here straight at 7, Natasha will panic, and his subs deserve better than to get treated like they aren’t owed anything.
Her reaction earlier has him slightly worried. He can’t be certain that she isn’t going to drop on him in the middle of the punishment because of whatever reason has kept her from dropping since the civil war. He’s hoping she went to Rogers or Rhodey or even Pepper sometime soon before the war, otherwise she’s been seconds away from hurting for a while.

He opens up a secure text chain with Pepper and types up a request. “Just in case I find out some more shit tonight when I try to do a punishment scene, will you have legal on standby and a private jet in case I need reinforcements?”

“Do you think you will?”

“She flinched at the mention of the scene despite not having any knowledge about what’s going to happen. I’m wary and nervous that I’m going to find out that she hid some amount of information. Or that I’m going to find out that she’s even worse off than I expected, because of some past trauma that none of us ever came upon, because as far as I’m aware the only punishment scene she did with any dom was yours after the whole infiltration issue.”

“….” Pops up on his phone three times before a message finally appears from Pepper. “Tony, what if she did with Rogers?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what if he treated scenes as they did back in the 40s.”

Tony freezes where he is sitting as his mind rushes to process the very idea of that. “Pepper, if that’s true, then half of this team is filled with subs who might actually be terrified out of their mind because someone they trusted to scene with has broken them down.” The words cause him to want to throw up because if that’s true then there is no hope at all that some of them meant to hurt them.

“I don’t like the rogues. I don’t trust them, and I sure as hell don’t want you to take them back. But, I think you will because they were hurt and they used that to lash out at you. I will support you. I will be on standby, but Tony, I need you to promise me that you won’t hurt yourself to save them.”

“I promise, Ms. Potts.”

6:50, close enough, so Tony stands up and makes his way up to the main floor. At first he just allows himself to look at the Black Widow sitting on his couch staring into the nothingness. He knows Natasha well enough to know that she would have known that he was present.

She turns her head. “May I ask you something?”

“May I have an honest answer as well?”

“Of course.”

Tony inclines his head. Six more minutes before either of them need to move in order to make sure that they don’t break their own promises on complete accident. That would cause Tony to laugh, but he doesn’t really want to laugh during this scene. This is meant to fix some of the problems that they have between them. “I told Steve that I was a switch, when I realized that he took command as the right to discipline subs actions on the field. I made him believe that I only subbed outside of the field, but I never went to anyone with my concerns. Does that make me a bad person?”

“No. It confirms some theories that I have running right now, but Natasha, protecting yourself doesn’t make you bad. I promise. My question is simple alright Natasha, do you currently believe that the others are in danger?”

Natasha blinks before slipping off the couch and coming to stand at his side “I believe that they were in danger, and they’ve chosen the path to the least resistance to avoid that danger.”

Tony sighs deep in his throat. He will end up trying to save them from Steve Rogers, he won’t take the first step to anything else, but he suspects that both Clint and possibly Sam will end up begging for a place on the team still. He’ll probably end up forgiving them for mistakes that they made. “Come on, Nat.”

He tugs on her arm as they walk to her room. The way her body bends into his, allowing him to take the lead even this early in the game causes him to twist his lips up into a smile. He keeps one hand on her arm, but the other he runs up to brush her hair off the back of her neck where he can press a gentle kiss onto the center of her neck.

Natasha allows him to move her however he wishes. She keeps her eyes straightforward though. She doesn’t put up any resistance as they enter her room, and Tony surveys everything.

Tony’s eyes land on the bed. The angle wouldn’t be great for Natasha for the number of strikes they’d be doing. He doesn’t need to have her on her tiptoes, when that wasn’t the goal of the punishment. He does however note the fluffy blanket neatly folded at the end. That would be helpful on the off chance that she does safeword out of the situation, or if she needs comfort for any other reason after the punishment. Normally, she just asks whether she’s forgiven and takes the words at face value, but things can change in a scene. He knows that well enough from his own experiences in the manner, that if something does happen that he isn’t prepared for, then that will be fine.

The desk is cluttered with papers and files. All of them either about still active hydra sites that she was planning on making sure were no longer operational, or a couple on the accords committee, members, laws, and amendments. The work that she had been doing with Tony before Steve chose to run off half-cocked at the first sign of trouble for his precious Bucky.

Tony turns to stare at Natasha. “You didn’t stop by for any of your things when you ran.”

“I didn’t want to believe you’d lock me out, but I also wasn’t sure whether I still trusted my judgement, because I trusted Steve’s. Then, Steve did the worst possible thing to betray my trust, and I called Pepper. Then, I came home. I didn’t run for long. No longer than a day, before I contacted one person. After that, I was just waiting for you to be home, because I wouldn’t just walk home without being able to talk to you, but I also didn’t need my things, because I was always going to be coming home.”

Tony’s hand brushes against her back. A gentle soothing motion. “I wasn’t trying to provoke anything there, Nat. I was just surprised that you didn’t stop by for some of this as it would probably have helped you clear your own name.”

Natasha matches Tony’s deep gaze, but she does raise an eyebrow. “We both know that without you, I’d be in a jail cell, because they wouldn’t bother giving me a trial. I’m a former Russian spy, with ties to Captain America the domestic and foreign terrorist. They wouldn’t need a trial.”

“Remind me that we’ve got to get that bill rejected from the current legal workings of this country. Friday, be a dear and mark that in the file: Stupid Laws That Pepper and I Haven’t Had Enough Time to Erase From the Narrative of This Country.”

Natasha bites down on her lip and tears her eyes away from his. “Can I help?”

“Probably. Depends on what ever tasks I give you to earn back smaller amounts of trust first, but probably. You’re always good at politics, and both Pepper and I are going to go crazy trying to make sure that this doesn’t explode on us at some point.”

“What was legal’s joke again?”

“One day Dr. Stark will take over the world, with Ms. Potts laughing in the background, and we’re going to have been complacent and happy about it,” Tony jokes.

“I am sorry,” she whispers. The sound of a pen dropping could have been heard in the room with how silent everything got with that admission. The way that Tony always starts punishment scenes. He always makes sure that they know right then, that they are safe. That he is with them, that he isn’t leaving, and that once they’re ready to begin by bringing up the transgression in whatever light that helps them.

Tony reaches out to touch her elbow to guide her over to the desk. “Clean it up, while I grab the cane. That’s all you have to do.”

Natasha scans his eyes for any trace of a secondary order, but he knows that she won’t find anything. Any and all of the other tasks that must be undertaken before this punishment would not be done while he was gone from the room, and some of them wouldn’t be done without his direct instruction otherwise, Natasha would drop and safeword because she was too close to the mindset that the Red Room caused.

Tony leaves her there to clean the desk and trusts that she’ll follow his orders to the letter. He always trusts his subs that far, and he goes to the toy closet on the communal floor. He might have the penthouse, and most avengers have rooms, but when most of them had asked for some from of scenes platonic or otherwise as family members often do, he’d installed a good play closet closer to them. He chooses a light cane, because while he wanted Natasha to feel something, he didn’t particularly want to punish her with something heavier, when he isn’t confident in her mental capacity.

He leans against the doorframe as she finishes up the last of the papers on her desk in the proper files. He cracks a smile at the memory of when she did the same for his paperwork. That would be an interesting task to give her to earn trust. Just help out with my file sorting, Natasha. Nothing major, but something that would give us both a decent amount of amusement, plus being tedious enough that Tony would be able to laugh about it in the morning when she grumbles about being more than a secretary.

Natasha stands up straight once she’s done. Her perception skills definitely having noted the return of Tony.

Tony nods once she’s done. “Hold out your hand.”

Natasha’s brow furrows, but she does as instructed. Her left hand raises so that he has clear access to it. Natural instinct to hold out the non-dominant hand, rather than the dominant one. Not that Tony thinks for one moment that Natasha would even remotely be fazed by having to switch hands, whether it be in the middle of battle or in mundane little tasks, like the jobs that Tony would be keeping her on for a short while.

Tony raises the cane and lets it fall with the same strength he plans on using for the punishment, on her hand. He carefully he watches as she rocks backwards, not expecting the strike, but still remains completely unfazed as her eyes turn to him with a blank question present. “Is that alright?”

Natasha swallows around her immediate answer as if she’s bothering to think of what answer Tony would drastically prefer her to give, which would be the honest one. “That’s fine, Tony. Thank you, you didn’t have to allow me to prepare in that fashion.”

“Does it put you more at ease?”

“You know it does,” she snarks. The snark is an added surprise. He hasn’t heard her trying to tease with him since Ultron, because she’d been too busy running from each issue to the next to be able to find time to make friends with people. He’s hoping that doesn’t mean that was the last time that she actually went down for someone, because otherwise, she is going to be helplessly needy after this scene, and she feels bad after punishment if she needs comfort.

“Then, as long as I’m the one that you’re attempting a scene with, you’re going to deal with me making sure that your comfort is paramount.”

Natasha nods. The tension in her body fades ever so slightly as she meets his eyes. Just the distinction of making her comfortable might be enough to keep her from going into the mindset of the red room. Both Tony and Pepper have already agreed that if they ever find the people who made that room, they’re pulling a mandarin and ten rings situation. There will be no survivors, there will be no stories, there will be the merchant of death and his victims, that is it.

“Undress, Natasha,” he commands softly.

Natasha begins to automatically strip out of her clothes and place them somewhere else. She folds them precisely and sets them to the floor next to her desk until she’s standing in front of Tony completely bare, only she has no shame in that. Not that she ever did, but when she first started subbing again, she did hesitate to be vulnerable. Now, Tony is allowed to disarm her and have her strip, and she wouldn’t put up a fight.

Tony steps forward and places his hand on her lower back. He guides her gently down to bow over the desk. Her body frames the desk as Tony slowly moves her hands, so she can grip onto the wood should she need to. He’s not sure that she will, she tends to take pain as though if she moved, she’d get more. A leftover reaction from a past life, that can’t quite get reprogrammed as easily, because avoiding pain is such a normal reaction.

Natasha slowly releases the tension that settles in her body. The firm strokes over her back, with Tony having set the cane down on the table. Right now, all that either of them are focused on is making sure that both of them are still comfortable.

Tony snaps, and Friday pulls up a countdown clock that is just a bit over the edge of the desk. His eyes can track the numbers really nicely, but he’s not sure whether Natasha will be able to see it if she lowers her head to not stress her muscles during something that is already causing pain. “Nat?”

“I can see,” she answers the unspoken question. Both of them know what questions would come next in Tony’s mind. In fact, both of them are used to this part of the scene. Even in a regular non-punishment scene with Tony, he makes sure that everything that could be contributed to the scene works for both of them.

“Even if you drop your head?”

Natasha drops her head in a test and twists so that her eyes aren’t following the wood, because that wouldn’t help their tests at all, that would actually be the worst possible reaction that she could think of. “Yes.”

Tony nods, then swipes his hand down her back again. Tracing along the vertebrae in her spine in a gesture of comfort, and to feel the way her muscles manage to tense for mere seconds before realizing who is touching her and relaxing further into the touch. He could start the punishment, at any time, but he allows his hand to linger on her as he picks up the cane. “Do you want touch?”

“It’ll make it harder for you to swing the cane,” she mumbles through the wood of the desk. After being instructed to test whether she could see the numbers if she dropped her head, she didn’t come back up to her normal position. More vulnerable, but also more trusting.

Tony swats her lightly on her thigh with his bare hand in a slight reprimand. She knows better than to try to deflect a question about her comfort back onto him. That hasn’t been allowed in ages.

“I’d prefer if you stayed in contact,” she whispers. “But, it will hinder you, Tony. You shouldn’t need to worry about that level of comfort during a punishment, I’ll be fine.”

Tony raises his lips into a smile. This time while still attempting the deflection, she at least held true to the original question which he asked her. That’s improvement, and in general the same level of normalcy that he gives to all of his scenes with Natasha.

He moves around so that he’s positioned at her side. His left hand lands on the center of her back where he can rub the skin softly until he watches her relax at the promise of the new position. Swinging the cane with only his right hand at this position wouldn’t be the best for long-lasting scenes, but this was a limited number. A number he gave her way ahead of time.

He swings the first time and watches as the number in front of Natasha goes down by one. The slight roll of her hips is the only sign that she even felt that blow. He’s not sure whether that was a complaint against his strength or whether that was just the traditional stay silent rule that Natasha gives herself.

Slowly, he sets up a rhythm. He knows that some people seem to think that keeping a punishment at regular intervals would cause the punishment to have decreased affect on the mental standards of the submissive. He happens to hold the opinion that regardless of whatever crimes against you that the submissive has committed that you should never possibly deal a punishment that would have lasting effects on their mental health no matter what.

The hits continue at the same steady rate, although Tony pauses at five remaining when he notices that Natasha has gone rigid stiff. He’s about to ask for her color because he’s concerned.

“красный. Красный. Красный,” she chants.

Tony throws the cane to the far corner of the room as fast as he can manage without removing him from bodily contact with her. He pulls her to him once his other hand was free. “You’re safe, Natasha. You’re with me in Stark Tower. We aren’t even at the compound, we’re in my home base. Nothing and no one can reach you here without my approval.”

“красный.”

Tony pauses for a second, before realizing that she’s not with him. He pulls both of them to the floor and reaches with his left hand for that blanket on the foot of her bed. He should have trusted his instinct and grabbed that before the scene. He finally feels the fluffy nature of the blanket and pulls it to them. He tucks Natasha into it.
“Friday,” he calls.

“Pepper has been notified, boss. She will be arriving in about an hour and a half. She wishes to know a status update.”

Tony brushes hair out of Natasha’s face. As she shivers into his arms. “She dropped, Friday. Tell Pepper I didn’t notice any signs, but send her the video of what was happening to make sure. Tell her that if I did fuck this up that I will leave the room once she gets here, and she can offer to have Natasha press charges should she wish.”

Friday falls silent, and Tony knows that she’d follow the orders. His AI wouldn’t be happy that he was willing to let one of the traitors as she has termed them when its just the two of them talking. Around others he makes sure that she uses titles and names, so no one starts thinking that it was another Ultron scenario. Because that would be bad for both her and him.

“Natasha, doll, if you can hear me, you’re safe. You’re safe.”

For the first hour, he just continues to whisper soft reassurances to her. He doesn’t want her to come to and forget that she’s safe. Or that she thinks she’s in any trouble. This is not something that she should ever have to apologize for. None of this should ever be something that they think needs to be punished.

Her eyes blink open and focus on him. The sob rakes itself from her lungs, as she uses any force she has left in her bones to propel herself straight into his arms. She shakes, but she is real. She can see the real world.

“I’ve got you, Natasha. And, Pepper is on her way, so you’ll have two doms doting on your every move for a little while.”

“Didn’t finish…”

“Don’t you dare,” Tony whispers roughly into her ear. “You are forgiven. You should know that I would never, ever make you continue a punishment after you safeworded. All the issues between us are dead and buried.”

Natasha curls up into him. “Promise you won’t get mad.”

Tony reaches up and runs his hand through her hair. Soft and gentle, almost as if petting an animal, but she is so much more than that to him. He would burn down the world for her. “At you or at someone else?”

“Could you,” she starts. Then, she pauses. Both of them know that her training tells her not to ask, to not push for more space than was given. This was likely one of the first times that Tony wouldn’t back off and try to assume her wishes. “Could you promise not to get angry with anyone until after Pepper gets here, where you guys could switch from the righteous anger and caring doting dom for me, so I wouldn’t have to try to force my mind to accept that the anger isn’t directed at me.”

“With ease, Natasha.”

Natasha leans into the embrace once more. Her body twists so that while Tony could still hear her words clearly, she wouldn’t have to see his face. She wouldn’t have to face his expressions while she tried to explain this one to him. That alone causes him to worry about just how much anger he should be expecting to feel because this seems much larger than what he would normally believe Natasha would fall for.

“I haven’t done a scene since before Ultron because of what Clint told me, when I visited the farm. I went by to make sure that him and the kids were alright. Because, they are mine too. Regardless, of DNA, of blood, those children are mine, and I would die to keep them safe.”

“You wouldn’t have to die. You’d have me at your side, Red. You’d have every suit I would have to have Friday run. You’d probably even get Pepper if the situation was desperate enough.”

Natasha buries her face as she nods. The blush runs down the back of her neck, but Tony chooses not to point that out to her. Neither of them needs the chaos of one of them not being able to hide emotions at times. “Right, anyway, Clint took me out away from everyone else. Away from the cameras. I’m not even sure that the gods could have seen us where we were with the precautions that Clint was taking. He told me that he couldn’t give me who, he couldn’t tell me more because if they found out, he’d be the one broken with no one to find the scrambled pieces of his corpse.”

She gulps as she fights down the bile rising in her throat. “But, he said, there is one of the dominants on our team who will not listen to safewords, he won’t respect limits, and if you let any signs of being more submissive, he will destroy you. Natasha, fight down your nature, find the peace the red room left you, even though I know it hurts. Because the only other option is to break.”

Tony closes his eyes as he forces the damn anger down. “And you knew that it was either me or Steve.”

“I didn’t want to believe that of either of you. One of you had saved me from my darkest moments, the other had been the first person to look at me and see a decent person on the first sight. I thought that you were both good. Different types of good, but good.”

Tony reaches up to cup her face and guide her head up. “Natasha, I need to know what changed.”

“I came home for you. I convinced myself that I made up that meeting in the woods. I convinced myself that it was fake. But then, the cane was coming down, and I couldn’t breathe. For a brief moment, I was sure that even if the pain got to be too much, nothing would be able to save me. But, then I heard your words telling me that I could safeword. That at any point when I submitted for you, I could safeword, no punishment, no consequences. I would be safe, and I needed to know. Then, I was gone. I dropped because I couldn’t tell whether the pain was stopping or continuing. If I was speaking or if I was gone.”

Tony presses his lips to her forehead. A silent apology for not realizing why Natasha was avoiding him, because if he had known that was the reason, he would have fought to get Rogers in a jail cell for assault no question. “That means right now, every sub on our team is currently suffering under his control. Regardless of their stupid actions, they shouldn’t have to live in fear.”

Natasha breathes out. The air cool from her mouth as she considers her next words. “It could also mean that one of the reasons they chose Steve is because if he won and found them to be in the wrong, they’d be hurt with no end. No way to ask for a way out. They might have been coerced.”

Pepper’s heels clack against the floor as she leans against the door. “There is no maybe here. That man definitely coerced them even if they didn’t know it. And at some point, I will make sure legal gets the council to agree to those terms. Then, we dig Rogers a grave that he can’t climb himself out of.”

Natasha pulls her haunches up. Every single inch of her didn’t want to have to explain to Pepper what happened again. “How much did you hear?”

“Friday streamed the whole thing to me, as I told her to, if you started talking about why you dropped.”

Pepper stares at the both of them for a moment. “The floor is not the most conductive place for cuddles and plans of action.”

Natasha blinks for a moment, then realization dawns on her that she’s not in her bed, she’s on Tony’s lap with her blanket surrounding her, because more than likely that Tony hadn’t been able to move her. She tries to push up, but her body won’t leave Tony’s.

Tony gives a pointed look at Pepper, but he manages to rise to his feet with Natasha in his arms.

Pepper reaches her hand over and tucks Natasha’s foot back under the blanket from where it had moved when he stood up with her. She taps the foot softly. “You staying this time?”

Natasha nods.

“Good, then Tony is going to take the first turn holding you while your favorite movies are playing in the background. Meanwhile, I am going to be taking care of legal.”

Natasha pauses, then reaches with a hand to catch Pepper’s hand with hers. “Would it be possible to be able to touch both of you?”

Pepper purses her lips. “Don’t think I don’t know about manipulation, Natasha. But, yes for tonight, you will have both of us close enough to reach out and touch.”

“I should have known better than to doubt.”

“Given, what Barton said, doubt was necessary. Although, I am extremely concerned on why he ran off with Steve.”

Tony shrugs. “A future problem, not a today problem.”

Natasha shivers in his arms, and Tony catches it. He shifts her so that she is taking more heat from his body. “I know, my dear, that he means something to you and will be your problem always. But, we can’t start with Clint, okay. We’ve got to be smart about all of us, and Clint may have been coerced, but still joined Steve’s side. We have to push those charges first.”

“If I got him to a safehouse in a different country outside of Steve’s influence, until then?”

Pepper grips her ankle as she guides Natasha to the couch down into a more comfortable position, braced on Tony still. “No. You aren’t going solo ever again. We’re not going to send you into the field with no backup. You’re going to trust us when we say that we will get Clint from Steve as soon as possible legally, where Steve can’t choose to wage war against every country to try to get him back because he can ignore everyone.”

“There are people who I would sacrifice the world for,” Natasha explains.

“And you aren’t alone in that sentiment, but let me try to stop the world from needing to suffer to save these people. Give me a month, Natasha. I promise you that I will somehow have a plan for you, a detailed one by a month, where it won’t look like you’re giving up.”

Tony tugs Natasha’s hair so her head tilts up to meet his eyes. “Pepper is a miracle worker, Natasha. She has someone managed to save Stark Industries from all of my hasty decisions, but as she has made sure I am intimately aware of, she can do a lot more if you give her warning and let her create a full plan.”

Natasha gazes at Pepper for a long moment. “Promise me that if he’s ever in true danger and sends me a message, that I won’t be in any trouble for doing a hasty decision, and I’ll let it go until you’re ready or he is,” she whispers.

Pepper snorts. “Sweetheart, he sends you that message, and I’ll help you raze Steve Rogers to the ground as we rescue him, and we’ll handle a different set of consequences.”

Natasha fades out after that. She has two doms right next to her, making sure that she was safe, making sure that she’s alright.

Tony stares down at her. His mind quieted down the moment she explained what was happening when she dropped. That one wasn’t on him, it was however on Steve Rogers. At this point, he has a list of reasons why that man deserves to be buried six feet under, and it no longer consists of only actions taken against the world, or him personally. Now, he’s got a whole huge mound of new bullshit that can lay on his door. That shield was never going to end up in Steve Rogers hands again, not while Tony still had breath in his lungs.

Chapter Text

When Natasha came to much lighter than before and without all of the many horrors plaguing her after that memory came to her in the middle of the scene, there is a stack of papers reaching higher than most of Tony’s desk papers in front of her with a sticky note on top.

She reaches for the sticky note to read the message first. She’s pretty sure that the message is coming from someone other than Tony, since he’s still laying on the couch where she had been laying on, but his eyes are open. Curious expression ready to receive any information on whether those papers were for him, or her, or a combination.

I could use some assistance with these documents. I know SHIELD tampered with them, but I have zero energy to actually have legal try to find every single little thing they changed, so they could try to default in court. Since, SHIELD wouldn’t let SI have electronic copies, I can’t easily ask FRIDAY to fix the situation. So, if you would please find which wording your ex bosses used, I would be much happier. -Pepper

Ps. Tell Tony this can count as one of his projects for you to earn trust, if he wants. Lord knows he’ll want to use the company at some point anyway.

Tony reads as Natasha silently hands it over to him. Her eyes are stuck on the pile as she scans how many there are and whether she knows the full count. She’s pretty sure she does, since Fury was using her to try to sneak secrets in and out. He never did realize that Pepper and her had made up. Or that Tony trusted her to let him know when things were changed. Although, Natasha hadn’t thought about these after the implosion of SHIELD.

Tony glances back up. “Sure, this is as good as anything when it comes to a first step.”

Natasha quirks her lips up into a brief smile. “I watched Sam beg for the same chance with Steve once, I should have seen.”

Tony shrugs. “That’s the way of the world. Just like me changing the world once more is just a symptom of having Tony Stark present.”

“Privatizing world peace?”

“Making proper medical braces for spine injuries first with additional legs. Then, we’ll lower the specifications to make most bionic things that the medical field could need. Wait, do I need a medical branch?”

Natasha rolls her eyes as hard as she can. “Friday, call Pepper.”

“Please tell me this isn’t you saying that Natasha bolted after dropping last night, Tony, because I really can’t help you today. Apparently some news agency has decided to run a story that Steve Rogers needs a pardon, and if I’m going to run the smear campaign in a couple days, I need that story crushed. Which means I need legal, I need PR, and I need more coffee.”

“The secret stash is in your third cabinet,” Natasha replies, cutting in at the correct moment.

“Oh God, if you’re about to say something is massively wrong with the documents, just correct it. I’ll deal with the lawsuit after I deal with Rogers, which I’ll deal with after this article.”

“I was going to say Tony needs a new branch for SI.”

Silence reigns in the room for a long moment. Tony biting back his grin at the way that Natasha just slips back into the company role. This time, she won’t have to leave because the government pulls her. He’ll make sure of it, and so will Pepper. Between the two of them, there’s not a whole lot that the rest of the world could actually stand on.

“Friday,” Pepper says. “Put this room on mute. Don’t let anyone that isn’t the three of us or Rhodey hear anything that happens.”

Tony blinks. “I wasn’t aware adding a whole new branch of SI required secrecy. I mean we don’t normally worry about such things.”

“I need to ask you a few questions after you tell me our new branch.”

“Medical.” Pepper wouldn’t be too surprised by that announcement. He had already told her about his plans to start in that field, it only made sense once he thought about it more to just open the new department and get more hires in. At this point, the government would probably fawn on them for being involved in way too many fields, but as long as he’s the leading member of the science advancements, and they didn’t jack prices in the slightest, they didn’t have a leg to stand on. Or Pepper would make sure that they didn’t have a leg to stand on.

A sigh filters in from the call, and frantic typing can be heard from the other end of the line. “Tony, you are a super genius. But, you’re also a rich super genius, so I’m only going to ask you this once.”

“Okay. You are in fact scaring me.”

Natasha turns to Tony and holds up a hand. She needs to double check with Pepper, because once they start down this road, they can’t undo anything. They have to commit right now. “Pepper, are you sure right now is the right time?”

Laughter fills the room. “Hell no, but I also don’t think there’s going to be a better time. Tony, you shut down the weapon’s division because they were being used inappropriately. Would you ever reconsider?”

“Why?”

“Because if you are right, if there are alien armies coming, then we need to be prepared. It would be easier to be prepared with weapons of massive damage, and this time you have me running things. They won’t get to terrorists, and if they do, well we have three pilots for iron man suits, and a spy. We’ll tear them down before they’re ever used.”

Tony swallows hard. That sounds a lot like Pepper admitting that she’s ready to where her armor, which she hasn’t even considered before right now. “Pep?”

“I am Rescue, even if I’ve never been on the field, but I signed the accords as SI and as Rescue yesterday. Because we need a team, and Vision is a bit heartbroken right now and only two years old. So, you need me to make sure that the pardons don’t get pushed too soon. But, weapons Tony?”

“Don’t put it off the table, but we aren’t re-opening right at this moment,” he answers. His eyes following Natasha’s as she tracks something across the room.

Natasha stands and paces the room. She seems agitated once more, and he does not need two sub drops in a short order of time. He needs to invent things to help Rhodey, and they all need to start prepping more for the war on aliens.

“Understood. Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

“Doctor,” Natasha corrects from her place on the floor.

“Old joke, my dear. That will be all, Ms. Potts.”

Natasha stares at Tony for a long moment. “A team of superheroes won’t save the world from what’s coming. Not if you were correct. That’s an army.”

“You don’t think we can win together.”

“I don’t think we’re even together at the moment, although I hold on to the hope that we will have a more cohesive unit once we’re at the point of no return with the aliens. But, no.”

“My weapons cannot be used against humans ever again. They cannot be trusted to the governments, not ours, not anyone’s. I will not allow them to target civilians of any type ever again. That’s a line I drew in the sand for the right reasons, and I can’t handle not holding that line down for the rest of eternity.”

Natasha swallows hard. “I have a first task. Allow me to do a second one.”

“What’s that?”

“Let me come up with a way for us to have an army at the ready with your weapons. Weapons that could and will be enough to stop aliens. Let me find a way to save this world,” she pleads.

Tony shrugs. “Don’t let it interfere with whatever Pepper needed these files done for.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “I managed to do a spy job, while working as your PA for a different case all together because Clint had to bail for Laura as she was giving birth, I’m pretty sure I can manage some light brainstorming, with what ultimately ranks as doing paperwork.”

“And you complain about my ego?”

She ducks her head down. “An easy target in front of Rogers. That’s one of the few things that he will actually believe about you. Makes it easier to manipulate him into thinking that he’s in the right, and you’ll always wait until we’re alone to ask whether I meant it, because you know that I play the room more often than I respond with my personal opinions.”

Tony meets her eyes. “With the new team, you aren’t doing that.”

A tremor runs down her body. “I don’t know how to stop.”

“We’ll work on it.”

Another full body shudder this time. Tony takes note of the position of her body and runs through potential reasons for her to be hesitant. As far as he’s aware, he’s given her no reason to be afraid of what might be coming next. As far as he’s aware, she should be delighted. Then, as he takes in her closed off expression, it dawns on him that she might have seen those words as a threat of sorts. Fucking hell, he’s going to have to go on a mission sooner rather than later to destroy the red room. Same way he got rid of ten rings, the same way eventually he’ll have every hydra base and nothing will be left but dust and ash.

Tony steps forward until he’s pressed into her space. She would have to actually push him back to gain enough movement to back up. He tilts his head so that her eyes couldn’t easily avoid his, and her attention had to be focused on him. “Listen to me very carefully, when I say we’ll work on something. I mean as equals. Like when I needed you to make sure that any alcohol I tried to sneak past Friday with all of my clearance levels ended up in the sink. Like when I asked you to kneel in front of me for something random not a scene, just a little bit of ease for the both of us,” he explains.

“I am not your equal.”

“What?”

Natasha flashes him a quick smile. “I’m not your equal. I am no genius, I am not a hero, and I don’t have the power to destroy those who hurt the ones I love. Instead, I play the game with the rest of you, and I pray that will end up being good enough for a better life the next life.”

Tony scrubs at his face roughly. Shit, being near Rogers had damaged her self-worth almost as much as it had damaged his. Damn that man to hell and back. His mortal righteousness has already hurt several people, and several more will likely be hurt before he can even convince Rogers to listen to basic decency when it comes to not being evil.

“You are my equal, Natasha. We all make mistakes. You might not be able to become a master at astrophysics in a night, but you can read a person from a mile away and make a strategy to get him to give you whatever information you needed at the time with a straight face. You are a hero. You are the hero that little girls look up to when the boys tell them that they’ll never amount to anything. You are the best hero for them, at least for the moment. We need to get on that rebranding at some point soon. Friday, add that to the list.”

“Added, boss.”

Natasha laughs. Then, she slips her head lower to rest it on Tony’s shoulder. “How do I work on playing people when as you just mentioned, that’s what I do.”

“You learn to trust.” Tony reaches up and combs his fingers through her hair. “Last time, we pretended to be a family, because it was easier than actually putting in the work to become a family. This time, we make a family. We carve it from the stone and fight the gods for the right to keep it.”

“Even when the gods are closer than the humans at times?”

“Even then,” he states. Then, he glances at the clock. “Now, as much as I love having these complicated emotional talks, we both have actual jobs to accomplish. Feel free to show up to the workshop at any point to say hi, kneel while I work on random things, or even if you just want to make sure my mouth has food.”

Natasha nods and waves him off as he gets into the elevator. Time to get back to work and change the world a little bit further from the path that it was going on for the last bit of forever.

The next week consists of him finalizing every single potential issue with current leg braces and prosthetics for spine and leg injuries. While technically, the only working model is the one for Rhodey, the designs for just about any modifications are prepared. In true, black widow fashion, Tony hardly even sees his teammate, but he will find food left for him in whichever places he could possibly need it.

He convinces Rhodey to be here by the evening to do tests for the legs, and so that he can see Natasha for real since the whole incident. Pepper has made her peace, and now he needs Rhodey too. They will have to fight for a family to form, but they shouldn’t put off reaching that point if they can avoid it.

Natasha lounges on the couch as he reaches the common room, just before he was going to ask Friday to give him her location.

“Do you just naturally know when someone is looking for you?”

Natasha shakes her head. “It has been a full week, and normally when things were a bit easier on all of us, you wouldn’t go longer than a full week without having a conversation with all of us. I figured that the status quo was going to be normal for all of us, and I didn’t want you to need to search for me.”

Tony laughs. “I forgot I used to do that. That wasn’t me trying to have social interactions, I had plenty of those because I was still flying here, there, and everywhere for Stark Industries. That was me trying to encourage all of you to see my as members of the team and as a family member.”

“Until Ultron, we were.”

“Until Ultron, but Ultron shouldn’t have been the breaking point.”

Natasha tilts her head in slight confusion. “I don’t mean to be insulting here, Tony. But on what planet did murder bot that was done partially by the team not equal partial breaking point?”

“Steve never told you!” he shouts. The anger builds up inside him, and he really wishes that the bridges could burn, but then he remembers that Pepper was going full out. All he’d have to do is stop stepping in at the right moments. They didn’t need Captain America, the super solider, they needed the avengers, who needed to somehow be whole, which was not going to happen.

“What?”

“I testified in a private setting because the world agreed that some of the information was private to Stark Industries. Steve was entrusted to watch, so he could bring the judgement back to the team. But given your statement, he never did.”

Natasha shakes her head slowly. “He told us that you had used your money to get out of legal consequences. I figured that with your lawyers you were given a fine, and that was what Steve was talking about.”

Tony buries his face in his hands. “Friday, tell Rhodey that he’s going to be entering a hell of a charged conversation.”

“He says he’ll take a detour and give you an extra 20 minutes.”

Tony nods. “Alright. Part one, I was deemed not a fault by a court. I was deemed not guilty. There was never a fine, nor anything else. Although, there was talk of limiting AI creations by legal laws later, but Steve talked them into not letting me create anymore as a legal restriction for a year for legislation to be passed. That year is almost up, thank God, and Pepper managed to make sure those laws were never passed.”

Natasha folds her legs up on the couch to take in this information. All of this would be news to her. News that should have been given at the time of the trial, but Tony hadn’t thought to question Steve at the time, when he was dealing with his issues. Never again will he make that mistake. “If you don’t mind,” she murmurs, “I’d prefer to hear the whole story before I start making my comments on it.”

Tony bites down his automatic quip about wanting to make sure she chooses the right side, because in this case, all of the information was important. “Part two, Ultron wasn’t functional. Bruce and I hadn’t gotten to the interface yet, the interface is what allows them to interact. Before that all the code is, is a series of commands to follow. For instance, the purpose was to protect the world. We hadn’t started every safeguard yet, because those have to be added once you have all the purposes in place, otherwise the code gets mixed up and things start to get fuzzy. The mind stone created Ultron, just like it created Vision, only one was made from Cho’s mission to fix Ultron, and one was created to protect the Earth without a single safeguard put in place. Hence why I mentioned that Vision needed to be taught proper morality quickly. Because he’s functionally an adult with the memories spanning less than a year.”

Natasha taps her fingers against the couch, which is the only indication that she’s heard that part of the story. Otherwise, her face remains blank. Her lips are paper thin in their pursed state, and she’s meeting his eyes.

“Part three, the last part. Somehow I doubt this got told to you or Clint otherwise you would have started the civil war way earlier, which is also why I didn’t bring it up. Ultron came up to me with much more passion because I was put into a vision just like the rest of you. Only the magic of mine lingered in mind control. It convinced me to push the limits of legal in order to try to corrupt the team. Mind control not from the staff, but from Wanda.”

Natasha lets out a breath. Then, her first clenches. “I’m sorry. Are you telling me that Wanda was mind-controlling you, and when you told your commanding officer, he put her on the team?”

“It was the main reason I moved out of the compound.”

Natasha pops her jaw and her neck. She tilts her head to the side, and the gaze that meets his eyes is not one of the woman that he’s grown to love. The person staring at him is cold. Cold, dark, dangerous, and filled with rage. That person smiles. “One day, he dies. He dies from my hands, and he doesn’t get to know when or how. He gets to know why, and that’s it.”

“Hello, black widow. As you wish,” he replies keeping his voice steady. His suits are a bit far for comfort when a trained killer sits in front of him, without any of the traces of humanity that are buried inside. This must be what staring into a blizzard comes from.

“Russia trained us to be the embodiment of winter. I am not the one who got the title, but I am close enough to serve Winter’s justice to those who deserve it.”

“Would the one who got the title still be living?”

“Of course. He broke free just as I did, but the winter is in us now. For better or for worse, these trainings don’t leave peacefully in the morning. They take and they take. They freeze our anger and place it in a way that we can use for harsh justice.”

Tony can’t stop himself. He starts laughing. That means that Siberia hadn’t been on Barnes at all. That wasn’t Barnes trying to kill him, that was him confused and unsure of what the hell was going on. Just another sin to add on to Roger’s list. “Do me a favor and add a count on the death chart for Steve Rogers for the true title of Winter. Rogers tried to chain him, and I’m not sure I’ll free him before you lose enough of your temper or get your pardon and choose to run off to kill him immediately.”
“Too easy. He’d see it coming.”

Tony quirks his lips up into a smile. “I’m not the only one with innocent blood on my hands.”

“I would argue,” the cold impersonation of a black widow offers, “that you don’t have innocent blood on your hands. You didn’t fire any weapons at civilians, you were betrayed in order for that to happen in the first place. You didn’t create Ultron, apparently the witch did, not that she was ever open about it and was quite vocal in her distaste for you. You saved New York City, none of those deaths are on any of us, because we were doing our best. Lagos can’t be on you, because you weren’t even on that mission.”

“Would you blame yourself for Lagos?”

The black widow freezes, clearly trying to find the pieces that answer that question. “No, but the one with humanity would. Natalia would.”

“Why?”

“I listened to the orders given, I did not abandon my current instructions in any fashion, and I did my part of the mission flawlessly. The deaths were not on me, because I was not in charge of the mission. I was not told that the authorities hadn’t been notified, so I couldn’t have known to contact them. Natalia believes that she should have known that Steve wouldn’t think of that. Natalia believes that as the second in command by a loose understanding of the individuals of the team, that the fact that the Witch was not ready, was also on her for not fighting Steve on taking her.”

“Hmm,” Tony hums. “Will Natalia come back soon?”

“She never left the room,” black widow whispers. “She’s right here in my head. She’s just not the surface level.”

A blink and emotion floods back into her eyes. A faint betrayal lurks under the gentle expression. “The black widow has a target. You should probably be warned that if anyone you don’t want dead get in her way when she chooses to hunt, that they will die. There is nothing colder that Winter’s justice, and she won’t care who they are,” she says.

Tony rubs at his forehead before moving to sit next to her. “Understood. What about the rest?”

“I have never had an issue following the ruling of a court that has been in closed session. The fact that they believed you didn’t commit any crime is good enough for me, especially knowing that the lead up was mostly to do with Wanda and the actual powering up of Ultron was happenstance.”

Tony laughs warm and bubbly. He leans over and kisses her cheek, before grabbing her hand. “Finally, someone who doesn’t blame me.”

“If there’s blame to be had, it is usually yours, Tones,” Rhodey calls as he wheels in from the elevator.

“Ultron,” Tony says.

Rhodey turns to Natasha. “You didn’t know?”

“That would have been nice, to have been in the know. To have been trusted by my team captain, or to have a team captain capable of understanding the current world, or to have a team captain that could be trusted.”

He snorts. “Angry.”

“Planning a murder,” she explains. Her chin tilts up in a challenge. If he doesn’t want her to kill that will likely be a problem at some point.

“Don’t leave the body,” he advises instead. “The army will have to try to find the culprit and it would be awkward to stare them down while lying for Tony’s subs and Tony.”

Natasha flinches. The only thing keeping her on the couch is the grip that Tony holds on to her hand.

Tony snaps his head over to her. He covers her body with one of his legs, giving her more human contact on an automatic pulse. She hadn’t seemed likely to relapse from the drop earlier in the week at any given moment, but this seems way to close to be considered anything else.

Rhodey stares at her with a sharp turn to his lips. “Kneel, Natasha.”

Natasha slips down and out of Tony’s hold down onto her knees. Her entire posture is hesitant and unsure. The whole of her posture could be seen as someone who believes that they are about to be kicked while down and has chosen not to try to stop the kick from coming, but rather accept it.

Tony bites down on his tongue from interfering which every bone in his body wants to do, but he knows that won’t help any of them. It might cause any one of them to snap during a scene. Because right now, Natasha is vulnerable, and for some reason that came about because Rhodey entered his tower.

“You want to tell me what just panicked you,” Rhodey offers while staring at the woman kneeling at his feet.

“Lying for Tony’s subs and Tony.”

“Those words were what I used.” He turns his gaze to Tony. “She is still your sub, correct? I made some assumptions after that phone call, I’ll admit, but I figured that was one of the safer ones that I had.”

“She is.”

Rhodey nods before leaning a hand down to pull Natasha’s chin up so their eyes were as level as they could be with the height differences of the positions. “So, referring to you as his sub isn’t what made you panic. You wouldn’t care if you already agreed to be his again. You also don’t care that I lie about him, because you’ve known about some of those lies since you were here as Natalie. That means that is wasn’t something directly said in my words.”

Natasha’s teeth clash together as she grinds them together to keep herself from speaking. He hasn’t asked her a question, and Tony knows that for the two of them, the best way to give respect is to follow proper protocol. What Tony is still surprised about is the fact that she appears to be following his every word despite the fact that as far as he’s aware Natasha appears to be suffering something because of him?

“Good girl. Not interrupting me. You’re still green, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Rhodey offers her a wry smile. That’s part of their deal, that at random points he’ll ask that way rather than just asking for the color. Natasha doesn’t like the blatant questions, so most of them had creative ways to communicate for her. Then, he sighs. “I forgot something, didn’t I? You’re also my submissive.”

Natasha slumps forward. Her weight still resting on her knees, but she’s no longer holding herself up for whatever Rhodey says next. She pants out a couple of breaths.

“Okay, we’re doing this tonight. You are still my submissive. You didn’t betray me, and honestly, I wasn’t really expecting you to come running to the hospital. As far as I’m aware, you didn’t ask to end anything. So in the past few weeks, I have been operating on the belief that you and me are solid. Are you alright with that?”

“More than, sir.”

“I’ve never referred to you as my submissive to the military out of respect for your lie on the forms about being a switch. Why did this panic you this time?”

Natasha twitches as if the question unsettles her. “Sir, I can’t answer that and be respectful. I just can’t.”

Rhodey regards her stance for a long moment, during which Tony holds his breath. He has no clue what Rhodey does when Natasha admits to not being able to form protocol. The whole idea is ludicrous, because almost anything can be said respectfully, if you try. He jerks his head up.

Natasha rises and clasps her hands together. A whole new look comes across her face as she relaxes even further. “I don’t trust easily. And if the scene with Tony showed me anything, it’s that my subconscious was rebelling against anyone I ever subbed for because I didn’t know who to trust other than Pepper. Pepper was the only safe constant. You said those words and my whole body told me that it could still be you because you didn’t claim me, and whoever Clint was talking about wouldn’t.”

Rhodey clenches his jaw. He reaches out to grab her hand and squeezes. A simple comfort for sure, but enough that hopefully she wouldn’t end up tossing herself off into the deep end without some sort of a plan. Before turning to Tony, with a question for him.

“That leaves Steve,” Tony answers.

“I will rip him to pieces.”

“Claim has already been made,” Natasha warns without letting go of the hand offering simple comforts.

“I’ll come with you a desecrate the dead body if I have to.”

Tony sighs. “I’m just going to have to live with the fact that most of the people in this building are going to end up killing Rogers at some point.”

“I have the exact location of Steve Rogers at any given moment, for their ease when they tell me that they’re planning on leaving,” Friday pitches in.

Rhodey snorts in pure amusement. “Not you, Tony. You need to find a new Captain America.”

“Know of any candidates that don’t already hold a different superhero title?”

“That a task?” Natasha asks.

“Did you complete the first one for Pepper?”

Natasha pinches her brow. “Of course. I’ve also been covering most of your paperwork for the week, so Pepper didn’t know that you slipped into a lab binge again. I am a good personal assistant, even if my talents have way more practical uses.”

Tony waggles his eyebrows. “Like being on your knees.”

Natasha turns to Rhodey. “Do you see the bullshit that I have to put up with? Please tell me that I can ignore his antics and search for a proper captain America.”
“No. No. Let’s hear first thoughts. I’ll go first, my best bet for the next candidate for Captain America would be Sam Wilson, he’s no super solider, but he’s got the military appeal, and he’s not a complete jackass.”

“Just a serious case of hero worship,” Rhodey retorts. “But, I agree, he’s the best option.”

Natasha frowns. “I wasn’t going to say Sam Wilson. Not because I have any problems with him, he’s usually extremely polite, and when he finds out what Steve did to you, he’ll lead the war hunt himself. But he isn’t a super solider, he can’t take the hits that Captain America did in a battle.”

“Fair point,” Tony concedes quickly. “Who were you thinking?”

“James Barnes.”

Rhodey spits out his drink, while Tony freezes where he sits.

“He’s a super solider, military background, and once we fix the whole can be mind-controlled by the Russians, he’s a good man.”

“You mean the man who murdered my parents,” Tony asks.

“No, I don’t. I mean the man who was brain-washed into killing your parents. I am with you that Steve Rogers is an evil asshole who deserves nothing worse than whatever hell on earth I can manage to make for him, but James Barnes does not deserve that. They strapped him to a chair and tied a metal arm to the nerves in his body so he can’t go a waking moment without feeling immense pain. They strapped him to a metal chair and sent electric currents through him until he listened to them and only them, with no memories of what he was before. And if that wasn’t awful enough, they threw him into a cryo chamber anytime he wasn’t useful enough to be frozen until his next mission.”

Rhodey reaches out and tugs on a piece of her hair until her eyes are on him and not on Tony. “You want him to work with his parent’s murderer.”

Natasha breathes in through her nose to avoid doing anything stupid, like antagonizing the man that she wants to forgive her at some point. A part of her screams that she would win if she pushed the right buttons right now, but that part would also be the one that wouldn’t place her trust in them to kneel. “Yes.”

Tony glances at Rhodey, but he makes no move to stop the man from doing whatever he thinks that he needs to do right then. He’s not sure that what the hell Natasha was thinking, but he’d allow her to explain. Whether Rhodey will or not is another matter, and he’s curious to see how this goes.

Rhodey’s eyebrow raises. “And do you perhaps have a reason that won’t make me want to either throw you out of the nearest window or pull you over my lap?”

The sharp intake of her breath causes Tony to actually hold up his hand for Rhodey to turn and look at him. “Try to recall that dragging her up and over your lap is actually bound to cause her significant joy not pain.”

“I could always use a gauntlet,” Rhodey mumbles, but he seems to be taking in the point that Tony had been trying to make so, Tony will let it be again.

Natasha swallows instead of verbally responding to that threat. If he put on a suit to punish her, she’d be in whatever amount of pain that Rhodey wanted her in, and she probably wouldn’t put up a fight against that. “Was that a request for my reason, sir?”

Rhodey blinks before moving her closer to him where she could kneel and lean on his legs if she needed to with the hand in her hair pulling her in whatever direction that he wants her to be in. “Yes, give me your reasons.”

“I want to save him, and we need a super soldier. Because we both know without one, the Accords council is going to try to push for pardons in return for signatures. None of us want to watch Steve Rogers walk back through this door.”

Rhodey raises his hand to cut her off from saying anything more, but his eyes are more considering than they were before. “Why do you want to save him?”

“The red room was hydra, or at least had ties with hydra. The Winter Solider came to deal with some of our training, and he helped some of us that were probably going to end up dead if he didn’t. Myself included. I would be dead if James Barnes didn’t fight through his conditioning just a little bit every time, not enough to fight direct orders, but enough to start making his own decisions on what those orders meant. He saved me once, when I know for sure that I deserved nothing of the sort, because I was willing to be a bad person if it meant that I lived, and I was willing to fight for my country, before I knew that my country wanted to bring more pain into the world. And he saved me anyway. Now, it’s my turn to try at the very least to save him.”

Tony sighs. “God dammit. I don’t want to deal with the moral debates that this is going to have.”

Rhodey shrugs keeping his grip in her hair tight. “We don’t actually have to do what she’s asking. I mean her reason is good, and that means that I’m not going to be upset with her for voicing it, but that doesn’t mean that we take on the responsibility to deal with this.”

Tony stands up and stares at Rhodey for a long minute. “We both know it does, though. Because an innocent man shouldn’t be punished for actions he had no control over, even if those actions hurt us personally.”

“And you have a soft spot for when subs say please help me with a problem I can’t deal with alone.”

“That too.”

Natasha dares to twist her head just enough to see him in her vision instead of Rhodey. A shining hope in her eyes, that this time she’ll get to do the good thing and she won’t have to panic about how she’ll get it done.

Tony smiles down at her. “We’ll start work on Barnes’s situation soon. It’ll be on the priority docket, but there are still a few things on that list that need to come first.”
Natasha nods slowly. She leans further against Rhodey with her eyes heavy against her face. “Good suggestion?”

Rhodey releases most of the tension that he’s been holding her head in so he can just run his fingers through the strands of her hair in a gentle caress. “Yes, you did good.”

That’s how Tony found himself trying to do way too many things at once. Because while Rhodey’s braces were coming along nicely, they weren’t exactly coming along quickly, and despite what the man said he needed his legs back sooner rather than later. But, he was also juggling the accords council’s request that he come into a session to discuss a potentially debated amendment. He’s like seventy percent certain that its going to be pardons, and he has to have all of his ducks in line to tell them to fuck right off given one of those people is a literal ex-nazi that has shown limited remorse, and very little personal growth. And, on top of all of that, he was planning on breaking Bucky Barnes out of his own personal prison to become the newest super solider avenger.

Which is why when Karen’s alert starts going off that Peter is in danger, Tony is no where near his location, and the suit can only fly so fast, and Karent seems panicked.
“Boss,” Friday interrupts. “Natasha is only a block away. She was at the headquarters helping Pepper with the finalization of a security and aid department for the company.”

“Connect us, now.”

“Tony?”

“Listen carefully, there’s a kid who got himself turned into a superhero way too young with a fucking spider of all things. I’ve been trying to help him and train him, sometimes that doesn’t go according to plan. And he’s in danger.”

“Where?”

“A block from you, east,” Friday answers easily.

Natasha takes off in a sprint in that direction. She flicks up a metal pole she finds on her way, since she’s on probation and didn’t carry a weapon into the stark industries as a sign of respect to Pepper and the fact that she could take down any threat against them. But that wasn’t going to help her save the kid, so she needed something she could use to get a weapon on the off chance that she can’t easily get one off the bad guys.

“Explain the situation, Friday.”

“There’s a lady with like a suit that’s way less advanced than boss’s shaped like an octopus causing mass destruction. Spiderman tried to intervene to avoid more loss of life, but now everything is focused only on him.”

Natasha curses under her breath, and Tony shoots off all the boosts he has, because he’s bloody terrified.

“Friday, can you connect me to Pepper?”

“Natasha, you just left. What’s happening?”

“Turn on the news, there’s an attack. I’m intervening on Tony’s behalf, get legal on the case before they try to claim something stupid to hurt us while we’re busy dealing with the situation.”

“Of course,” Pepper replies. “But why isn’t Tony going?”

“I am,” Tony interjects still on the open coms. “But I’m too far away, and the kid has a super villain trying to destroy him.”

Natasha rounds the corner and sees massive amounts of metal limbs trying to encircle spiderman. She has two options, she could try to fight the suit herself but given that she’s not sure how complex the metal is, she could easily still get them both injured or killed going that route. Or she could put herself between the tentacles and the kid. She’d take a beating, but that would hold until Tony got to them.

She lunges towards Spiderman and throws them both behind a dumpster. It would only buy them a couple of minutes, but those minutes were precious when the most that she knew was that Tony was on his way.

“You’re the black widow.”

“Yeah, and we’re going to be just fine.”

Spiderman nods to her, then gestures his head towards where the head of the lady can be easily seen. In her human hands is a detonator of some sort. “I haven’t found the explosives.”

“Friday?”

“I’ve communicated the threat to boss, but without better sensors in the area, I can’t tell you where they are.”

Natasha hears the laughter first from the lady. She chooses to ignore the way that the woman seems to be enjoying the panic that she’s causing, because hatred to a new villain won’t help her change the path that they’re on. “ETA?”

“2 minutes.”

“Tell Tony that I’m trusting him to get her down and then get me to safety.”

“Natasha?” Friday’s voice is reproachful, which Natasha takes great pride in.

She doesn’t answer though. That would give them all enough of an explanation that they’d know what she was willing to do for her family, that she can’t handle them knowing out loud. Even if they’ll find out soon enough. She wraps her arms around Spiderman, and she can feel his confusion, but she just wraps him tighter until her body is all around his. She can tell where the heat from the bomb comes from, the second the detonation triggers, and she rolls them so he’s facing away.
She can hear multiple screams, and she barely recognizes that one of those is hers. Because her back is on fire, but a glance down tells her that the kid is safe, and then the flames are being blocked by a metal suit. That’s the last of her thoughts.

Tony lands right in front of them with enough anger that he’s surprised that he’s still willing to use non-lethal weapons. Granted, he’ll give the point to the bad guy that she attacked in a rather public place, and he’d like to not be labelled a murderer with literally everyone all around him. So, he blasts her off her ass and allows the cops to throw some cuffs on her.

Then, he kneels next to Peter who is holding onto Natasha for dear life. Tony realizes that she’s not conscious, because she took the brunt of that hit from the bomb.
“I’m superhuman with accelerated healing. Yeah, it would have hurt, but I’d be okay. Will she be okay?” Peter asks in his normal rambling tone, scared beyond belief that he might have just gotten someone injured with no hope.

Tony reaches past him to pull Natasha into his arms. “She’ll make it.” Then, he takes off into the sky with Natasha in his arms to get her to the medical wing of the tower, because he did not trust the hospital to not let the likes of slimy government in to try to blackmail them at a time like this, but he knows that no one would dare try to send those people into the tower on a good day, because at that would result from that is death.

Pepper is there when he lands, much to his surprise, and she’s demanding medical’s entire attention as she explains what happened to Natasha. Her eyes land on his after just a brief moment. “I’ll stay with our sub, you go get out of the suit and away from all the sweat so you can be allowed to hold her after she’s out of surgery. And tell Rhodey what’s happening.”

“I already took the liberty of telling him, boss lady,” Friday announces. “He’s chosen to take on speaking to the accords council in your absence to explain why widow chose to ignore her probation on this instance.”

Tony pauses. He doesn’t want to leave Natasha alone here for any reason, but on the other hand, he really does need to get clean if he wants his own doctors to allow him to do much more than hold her hand during this.

Pepper points towards the elevator. “Go, I know how to handle Natasha injured or not, so you go get ready so you can be here for her too.”

Tony allows for Pepper to usher him out of the room. He tries to make sure that he gets cleaned in as quickly as possible, because he doesn’t want Natasha to wake up and for him not to be there. Because she had put herself into harm’s way for someone that she didn’t know because he had asked her to care. That’s all it took for her to put her life on the line today.

He rushes back down to find Pepper typing away on a computer with her eyes barely glancing up every so often to make sure that Natasha's vitals were still stable, and that she hadn’t blinked her eyes open. She smiles as she sees Tony in the doorway. “She’s not injured much in ways that we couldn’t see coming. Her back is burned, but the doctors say that her skin is already mending itself, I convinced them not to ask many questions.”

“Hydra knockoff serum?”

“We know that the red room, KGB, and Hydra all have ties to each other. Natasha might have ended up as a spy for the KGB, but perhaps that’s what saved us from a Natasha that was led to believe the views of hydra. Because if she had been convinced that hydra was in the right because they got her when she was such a young child, we’d all lose the battle, because she’s damn good at what she does.”

“Oh.” Tony stares at the woman on the bed, whom he loves. The little submissive spy that could easily fool anyone into thinking that she’s everything else. The one person that he trusted enough to tell about the fact that he thought that this would be his last birthday.

Pepper glances towards the door. “Get in the bed behind her, the touch will ground her when she wakes up.”

Tony follows her instructions. One of his hand is wrapped around her waist where he’s gently stroking her stomach, and the other is in her hair petting her as gently as possible.

Natasha flinches awake only a few minutes after Tony starts holding her. She's completely flailing for a moment, until Pepper’s hand catches one of hers.

“Natasha, calm yourself,” Pepper commands. She waits until Natasha’s attention is focused on her. “The boy is safe, he’s out in the waiting room out of the suit, trying to convince the staff that he’s your only friend, which I have managed to explain in a way that won’t result in him getting kicked out. He’s full of guilt, but he’s just fine. And Tony’s right behind you, holding you because you did everything right. And I am sitting right here and will remain right here until you get released, and no one is going to be able to trick you while you’re down. This I promise you.”

Natasha’s breathes slow down and her free hand finds a way to grip onto Tony’s. “Good?”

“Oh, so very good,” Tony whispers into her ear. “And guess what?”

She hums in response, asking for an answer without trying to strain her voice. Her head is kind of still pounding, probably a consequence of an explosion being so close to her.

“That definitely counts as your third task.”

Natasha has tears forming in her eyes as she twists ever so slightly, so she can see Tony. “That means that I’m in your good books again. That means that I am trusted again. I managed to fix what I accidently messed up.”

“Precisely,” Tony says.

Pepper chuckles. “Now, stop talking and let your body recover.”

All of them let out a small laugh at that. They know that they're safe in this room with the three of them all willing to fight for each other in any way that they wanted. Today, they had proved beyond a doubt that they would fight as a family again, and rather than allowing someone toxic back into the family, Tony would vet every single person that makes it even close to his circle of family.

Chapter Text

Tony shouldn’t be surprised that the accords council is trying to give him an ultimatum given everything that has happened recently. But, how much of all of this should ever be on him? Like he gets it, kind of. He gets that he’s the man that everyone turns to look towards when problems happen, and he’s the kind of person that shoulders the blame when those issues don’t end well. He’s the rich guy with the famous face, they can be angry at him and not have to deal with the failings of their own system, and Tony gets that. He does, but he doesn’t want to have to add on attending weekly accords meetings to his already chaotic schedule. Even with Natasha now agreeing to help him with several of his different duties, this left him very little time to exist.

Rhodey saw this coming to, which is why he’s sitting in the room with Tony just waiting for him to speak.

“The first thing they’ll do if they get me off the voting path is pardon the rogues, so they can claim to have fixed one of the major problems to save face,” Tony says finally.

“More than likely.”

“And much as I hate the idea of adding this into my weekly business, I have amendments that I need to push through for people, and if those aren’t in place before Rogers gets back, then I’m going to end up killing the man. So, like I kind of have to deal with this because they’ve put me into a lovely corner.”

Rhodey raises his eyebrow. “I’ve seen you get out of worse corners.”

Natasha walks in at that moment and nods. “He could get out of this corner in a number of ways, but none of them would end well. At least none of them would end well at the current time.”

Rhodey pauses and turns to her. He tilts his head to the side to consider her. “Why’s that?”

“If he tells the accords council that he is still classified as a private citizen, and his suits can’t be regulated by laws at least in the United States and few of the countries within the accords committee, they will balk and several of his supporters are going to object to. If he tells the accords council that he won’t put up with these blatant attempts of blackmail, they’ll deny everything publicly and demand that he provide evidence, then bury it under a whole lot of jargon after Tony wins the court case. Neither one of which would. help public image, and if his public image goes down the accords council gets exactly what they want anyway.”

“Pardons,” Tony spits.

“Best choice in my opinion would be to just let Germany, Sokovia, and Nigeria hang them.”

Tony shakes his head. “Germany and Sokovia, I have managed to save you from, and they wouldn’t risk upsetting an alliance with me to make sure that you go down, because they are more pragmatic in wanting me on their side. But, if I open that flood gate, Nigeria will ask for your extraction.”

Rhodey furrows his brow. “Again I find myself lost in this conversation, why does Nigeria still want her dead?”

Natasha leans up against the wall and sighs. “They blame me for not questioning Steve’s orders, since at that time I was the second in command for the mission, and I had doubts about Wanda’s ability to control. They argue that if I didn’t think she was safe to be allowed out in the field that I should have stopped Steve from putting her there.”

Tony snaps his fingers and points towards Natasha. “That brings up another excellent question that we haven’t really dug into. Why didn’t you?”

Natasha’s face scrunches up as she tries to recall. She tilts her head to the side as she looks towards her own memories. Then, she flinches and turns to Tony. “Something is wrong.”

Both Tony and Rhodey reach out to steady her on instinct. Rhodey moving all three of them towards a couch while making sure that Natasha has his human contact along with Tony the whole time. He glances towards the ceiling. “Friday?”

“In blackout mode, the only person who can request access through is Ms. Potts.”

Tony nods at Rhodey in gratitude. “Okay, Natasha what’s the problem?”

“My memories don’t line up. I remember a training session. I’m trying to help Wanda learn how to be in the field, we aren’t in the field.”

Tony exchanges a look towards Rhodey. Both of them have been over the reports in Lagos over and over again, and nowhere in them was a mention of a training session, let alone one where that’s the primary mission in Natasha’s head.

Natasha isn’t done speaking though, as her eyes are going wide. “Then, someone I think it was Sam catches sight of a Hydra bunch. I say that we should fall back, that we haven’t gotten clearance. But, Steve says something about saving human lives should always come first. And I had more protests, but I didn’t say them, I was just running towards the bad guys, and I don’t have a reason. My memories don’t show why I chose to do that.”

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Tony mutters. He slams his hand against his forehead and turns to Rhodey. “For the love of god, tell me that you don’t hear it too. Tell me that this a part of my PTSD giving me false leads where there are none.”

Rhodey shakes his head. “I wish I could, but that’s almost identical to how you described to me why you picked up the sceptor. That’s the witch’s damn magic in your head, talking to you as if those protests you have are ridiculous, and the only thing you remember doing is the thing that you had concerns about doing.”

Natasha shakes in her spot between them. She knew that Wanda’s magic had touched her before, to make her relive some of her worst memories, but she hadn’t thought about the mind control that she had shown towards Tony. She had written it off as Wanda’s desire to torture Tony, so with Steve telling her that Wanda was truly a good person, she had never considered that she might be placed under mind control.

Tony pulls her into a tight hug. “Don’t you dare start blaming yourself for this. Mind control is never on the person who was mind controlled, not in any fashion.”

Rhodey closes his eyes. “So, Natasha and you are going to the accords council tomorrow to deal with everything that they throw at you. The two of you are going to ensure two things for this first meeting, that pardons are thrown off the table for the time being, as new evidence has come out that suggests Steve Rogers and Wanda Maximoff have committed even more crimes, and that human rights are not going to get worse after what Ross did. Yes, he’s in jail, but his suggestions are still floating around unfortunately. While the two of you are doing that, I’m going to Pepper, and I will actually convince her that we’re pressing charges. Every count against Rogers for what he’s done, including the abuse of submissives under his command, and Maximoff for all of her torture,” he commands.

Natasha reaches out and closes a hand around his arm. “What if they show up?”

“No more nice Iron Man,” Tony growls. “If they show up to try to force their perspective, they’re going to get blown to pieces from my suit, no talking, no explaining shit. At least Wanda and Steve, if the others bother to get their heads screwed back on the right direction and fall to their knees to surrender. And if they do that and send word, then I will give them the respect of allowing them a chance to speak about it to one of their dominants.”

Natasha smiles at him. “If we charge them with actual crimes, the pardons will go down, because those are crimes brought forth by governments, thus governments might choose to forgive those crimes for support in what they need currently, but they can’t get rid of attempted murder, sexual abuse, and literal mental torture. At least not without an actual world ending event in motion.”

Tony silently agrees. If they push this button, there’s no way for either of those two to get out of the mud. They’d basically be drowning them in the mud. Yet, he might be willing to ignore crimes against him for the greater good, he won’t do that for the people he loves, so Rogers will realize at some point that he pushed a line that he never should have. “Then, let’s go get some sleep before we’re flying to Europe to sit on the meeting.”

The next day manages to start with a good note, as Pepper has coffee made in the kitchen when him and Natasha arrive to the kitchen fully dressed and ready to go for a fly. She has several papers on the table. She gestures at the right end. “Tony’s signature there.” Then, she jerks her fingers towards the left end. “Natasha yours there.”
Natasha steps forward and signs her name without bothering to read the forms. A sign of her trust that she could easily give to her doms for now. And one that would make all of them know that she’s trying to work on these things.

Tony however arches his brow as he steps up to the forms. “What are they?”

“The statements that Friday compiled with what has been said in the tower about what has happened and based on any video footage that might be available that you need to sign to make them legally recognized as evidence. Then I need your signature to release certain videos from Ultron age, and Siberia, and possibly even Leipzig. An extra form off on the side that gives me the ability to argue on your behalf as someone who has completed law school until a trial has been set as you are needed in Europe.”

Tony nods and quickly signs all of them. “Will that be all, Miss Potts?” He takes a deep swig of coffee as he waits to see what her response will be.

“That will be all, Dr. Stark.” Her lips twitch into a smile as she watches him narrow his eyes at her. She used to use Mr. Stark just like almost everyone does, but then she realized as the CEO of his company that several people have just forgotten that he has more PhDs than Dr. Banner, who never gets mis-labeled, and she switched it.

After that, the plane ride to Europe was rather gentle. Natasha ends up kneeling at his feet while reading through different potential amendments that the accords council is likely going to be mentioning at least in part today. They’ll have to arguments ready for anything that is morally wrong, or that involves letting Rogers back in public company.

As they leave the airport there are news reporters everywhere. Tony places on his showman smile and winks to Natasha. “Hello, I have a statement to make,” he calls. Immediately, they are swarmed with various news reporters, with only a few dangling behind, probably concerned that he might invite another terrorist to blow up his manor. Not his best plan, but it did actually accomplish what he wanted it to do, so not his worst either.

“Today, both myself and Ms. Romanoff, will be attending the accords meeting to discuss all of the changes that need to be made and the changes that some countries would be happy to see included, especially as the two of us are people who will be affected by the changes being made. However, there will also be large things happening in the United States while we are here, that should also be noted by the news. Charges are being pressed by myself and Natasha Romanoff against both Steve Rogers and Wanda Maximoff, for crimes committed specifically against us, that we no longer feel comfortable covering for after everything that has happened.”

Natasha sets a hand on his arm with a smile on her face. “I believe that Pepper Potts will have a statement on this in just a moment.”

As they both walk into the council chamber, they hear loud shouting from several corners of the room. Tony’s eyes meet T’Challa’s and he inclines his head. The king may no longer be on his list of people that he should trust, but that does not mean that he does not want the man to fail when it comes to his welcoming of a country into a world it had been isolated from for years. Although that will become significantly harder since he’s daring to hold the Rogues in his country without chains on them.

T’Challa nods back to him and walks over. “I believe that your statement to the press is what has caused the issues that several of them are currently trying to get information on.”

Tony winks at T’Challa. “That was the point of me doing it.”

Tony walks up the microphone that him and Natasha are meant to share, before sitting and waiting. This would likely take a few more minutes before someone in charge decided to make everyone go quiet and ask the first of many questions that both of them will need to answer. The good news is that he’s now almost definitely gotten the point across that pardons were not going to be voted on today. Not even in the slightest.

The speaker makes a sharp noise and everyone slowly falls silent. “There was no true plan sent out over what to mention today, but I know that the US government along with several allies had plans to bring up the idea of pardoning the Rogues for signatures on this form where we could more easily hold them accountable with these laws in a court of law.”

The US official is nodding along and glaring at Tony.

Tony wonders whether anyone bothered to brief this guy on what happens when you show up to an event with Tony Stark where he is supposed to speak. Because the first rule is to never show that you’re moved by what he’s doing, because then he gets to know that he’s winning. The second rule is that you never come bringing a plan that you want to make sure happens in a timely fashion.

“I suggest,” the speaker announces, “that we allow Mr. Stark to clarify what was meant by statements made to the press earlier before we continue to address the topic brought up.”

Natasha reaches up and turns the microphone to herself. “Doctor.”

Tony has to muffle a laugh into his shirt without showing facial expressions. Because if Natasha is starting with this, this early in the meeting, she has plans to correct everyone anytime that they mention his name. No one appears to be noting what Natasha has said, so he turns the microphone back towards himself to answer the question posed. He plans on making sure this whole council gets a wakeup call today.

“I’m not sure what form of clarification you would like from my statements. Of course, my presence here suggests that I plan on helping weigh in on and vote on the issues presented. And for the second part, I was not aware of the pardons being on the table.” Lie, lie, lie. He’s a good liar though, since the only way that any of them could admit that he knew, then they would have to admit that his system could hack there’s without any trouble, and none of them want to admit to that weakness, especially in front of the US delegation present. “I was only making a statement about what is happening with the both of us while we’re here, as we did decide to press the charges instead of letting them lie, just last night.”

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out because the only people who would be willing to text him while he’s in this meeting would be drastically important. Friday wouldn’t be dumb enough to pass through anything unimportant. It’s a message from Pepper reading, “Vision has elected to press charges against Wanda Maximoff as well for his attempted murder too.”

He grins up at all of the people that were staring at him. “A good thing that I have my phone, so that I can offer even more clarification, as I have just gotten word that Vision has also chosen to press charges against Wanda Maximoff.”

The US delegation stands up. “I believe that this is a deliberate attempt by Mr. Stark to postpone a vote on the pardons, and after that has been accomplished that the charges will be dropped.”

“Doctor,” Natasha corrects again after pulling the microphone over to her and then returning it to its position in front of Tony. This time she gets several glances from other people in the audience as they notice that she is doing this deliberately.

The speaker chooses to ignore it once more though. Instead, she tilts her head to the side to acknowledge the representative from the United States. “Do you have any evidence of that claim?”

“He is refusing to discuss the charges that they are wishing to be pressed against them.”

Tony sighs loudly enough for the microphone to pick up on. “I personally am pressing charges against Rogers for attempted homicide, cover-up of a crime, sexual assault of submissives under my care in my own property, and slander. My charges against Wanda Maximoff does not currently have a legal term as mind control is a bit of tricky subject under law, but given I have evidence of the crime, so I plan on charging her with it. Along with multiple counts of mental torture, again weird because of the way that she can accomplish that.”

He stares at the man from the United States with a anger lining his eyes. Everyone should know better than to push for more, but just in case, he’ll make sure that everyone knows. “The others can make their own decisions to share with you what has happened to them, but I can guarantee that you will not force them to answer. You are not a cop that they are making a report to, and you are not legal counsel for either side.”

Natasha pulls the microphone towards her and closes her eyes for a brief moment. “I am not comfortable sharing my charges on the floor.”

Tony inclines his head towards the speaker.

The speaker chooses instead to wave her hand towards the US delegate. “Do you detract your statement of potential stalling?”

“Those charges are easy to make up and force people to believe that you have valid reasons to withhold a vote for pardons. I do not believe that this is accurate.”

“I of course would not stop this body from trying to make any changes that they wish to the document, nor would I deny them the right to vote on pardons. I am merely now pointing out a concern, that while you do have the authority to pass out pardons for the crimes they’ve committed on a global scale, you do not have that right to do for crimes committed against a singular person who chooses to press those charges. And should the council wish to vote, I believe that there are three other members of the rogue team who do not have charges being pressed,” Tony argues lightly.

“Mr. Stark,” the speaker announces, cutting off any response that might have been given by the US delegation. Before she could speak though, Natasha has grabbed the microphone from right in front of him.

“It’s doctor,” she says with a straight face just blankly looking at the speaker.

This time no one in the room has any clue how to ignore her. She didn’t wait for the end of the statement, she just cut them off almost immediately in response to what had already been said. Every eye is on her, and she is completely calm, just waiting for a response.

The speaker takes in a breath before continuing as this is a rather tedious thing that she must deal with now. “Pardon, Miss Romanoff?”

Natasha sends her a blinding smile. “Oh, I’m just making sure that you use the correct titles. After all, you wouldn’t want to offend some of the royalty in the room if they wish to be addressed.”

The speaker blinks at Natasha for a long moment as if the words are soaring right over her head. And they likely are, so many people have forgotten his doctorate titles, that he wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if she had no clue what was going on.

“Ma’am, I believe that Ms. Romanoff is attempting to remind the council that Dr. Stark’s correct title is in fact doctor, and as we are requesting that he share rather personal information, that the least we could do is provide him with the respect of the title that he has been given,” T’Challa interjects.

Natasha slides the microphone back to Tony silently as T’Challa helps her explain this as much as she possibly can. She taps out on her chair arm in morse code, believing that Tony would likely know how to here and reply to that. “Ally or enemy?”

Tony barely acknowledges that Natasha has done anything. He hears her question, and he does not have an answer for her. The answer is probably both yes and also no. “Neither.” He keeps his eyes on the speaker as she seems to be fighting back a desire to snap at T’Challa for daring to point out a gap in her knowledge to this extent.

“Thank you, your majesty. Dr. Stark, my apologies for the incorrect title. I did not recall you gaining any doctorates.”

“I have several,” he replies. “But they are not the topic for this meeting, at least I hope they are not. We only have about another hour before several of us must get to other duties of our positions.”

The speaker turns her head to check the clock, and sure enough all she sees that this little battle on pardons has been ongoing for like an hour, with several periods of silence as people tried to make sense of what they have been told.

“Perhaps, instead of continuing to discuss pardons, which clearly have some further debates and research to do before we can adequately understand what is going down for them, we should move on to an issue that has been bothering me. The previous council for the United States had suggested several measures to be debated all across the floor in every area of the document. He has recently been arrested for human rights violations in his position of power, is that correct?” T’Challa’s voice carries throughout the room.

Tony tilts his head to consider T’Challa. He hasn’t considered that the man might still be working for the same common goals that they’ve had before Siberia. This won’t dim his anger, or stop Pepper from wanting to destroy his whole country, but now he’s got to refigure who T’Challa is as a person. He slips a hand into his pocket and makes sure the file of the video of Siberia shows up on T’Challa’s device. He won’t look at it until after the meeting, but he very well might look immediately after it, and that would tell Tony a lot.

The US delegate swallows hard. “The charges have not yet been taken to trial.”

“But,” the speaker seems to confirm, “those were the charges that were brought up against the man. I believe that Dr. Stark collected many of the pieces of evidence against him.”

Tony nods. “He violated the Geneva conviction in terms of how to treat prisoners. I could not just break them out, the rogues of course, since they were criminals, but I did gather all evidence on the inhumanity happening there and submitted it to the court.”

Tony pauses and considers for a long moment on whether he wants to actually offer up more information. Then, he shrugs. “Plus, he has always had a vendetta against superheroes in some fashion, which evidence of has been collected. The enemy that Hulk fought in Harlem was actually released by Ross in order to prove a point of the dangers of superhumans. It was quite evil to learn of the depths of his betrayals.”

T’Challa nods to Tony immediately. “Obviously, we should still operate on the laws of his culture and people, that he is innocent until proven guilty, even when the evidence has been collected by such a reliable figure of this council. However, with the drastic charges being laid upon him, I am concerned about allowing his amendments being proposed before we know for sure whether they were meant to have loopholes for the same hatred that he is being accused of.”

“What is your suggestion?” The speaker is watching T’Challa carefully, ready to strike down a notion that would hurt the council long term.

“We vote to discard his motions until such a time as he is either deemed not-guilty and restored to his position, or that he is deemed not-guilty and retires.”

“Very well,” the speaker says.

The vote goes well. T’Challa, most of Europe, several other African countries, both Tony and Natasha voted to strike down those motions on the spot. There were several abstains from the vote, probably because none of them had been prepared for the vote and they didn’t want to allow their vote to matter when they weren’t sure of the preferred vote for their positions. Only three votes against went through, and most of them were from countries that people would expect. Russia didn’t want them struck down, the US didn’t want them to be struck down, and neither did China. None of them were shocking to him.

Tony and Natasha head out once the session is ended after the vote. He’s honestly impressed with the way that T’Challa was able to sway people so easily to get rid of several of the issues present. He catches Natasha’s hand and leads her to a more isolated hallway.

Natasha glances at him. “What are we doing?”

“We are testing a new theory of mine. There's a chance that I’m going to end up giving you an option that allows you to get information on Clint.”

Natasha’s eyes shoot up to his in shock. She knew that he wasn’t going to stop her from trying to save him, but she hasn’t been sure how far that leniency would stretch.

“One rule from me. If you can also gather information on Bucky Barnes, I would be grateful.”

Natasha agrees quickly. She could get both easily if she was about to be allowed to speak with people who were in the same country as them. She would even probably get enough of a reading to know whether she could reach out first or not.

T’Challa rounds the corner. His eyes are barely dried from a clear moment where he had been crying, and his eyes land on Tony. “I owe you many apologies.”

Tony glances around and finds an empty room nearby. He pushes the door open. He jerks his head inside the room. “I won’t do an apology like this in public. I don’t want all of them to know what happened there until Rogers’ trial.”

T’Challa nods to him immediately. Clearly willing to do anything to be allowed to apologize for what has happened. He enters the room and waits for Tony.

Tony however has eyes for the guards. “Only one of you should stay. The rest should spread around in places like the cafeteria, so it is less likely that spies will know where your king is.”

They all nod, and one of them takes up a stance by the door.

Tony closes his eyes, before entering the room to find T’Challa nervously pacing. He filters through all of the information that he’s been given on the king in their different interactions. And he’s not thrilled by what he realizes after a few minutes. “You’re not a dominant, are you?”

“No. I’m a switch,” T’Challa answers softly.

“Have you ever actually pissed off a dom that wasn’t your family that you semi-cared about their opinions before?”

T’Challa shakes his head slowly. He pauses his pacing and faces Tony. “I am so sorry. I didn’t know that you were in that much danger. I still probably would have offered Bucky sanctuary, but I would have made sure that you got aide, either from my people, your own, or the government nearby. I swear that.”

Tony holds up a hand to stop the rambling apology. And then he curses in his mind. He already has several submissives that he needs to figure out what happened with, which means that he shouldn’t encourage T’Challa to go further into a submissive mindset, and yet he knows that the reason that he is, is because that’s an easier way to learn whether you’re forgiven than two doms trying to work together.

T’Challa remains silent as Tony looks around the room. He will not push Tony into saying whether he’s been forgiven or whether a part of his punishment is to deal with what has happened without any help from the dominant, he will be alright either way.

Tony drops down to the couch finally, and he turns his eyes to T’Challa. “Alright. Let’s start with a simple question. You’re edging yourself closer and closer to your submissive side. Are you asking me to be your dominant for this particular instance? Are you asking me to be your dominant within the avengers? Or are you going even a step further and asking me to be your dominant and bring you into my family? There are no wrong answers, and the answers can be that you didn’t realize you were doing that, and you don’t know what you’d prefer.”

T’Challa swallows. “I would very much like to your submissive right now, because the guilt is extremely heavy, and I know that allowing the submissive side of me to come out, that would decrease without me needing to bear it for as long. I think I would like to be part of your family. I have missed being able to call and talk like I did during the first moment of me being signed as an Avenger.”

Tony nods. “I never blocked your number.”

“What?”

Tony shrugs. “You could have still called. I’m not sure whether I would have been polite while I was in the hospital, but afterwards, I would have spoken to you. I would have tried to make sure of what was happening.”

T’Challa winces. “Would you believe that with the rogues constantly berating your name, I really didn’t want to call and hear you being upset with me in fear that it would be easy to start agreeing with them?”

Tony gives T’Challa a small smile. “I can understand that. You had no reason to know that had you called and asked me to not be angry, I would have at least pushed down my anger for a time. Just as I had no reason to know that the reason you would request that, would be because you hold guilt and guilt causes the submissve to come out of you.”

Tony pauses then continues on a different track. “There are some rules for punishments with my submissives. We don’t need to deal with all of them right now, most of them would happen after I guided you down anyway, and neither of us have the capacity to do a full negotiation right now. I will expect you to send me one later, since you want to join the family. Both one for when you’re submissive and one for when you’re dominant.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Seriously, don’t call me that. I don’t generally prefer it, and while I allow Natasha to get away with it rarely, I cannot handle another submissive doing that to me.”

T’Challa gives him a snarky smile. “Yes, doctor.”

Tony reaches out and gently slaps his face. Not even hard enough to rock his head, but enough that T’Challa is frozen staring at him in shock. Because he is acting like he is T’Challa’s dom. “The rules you need to know are simple. One, you will have a safe word, if you’re no longer feeling safe, and I don’t give a shit why, you will use it. If you use it, we’ll talk about what the hell is happening, depending on what it is, is going to determine whether we’ll do a second punishment later, or whether you’re just going to be my good submissive again, because you’ve been so good for me already.”

T’Challa has a full body shiver as he hears those words fall from Tony’s lips. He kind of sways on his feet as he nods.

“The second is that you will tell me everything from your perspective that is leading to you needing a punishment, so that I know what I’m punishing you for.”

T’Challa furrows his brow. “I don’t understand what you mean by that.”

“I don’t punish my subs for things that they do not feel guilt for, and I do not punish them for things that I do not blame them for. If I don’t hear your side, I’m not going to be able to do that job very well. So, I need you to tell me about Siberia.”

“I found out that Zemo set Barnes up, and I wanted to make things right. So, I followed you. I was staying back because I wasn’t sure what you guys were fighting against, and you hadn’t bothered to call for backup, so I figured that the three of you had a plan that I’d be messing up. But, when they came out all beat to hell, they told me that you were fine, albeit with a disabled suit, because of a conflict of interest. I thought that perhaps you had decided to take them both in anyway, or at least Rogers in. I wanted to offer Bucky sanctuary, so I took them both. Rogers then immediately took advantage of that to break the rest of the team out.”

Tony sighs. “Of course, he lied. Why do I ever believe that my problems aren’t caused by Steve Rogers lying his ass off?”

“Pardon.”

“I’ve recently learned that he lies to a lot of people about a lot of things, and I’m a bit wrathful towards him.”

“I have leeway to make his life a bit harder,” T’Challa points out.

Tony shakes his head. “No, no, what you’re going to do is take your punishment exactly how I want you to, and then you’re going to pretend like you hate me, so they don’t see me coming when I take care of things.”

T’Challa swallows and drops to his knees in front of Tony. “Yes, Tony.”

Chapter Text

Tony’s hand starts running through the king’s hair as. he thinks this through. He doesn't have time for a real in-depth scene, as both of them are going to be searched for, and sooner or later, Friday was going to tell him that Pepper was calling to yell at him for daring to piss off the US government again. He admits that it happens more often than not. He really does need to deal with his own issues soon with the current administration.

This means that he wants T’Challa down in subspace quickly, and he wants him to know about why he’s being punished before that point, and he needs to know several things, and he has time for like two questions, and several mental exercise on what’s going to be valid for this type of punishment.

Tony made up his mind the second that T’Challa told him about Steve’s lie. He has a couple things that will get his subs a maintenance spanking. He doesn’t typically agree with rules governing their everyday lives, because they are full people on their own and they don’t need or want someone constantly harping on him. But, he does have limits that he makes sure that everyone knows. T’Challa after this will need to tell him how he wants this to work as a switch, because negotiation is key. These rules are simple: always double check facts that could come back to bite you in the ass when others are telling you something, never ever piss off someone you aren’t confident that you have more power than, and if you piss off Pepper Potts you are on your own and if she asks me to take care of a regular spanking, you’re going over his knee without any begging off being allowed.

He yanks on a strand to cause T’Challa to turn his eyes up to meet his own. He’ll have to get used to T’Challa being willing to meet him even when he’s mostly down. He doesn’t really mind, but this is new compared to what he’s used to. “Four questions, and I want brief answers today, nothing complicated.”

T’Challa nods his understanding and tries to calm his jittering motions. Not that Tony was going to say a word about it. He understands that for someone who has never dealt with wanting to have a scene like this before would cause some minor anxiety, no matter how tough you think you are.

“What’s your safeword, darling?”

“Don’t have one.”

Tony closes his eyes and counts to ten. “Even doms should have a fucking safeword. Are you telling me that’s not a universal concept? Because I thought that Wakanda was pretty progressive, but I swear I will show up there to start teaching them the correct way to learn how to fucking scene if I had to.”

“Sorry, sorry, I should have been clearer, but wanted to remain brief. You asked whether I’d done this before as a sub, the answer is no. You probably assumed that meant I had done it as a dom, but I haven’t. I was a prince and one of the only people I ever trusted didn’t want to do that until we were married.”

Tony sucks in a breath and soothes T’Challa with small strokes to his cheek. Probably even soothing his own brief marks from earlier. “How about for today we use no? You tell me no loudly, and I know that we can’t do that anymore because you’re not good, okay?”

T’Challa nods. That sounds nice to him because he doesn’t need to deal with the consequences today at least.

Tony smiles at the way that he’s leaning into touch already. He’s going down slowly, but he is going down and trusting that Tony will get him here. “If you start crying or yelling or anything else, is your guard going to charge us?”

T’Challa shakes his head. “Only if I called to them, and I won’t. I swear I won’t.”

“Hush,” Tony reprimands softly. He waits until T’Challa realizes his mistake as T’Challa buries his head into Tony's thigh. “The thing is that your mistake this time, is real simple for me to deal with. There are very few things that I make blanket rules for, but one of those is not taking someone’s word for truth when you could get screwed over by them lying. My basic solution to that is a spanking. My spankings tend to go until I’m pretty sure that the pain is great enough that you know that you’ve done wrong to the point that I will make sure you know, and then ten extras that are on your hole as a reminder that you’re supposed to be good for me. Since you’re mostly a super soldier, I might have to go a bit longer than I normally would, but then this is also your first scene, so I’m not sure how long it will go like I normally would. Are you okay with doing that punishment, or do you need me to tame it back since this is your first scene? And trust me, if you do need me to change things because of that, you would be completely in your rights to do so. This might be a tough time for you.”

“But I want to be good.”

“No questions about that, kitty cat. Even if you need me to stop after a few hits, because the spanking draws you out of the submissive headspace, that would be alright.”

T’Challa whines from the back of his throat, probably unused to someone who is willing to just to make sure that he’s more comfortable in a situation. Tony can understand that as he has often been at the focal point of not knowing what actual care looks like, too many betrayals in his past for that to not be a norm. But, as T’Challa nods his consent, Tony grins.

“One last thing, how do you feel about breathplay?”

T’Challa’s breathing speeds up, and Tony is about ready to tell him to just forget about when he speaks. “As a part of the punishment, like I’m not allowed to breathe until I’m forgiven?”

“No,” Tony says automatically his hand coming up to cradle T’Challa’s head. “No, of course not. While some of my subs do allow breathplay for punishment, that would be for drastic cases of fucking up and guilt, not something as simple as trusting the wrong guy and forgetting to double check his story in case someone is looking to betray you. And if you never want that on the table for a punishment, I understand completely.” A flash of the memory of being held under that water will never truly leave him. “No, just as a bit of a trust exercise to get you fully into subspace. And just so you know, my subs are always forgiven as they agree to accept their punishments, however it is we end up needing to do them. You might have to work in order to gain my trust back, but never my forgiveness.”

T’Challa lets out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank you for forgiving me then. And yes, of course if you wish to use that to get me closer to the correct headspace that would be fine.”

Tony notes the way that his body sags into his and puts that on his list of things to tell Friday. T’Challa likes to know things ahead of time similar to Natasha, because he has a lack of experience. That may change in time, or he may grow comfortable with the way that Tony handles that, either way would be nice in his view to accomplish the goals of making sure that T’Challa is happy with his first relationship with a family that is polyamorous.

Tony tightens his grip in T’Challa’s hair. He pulls the man up towards him first, that way the both of them can see each other. “Then, let’s begin.”

He drags T’Challa down and muffles his face into his pant leg. He knows that the air would be stale and broken for the first few seconds, and then the recognition that he can’t get fresh air would set in, and that would last until he fought against the hold in his hair or Tony moved him off. He waits for the first light jerk after close to six seconds before he pulls T’Challa off his leg.

T’Challa starts panting and taking in large gulps of air. He knows that isn’t the smartest plan as gulping and panting will not get the best oxygen in his lungs. But, he’s calming down, and Tony isn’t already moving him back to cut off his air.

Tony watches as T’Challa fights to get himself back under control. That suggests that he isn’t fully under yet, which is fine. Tony also isn’t nearly enough of a dick to put him back before he actually manages to get that control back if that’s what he’s searching for.

He guides T’Challa back down once his breathing levels out. He waits before he actually pushes his face into his pant leg to give him a moment to safeword if he’s nervous, but T’Challa seems ready to wait for him to push him down. That’s exactly what he does.

This time rather than focusing on T’Challa’s reactions to himself, he focuses on the reactions that he can feel in his own body. The first few breaths that can be sucked in from the air close enough with the fabric that he can feel the way that it is slightly wet and that T’Challa is leaning on those breaths, until he can no longer breathe. That's when he starts to take in the fabric a little more as tiny gasps land on his thigh as T’Challa tries to find air. He waits just a few seconds longer this time before pulling him off.

Tony’s rather positive that as long as he doesn’t push it over 20 seconds this time, that they’ll be alright with this breathplay scene until T’Challa is comfortable in his subspace.

T’Challa takes in breaths as Tony pulls him up, but he’s not really thinking about the breaths anymore. He’s sure that his body is probably still panting, but he can’t remember why he should think that’s a bad thing. If he needs to do something different, then Tony would tell him. Tony wouldn’t let him make a fool out of himself while he’s trying to be so good for the man. He can trust that.

Tony can read in T’Challa’s eyes that while he’s getting closer to floating, because he wants to just be trusting Tony, that he’s not quite there. Taking away breathing and allowing someone else to hold control of that, is one of the best tools for convincing someone to do that, which is why Tony is being so careful to encourage that right now, because that would be delightful for them to learn today in his first scene.

He guides T’Challa back down, but rather than using a grip along his hair and using his thigh to cut off air, he reaches his hand around where his arm has a lock around the back of T’Challa’s neck, which might cause him to panic, but judging by the way that T’Challa leans toward the touch, he’s doing pretty good. He wraps his hand around his face with little gaps to start with between his fingers that let in limited air for his breaths.

“You’re doing so good,” Tony whispers. “So good for me, all you need to do now is breathe when I give you this air and stay still when you don’t.” With that he closes the gaps where T’Challa can’t take in those breaths. He keeps a steady count of ten in his head and releases his fingers at the end of that count. The large, sharp inhales come against his hand, and he loves the way that this has just grand trust.

He closes off the air again after a five count to start his ten count again.

T”Challa’s hand comes up to wrap around Tony’s ankle. He doesn’t push or try to use his strength to hold on or anything. He just needs the touch to remind himself that the hand around his face is the person that he trusts to kneel for. He chose this, and he can be free as he did.

Tony’s fingers spread again, and he nudges his leg closer to T’Challa where the man could lean on it. He watches T’Challa slump the second that there is a brace there for him to not fall away from Tony’s touch right then. He tightens his fingers one more time. He’ll push them all the way up to a count of 17 and then let T’Challa breathe on his own again.

T’Challa allows his breath to be gone, and he barely even reacts as he can’t take in breath again. When the hand lifts from his face, he follows the trends for how to breathe that Tony has laid the groundwork for. He still lays on the ground on his knees with his chest and head held up by Tony’s body only, if that wasn’t there, he’d likely be on the floor flat, waiting for the next set of orders.

Tony soothes him with gentle strokes for a couple minutes. He knows that he needs to move on to the next stage of this scene, but he rather likes the way that T’Challa is so reliant when he’s down in headspace. He nudges T’Challa with his legs. “Hey, kitty, can you come drag yourself over my lap, or do you need me to try to pull you up?”

T’Challa knows an order when he hears one. Even when he can tell that there were options there, he picks himself up, not really ever standing, but enough that he can wiggle himself across Tony’s lap.

Tony has to fight not to start rocking his hips up to meet T’Challa as he wiggles his chest and thighs over Tony’s lap, so he didn’t have to stand straight to bend correctly. Leave it to the king to make sure that Tony would be thinking about sex instead of just a simple punishment tonight. Not that he minds, but he keeps punishment and pleasure separate for a reason.

Tony slips his hands past T’Challa’s waistband. He should just push them down, but he’s too good of a person to just do that on the first scene, even though that would provide the better effect for a punishment.

T’Challa picks up on the debate at least partially. He reaches back with his hands and tries to push at his slacks down towards his knees. He doesn’t get them very far in the position that he’s in, but he hopes that Tony can get his message. That this is fine, the normal punishment setting will be fine. He will safeword if things get super bad in his head, but right now, he wants to take Tony’s punishment, that way he earns that lovely good title that he had gotten earlier. He’s starting to understand why so many people love when someone tells them that they’re doing super good in a scene like this.

Tony takes over for T’Challa and makes sure that the slacks are down under his knees, and he does the same for T’Challa’s underwear. Then, he takes a moment, to take in the smooth features of T’Challa’s bottom. Oh, god, he wishes that this was for a very different purpose today, because he would get so much joy from being asked after a tedious meeting to just worship someone’s ass.

Tony slowly runs his hand up and down T’Challa’s ass. He keeps his motions completely calm, that way T’Challa was never going to have a moment where he’ll start tensing up, because that is always a recipe for panicking during a punishment. “Why are we here, T’Challa?”

T’Challa had been expecting for Tony to start with the punishment before he tries to start a conversation. But this makes sense too, to make sure that he understands that Tony doesn’t want to be doing this, but he has to, because TChalla has messed up. “I messed up.”

“Simplification,” Tony states. “But I’ll allow it for now.” Then, he draws his hand back and slaps as hard as he can right on his right cheek. He watches the way the skin folds under his strike. The full strength is all that it takes to get even a simple force to respond, when he’s spanking a super soldier with his bare hand with no assistance. And that’s what he’ll be doing from now on, because no one should trust Steve to give out punishments apparently.

He raises that same hand and goes down with the same force on the other cheek. Then, he sets up a pattern, alternating between strikes either every three or five slaps. He's not keeping close track of how many slaps that he’s been giving. He sticks to the meaty flesh of T’Challa’s ass. Once he starts reacting with either moans or tears. He’ll start lecturing as he goes in on the seat spots of his ass, and then when he’s done lecturing, he’ll offer some praise before going ahead and telling him to spread his own ass cheeks for the last bit.

The steady slaps get louder and louder in the room as Tony just keeps going. He knows well enough that if a sub is trying to remain stoic in a punishment the lesson won’t stick. At a certain point, when his strike lands over a section of skin that he can tell is sensitive as all hell by the heat that it gives off, T’Challa gives a light wince. Not quite the tears that he’s looking for, but much more reaction than what’s he’s gotten before.

T’Challa is now wincing with every hit. His dom doesn’t show any sign of letting up for him, he’s just hitting the skin around his ass in the painful sequence of events. And he knows he deserves the pain, and if he lets himself start crying, then maybe Tony will think that he doesn’t deserve more, and he does. And, he manages to hold in his tears for another 11 hits, and then he’s sobbing. Because Bast, his ass hurts and stings, and his dom is having to punish him.

Tony lets out a small breath of relief at the fact that T’Challa has broken down in tears by this point. If he had to go much longer, he was going to have to consider whether he needs to call off at least a part of this punishment to keep himself from having to strain his arm. “Sh, let it out.” He pauses his hits for just a moment to allow for the sobs now being racked from T’Challa’s body to get a little less violent. He wonders how hard T’Challa was trying to hold it in to prolong his punishment to feel better about himself.

He has to continue though. So, he aims a strike at the lower seat spots and hits with a full slap that covers as much as he can. “See, we have to keep doing this punishment, because you forgot to do something pretty important.” The words were punctured with another slap, and he watches as T’Challa does wriggle within his arms to fight against those strikes, but he doesn’t reach back to block, and he doesn’t kick out his legs. He wants to get away, and he wants to allow Tony to have his way with the body above him as is proper.

“You forgot to come check what someone told you. And this time, unfortunately, I wasn’t there to fix what could have happened. Instead, you ended up hurting somebody.”

T’Challa sobs even harder as Tony’s words register, especially as each one has a hit that lands on the most sensitive part of his bottom, and it already feels like its on fire, and he knows that the lecture isn’t going to be over yet. It’s just not going to be over yet.

“You have to remember to check, T’Challa.” Tony makes sure to punctuate that one with his name, and have one of his harder strikes to land on his name, so that would connect even further with him than just a nickname, or another sentence with you.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, Tony, please, I’m sorry.”

Tony tisks. He doesn’t know yet, that every word during a lecture will get him hit, including his own. And so he layers those hits over his ass. Hoping that the warning gets through him. “You have to learn your lesson, so that you don’t get someone hurt again,” he continues. The hits landing straight on the thighs this time instead of just the sit spots, and he can tell by the way that T’Challa has a full body shudder once he starts that, that he hadn’t thought about that area being targeted. “Tell me what you’ve learned.” Still those hits are placed, even though if he was going to give T’Challa any break, that would be where he would choose, but the man has taken the rest of his punishment so well, that he thinks the best plan would be to treat him like he would any other one of his subs, that had made this particular mistake and asked to be punished for it, or had gotten someone hurt enough that Tony had to make the choice to be punished for them. He doesn’t prefer having to do that, but he will when it comes down to it.

“Next time, I make sure to check what people tell me,” T’Challa moans. But, he knows that’s not the only thing that he needs to say. “And I’ll make sure to know that there are consequences to blind trust, and that next time, it might not get solved without more pain.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. He would have accepted the first part of that alone. Because that shows that his lecture had gotten through even subspace, and the second part shows remorse, so he’s confident that his message has gotten all the way through. He lands the necessary hits across the thighs and sit spots as needed for all of the words that had been spoken, and he watches carefully as tears pool down from T’Challa’s cheeks as he realizes that these ones are for his own words to settle in his skin.

Tony takes another moment before he even considers speaking. Most of that is spent running a hand up and down T’Challa’s spine. To cool T’Challa down enough that he’s not just going to do anything that is said to get away from the pain, because that won’t lead to him understanding why Tony is doing that. “Are you ready for the last part of your punishment?”

“Reminder, please.”

T’Challa’s manners are so hot, that Tony might actually make that a rule for the two of them when they play, just to see how far down he has to get T’Challa down before he starts forgetting how to remain polite. That would be such a fun game, and now his list needs to be added to even more. But, he owes the man an answer, for many reasons. “That’s where you take the nice reminder of never forgetting what happens when you make this mistake while being part of my family.”

T’Challa blinks where he lies. That wasn’t what he was asking about. He knows that the punishment needs to be set in, he remembers that. What he can’t remember is what he’s supposed to be doing, because he knows that he’s supposed to be doing something for this. His lips pout out. He doesn’t want to be bad.

Tony registers that T’Challa seems upset suddenly, and he ups the level of comfort that he’s giving with strokes down T’Challa’s spine. “Hey, hey, king kitty, tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”

“Don’t wanna be bad. Wanna be good for you.” His pronunciation has been shot all to hell, and he can’t bring himself to care. He just wants to be good, and not have to worry anymore.

Tony presses with the back of his hand towards T’Challa’s cheek to turn T’Challa’s head towards himself. “Who told you weren’t doing good? Because, they’re little liars. You’ve been taking your punishment super well for me, and all we’ve got left is the last part, and then, you’re going to curl up into my arms until you come up. There’s nothing that’s happened so far that has been anything but perfect.”

T’Challa’s lips pout even further as he drops his eyes to the ground. “But, I don’t remember what to do, and all you told me was that I had to take it, but I don’t know what to do. So, I’m going to be bad, and I don’t want to be.”

“No, no, absolutely not, sweetheart.” Tony’s hand runs across T’Challa’s hair. “I didn’t answer that, because I wasn’t done giving you comfort before we moved on. Trust me, you’ll know when we move forward.”

“Oh,” T’Challa whispers. “Thank you.”

Tony keeps up his gentle touches for a long time. At least a couple minutes, because he honestly wants to call off this last part, and just drag him into a nice hug and tell him that everything’s better now, but if he does that, he’s not doing either of them justice. So, he nudges T’Challa’s face back down. “All you’ve got to do, is reach behind you, to hold yourself open for me to hit that pretty hole of yours, okay?”

T’Challa’s hands reach back immediately, and he pitches forward. He hates the way that feels until he realizes that his face didn’t hit the floor like he thought it would, instead Tony’s hands are guiding him back into a better position.

“Sorry, kitty cat, I didn’t realize how much you had shifted during that part of this, otherwise I would have made sure to adjust you first,” Tony offers.

T’Challa nods. He won’t be punished for anything that Tony doesn’t tell him about, which means that he won’t get any pain he didn’t consent to during this. He can trust that Tony will take care of him. His hands grip his sensitive ass, and he fights past his natural desire to drop the flesh to avoid the pain, so he can spread his cheeks. He hopes that he doesn’t look too stupid following this request.

Tony grins as he watches T’Challa follow his requests so wonderfully. He doesn’t want to make T’Challa feel as though that was anything less than perfect, so he does another gentle soothing down his spine. “So good for me.”

“I’ll keep count for you this time, alright?” He doesn’t wait for a response before landing his first hit to T’Challa’s hole. He watches as T’Challa’s whole body flinches across his lap, but he doesn’t move his grip, and he doesn’t scream for mercy. He waits for a mental count of three before landing the next hit, and follows it straight up with another one.

T’Challa’s fingers slip from the hold on his butt as sweat curls in his palms, and he shakes. The pain is intense, even if he can tell that Tony is no longer using the same amount of strength that he was using for the other parts of the spanking, and he can’t find a good grip.

Tony’s mouth opens to issue a threat about keeping his hands holding those cheeks open, when he realizes just how hard T’Challa is struggling with his fingers to find a good position to grip. He commits this image in front of him to his memory to hold onto for the rest of eternity, because this brings him more joy than most things do, then he covers T’Challa’s hands with his own.

Tony guides his hands towards a better place to hold a grip where even if he slips, he has more skin to catch on. He waits for a second with his hands still hovering over T’Challa’s. “Better.”

T’Challa nods. “Thank you for helping me even when this was meant to be the final part of my punishment.”

Tony bites his lip because while he likes some scenes to be where the sub struggles with some meaningless task, his goal is never for them to fail. The goal is for them to push themselves to their limits to then be told by their dom that they did good, that they were being so perfect for him and him alone. That’s his idea of a good time, and that trust starts every single scene that he does with a submissive. “King kitty, I’m always going to help you if you ask for it. And that goes with literally anything. If you’re a part of my family, that means the only time that you deal with your shit on your own is when you want to.”

Or Tony adds in his head, the person that you need to help in order to deal with your own messed up version of guilt and history, was a person who actively told Tony that it was his fault that his best friends back was broken in a fight that half the members didn’t even understand all of the rules too. And even then, he was willing to help in a small fashion, in a he’s not turning them in when he knows their location, and he’s not stopping Natasha from being allowed to use his resources to help the man. Actually, he thinks that this would be considered helping by anyone’s standards besides his.

He sucks in a big breath. “Are you good to continue?”

“Yes, Tony.”

He whacks T’Challa’s hole with the barest of strength that will still have the general motion of a slap, and he watches T’Challa melt into his lap. He keeps the next slap at the same force. He can feel the way that T’Challa tenses, expecting a harsher hit after a soft one. He could do that, he could make sure that the last few after he goes soft are hard enough to cause the man laying over him to sob out in pain, but he’s not going to do that. The gentle strikes would still serve as a reminder to T’Challa, and it’s partially a type of praise for being completely willing to fight to accept this punishment in the way that Tony wants.

So, the next five hits stay at a soft brief slap with his humming each time that T’Challa seems to flinch back at him with the gentle strikes. “All done,” he murmurs.

T’Challa drops his cheeks almost immediately, and his hands land on the floor in front of him. Then, he pauses before he can actually push himself up. “Am I allowed to curl up in a sitting position in your lap?”

“Yes,” Tony says. He has more words that he could say to that. That all of his subs are welcome to curl up next to, or on him at just about any point in a scene. Or really at any point during the day too. He has literally suggested that Natasha just drop to her knees in front of him at these meetings, if they start getting extremely unruly.
T’Challa pushes up and winces as his raw ass connects with Tony’s slacks. But, then his arms can be around Tony, and his cheek can rest on the man’s shoulder, and everything feels peaceful in this world again. He breathes in and breathes out in an attempt to soothe himself.

Tony wraps his arms around T’Challa the second that he believes he can get away with it. He taps T’Challa’s chin with his fingers until he lifts his head enough to meet his eyes. “You’re so good for me, that you deserve whatever nice things you want. So, the next time that you want a scene, you get to choose, got it.”

T’Challa bobs his head in a nod. “I kind of want to take a nap, but I know that there is no way in all hell that we have enough time hiding in this room for me to just sleep in your lap.”

“Probably not,” Tony agrees. “But that’s alright. We’ll just have to find a time for you to be able to come to the United States for a better time.”

T’Challa flinches. “See there's a problem with that. When I leave Wakanda, my sister is in charge until I return, and she does not want to deal with some of the problems that I have heaped on my own plate, and does not want to be in charge of making sure that this problem doesn’t blow up in our faces.”

Tony snorts in amusement. He had forgotten that T’Challa wasn’t completely aware that Tony knows full well that the rogues are in Wakanda, in not quite a prison, only because if they were behind bars, Rogers would start trying to free them, and he wouldn’t be keeping a tight enough rein on the witch to stop her from killing people to get them out. Just look at what happened when they escaped the raft.

T’Challa tilts his head to the side in question. He’s unsure what’s causing the shaking laughter within Tony, but he’s glad that he’s invoking a positive reaction.
“I’ve had that problem before. My suggestion is to get the explosion over with in a contained setting, because unfortunately, they don’t tend to be helpful in terms of making sure their presence isn’t a burden on those who are helping them, or funding them.”

T’Challa’s eyes widen. Fear strikes him to the core, because with that information, Tony could destroy his country. He could ensure that other countries weren’t going to be willing to trade with him until he turns over the rogues, or declare war all together to get them back, and he can’t turn them in without them trying to fight and kill his people.

Tony’s hand grab onto either side of T’Challa’s face with more force than he had done literally anything with T’Challa before. None of his grips had ever been based in force instead of strength because hello, super soilder. But, he is not about to have another sub drop on him after a punishment scene this closely to each other, he has at least some standards when it comes to this stuff. “Stop,” he commands.

There is no room for doubt in Tony’s words. They are words from his dom, demanding that he stop what he’s doing. So, T’Challa freezes, he lets his hands stop clenching, and he forces his mind to stop running through what he could do to convince Tony to not turn him in for the various crimes that he now knows that T’Challa has done.

Tony can tell that T’Challa’s entire focus is now on him, which is good, that means that they are still going to be able to stop him from tumbling over the edge. “I’ve known where they were since before, I got out of the hospital. Friday had that information even before I did. If I was going to turn them in, I would by now. However, at this point, I cannot get the ones who deserve to suffer and rot in a cell compared with the ones, who are potentially in an abusive situation being dragged down with the ones who deserve to rot, and I’m not willing to do that right now.”

“You should,” T’Challa mutters. “I mean, you shouldn’t, because it would destroy my country, and I can’t live with that on my conscience, but at the same time, one of the key problems is hurting my people even as I have to allow her most freedoms to stop her from attacking more, and I swear she needs to be contained, but we haven’t figured out a way to do that yet.”

Tony pats his arm. “That’s alright, remember what I said, your problems aren’t yours alone anymore. I will help you figure this out, okay? We will come up with a way for this to happen without your people suffering and without the witch going free.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” he swears.

Just then, a knock sounds on the door. “Pardon, your majesty, Dr. Stark, but there is a committee now looking for Dr. Stark, and they believe that this is drastically important,” the guard says.

T’Challa picks himself up and pulls up his pants. Hisses escaping him as he pulls it up over his butt. He’s impressed by how long Tony was able to go in on his ass like that. Even with his healing, he’d feel it for at least until he goes to bed. He inclines his head to Tony. “I will call, and I should probably head out first.”

Tony nods and watches him go. He hopes that this time the promise to call will not be swayed away by the way that rogues are acting, or what the rogues have done to him. He flips out his own phone to see whether Natasha has sent him any information on what’s about to ambush him.

The message from Natasha is even more amusing to him, because all it says, is to say no comment to anything that might be asked.

So, he glides from the room and ignores all of the people suddenly clambering to get his attention. There are aides from like every government here, trying to talk to him, which means that all of. them have realized that he's not going to let the assholes bully him into backing down from the accords and are hoping for a compromise. He heads towards the exit, since as he told the council, he does have other important things to deal with. Apparently, his list has to be expanded as well.

Natasha arrives at his side close to the door as they walk out in silence. “How did the conversation go?”

“He’s family now,” Tony answers. That would tell her everything that she needs to know and would likely allow her some time to come to terms with the idea that someone that she had once betrayed is joining their family.

“Mmm, good. I’ve always wondered how his hands would feel coming down on my ass, especially since I’m confident in my reading that he would never ignore a safe word, I should be having some fun, sometime soon with him.”

Tony throws his head back and laughs. Trust Natasha to quip at him with the same type of jokes that he would make in her place. “Oh, and we have a new problem to deal with.”

Natasha raises her brow. She’ll be mostly ready for any problem that he throws at her, but he doubts that even she would see this one coming.

He switches into Russian, because no one from Russia was going to be outside at this point or were going to tell on them with what he’s about to say. “The witch needs to be detained, indefinitely without access to magic.”

Natasha responds in the same language. “If we can get Barnes up and safe in his own mind, he’ll likely take care of it for us. He will want hydra to be gone, and she was hydra. And not the type of hydra I was, because I was the brainwashed since young infant childhood, and she was a volunteer. Plus, I never committed any crimes against the Geneva Convictions, unlike her.”

Tony nods. “Well, let’s get home and work on our situations.” With that they link arms and head out. Both of them ready to see what will happen with the criminal trials that Pepper will have worked to convince a prosecutor to pick up, while they were busy here with the accords.

Chapter Text

Tony knows that he has to deal with a proper press conference now. There’s no avoiding it now that the criminal trial of Wanda Maximoff and Steve Rogers is under way, and the fact that both Tony and Pepper had to fight with the prosecutors and government over not charging James Barnes, but in the end, he’s being classified as a prisoner of war with severe mental duress to be evaluated further upon entering the United States once he can hear the news that he will not be attacked for what had happened before this moment.

Natasha slips into his room as he’s trying to decide which tie will scream, if you ask me stupid questions, I will hurt you. She stares at him for a long moment, before walking to his closet, she finds one of his gold ties and wraps it around his neck. “Make a statement that this is all of you coming to these decisions, that there isn’t a clear distinction anymore between Tony Stark, genius billionaire company owner and Iron Man, superhero.”

Tony wants to say that’s a terrible idea for the stock market, but honestly, his numbers have never been higher, and if he doesn’t do anything soon, there are going to be rumors about someone convincing him to stay tied down. “I think that I might be more scared of this press conference than the one that I did when I first created iron man.”

“That was a personal choice, this is something that was done to you.” Natasha pauses before she could second guess herself. “Would you mind if I talked to T’Challa while you are talking to the press about the mental struggles of Barnes?”

“You can call anyone you’d like Natasha. If you want to call Clint, Friday will cover for you. I will not stop you from reaching out to the other people you love; I’d like to think that I’m not that evil. I’d like to believe that rather strongly.” Then, he sucks in a breath. He’s not sure how he’ll handle anyone looking at him with a calm expression and asking him why he doesn’t just move past this for the benefit of the world, and how he’ll have to answer that just this once he needs to put himself before regular average people, because he can want to survive too. At least that’s what his therapist says.

Natasha places a hand on his shoulder. “Pepper went through all of the people in that room. Yes, they will ask you difficult questions, but they won’t attack you, or if they do, Pepper will go after them with the full force of Stark Industries. Don’t think she won’t.”

Tony breaks into a gentle smile and a laugh. “Time to win over the public again.” Then, he leaves the room. He doesn’t ask Natasha to leave. If she wants to communicate with a king while sprawled across his bed inviting him to join her, he’s not going to say a word. Hell, if she asks him to borrow the bedroom for said sleeping with T’Challa, the most that he’d ask for is whether he can watch.

As he walks towards the cars, he wonders whether Happy is going to be super pissed that he didn’t get an immediate call about who sent his boss to the hospital. He slips into the correct seat for the press to see as Happy pulls out front.

Happy gives him a fake pout as he gets in the car. “Why do I always hear about your life-endangering situations involving superheroes from Pepper?”

“Because my dear friend, you are still completely human, and I would like to be able to keep you as completely human if I can help it.”

Happy grumbles under his breath, but he gives his boss a grin all the same. “Well, no offense, you’re still mighty human too.”

“Only by a technicality according to the governments of this world, because my intelligence might suggest mutant genes.” Tony tries to relax, but he can’t quite bring himself to be able to do that. “Happy, you’re going to make sure none of these guys attack me because they’re die-hard captain America fanboys, right?”

“I’ll have them tasered on the ground, long before they can get to you. There a reason you’re worried about that today of all days?”

Tony shrugs. “Just a gut-feeling, and you know, I’ve been betrayed enough times to learn that I should probably listen when my gut starts screaming at me about things that may or may not be happening.”

Happy nods. “I agree completely, sir. I will make sure that I am prepared for something crazy to go down.”

Tony lets that assurance lower his stress levels somewhat. He gets out of the car in the back of the building and allows the PR team to run him through what they expect to be said on the stage. He’ll do his opening, they’ll open the floor to questions, they will likely harp on the fact that he’s choosing individuals in front of the whole, and to make sure his answers are both truthful and harsh to shut down rumors that this is some petty grudge.

He puts on his “I’m a rich boy and I don’t care about the world mask” on, and he marches out into the stage. He waves at all of the reporters in the area. And then he kind of does a half skip to the microphone. “Hi, folks. Been a little while since I was able to speak to you, because a lot of things have happened. I told all of you that I was going to support the will of the people, and that I would be held accountable for what the Avengers had done. I thought that the others would take responsibility for those actions too. I was wrong.”

He swallows hard. “And I am sorry to all of you, and all of the people who watch your programs, that I fought so hard to allow them to have a way back into your good graces. At the time I thought that they were good people. I thought that they had gotten confused along the way, but at a certain point, we all have to acknowledge that we’ve done wrong believing in them.”

“As you all know from the reports leaked from the prosecutor’s office, there are now criminal trials about to begin for both Rogers and Maximoff. This is because my belief that they were good people, got me close to dead. I should have died in Siberia, and if it weren’t for some fast thinking by the Vision, I would be. They both deserve to be charged with the crimes that they’ve done, and they both deserve a trial by their peers.”

Tony’s eyes peer over the crowd and decides to push just a little bit more. “We shouldn’t however, look to blame the people that didn’t know what they were doing, and who were not aware of their actions. James Bucky Barnes is innocent, he was there, sure, but he was just getting some of his memories back, and those memories were clouded. He thought that there were winter soldiers out there, and then he got presented with the same video that caused me to break down, and he was hurt too. He cared for my father, he would have liked to have known my mother, and he got violently reminded that he murdered them. I attacked Rogers for being enough of a dick to hide that from me, and unfortunately, Barnes wasn’t awake enough to know anything but that the one person he could remember, that he could know.”

Tony then claps as if this was all completely normal for him. “Now, do any of you have any questions?”

Hands pop up all across the room, and Tony isn’t at all surprised. He points to one at random, avoiding Christine’s eyes. He does not want to deal with her pointed dagger of questions until he has to, because he knows that he will have to.

“Hello, Dr. Stark. I think myself and a lot of my viewers have one main concern. Captain America and the witch have high records of being able to take down large threats that are coming after the people of this world, what are your words on why we should arrest them when we know that eventually, they will be helpful?”

“Well, first off, while Ms. Maximoff has a power that will likely always be helpful should she gain control over it, she does not currently have that control. It would be absolutely ridiculous to try to say that someone doesn’t deserve jail time for crimes committed with her powers, because some day she will gain control and be able to help us all. That requires that she want to help you, and after spending more time with her than I ever wished, I can ensure you that unless it would benefit her in some way, she would not want to help the average American. She hates all of us.”

He pauses. “As for Captain America, I feel that we should use a strategy from WWII which he is very familiar with. You committed the crime, you serve the time, until a conflict comes up where you would be beneficial as nothing more than a soldier, and are released for that service only, and should you both survive and show that you have changed your ways, you can stay in the public. His victims get justice, and the world still has its protector.”

Another hand shoots up that wasn’t before, so he picks on them. He’s sure that the question will be a follow up, and he’d much rather deal with people asking him about that, then trying to figure out the other parts of what is happening. “What about the governments harboring them?”

“I suppose that it would depend upon their reasoning, but if they’ve managed to convince them that they need to lie low and not hurt anyone until some of this blows over, we could easily argue that they were trying to save the world, while we were trying to build a prison that can hold a witch with mind control powers, who will destroy all of her guards the second she gets half a chance, and a super soldier that can break through bullet proof glass.”

Reporters across the room are all jotting things down on their notepads. He’s confident that he just threw them for a loop, as they were thinking that he was going to try to be the real bad guy and go after all of the different people who defended those who hid these murderers from his sense of justice. They were going to be sorely disappointed, because as far as he’s concerned, no one should face his sense of justice when they can have a court date. The exception is terrorist cells, because you’ve got to go for the kill in order to avoid a loss of innocent lives, and he will never trade those for a court date.

One reporter stands up to meet his eyes. “I have some questions about Sergeant Barnes.”

Tony waves them on. He would listen to any question about Barnes compared to any of the others. He understood why so many people have issues with him, and he gets it better than most, but they did need PR on their side when they tried to bring him home.

“One, will he get a full pardon for his crimes in your opinion? Two, do you think the families of those he’s killed will ever get justice? Three, will he ever be safe for the general public?”

Tony smiles at her with a look that would have terrified anyone not new to one of his press conferences. “You must be new. I’m sure that Pepper Potts gave your company a full list of things that were unacceptable, including going after a prisoner of war in a derogatory fashion. But for the sake of clearing the air, I’ll even give you some answers.”

Security guards edge forward ready to pull her back in case that this grows any further than what is already happening.

“I hope for every single ounce of morals that our country has ever had, that Sergent Barnes gets a full pardon even before he sets foot back on this soil. He was tortured for centuries, his brain and memories wiped over and over again until he was compliant with code words forced into his brain to bring that compliance, and yet over and over again, he was able to fight through that torture to try to be a better person. He deserves nothing but peace and health for the sacrifices that he pulled for this country, and this country owes him a debt that will likely never be repaid. Justice will be served to those families as we rip out the roots of every hydra cell that we find, and we can hope that with a therapist’s help, Barnes might be able to assist in those takedowns, but if he cannot that will be alright too, he owes nothing more to any of us than what he has already given. And I believe that unless you believe that there are still hydra agents in places of power in the United States, he would be safe now. But for the sake of not assuming that hydra couldn’t have gotten to other high officials like they’ve done before, we should get the trigger words out of his head, before we get him out in public, but he would be safe in either the Stark Tower or the Avengers compound, and should he wish to do his recovery in either of these locations, he is welcome to give me a call. My number is public knowledge, and my AI would let him through to speak to me.”

“What if the courts don’t agree with you?” Someone calls out without waiting to be called upon. Slightly rude for the setting, but understandable given what he’s just said.

“Wouldn’t be the first time that my lawyers had to stop the government from infringing upon my rights. Right now, there are no charges against Barnes in the United States, only extraction promises, which I do not believe it would be in anyone’s best interests to follow. Especially Russia’s.”

Christine stands up. She smiles at him with that deadly look that tells him that she’s about ready to cause problems without breaking any rules that he can have her dragged out for. “I have a statement from Captain America. Obviously sent in anonymously for his safety. I was wondering whether you would comment on it.”

Tony closes his eyes behind his sunglasses and counts to 20. Of course, she would try her best to get a message from Captain America. He’ll likely have to call T’Challa and tell him that his prisoners have gotten access to the news, which would be bad for all of them. He inclines his head, telling her to go for it, just because if he doesn’t, someone will call him out about not being accountable to the public.

“His exact words about these charges are this. ‘He made up these injuries, when I left in Siberia he was just fine, and clearly the video was edited. I have never once aimed a shield at someone’s head and held it there for several seconds. That would waste time during a battle and would be ridiculous for someone I would have once called a friend. The American public should stop buying all of his lies. He is the one who created Ultron, not poor Wanda. He’s the one who sold weapons to terrorists like Hydra. He's the only Avenger who has ties to being evil, and he’s trying to make himself feel better by dragging the rest of us good people down to his level.’ End quote.”

Tony blinks and then throws his head back with a laugh. “Oh, that’s a good one, Ms. Everheart. I can’t wait to tell the lawyers that they can add on multiple accounts of slander. The court will obviously look at the authenticity of the video, and should they find it lacking, they will throw out that evidence, although my hospital records are fully submitted at this point and show my injuries far better than that video will ever show. And I was cleared from Ultron for many reasons, including the fact that I was under mental manipulation at the time, and the fact that I didn’t start the program. The code was inactive. Was it being worked on? Of course, I have never denied that. Was it complete and capable of coming online? No, not even close. The best guess of several leading scientists, is that a mix of Ms. Maximoff’s power and the power from the infinity stone caused the program to gain sentience without being coded to do so, and then twisted it based off the desires of these powers. But of course, that’s a theory, because none of us have ever seen this type of stuff before, and without help from aliens, we probably won’t understand it perfectly.”

Christine bites back some comment, and instead tilts her head to the side. “Do you also deny the claim he made during the initial fights of the civil war that said that you bought off the trials for Ultron to declare you not at fault?”

“That would be bribery, Ms. Everheart, and I have never nor will I ever participate in bribing the government on issues. I will utilize my strengths and explain my opinions, but I have never offered money to anyone that was working on a case of mine.”

Another reporter stands up. “There are some arguments to be made that you did that with the senate as you were holding weapons hostage?”

“Yeah, no.” He finger guns at the new reporter. “Not once did I ever tell them that if they behaved, they would get weapons back. I went in there with zero intention of allowing the army to have more weapons to destroy people with. World peace should be within our grasps not something that we try to destroy with weapons and war again. We are one people, and we should start listening to that, because the aliens aren’t going to destroy us by country, they’re going for all of us.”

A reporter stands up, and his eyes are glued on Tony. “Are you saying that if you had guarantees from the government that the armies uses of weapons would only be directed against those of a superhuman threat, that you might consider going back into the weapon making business.”

“I never make any promises,” Tony snarks, but he has a genuine smile on his face. “But I also say to never say never, and I added that when I discontinued weapon making, this would be one of the reasons that you could drag me away from that decision, especially given the threat that I have significant fear will eventually be coming for us.”

“Why?”

“Because that nuclear weapon that I destroyed an alien fleet with was not an entire civilization. It looked more like a scouting mission, and we still have a powerful weapon of theirs.”

He could feel Pepper’s glare from miles away. She had been hoping that he would stay on script and not direct conversations to other topics than the civil war, and now he’s going to talk about why the world needs to come together. He does however decide that this is probably enough information to have wide ranges of articles being written about him in the coming months, and he shouldn’t tank the company. Plus, she’s the one who got him thinking about opening back the weapon’s division to save them from alien warlords in the first place. So really, this could be considered at least 12% her fault. “But folks, I think that’s going to have to be all of the questions for the day.”

He allows Happy to guide him off the stage, and he raises an eyebrow. He might have been paranoid, but so far he hadn’t seen a single threat. But, Happy’s leading them away from the street exits. “Umm, Happy?”

“There’s a whole group of cap fans gathering outside to stop you from leaving the building until you admit that you’ve made up evidence against the man. And some of them are armed. Not many because the man, the myth, and the legend wouldn’t want them to commit crimes. On his behalf, even still, we’re going to hide out in the building until cops show up to escort those people out.”

Tony wants nothing more than to snap at Happy and tell him that a few people yelling these things wasn’t about to stop him from going home where he could actually take care of several things, but he’s the one who wanted extra coverage at this thing. He had seen this coming, too many people in this country thought that they should be above the law because their morals were better than the rest. And they’d always believe that way, and unless the government was willing to stop them before it got any worse, it was never going to get any better than what it is right now.

He lets out a grunt of annoyance and leans against the wall. “You’d never say a word that you weren’t given permission to say, right Happy?”

“Questioning my loyalty, boss, super uncool. I haven’t betrayed you, even when you go off the deep end.”

“This is a new level of a deep end, but I need to let someone know on a private channel that they’ve got a leak, and you’re probably going to figure out what we’re talking about even if we don’t use any of the words that would clue most people on, and you’re likely going to want to hit something afterward. Remember that my face is extremely important to the cameras, and everything else you can do just about anything with.”

Happy’s eyes widen. “I would never.”

“Never say never,” Tony mutters. Then, he pulls out his phone and stares at it for a moment. “Friday, are we covered enough that no one else other than Happy can hear what I say?”

“Yes, boss.”

“And is the phone channel protected enough that none of the press vultures will be able to get anything if they’re in the process of trying to hack before you knock them down?”

“Always, boss.”

Tony nods to himself. He had known the answers to those questions. He’s the one who designed the bloody software. He knows that no one could hack him, but even still when he’s about to take a risk like this, he wants to make damn sure that everyone knows that what’s happening is as clear as they can be. He clicks T’Challa’s number and lets the phone ring.

“Dr. Stark,” a female voice answers. “My apologies, my king was not expecting a call from you today. He is currently on the line with a friend of yours.”
“One that I would still claim, or one that I would much prefer end up dead in a ditch somewhere.”

The laugh trickles through the line. “I think we may differ on where we place this one. I do not like this friend for what she has done to my king, and yet my king seems eager to forgive her. Manipulation, I wonder, or just plain attraction.”

Tony smiles. It would make sense for T’Challa’s guards to be wary of Natasha. They would probably learn that being wary of her, would not save them when the time came for her to do something insane, but it would at least provide them some amount of protection. “Patch me through.”

“You’ll probably hear some things that you don’t want to hear.”

“He’s family, doll. I always want to hear what family is up to, even when it is with other members of the family. I get joy from knowing that they are also as happy as they can be.” The line clicks and Tony’s in the call. He knows that he’ll bother waiting until one of them stops speaking before announcing his presence, although he’s also sure that Natasha will know that he’s there from just the tiny click.

“I look forward to when you actually get to come to the States where you and I could scene. I don’t like putting myself in a position to be down when I’m not at one of Tony’s places, where I can be safely confident that even if something happened, nothing could reach me until I pulled myself all the way up.”

“It would take a lot to be able to reach you before you pulled yourself up from the tower. I think it’d take an entire invasion directly from a portal inside the tower to do it,” Tony interjects before T’Challa could say whichever words he was thinking of about what to do with Natasha going down. “I didn’t really want to interrupt this conversation, but the king has a problem that he should know about.”

“What kind of problem?”

“The kind where sometimes guests gets allusions that they have more rights than they should. One of your peskier guests managed to find a way to contact an American reporter. She didn’t get any information about you or yours, but there’s a good chance that he’ll let something slip at some point of another, and she will pounce without hesitation if her stories from the guest are no longer pulling the audience she wants.”

“Bast,” he curses. “Please tell me that this is a poor joke.”

Tony sighs. “I wish I could, because I know that this will cause pain for you. But, no, one of them managed to get access to enough to send a message to a reporter. I’d put money on it being Clint.”

Natasha hisses through the phone. “He’d never disrespect someone giving him safe harbor like that. Never.”

Tony’s eyes flash over to Happy’s, who has darkened anger in his eyes now that he’s confident in what Tony is taking care of. And he knows that Happy would prefer that he just allow the world to hurt the rogues repeatedly. But apparently, he’s a better person than that. “Nat, tell me honestly that you know what he’s doing right now, when you’re rather sure that he just ran after his abuser instead of staying with this family. Do you think he’d value T’Challa’s assistance over the threat that Rogers holds over him, if he was willing to burn me, burn his family?”

“He wouldn’t,” her voice wobbles as she tries to say that. Love is for children, and yet she does love Clint. For so many reasons, and she can’t handle the idea that she would believe that he would betray her.

T’Challa is barking orders in another language before coming back to the phone. “Is this line completely secure on both ends?”

Tony’s eyes meet with Happy’s. “Yes, assuming Natasha is still at the tower, we’re clear.”

“I am.”

T’Challa waits a few seconds before admitting what he’s been hiding for a while. “I think there’s a good chance that Wilson and Barton both have major mental manipulation going on. It’s not full-blown mind control, but any of their fears of Rogers after something happens disappears after a few hours. And sometimes even their memories are altered just barely. Not enough for most people to call them out on, and until I started looking after those fear things, they were almost completely hidden from others.”

There is large rustling coming from the other end of the phone. And while Tony wants nothing more than to let Natasha run off half-cocked to Wakanda to save Clint. Yet, if she charges forward, there’s every chance that she will get sucked up into the issues that the mental manipulation from. And on top of that, can he even justify to himself giving her the order to stand down, when he knows that he would charge forward in a heartbeat for his family, and Clint had gotten that title over time too.

“Stop, please,” T’Challa pleads. “I will make sure that he’s safe, but you can’t come stop this. Until we have a way to stop her powers, you can’t come get him. I swear that I will personally help him get to the states once she’s gone so that he can make a choice on what to do to make amends, but please don’t get yourself into danger.”
“Tony?” Natasha’s tone is cold, colder than he’s heard it in a long time.

Tony checks the calendar. Pepper had been promised a month, it hasn’t quite hit that limit yet. “Do you trust the king?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you trust the king?” He speaks every word separately making her have to acknowledge all of the words that were spoken. He needs to hear her answer before he gives his full response, because if her answer is no, or maybe, he’ll tell her to go and risk herself anyway, because there are some things that they could live with and there were things that they could not, and Natasha letting him die alone would be something she wouldn’t be able to live with. He’d watch her deconstruct in front of him, and he doesn’t want to witness that.

“Yes,” she says finally after several minutes of silence.

“Then give me and Pepper to the end of the month. The full month without other issues like hospitalization of our submissives, give us another two weeks, and I will have a plan to take down Wanda, so T’Challa can get Clint back towards us. Can you handle that?”

There’s a loud bang from outside, and Tony barely even flinches. He’s a bit busy with his phone call to worry about what’s happening outside of the building unless Friday interrupts them to tell him that they’re no longer completely clear from those who would leak all of this.

“If anything happens to him,” Natasha says her voice low and dark, promising horrors and pains if they even give the allusion of failing in what she says next, “I will blame you, and I will take that out on each one of you, slowly.”

“If anything happens to you, I will give myself over to you on a silver platter after passing the crown onto my little sister, spider.” T’Challa takes another break in his speech. “I must go. The rogues are throwing a fit after all their electronic devices have been taken.”

Tony hovers over the end call button. “The rule goes for you too, if you’re in danger, back the hell off of them. I will protect you somehow from the outcomes of letting them have that technology. I laid some groundwork for that today.” Then, he hangs up. He hopes that the words from his dominant would keep T’Challa from doing something stupid.

Happy glares at him. “The police have gotten all the violent ones rounded up, but I feel like I need to warn you about threats coming from within if you’re allowing those people back in.”

“Not all of them,” Tony corrects. “And only the ones who are willing to face my judgement for what they’ve done.”

Happy glances him up and down before nodding. “I won’t stop you.”

Tony shakes his head as both of them start walking out of the building. “Pepper is on board if that helps you.”

“It does,” Happy confirms. “But I’d be a lot happier if you weren’t constantly being the better man. Just once I’d like you to be truly petty about something that has happened to you.”

“I’m being petty with Rogers. He gets nothing from me, he gets nothing but disdain and pain from me from this moment onwards.”

They lapse into silence on the way home. Tony’s trying his best to come up with the best way to deal with his new problem. The witch has got to go. The witch has to be solved quickly. Because T’Challa had been nervous when they met at the accords council, and he was confident in his fear now. That means that she has got to be dealt with sooner rather than later.

He slips out his phone and sends a quick text to T’Challa to call him when he’s next available It was time to make sure that some things got passed around, because if he could save Barnes before the two weeks were up, he’d be able to save all of them. Barnes wouldn’t allow the witch to live, and he’s the only one not currently under the witch’s control that could take a sharp shot like that. He was a sniper before he was an assassin, and Tony is not above utilizing that. Which also reminds him to call Pepper.

The tone barely has time to ring before Pepper has picked up. “Are we fucking doing weapons again, you megalomaniac? Because I swear to god, I need at least four months heads up before we start that shit. Or are we actually just taking over the world? Because that’s the only way that we’re going to get your qualifications for making weapons again, something remotely in the realm of possible.”

“Nice to speak to you too, Pepper. The answer to that is yes. They won’t be marketable, but they will be produced, and we will be equipping are new defense unit to the nines with weapons that I have cleared and made specifically for not killing humans.”

“Oh, good god, fine. I’ll get working with the press to make sure that we aren’t completely drowned by this decision. There’s a part of me that hates you right now.”

“My first thing is going to be the Avengers equipment updates, followed by some new avenger gear, because I’m redeeming Bucky Barnes within the next couple days.”

He can hear Pepper facepalm across the line. He knows that she’s debating whether her life would be easier if she just killed him today. And he can't blame her, his decisions are going in complete opposite from what he did before the civil war, but this time, he won’t handle losing together, he’ll only accept winning in some way.
“I’ll get on it.”

Tony barely slips into his lab and starts pulling up semantics before his phone is ringing from T’Challa’s call.

“I want you to know that I am calling from my bedroom and am in my bed, so if it requires a king, I will deal with what you need in the morning.”

“Are you okay?”

“No. Turns out whatever brand of superhuman that I am will stop Wanda’s power, but it will hurt. It will hurt so much that I want to collapse to my knees and beg for someone to forgive me for whatever sins I’ve committed to stop that pain, but I didn’t give in, and now I am going to go to lay in my bed and not deal with anything under a level 8 crisis until I at least have the option of sleeping.”

“Oh, that’s not really special. Well, it is, because if you stand up to it, that makes you strong, but that’s just her power. It causes pain until you do as she wishes.”

“Fuck,” he whispers. He hears covers shifting. “How is she still alive?”

“Because right now, I don’t know if we have anyone who can stop her, who isn’t already under her thumb. The only person who could take her down that is awake right now, that I would trust with it, is Clint Barton.”

“Do you really believe that he’s under her control to the point that he’s this bad.”

Tony pauses. “Yes, and he’s been under mind control before, so as much as when he breaks out, I’m going to want to hold him close and make sure that he knows that he’s safe, I’m going to have to be harsh.”

“You think he’ll break down even further if you don’t?”

“He came damn close to doing that last time, with several doms surrounding him, telling him that what happened wasn’t his fault, and that mind control is so much more than Wanda’s. So, yeah, he’ll break down. I’ve already decided how I think I’m going to justify his punishment. He won’t be punished for anything that she directly caused, but any of his choices that were outside of her control and just a by-product of what she’s done.”

“Like insulting you or making a mess of allies.”

“Exactly.”

T’Challa’s breathing seems to be much easier now, and Tony is glad, because his next words are going to cause some amount of panic in the man, and he can’t even bring himself to try to make it feel better. “Have you gotten a clip of what I said today?”

“Should have I?”

“Friday, send T’Challa a copy of those recordings.”

“On it, Boss.”

Tony takes in a deep breath. “Here’s the thing, I think I have something that will save Barnes from those words stuck inside his head. I mean I’m not super confident, but its far better than anything that currently exists. And, the trick is that I need him here in the States. Both for me to be able to help him, and so the US doesn’t try to claim that this is false evidence. And I really need Barnes to be healthy.”

“I’ll wake him up tomorrow and ask. It’s his choice.”

“Yes,” Tony agrees. “Yes, it is his choice, when he doesn’t believe you, play him that video. And if he does say yes, let him land directly on the compound ground.”
T’Challa sighs through the phone. “If you hurt him, I’m afraid that I might have to kill you. No matter how much I like you.”

Tony quirks his lips up into a smile. “Not to worry, T’Challa. I just want to save him from what he’s gotten himself involved with after all of the pain that he’s already been through.”

T’Challa hangs up the phone, and Tony spins around in his chair. Now, he’s got several weapon designs to get finalized, and he doesn’t have to worry about these things until Bucky Barnes was awake and asking to speak to him. And to have both Pepper and Rhodey on site for when he arrives, because a submissive that’s been through this much is likely to have several triggers that will drop him, and he might want or need several dominants to help him out of the depths that his mind will drag him down too.

Chapter Text

T’Challa has his hesitations about waking James Barnes up without having a method to help him with the mind control himself, he knows that Tony has a hundred different reasons to be better prepared for this, including his own brush with mind control because of the witch living in his house. But, still his brain tells him that this might count as a breach of Bucky’s trust.

“Stop worrying so much,” Shuri calls. “If he doesn’t want to accept Tony’s offer, then I will offer him to either go back into the cryo chamber or an isolated cabin out in the middle of nowhere, until I can figure something out, or whine to you often enough that you give me Dr. Stark’s number, and I ask him what his plan was, and whether he thinks that I could do something useful along those lines too.”

T’Challa turns to stare at his sister, who is already clicking the buttons to waking him up. “And if he hates us for this false hope?”

“Then he hates us for false hope, better in my opinion to have a false hope than to have no hope at all.”

Shuri clicks the last button and allows for the cryo chamber to start decompressing, and once that’s done the door swings wide open. The cold leaves towards the larger room, and her eyes are completely open for the man. “Hello, Sergeant Barnes. You are safe and in Wakanda. You asked us to put you back into the chamber until such a time when we believed we could offer you a way to be saved from what the winter soldier words that were placed into your head. Do you remember?”

Bucky opens his eyes wide and for a second, T’Challa is sure he’s going to have to hurt the man in order to keep his sister from getting hurt because the man was going to attack. And then, his body goes lax back into the chamber. “So, you think you have a way to cure me?”

“No,” Shuri answers softly. “But, you’ve got an offer from someone probably around the same intelligence level as me, who had a head start on working on things that involve mental manipulation. And they made many offers to you on a large scale to try to allow you the option to call him, however, you were asleep here and could not answer, so in the end we decided that we should at least give you the option.”

Bucky swallows around a lump in his throat. “And you don’t think it’s a trap.”

“No,’ T’Chall answers this time. “I would trust this person with my life, and I have trusted them with my rare submission. I promise you, that he would not harm you if he’s given you his word that he will help you. He is a good man, and so are you.”

His hands are clenching into a fist and then unclenching. “Does Steve know?”

Shuri snorts as she walks around to give him a cup of tea that she’s had made so he can warm up once she had to wake him up. She makes sure not to touch his skin, so he wouldn’t have to deal with that flood of hormones after so many years without any kind touch, and probably any accidental touch that didn’t turn to pain.

“No. Unfortunately, I have to state that I believe that Steve Rogers would be worse for your recovery should he either know about this offer or was aware that we were waking you up.”

Bucky tilts his head before nodding. “He does seem like he is very stubborn and in love with the past. I am not of the past, I am of the future, unlike him, I wasn’t completely cut off from the passage of time.”

T’Challa nods to him as well. These are reasonable things to say, and he doesn’t really want to be the one who has to tell Bucky about the fact that his old best friend has become an abuser and a hydra sympathizer. He’d be willing to pass off that burden to his dom, who he trusts would be able to handle all of this much better than what he could to at this time.

Bucky waits for a few minutes for anyone to speak again. He takes a few sips of the tea that Shuri had handed him as he considers all of this. “You said there’s a message for me. You might as well show me.”

T’Challa passes over a tablet and presses the play button. He watches as Tony Stark’s face pops up, and his words from that press conference spread through the room. He also watches the way that Bucky’s eyes fill with tears as he hears the offers that Tony Stark gives him.

“I can go home,” Bucky whispers. “I can go home, because Tony Stark will help me get there and be healthy again, and he said it in front of several people, where he can’t change his mind without at least one person knowing what he promised.”

“Not several, but hundreds.” Shuri stands to his side as she watches the man in the video. She knows how much trust he gave all of them by giving this video to the public, because he’s telling them that he’ll take Barnes in without allowing any of the evidence to point back towards them harboring him for safety.

Bucky turns to look at T’Challa. “Do you have a way that I can contact Dr. Stark? I have some questions before I allow him to come get me and try to protect me from myself.”

“Of course.” He hands over his phone without doubting Barnes. Sure, the winter soldier could do a lot of damage with a king’s phone, but at the same time, someone has to reach out the first branch to Barnes about him being more than just a weapon used by others. “You can also tell us that you don’t wish to take this opportunity, and we will come up with several other options for you.”

“I appreciate that, King T’Challa, but I believe I should for many reasons.” He looks at the phone for a long moment. “I’m afraid, your majesty, that I do not know how to use the device you gave me.”

T’Challa reaches over him where his body heat was probably transferring, and he hopes that’s not traumatizing to the man as he clicks Tony’s number. He’s sure to be surprised when T’Challa’s voice isn’t the one that comes through first. Then, he offers his arm to his sister. “Perhaps, we should leave you for your conversation and come back in after you’re done talking to him.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Both of the monarchs walk out of the room. Neither of them know whether this will help Barnes move on, or whether it will make everything so much worse.

“Hey king kitty, wasn’t expecting another call so soon. What can I do for you?” Tony Stark’s voice flows through the little phone that T’Challa had handed him.

“Sorry, Dr. Stark,” Bucky says. “I don’t think I’m the person you expected on the phone, but given that I needed to borrow King T’Challa’s phone to have him call you, I can’t really say he’s the one who should be blamed for this.”

“Hello, Sergeant Barnes. I am sorry for being so personal in the first words I spoke to you. You are correct, I was not expecting you to call this soon, given I only asked the king to pass my message to you a day ago.”

“Umm, to be fair, I don’t think they thought I was going to call to ask questions right after waking up and hearing your message, but I need to know some things before I can make any decision, and you’re someone who is probably always going to be honest to me.”

“Yes, Barnes. I promise to be honest with you. What are your questions, and we’ll see if between the two of us, we can come up with a way for both of us to be happy with the end conclusions that we have.”

“Okay, my first question is about practicality kind of. After all of Hydra’s meddling, I am a submissive now. I have no good experiences with it, and I’m prone to drops.”

Tony blinks back in New York. Of all of the issues that he thought Barnes was going to bring up, he did not expect the first words out of his mouth to be about submission, but he’s not surprised that this was on the list. “Many things about that. First, you’ll probably need to stay on my property until we can get the trigger words out of your head for your safety and others safety, however, it is a huge property, and you will have your own room, and you can ask me, and I will make sure you have a private kitchen and gym or anything else if you need it, because the dealing with people. But, we can ask for a professional dom from the courts to come by to help you, if that’s what you want. Or, there are three dominants who are consistently nearby enough that you could go to them on the property. There’s myself, which I am not saying you have to do to get aid, I want that to be known to you, Barnes. There’s also Colonel Rhodes, who lives on site and would be more than happy to help a submissive in need, especially one from the military. And then Pepper Potts is often within a ten-minute drive to the compound, and she loves to help subs, so she’d be more than happy to have you submitting to her during these times.”

Barnes bites down on his lips. “Would you mind sending a formal request to Colonel Rhodes to check and make sure that he’s willing to do so? And might I ask for the request that if I have a drop while we are working on the trigger words that you assist me?”

Tony sends a silent message to Friday with a text message to find out what the hell a formal request was, and then send one from Barnes to Rhodey. That was a simple thing that he could do for Barnes, and he finds himself wanting to be able to finish this conversation by going up to Natasha and telling her to go to Wakanda to pick up Barnes. “I will send the formal request, and yes, you are always welcome to ask me for a scene, whether we are in session or not, and if you are in my house and having a drop you can always ask for my assistance.”

Bucky tilts his head to the side. “Would that no longer be considered to be your submissive in the court of law?”

“Umm, probably, but I have a legal team that would help you fight it, if you ever needed to be considered single for whatever reason. This is more just a personal rule of having submissives living in my house, because I hate the idea of one of them suffering when they are meant to be in my house and thus under my protection.”

“Oh, alright, thank you, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me sir, and you don’t have to constantly add my title. You can call me Stark, or Tony, or hell if you really want to be formal, call me iron man.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow as he realizes that Tony Stark is a really weird dominant. Not that he has any major issue with the things that he’s asked, but they seem odd, especially for a dominant who has a perfect claim for his punishment. Probably just waiting until Bucky was in person before doing anything regarding that. “About the plans for getting rid of the trigger words, I know that this has never been done before, but will you be able to deal with me for however long it takes to get the words out of my head?”

“Yes,” Tony answers with a question in the tone. “Barnes, once I get you healed, you’re allowed to stay. Actually, I will probably beg you to stay at least long enough for Pepper to get the pardon clearly written, so you won’t be arrested. And trust me, I will not allow anyone to cause you issues over your trigger words.”

“Why?” Barnes couldn’t stop the word from falling out. “Why in the hell would you willing do all of this for me? I committed crimes against you specifically, regardless of my mental capacity at the time, I’m the one who hurt you.”

“No, Barnes.” His voice is as gentle as he can get it, because he need Bucky to understand the words that he’s about to say. He needs to know that Tony holds no blame for that anymore, he doesn’t think he deserves to be blamed for what happened to Barnes’ arm after everything in Siberia, but he’d take it long before he’d put any blame on Bucky. “You were under mind control. Maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly after watching your hands kill my mother, but once I was able to think again, I knew that you aren’t the one who hurt me. Rogers deserves my anger, you deserve my kindness, my forgiveness if you seek it, and there’s nothing more that you need to do to earn it, that you haven’t already given.”

Bucky’s eyes fill with tears as he stares at the phone. “Okay,” he whispers. He’s going to be offered forgiveness, and he doesn’t care about what he means about nothing that he hasn’t already given. Maybe he’s supposed to struggle with one arm for his punishment. That would make sense, and he can be forgiven. At least by one of the victims that he’s traumatized. “How do I get to you?”

“I’ll send Natasha to come get you. Your counterpart from Russia will know her, which is fine, because she defected because of you after a childhood of being raised by Hydra. She’s a good person, and she’ll come get you and bring you to the States. I’d come myself, but that would drag. way too many news agencies towards Wakanda, which would hurt the king."

Tony pauses with his fingers hovering over the end call button, when Rhodey rolls himself into the room and holds out a hand for the phone. “Umm, Barnes, it looks like Coronel Rhodes has come by to give you a verbal response to your request if you are willing for me to pass him the phone.”

“Of course,” Barnes answers.

Rhodey plucks the phone from Tony’s hand with a glare. “When you get to the US I will actually help you understand the changes to the world, the military, and social justice? So the answer to your request is two-fold, yes, I will be the dominant that you can come to within the house and the Avengers, but I will not be the one that punishes you for missteps on the field. You made your own choices based on what you see to the best of your ability, and that’s good enough for the military. You are never going to be punished for what happens on the field, if you ever want to be on the field.”

“But I’m a submissive soldier, you have to have a ranking officer that will punish you for mistakes on the field. That’s the only way that you’re allowed into the military.”

“Social justice, Barnes.” Rhodey rubs at his forehead. “That wasn’t right, you don’t deserve to be punished more often than the average soldier based on your orientation.”

Barnes’ face twists up as he looks at the phone. “I’m going to have a lot of questions about that when you’re teaching me about these changes and things.”

“I look forward to it.”

Tony snatches the phone back from Rhodey before he can cause anymore panic than what he’s probably already done. “Barnes, Natasha will be there in like a few days. We look forward to having you in the States, and we look forward to meeting you correctly.”

“Thank you,” Barnes whispers as the phone disconnects. He can’t remember the last time that he knew for sure that he wasn’t about to get hit as he asked for things as a submissive. While his time with Steve definitely wasn’t harsh, he remembers that Steve said that missteps on the field still would be punished, they’d just wait until it was safe to host a punishment. Maybe that’s what Tony intends to do, versus whatever things that the coronel was talking about.

Shuri comes back into the lab alone. Her brother has to once more go deal with the rogues being demanding assholes, especially when it comes to Rogers creepily watching a sleeping Bucky Barnes. “How did it go?”

“Someone named Natasha is coming to bring me home, and then Dr. Stark is going to help me, and he’s not super freaked out about the fact that I’m a submissive with more triggers than an abused child.”

Shuri glances at him. “Do you have all your memories since Steve woke you up?”

Bucky shakes his head gently. “I have bits and pieces, but I was still slipping between mindsets, so everything is super blurry still. I’m sure those are likely to come back first once I start working on it though.”

Shuri nods to him in sympathy. “I am sorry that you’ve had all of these things happen to you, which causes the issues that you are facing, and since my brother will likely be the one who walks you to your escort back to the States, I have a message for you.”

She waits for Bucky to give an indication that he can hear her. “The cabin that we are going to let you stay in until Natasha gets here is yours. You are welcome to home to it at anytime you wish. You are welcome in Wakanda anytime you wish. The borders of Wakanda are often closed to all those who are not citizens, but they will never be closed to you.”

Bucky leans forward to be able to reach out a hand for a handshake with a smile on his face. “That’s very generous of you, Princess Shuri. I will be grateful for all of my life for everything that you and Tony Stark are doing for me.”

“Every decent person left on this planet should want to do whatever they possibly could to help you. No one should be a tortured prisoner of war, least of all someone who suffers the torture disallowed by the Geneva Convention for well over five decades.”

Bucky recalls his thoughts when he heard about the convention. “The bad guys will never follow the rules, only the good guys. So, the convection only really works with good guys fighting good guys. That means they’ll never be followed.”

Shuri turns to look at him then smiles. “The world has changed. True wars no longer really happen, because the world fears what happens if we get into another great war. That doesn’t mean conflict doesn’t break out, but it does generally mean that if someone breaks the rules, they get stomped on by every other country in the world.”

Bucky hums. “I don’t know whether I’m quite ready to understand that the world that I remember is not the world that is.”

Shuri stops herself from reaching out to him, because she can understand that. She doesn’t know what she’d do if she woke up one morning, and 70 years had passed, and the world was no longer her world, but something completely different. She’d like to think that she would end up better than Steve Rogers, but I suppose that all of them will try to understand whether the world can be better, by watching James Barnes.

Tony leans over to peck Rhodey’s cheek after hanging up the phone. “Thank you.”

Rhodey snorts. “I think that you’re a fool for putting yourself into the amount of trauma that this will cause you, however, I also agree with you that James Barnes deserves nothing but the best aid that the entire country can give him, so I will do whatever I can to make his stay easier. But you should be prepared, he almost definitely thinks that we’re going to take our pound of flesh.”

Tony winks at Rhodey as he enters the elevator to go tell Natasha some good news. “I always have a plan for such things.” Then, he’s up towards the floor that Natasha is on.

Natasha is curled up on a couch with a book in Russian on her lap as she relaxes into the tower even further.

Tony doesn’t want to have to interrupt her, because for once she looks so at ease with who she is, and where she is. And he’s always wanted for her to have that amount of comfort in his property. But, he needs her ready to go as soon as she can. “Nat,” he calls.

Natasha sets the book down and turns her head to him. “What’s up?”

“I need you to go to Wakanda. There will be some ground rules because otherwise there are going to be multiple dead bodies as you leave and that’s the kind of attention we don’t want. First, your priority is picking up James Barnes and bringing him home without anyone being able to stop you as you won’t report him as coming or going. Second, I don’t care if you get a message to Barton, unless it puts you at risk, and trust me, you don’t want to put yourself in danger right now, because I will punish you for it, when you didn’t need to ever be in danger. Third, do not go after Rogers or the witch. Actually, if you can avoid the witch at all costs, that would be best.”

Natahsa blinks. “I won’t be able to reach him without being in her radar.”

“That’s more than likely true. And I feel sorry for that, but once Barnes has gotten the trigger words out of his head, the next priority on my list will be Barton for you.”

She leans back against the couch. “I’m an awful person if I let this go. I owe him more than I’ve ever owed anyone else ever, and he’s not acting right, and I know it.”

“We all do, now that you’ve brought our attention to it, but we also don’t have any options that don’t start and end with killing Wanda Maximoff, and right now, not even I could do it with ease.”

Natasha slips the book onto the end table and stands up. “I’ll do my best, but if I see an opportunity to at least try to talk to Clint, I’m going to take it. I’ll take your punishment when I get home if I must, but I won’t live with myself if I don’t.”

“I said don’t put yourself in danger, come up with a lie that makes Rogers believe you completely, and he’ll convince Wanda to back down. She doesn’t admit how deeply she is in our heads to his face.”

She meets his eyes and leans over to bump their foreheads together. “Thank you.”

“I try my best.” Then, he leaves the room again. He wants to get a few more tweaks on the BARF system before Barnes arrive, because this will be a true test of this new technology. He almost wants to call a therapist in to help, but he won’t do that before he gets Barnes’ explicit permission to allow another person in.

Bucky loves the way that the cabin is isolated. The most that he deals with our guards stopping by to make sure he’s updated on everything that’s happening. He gets to talk to them and ask about them, and most of them call him the better man. For whatever reason with all the things that he’s been through, knowing that at least some people think he’s better than Steve Rogers makes his heart beat harder.

He knows that this will probably have to change once he heads off to Stark’s place, and that he’ll have to deal with more people. But for right now, this is perfect and worthy of being awake for. He does have some guilt over the amount of stress the guards inform him that T’Challa is under since Steve wants to start a fight over where Bucky’s cyro chamber was moved for this renovation, and why. he can't go see him constantly.

He wishes he could slap some sense into the man. The Steve Rogers from his memories, is nothing like the man that he sees before him now. He knows from Steve that Erkisine said that the serum makes faults worse, and he thinks that one of the main things that got amped up for Steve Rogers is his firm belief that he’s always the righteous person. He had once punched some poor fool who didn’t want war for saying that in public, as if the war was the greatest thing ever. It wasn’t, he had seen the horrors of war, Steve always managed to avoid the actual pain of what happens when war happens.

That’s one thing that he’s always wanted to say to Steve. He didn’t get a chance before he was falling from the train, but he had wanted to look at the man and ask him after seeing what happened to Bucky during war, whether he still thought that it was the righteous path to take. He knows that he would take great offense to the question though, because the trauma never happened to him, and Steve firmly believes that until he is proven wrong, that he is correct.

T’Challa knocks on the door, and Bucky lets him in without a word. “Your ride home has arrived; she’s making a small pit stop while I collect you.”

“Of course, she can take as much time as she needs.” Bucky walks back towards the little table that he has a letter written on. “I know that Steve’s been giving you problems, and I know that you’ve bought yourself three months before you absolutely must tell him the truth. But I wrote a letter that will hopefully stop the man from attacking you once he finds out the truth.”

T’Challa glances towards the letter. “You don’t need to do this.”

“I want to. You and your sister helped me when I was sure that I was never going to be able to escape what happened to me and to such a degree that I thought my only option might be death so that no one could use me as a weapon anymore. I cannot pay you back in a way that is equal, because I would never wish this pain on anyone, let alone someone who has helped me to such an extent. However, I can pay you back by helping with the issues that my presence has caused you, and I would hope that you would take that gift as I meant to give it.”

T’Challa sighs, but he pockets the letter. “Thank you, but you owe us no debt. We are of the firm belief that you are the one who holds the ability to call debt from anyone in this world who allowed Hydra enough power that they could do this to a person without being caught for so long.”

“Your sister mentioned it.” Bucky pauses. He doesn’t want to be rude to Shuri, but he also wants to know whether T’Challa agrees with her decision to offer him a place to stay, and he won’t feel safe coming if he doesn’t know. “Your sister also said that your borders would never be closed to me, and that I could come to this cabin anytime that I wished.”

T’Challa grins at him. “Yes, you are always welcome to come here. You can always show up, and we will welcome you with open arms. The entire royal family has slowly fallen in love with you after hearing what you’d been through, because we tend to collect those who deserve a family but do not have one.”

Bucky leans his hand against the wall as he says a silent goodbye to the cabin for the time. Then, he nods to T’Challa. “It’s time to leave, isn’t it?”

“Your ride would not leave without you, but she would be concerned if we dwelled for too much longer. Granted, since she likes the idea of subbing to me, she would probably take my word for anything that we needed.”

Bucky takes the first step out of the cabin and lets the tears run down his face. “I wish that I could stay here and be safe and never have to deal with the rest of the world again.”

T’Challa ignores his sister’s warnings this time and wraps an arm around Bucky as he guides him farther out onto the path where they could walk while they speak about this. “I know. I wish that you could, but the world isn’t safe from all harm yet, and if it isn’t safe for you to be on the Earth, even Wakanda can’t keep you safe, and we never know if our alien enemies could take advantage of what was done to you.”

Bucky leans into that touch. “Why? What did I do to deserve this? Will I be forced to suffer for even longer than the 106 years I’ve already lived on this earth?”

T’Challa bites down the urge to help Bucky lean into subspace right then and there. That would put them way late, and there’s no guarantee that this wouldn’t hurt him more in the long run by making him leave the first person he trusted. “I don’t know. I wish I did. I wish I knew why horrible things happened that way I could justify everything in this world, but that is not the way that humans live. But, I do know, that if you ever need me, have Tony send me a message, and I’ll make sure either Shuri or I make our way to America.”

Bucky allows himself to be led, and he tries not to drop right then. The self-doubt and hatred are pushing into his head constantly after what has happened. He’s surprised when a softer set of arms come around his other side, and he forces his head up to see who it is.

“Hi,” Natasha says softly. “I’m your ride. We’ve met before on multiple occasions at various moments in both of our lives, but if you don’t recognize me, that’s okay. I’ll make sure you get to know me all over again.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Sorry, ma’am, but I don’t know you.”

T’Challa exchanges a long look with Natasha to exchange the fact that Bucky is so upset and hurt. “This is Natasha.”

Natasha pauses and then decides to just go for it. “I am one of the Avengers, the Black Widow. You probably heard about me from Steve at some point or another. You also should know that I am one of Tony Stark’s subs, which is why I was sent to get you, that and I’m really good at lying, and there’s a good solid chance that someone is going to ask who else I picked up on my ship.”

“Can you not tell them the truth?”

“Not until we get you on Tony’s property, where the government would have to actually fight him in order to get you back from him.”

Bucky furrows his brow. “I don’t want to cause any problems.”

Natasha laughs as she leads him up the steps of the plane with T’Challa still on his other side. “Don’t worry about that. We’ve been planning on fighting them for what they wanted to do with you after Civil war already. This just gives us an excuse to do it.”

“Why?”

Natasha guides him down into a seat on the airplane before shrugging her shoulders. “I think each of us has our own reasons. For my part of it, it's because we were once a family, and Tony has allowed me back into the graces of that family, and I think the others deserve that too.” Her eyes flash for a moment showing more emotion than either of the two men have ever seen in her, even if one cannot remember needing to be shocked by the trust given. “That you deserve to be part of that family.”

“I hurt too many people in your family,” Bucky mutters.

T’Challa glances down at him. “I think you’ll find once you get there, that almost none of them blame you.”

Natasha nods in agreement as she walks T’Challa out. She lingers for a moment with him at the end of the ramp to the plane and she reaches out to squeeze his hand. “Be safe. My conversation with Clint has proven to me beyond a doubt that they’re not only planning something, but that a good portion of them don’t know what they’re doing. Sam is the voice of reason, so if you need to try to figure things out, get him away from the witch for a talk. If she suspects, she’ll grab hold of his mind, and he’ll be living without freedom again.”

T’Challa grimaces. “I had figured that out. I hope that potentially once they finally decide to try to storm the lab to find our friend who has left, I’ll be able to derail whatever plans they have with grief after Rogers reads whatever letter Barnes wrote.”

Natasha waves goodbye to him as he takes back off towards the palace and then enters the plane. She takes in Barnes’ face and throws herself into the chair opposite of her where her legs could still brush up against his, should they have any issues with him being touch-starved. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions while we fly?”
He looks up to meet her eyes before ducking his head into a nod. Then, he kind of grasps at the seat with his human arm, since the metal one hasn’t been replaced yet.
“Can I do the same?”

“Sure,” she replies easily. “We’ll do, you ask a question, I answer and then get to ask one of my own, and we’ll switch off.”

He blinks at her in clear surprise. He was expecting her to maybe give him a few questions through the time they flew not make equal gestures of faith when it came to these questions. “Do I need to be prepared for punishment the moment we get off the plane?”

“No, you don’t have to worry about that Barnes. First, none of the dominants in our family would ever, and I mean ever, punish someone when they’re in a drop, and no offense, but you look so close to one, that no one would ever consider starting one with you without first helping you recover your footing. And second, unless you’re hiding like a secret cache of bodies that you do remember and are just being an asshole about giving them up, they have no reason to punish you.”

Natasha regards him for a moment. She could start out with something difficult, or she could build trust. They’ve got some many hours to be on this plane, and they could take their time. Hell, she could even send a text to Friday and ask her to do some loops and scenic routes if she needs a few more minutes. “What do you prefer to be called?”

He swallows as he takes in her answer. Apparently the other submissive he’s met doesn’t believe that he’s done wrong, more than likely Tony had never told her what he had done. Because there’s no way that anyone would believe after knowing that he wouldn’t get punished for hurting a dominant’s loved one while still needing their help. Still, he has no reason to doubt Natasha either. “I’m not sure. I know that I don’t really like being called Bucky though.”

“How about your first name? James.” She’s technically leading him to an answer, but she doesn’t want to do this whole conversation with only being able to call him Barnes. That feels rude and impersonal.

He tilts his head to the side. “What is my full name? I think I’ve forgotten again in the ice. I know that to Steve I am Bucky, and I know that my title based on the princess and king and Dr. Stark is Sergeant Barnes.”

“Oh,” she whispers. “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, with the name Bucky that you asked for when you were younger and going to war. You are about 106 years old now, and I wish I had good things to tell you about your family, but after this many years, they would probably be close to one or two generations down from the people that you knew.”

He twists his lips into a snarl, but he doesn’t look anywhere near Natasha. He looks out the window and appears to be ready to want to fight the clouds. “I should have seen that coming. I couldn’t manage to live my hundred years with any real break of peace, so why would I get the blessing of being an orphan where at least when I start fighting to get my memories back, I wouldn’t have to grieve for those who did get that simple life.”

Natasha leans over to offer a hand to him, and she’s not surprised when he grasps it with all of the strength that he has. “I am so sorry. The world has been cruel to you, and if you were ever hoping that they’d allow you to keep at least some small amount of happiness, and I don’t have to crush it to answer your questions honestly, I will help you fight to keep it.”

He lets the tears fall down his cheeks. “James is fine,” he mutters. “James is what some of the people I loved called me, and those people aren’t still dragging into battles with half a brain, and a whole host of issues.” He turns to meet her eyes again with panic in his eyes. “Am I even allowed to hate people?”

“Yes. Hate whoever the hell you want. And if your hatred gets to the point that you need to do something about it, look towards me, look towards Tony, or Pepper. We’ll tell you whether you need to wait for a little while, or to go wild and take care of it.”

“Who would ever let me handle things like that?”

“Us,” she answers. She smiles at him with all her teeth showing. “Although full warning, Tony has requested that Steve wait to be killed until after we deal with aliens coming to kill us all in a warlord’s plan to do something or another. He's good cannon fodder apparently.”

“Kill him during the battle. Once we’ve won, and we know we won, when he looks to be about to celebrate with the others, pick up your knife or your gun, or you know whatever other weapons the future has created, and you kill him. He’s a tragedy of the battle, and no one will ever dare to call you out on it after you’ve won the war.” His words were too monotone, and he hates the way the answer poured from him. He had spent too many years as a killer, once for the United States, and once unwillingly for Hydra. Although with the draft, it’s debatable whether he was really willing to the United States either, but he was at least better during those times.
Natasha gives him a pitying look as she wishes she didn’t need to ask this for her own sanity. But she has to know. “That brings up another question. James, does the winter soldier come out even without the trigger words?”

He furrows his brow. He drums his fingers against the seat. “I don’t know the answer. I mean, you just heard him, but I was still in control of our actions. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what’s happening within my head. Actually, I don’t know for sure whether anyone knows what the hell is happening within my head.”

“We have several fields dedicated to that research now. And while you will never be a test subject again, unless all of my family is dead, that doesn’t mean we can’t contact them to hear their theories on what might be happening if you want to know.”

“I don’t want to be a burden,” he states. He hates how much of one, he’s already going to be. He doesn’t need to add even more things that he needs help with.

Natasha moves herself from the chair she chose to go towards Barnes. She glides down to her knees so she can clasp his hands and make sure that he is listening to every word with great interest. “You will never be a burden. The reason Tony gave that whole speech is because the government owes you a debt, and he’s willing to pay it off, because he knows they can’t.”

“But that shouldn’t be on him.”

“He chose, James. Let him make the choice and let him help you. He wants to.”

“Give me one reason that doesn’t sound selfless as all hell.” He needs one. He needs at least one thing that doesn’t point towards Tony Stark being the best person that he was ever going to know, or that he was ever going to know, because if he can’t reason that far with himself, he’s never going to be able to accept this help.

“You’d make a better Captain America to the people. If you asked us of it, we would make sure that it was just a show boat title, where you’d where the shield at random events and maybe at press conferences for the Avengers. But, we do need a Captain America, for the public of the country or eventually an entire political party is going to be demanding for us to pardon Steve, and none of us can handle that for long than minimally necessary for his use during the final battle.”

“Because you hate him?”

“Yeah, because I hate him, and if I have to see his face ever again, I’m going to want to kill him before Tony has given me permission, and while I know he loves me enough to save me anyway, I don’t want him to have to.”

James nods to her. “I understand. I don’t think that even the amount of guilt and debt I feel I owe him that his words could ever stop me from killing a member of hydra if I knew where one was.”

Natasha blinks. Then, she drags out her phone. “Wanna find out?”

“Huh.”

“What the rules are for killing Hydra while you’re technically on his property and from what I understood are asking to sub for both him and Rhodes?”

He stares at her for a long moment. “Should we not ask both? That way the rules don’t get all crossed over on each other, and I have to make a choice between following one dom or the other.”

“They have that all worked out between them. Tony generally makes the rules and Friday, his AI, records them for him. Then, Rhodey looks over all those rules and of course your limits and desires for a scene, and he comes up with a fun scene for you. He doesn’t handle the regular rules for every day, he leaves that to Tony and by relation Friday, because he doesn’t like those scenes as much. However, if you ever ask him to take care of infraction of the rules for whatever reason, he will do that.”
“I don’t understand what limits are. I know about desires, those are things that you will enjoy, and most of the time, if your dom is nice and you’ve been good, you’ll get things off of that list, unless they’re really craving something else, in which case what they want will always come first.”

Natasha drops the phone on the table as she springs up to her feet and starts pacing. She is pushing her feelings down, they are not going to overwhelm her, until she can get off this damn plane. She can make it this far. “Shit,” she says.

“What?”

“Edging a drop myself now. Can you toss me my phone?”

James throws it at her and glances at her eyes. “You’re going to be fine, Natasha.”

Natasha freezes. That sounds so much like what the winter soldier had said to all of the girls in the red room. He had told them that they could remain, that they would not drop, and that they would survive whatever tortures they wanted them to endure. She lets out a breath.

James has a brief flash of a little girl way too young for what year he thinks it is to be Natasha. Who he holds as she should be crying telling her that the break wasn’t possible yet, and that she had to wait to break until they couldn’t see. And he wonders whether the same method would work on you. Then, he shakes it off. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just quick lesson on what consent is, you can have limits. Those are things that you don’t allow period. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve fucked up everything or whether you’ve burned every bridge in your life, those lines can’t be crossed and if they are, it is abuse and they will get called out for it.”

She stops her pacing after a minute and typed a brief message into her phone asking Pepper to please be there when they land. Because while Bucky might need both Tony and Rhodey, she’s going to need somebody too. The affirmative message comes back almost immediately, and she admits that her body loses most of its tension as she falls back down to her seat.

James still has his eyes on her, and he averts his gaze once he realized how close he had gotten to cause a drop in someone other than himself. “Alright, well can we still call to ask about hydra? I understand if we can’t.”

Natasha blinks. She had forgotten that had been the start to this whole conversation in the first place. “Of course. Just maybe don’t mention about the whole not knowing limits thing to him, please.”

“Why?”

“He’ll worry about my mental state and debate flying up here to catch us, just so he can assure himself that I’m fine. And while I would be delighted by that, you would probably not handle that so well.”

James considers her words for a moment before nodding. She has a point about his mental state of mind. While he is looking forward to meeting the man who is going to be his savior, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s wanting to deal with that earlier than necessary due to his fear, and he’s glad to know that someone else can understand that.

Natasha dials Tony’s number after she gets that nod. She allows Friday’s voice to only come through her ear before setting it on speaker as Tony connects to the call.

“Hello, Natasha, my dear. I can’t say I was expecting a call, but it always nice to hear your voice.”

“Hello, Tony,” Natasha replies, then she looks up to gesture with her head that Barnes should say something now too.

“Hello, Dr. Stark.” He forces his body to remain still. “Natasha offered to call you after we ran into a question that was more for you than her.”

“Well, that’s fantastic. I generally love getting questions from people. What question has come up? Please don’t say it's that even more people want to kill Rogers, I don’t think my heart could take it.”

“I hold my claim to that right.”

James snorts at the way that she answered that. All simple and sweet like she hasn’t laid claim to a man’s life, practically making him a living zombie. “Although it does follow that line of thought.” He glances towards Natasha who is nodding at him. He’s not super surprised that she’s allowing him to speak. He supposes that this would be a good test on whether he can deal with these things or not. “I was wondering what the rule is on finding people who I know are hydra.”

Tony hums. He taps his own fingers on a screen on his end as he considers the question. He hadn’t really thought of the idea that Barnes might actually want a mission to fight, and if he does, then going after hydra as he recovers memories on who they are would be one that makes sense. “You can do whatever you want. Kill them, jail them, or hell even if you want to torture them as long as you make sure that the body doesn’t get us caught, I’m going to tell you to go with your desires to try to reclaim your sense of self.”

James freezes as the words come through the phone. His eyes flicker up to Natasha’s to basically beg her to tell him whether this is a trick. He knows that there’s a part of him, the soldier part, that wants to kill them all, and there’s the part of him that wants to shy away from weapons for the rest of his life, and he’s not sure how and where these lines are going to blur.

Natasha lets out a laugh as she leans over the phone. “He’s staring at me with shock, Tony. I think he expected you to tell him no.”

“Ha, fuck that. You know me, Natasha. I’m the damn crazy son of a bitch who took my superhero suit and flew it over the desert and even further to blow up all the enemies who tortured me, I’m not crazy enough to ask someone else not to do the same, when they’ve arguably been through an even worse hell than I did.” Tony quiets after he says that. “Barnes, if you don’t want to kill them, but you need them dead, you can also say that. I don’t know which one of me or Natasha will take care of it, but one of us will.”

“Why?”

Tony bites back the urge to tell him that he tries his best to make all of his subs able to make options and choices like this without needing to worry about pain or structure. “Ask me again when we’ve gotten those trigger words out of your head.”

James feels even more confusion after that before remembering that once he starts working on those words, he’ll likely have all of his memories back, and for whatever reason, Stark thinks that whatever he finds in his memory will help him explain the answer to that question. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Natasha, Pepper wants me to tell you while I’ve got you on the phone, that she’s here at the compound and going to force me to work on lab paperwork until you guys land. There a reason she wants me to pass on this message?”

“I’m sure she does. But I would never dare to try to assume what Pepper Potts is thinking at any given time, that would get me on her bad side faster than underestimating her in a board meeting.”

Tony scoffs. “Bye, Natasha. Goodbye, Barnes, I’ll come up when you land to show you around.” Then, he hangs up.

Natasha turns her gaze back to Barnes. “Does that tell you what you needed to know?”

James slips his head back into the cushions of his chair. He allows his body to relax. He’s safe on this plane because this plane is guarded by iron man, and not even the hydra horrors could not reach him when iron man was standing between him and that. “It gives me more information.”

“You planning on doing something, Soldat?”

“Not the soldier, Natasha, not somebody else either. We aren’t planning anything until the doctor can make sure to fix my brain where our enemies can’t bring out a forced submission and get us to commit more crimes that we don’t wish to commit.” He closes his eyes. “Will you wake me when we land?”

“You trust me enough to sleep with me in your space?”

“Also, not really, but I doubt that you’d hurt me without Stark’s permission, and he has offered me protection at the very least until we land, and I need some sleep that isn’t induced because of ice.”

Natasha nods to him. If he was willing to give her that much trust, even if he’s not saying what it really means, she would do everything to cultivate that.

Chapter Text

Natasha realizes her mistake once they are descending. She would normally place a soft hand on the shoulder of the sleeping person to get them to be back up and ready to move, but she cannot easily do that with what’s happening inside James’ head. She won’t touch him without permission.

“Turns out,” James announces as his eyes pop open, “that just staring at me while trying to find a solution to your problem will wake me up.” He stretches as much as he can without moving out of the seat. He doubts that the plane made by one of the lead tech designers not only of this time, but of the previous time that he can remember was going to just send him tumbling but better safe than sorry.

Then, he kind of meets Natasha's eyes, as he realizes that she’s waiting for a different response. “Are you expecting me to have a breakdown?”

“You are about to meet Dr. Stark.”

“Met the first one too.” James remains completely relaxed. “I’ve already made up my mind, this time any suffering that comes is going to be by my choice. He can take his revenge and as long as he keeps his words, I’m going to say that he was in his right to do anything that he wants.”

“Please, please build some limits in once you start talking to Rhodey about the future and what has changed. I’m begging you.”

James shrugs. “For other people probably, for Tony Stark, the man who I've hurt more than most of my victims who is still helping with my trauma and freedom, probably not. He gets whatever he wants from me, end of the story.”

Natasha groans but lets it drop. She’s not going to convince someone that they don’t need to surrender their sanity in order to make someone else happy. He won’t listen to reason, and she can’t make him when he doesn’t have any of the background to understand why what he’s saying causes such a large reaction in her.

She opens the plane door once they’re on solid ground again, and she steps out rather quickly after checking to make sure that James is able to follow her. She walks down the ramp and into Pepper’s open arms. She hides her head in Pepper’s neck, and lets those arms drag her towards the inside without looking back.

Tony watches them go with a furrow in his brow. He turns back towards Barnes. “What?”

“I told her I didn’t know what she meant by limits, and then proceeded to attempt to understand her reasoning behind them. By the end of the flight, I had come to the conclusion that while I like that submissives now have the right to say no, I am also not going to be willing to do that to certain people.”

Tony blinks and nods. “Alright then. Let me know before you’re about to go into a scene with someone you aren’t sure you can say no to, and I’ll say no for you.”

His eyes drop wide as he stares at Tony. “Pardon?”

“Yeah, I’ve known a couple subs that have mental hang-ups with saying no to certain people because of past trauma, and I understand that sometimes you’re not going to be able to beat back that trauma response, and that’s fine. You don’t trust your voice to say the no, just get me your limits once you know where they are, and I’ll be your no. I’ll be your line in the sand, and if I have to put the suit on in order to get the point across to somebody, well then, I’ll have to hop into the suit.”

His fist clenches and unclenches. He can’t believe that one of the only people in the world that he’d give a blank check to now that he knows that he doesn’t have to, isn’t jumping into the air in joy.

Tony tracks the movement. “Unless I’m one of the people you feel you can’t say no to, in which case, Barnes, you can. You can tell me to fuck off. You can tell me to back off. There are a million lines you can draw, and I won’t cross a single one, unless you tell me that I can after a while, because you’ve decided that’s no longer a barrier for you.”

James isn’t aware that he hates how formal his last name sounds in an emotionally charged conversation, until Tony is saying his name in that tone. He hates it, truly, deep in his heart, hate. “Alright, then I don’t like that.”

“Having limits?” The sheer audacity of saying that almost causes Tony to lose his composure on the yards of his property. He could lose all kinds of shit by not nipping this in the bud, especially if there’s a chance that Barnes can drop during a scene.

“No.” He pouts. He doesn’t know how to explain his thoughts in the best light. “I don’t like you calling me Barnes, at least not like that.”

“Okay, well I’m not sure which part of that makes Barnes not okay right then, but that’s okay, we’ll figure it out together. How about you tell me what you’d rather I call you, and I’ll call you by just that for the time being? Until I find a good nickname for you that is, because I love nicknames.”

“Natasha said that my first name was James.”

Tony flinches back. “More memory loss? Shit, I was hoping that you wouldn’t have that concern now that they weren’t torturing you and putting you under mind control right afterwards.”

“Apparently that’s just a constantly being frozen in ice type problem.”

Tony sighs. “Do you have other questions about who you were? Because I can have Friday compile all of the information that’s available on various sources about who you were that way you could read them and try to piece together the parts of your life that are gone from you.”

“That would be lovely.” James has an urge to ask for the favor to also include the winter soldier, and he wonders whether that will get him slapped. He thinks that the slap would be worth it to know both sides of himself. “Would you be able to ask this Friday to compile what you know about my time with them too?”

“Are you sure?” Tony asks without even thinking. Then, he realizes how absolutely terrible he sounds. “Shit, no. I didn’t mean that in a patronizing, I don’t think you should make choices way. I meant that in a, that’s dark stuff, are you sure you want to try to remember things about what happened to you during that time?”

“Either way, I’d be sure. He’s a part of me now, and I need to know about both of us in order to build the new version of me that’s going to come out of this mess.” He takes a step forward to be closer to Stark and further away from the plane to go running. “I’m not Stevie’s Bucky anymore, and I’m certainly not Hydra’s winter soldier, but I’m wondering whether I can find something in between that’s James.”

Tony snorts. “You can be James’ snowflake with that fluffy shit.”

“I like that.”

“Hmm?”

“Snowflake, I like it. They’re all unique, they still represent the cold and unmoving nature of winter, and they can be soft too.”

Tony offers him a smile. “Snowflake it is then. Now, I’ve got a tour for you planned. Choice is yours, where do you want to start?”

James looks out on the property that they landed on. “Can you show me like the outside? Where can I go, where can’t I, and the like?”

Tony barks out a laugh as he sets them off on a path. “Firstly, of course we can. Secondly, there is a fence up, so try not to go further than that, unless you have one of the rest of us with you in case some cops decide that today is there day to get a minute of fame.”

He guides them through the path and points at a verge in the path. “That way is where the park is. That has trees and like benches, and some minor wildlife.” He pauses. “The way we came is landing zone.”

James nods along. He likes the idea of a park. Maybe he could find some books inside the building and then skip out to the sun to read. He knows the inside of buildings; he’s used to sterile walls. He would love to be able to sit out in the sun, and he hopes that the more technical building didn’t drive him insane.

“You can come out here anytime. I’m in charge of who gets in and out, so until we get your pardon through all of the channels, you’re going to be perfectly safe in my property.”

James pauses. He wants to have that safety, no more strings attached. He needs to be forgiven first, and while he balks at being asked to beg for his punishment, he wants it so bad that he’s ready to beg. He’ll ask first, just in case Tony had forgotten that had to be handled. “Dr. Stark, I appreciate you promising me safety, and I want that safety without needing to worry about anything else. Could we please deal with my punishment before we go further?”

“Oh, snowflake, no.” The tears in James’ eyes, almost bring Tony to raise his hand to slap the man with no other plans just so that he would know that it wasn’t a complete refusal, but he won’t make James live with the guilt thinking that he deserves to be punished for what has happened. “No, James, I won’t punish you. Not now, not later, not for any actions that you didn’t take on my property, and even then, only with punishments that you have okayed on a list, which I will get you once you’re ready. And not at all, if you don’t ask me to be your formal dominant.”

“But, I’ve done bad things to you.”

Tony shakes his head. “May I have permission to touch you?”

“Yes.” James has no clue what that has to do with the situation, but he’s not afraid of Stark’s touch, and honestly, he wants to feel someone against him again. It reminds him that this is real and not just a dream in the ice.

Tony steps forward and cups his cheek. He guides James’ head to meet his eyes. “The winter soldier might be a part of you, a personality that you adopted in order to survive the torture and pain that they put you through, but his actions weren’t done with his consent or willing action, they were done under mind control. I will not punish you for what mind control put you through.”

James looks down to the ground, but he leans into the hand on his face. “But, will I still be forgiven if I’m not punished?”

“Oh fuck. I thought I had managed those words at some point, shit. I apologize James, I meant to do this earlier.” He chooses not to step away only because of the way that James is leaning on his hand, and he doesn’t want him to associate the idea of losing touch with what’s coming. He swallows down the urge to deflect from emotions. James deserves better than him moving away from the words.

“I forgive you. I forgive you for killing my parents, and I forgive you for other crimes that you committed as the winter soldier that you don’t remember, that haven’t been uncovered on behalf of any of the dead that can’t. And if you ever ask it of me, I will help you reach out to be forgiven by any other living victims of those crimes. I forgive you for what happened in Leipzig and Siberia. I know that you were under stress of just trying to piece together who you were, and someone you thought that you could trust based on your memories., and I am so bloody sorry that one of your first acts as a free man again were so violent and wrong because that person happened to not deserve the trust that you put in him.”

James shakes his head and then pitches himself forward to lean into Tony’s chest. “I don’t deserve it.”

“No one deserves some of the love that they are given. I am offering it anyway.”

James buries his head deep in Tony’s chest. And, he can’t stop the sobs from working out from his chest. He wishes that he had died falling from that train, and he wishes that he had known he would get offered this much compassion from every second that he was in that awful place.

Tony holds him close and waits. He knows that Rhodey and Pepper will ask questions later, and he will deal with those questions when they come. For now, he holds James close as the time passes. The sun will set, and that will be fine. If he has to bypass most of the tour until later, he can manage to wake up early or just skip sleep.
James pulls his head back after a while. He’s not sure how long he had stood there begging for attention from Stark, and he’s not sure how long the man had stood there with his arms around him without asking questions or asking to move. His eyes raise up finally, and he notices that the sun was no longer high in the sky, but almost completely under the horizon. “Sorry.”

“Damn, maybe if you ever ask me to be your dominant in non-emergencies, we’ll have a rule against saying sorry. That will stop you from apologizing for dumb things, right?”

James laughs freely at that. He had heard of some of the women in his time saying that to each other when they were in platonic scenes to convince them to grow a backbone. Once upon a time, no one would have ever dared to say that to him. He loves that there’s a person who won’t treat him like glass. “Sure, Dr. Stark. We’ll put that on the list right after getting these damn trigger words out of my head, because I won’t willingly submit until they’re gone, and people can’t force my submission.”

“A good secondary mission then.” Tony goes with his demand easily as he leads him down to the large building that is the compound. “Tell me truly, do you want to explore the compound, or do you want me to lead you to your rooms to let you get comfortable?”

James has that nervous gesture in his hand again. It seems to come up every time that he has to make a major choice. He hopes that once he starts working through his issues, he’ll be able to get rid of that, because there’s no good spying that can be done with such an obvious twitch. “Super soldiers don’t really need the level of sleep that mortals do.”

“Rogers kept normal hours.”

“Yeah, Stevie said following that habit made him feel more connected with his humanity.”

“So much for that,” Tony scoffs. Then, he pauses. “Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t constantly insult your best friend, no matter how much he makes me want to stab a person or blow them up.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. Whatever new person comes out of the help you’re giving me, I don’t like the Steve Rogers that I’ve met in the future. He’s too stubborn and too ready for a fight.” James swallows. “From what little I do remember, he was always like that, but when he was small and weak, it seemed cute, you know? He could always be ready to take down someone for saying a poor word, and it wouldn’t matter because he was never gong to win.”

“The museums say all of those people were bullies.”

“One of those people was just anti-war. That’s the moment that stands out to me most, where he was going to hit somebody with the views of me, but I couldn’t tell him that, because if he knew I got the draft and didn’t volunteer, he’d rant to me for hours about how it was my fault for not doing my patriotic duty.”

Tony lets out a sympathetic noise. “That sounds awful. The history books erased that you were drafted too. I mean there’s still evidence if you bother to look far enough back, but most of the public believes you were right next to Steve in dedication.”

“You know what Erksine said about his formula?”

“Good gets enhanced to great, and bad gets eroded into evil, or something like that.”

James cracks a grin. “That’s certainly one of them. No, he told Steve that he needed a good man, not a good soldier. But, I could have told him had ever asked, that Steve Rogers was always more of a soldier than a man. He volunteered, fought to be there and damn the many, many consequences. But, Erksine never even looked at me or the other draftees. Because he thought the decent people would have made sure to fight for the right side. He never did realize that the Germans got their ideas from America. We were never fighting to be the good guys, we were fighting for revenge, for fear tactics, and for monetary gain.”

Tony throws his head back and laughs with James. “You’re right. Never thought I’d hear someone that ran with Cap say such things, but lord you’re not wrong.”

James keeps walking with a slightly larger smile on his face as he follows Tony. He might not have all of his memories, but he’s so glad to know that he does have some of them that didn’t have to be changed. Some of the evils in this world were not his to deal with.

Tony nudges him with his shoulder as they approach the door to the compound. “You never answered the question.”

“Oops,” he says softly. “I’d prefer not to deal with sleep quite yet, at least not until I’ve seen the place I’m sleeping in, if that makes sense. I caught a small nap on the plane to make sure I’d be able to be up for long enough to get that.”

“Understandable.” Tony waves his arms at the doors to the compound. “So, I have been debating how best to deal with more and more people coming into the compound and the need for some kind of key card system on how to get in, but right now, there’s no one here that’s not family, so you know what, I’ve decided to probably keep it that way. People who aren’t family, can only stay for short periods of time, and Friday has the right to shoot them if they try to get places they can’t go.”
James nods immediately. “And so part of this tour is going to be you making sure I know which places I’ll get shot if I go, I understand.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “No, dumbass, it means I’m already classifying you as family. You have free reign, and Friday will help you if you ever want something and don’t know where to go and what not. Technically, I was going to probably limit your interactions in the lab, but while doing some reading about you, I found out that you’re a fucking nerd who loves tech, and that means the lab is going to be like your paradise on Earth, and I’m too nice to kick you out of that.”

James’ eyes blow wide. “I get to see some of the things that you’ve worked on.” He’s barely able to keep his legs from bouncing up and down and begging to see that one first.

Tony chuckles. “Alright, we’ll do the ground floor stuff that’s common rooms, then the lab, and then the bedrooms. And if you want to stick around the lab for longer before asking me to show you the rooms, that’s fine.”

James leans over pecks a kiss on Tony’s cheek, the same way that he had seen Natasha do to T’Challa before leaving. He figures that it means some form of affection. “Thank you.”

Tony raises his eyebrow before making the executive decision to not deal with that today. There’s every chance that the fuzzy memories include the fact that those are romantic gestures, or extremely close friends decisions, and he’s not about to make the man change how he reacts to such things. “So, first introductions. Friday, say hi.”

“Hello, Sergeant Barnes. Would you prefer me to use your whole title when addressing you, or some other name?”

James doesn’t look up, which Tony considers praising, before controlling himself and not making a fool out of them both by coming close to sending him skyrocketing through to subspace given the lack of a proper scene or praise for nigh on 70 years. He instead moves his eyes around looking for a phone before frowning. “You don’t need one of those phone things, do you, Ms. Friday? Is Miss the right title?”

“I need no title, I am a machine and not human. I am just Friday, which stands for Female Replacement Intelligent Digital Assistant Youth. Boss has made sure that I know that that wasn’t an insult to me, but he had to make the name somewhat dull otherwise Rogers was going to throw a fit about him creating robots with personalities that grow.”

“Fuck Stevie,” James hisses. “The fact that you can make a real person made with code and tech is fucking amazing, and everything that I wanted for the future. Suddenly, he bounces up to face Tony Stark. “Your father promised me flying cars.”

Tony does a spit take right there in the front of the building. “I’m sorry, my father did what now?”

James laughs at the face that Tony is making and makes an actual wide grin as he dances around the room. “Certain random things trigger memories in my thoughts. I love it when the memories are nice. Stevie and I went to this expo, because I love the idea of getting better technology, and that the world will be a better place because we’ll make it that way. And at the expo, your father said that we were about ten years away from flying cars. So, do you got one?”

Tony falls over laughing, his hands falling on his knees, as he just continually dies from the amusement there. “Friday, make a note that we need find out which expo that my father made that promise in, just so I can show it to the board next time they’re giving me shit for making large promises. And then make another note, to somehow figure out flying cars because that will boost are market values something fierce, will make Pepper scream with joy for having something huge for the next expo, and then finally make the note that the first functional car doesn’t go to my collection, it goes to Sergeant Barnes over here.”

James claps as loud as he can. “At least one Stark man will fulfill the promise of a flying car to me.” He’s still grinning, and the smile feels weird on his face, but he can’t help but feel an overwhelming joy at being home in the States, and there’s a good man who should hate him, helping make him not just better mentally, but also just happy in nature. “Also, Friday, you can note that you can call me, either Sergeant Barnes, assuming the military hasn’t stripped my titles, James, or snowflake.”

“Nope, Friday, override, I’m the only one who gets to call Snowflake, snowflake.”

That sends them both off on another tangent of deep laughs. As Tony fights down his joy, he manages to remember that he’s supposed to be giving a tour and information. “Okay, right now we have four people living here who aren’t me or you, and one of those people has several other properties, and I never know when they’ll be lounging here with us, or in another quadrant of the world. That’s Pepper Potts, and she’s like the light of my life only with a dominant personality and would crush me under her heels in a heartbeat, if I even remotely swung that way, but alas, I do not. Then there’s Natasha, who came and got you. You and her have a history, so I was hoping that would put you more at ease, but she’s not likely to bring those up until you do, so don’t worry about it if you don’t. There’s Rhodeybear, who you probably know as Colonel Rhodes, which I feel is a shame, because he’s a really good teddy bear if you’re looking for cuddles. And then finally but certainly not last, my son Vision lives here. Vision is kind of both a human and a machine and I kind of created him, but so did a god’s thunder and a magic space stone, but right now he tends to associate me with his creation more than the rest, so I call him my son, and he seems to like it.”

James blinks for a moment. “Friday, is there any chance that you could walk me through what has changed since I went under?”

“Could you define what you would like?”

“Umm, I’m not sure. I would like a quick update on history, any of the major events that like high school history students need to know, and any historical events that maybe aren’t taught because they’re just known. And then, like a complete update on what’s changed in science. If that would be alright, of course.”

“Of course, James. I would be delighted to assist you. I would suggest that we put a time limit on it per day, that way you don’t get frustrated trying to understand everything.”

Tony nods towards James. “Rogers used to get so frustrated that he needed to go down to the gym and destroy punching bags repeatedly after dealing with about ten minutes about how things have changed.”

James throws his hands in the air. “The punk always hated school, so I can’t even be surprised that he hated the idea of being so far behind that he was having to do more work. I swear if his mother was still alive, he’d have a blistered ass constantly with how much of an asshole that he’s acting like constantly.”

Tony snorts. “The super soldier genes might stop his ass from actually ever getting to a red color.”

Bucky flinches at the memories that brings up. Because suddenly, he knows exactly how far you have to go to keep a color on a super soldier's ass for longer than an hour, and he knows that there are ways to cause enough pain that even a super soldier will break down ad beg for mercy.

Tony reaches out to grip his arm. “You’re with me, James. You do not have to worry about whatever enemies are knocking at your door, because you won’t have to deal with them. You don’t even have to admit to us whatever bad things have happened.”

James wants so badly to keep the touch on his arm and also be able to grab it, but he’s only got the one arm. Tears are trailing down his face again, and he doesn’t deserve comfort, and yet at the same time he craves it.

“Hey, hey, now.” Tony pulls him in closer when he doesn’t move away from the first touch that he gave, and he lets Bucky curl into those arms. “You’re going to be okay.”

“You can hurt us that way,” he mumbles into Tony’s shirt.

“Hate to say that’s a bad thing when Rogers is running around with his head so far up his ass, that only a bout of pain is going to remind him that he needs to be considering other people than himself. But, it is a terrible thing that someone as good as you has to know these things. No one should be punishing you, you’re too good for that.”

James kind of proceeds to basically want to crawl into Tony or fall to his knees and crawl to curl up all around him. Either way, he wants to be crawling, and he hasn’t felt the desire to do that in forever it feels. And he kind of forces himself to not whine, to which he mostly succeeds. He still makes a sound that resembles a squeak.

Tony forces himself not to do his normal, which would be to drop his voice down low and ask whether such a lovely sub wants to get on their knees right then. They have literally zero information about what James likes, let alone what could set off an even worse drop, and Tony refuses to be a contributing force to any of the discomfort that James faces. And he makes a vow to himself that even if James puts down that he likes minor amounts of pain, that Tony is never going to go for pain. He might do a spanking if James likes them, but it will be playful and gentle and nothing that picks up to a level of any pain.

“So, there are several lounges in between rooms that you can hang out in on couches, with TVs to watch stuff and I have a tablet that you can get books and information on. I also have a library somewhere, that has the physical copies of these books. I don’t prefer those since I can’t easily have those down in the lab on a different screen than what I’m working on, but I do have some in case that’s what you prefer. And you can ask Friday to order more.”

“Oh, I don’t have much money right now. So, I’ll have to content myself with using the ones that you have already.”

Tony snorts. “One, you’re family means you can use my account until such a time as you get some money of your own. You can also choose to still use the account that’s mine if you wish. Two, you were a prisoner of war for near 70 fucking years, and the US does actually have to pay you for that. They’re probably going to try to short you by only paying you what you would have gotten when you disappeared, but that's alright, I’ve got lawyers who will actually bite their heads off for even thinking about it. You’d probably get like close to 20 million, maybe more.”

James drops his jaw. “I could have what?”

“Close to 20 million, so let’s say that until you cost me that much without considering room and board or food, and we can talk about spending habits. Other than that, go wild.”

“What if I wanted another motorbike? I loved those things when I was hiding out.”

“What kind?”

“Should I have an opinion on that?”

Tony shrugs. “Some people certainly do. I don’t give a shit about brands, but I have extremely specific requirements before I’ll buy it in terms of the engine and stuff, but that’s because I like tinkering with them. Hey, Friday, two more things, one, find a motorcycle that has all of normal stuff that I would need to deem it worthy of being bought and then buy it. Two, put on my list that after I successively do the flying car thing, to get on flying motorcycles because those would be even more radical in my opinion.”

“Yes, boss.”

James looks around the room with the couches. “And there’s no limit on when I can be in here and in a room, that's connected to the others.”

“Absolutely none. The only real limits are, don’t go into people’s bedrooms when they haven’t invited you in. You can of course ask Friday to ask them whether you can join them or you could just knock on their door.” He pauses thinking through all of the other potential limits. “There’s also a small chance that someone asks for a blackout mode which means that no one can get in or anything in a random room. They can only send messages through Friday. You’re welcome to use that feature if you’d like at any moment.”

James gives him a weak smile. “Don’t really know how my head’s going to be day by day. There are some days when what I want more than anything else is to hear another person’s voice to ground myself in the fact that all of this is real, and I’m not just fading into sleep in the ice. And there are some days, when I hate the very idea of another person seeing me in the hurt state that I am.”

“I can understand those desires. You can change your mind day by day. There can be a day where you stick to public areas where someone else is, the whole damn day, and there can be a day where you lock yourself into your room, and barely allow us to get you food.”

Tony hits his face. “Food, are you hungry? You probably haven’t eaten since you got on the plane from Wakanda.”

“Hydra didn’t usually feed me more than once every two days, just enough to keep me from starving.”

Tony growls and fights back the urge to go on a deep dive of where every single hydra agent he already knows of is, that way he can kill each one of them for hurting James. “Would you like some food?”

“Yes, but please don’t ask about preferences. I have no clue what I like and what I don’t anymore, and I don’t want to be given information on what I used to love, I will actually lose my mind if someone does that ever again.”

Tony gives him a small smirk. “Do you have Steve’s appetite too?”

“Umm, probably. Actually, mine’s probably even a bit worse, because I’m used to barely getting the opportunity to eat until I’m full, and so now, I usually binge.”

“Then today, we find out all of your favorites with pizza. Friday, find a good pizza place that has options for customization, and then order like one of the everything. Maybe not just one of each vegetable, but definitely the meats, and then a huge pizza with all the vegetables. And cheese. Then, let the others know that there’s going to be a shit ton of pizza in the kitchen in like an hour or two.”

James stares at him in astonishment. “The bill is going to be huge.”

Tony waves him off. “I’ve got the money for this, plus, it’s fun to see the businesses post thank you messages after I’ve paid for like the entire staff’s salary for a month, and they can all get bonuses or they get to expand the place.”

James grins. “Is there a way with my 20 million that I could figure out a way to invest and stuff enough that I could have enough to do random things like that?”

“There’s always a way. But, I love giving to charity, so if you ever really want to with what you’ve currently got, just convince me that it’s a worthy cause, and I’ll give you the money.”

James’ eyes light up. “I’m going to make it my mission to drive you crazy by just going wild with the money that you’re willing to give me.”

“I’ll let you know if it's ever a problem,” Tony teases.

Rhodey comes into the room, walking on the limbs that Tony has made him instead of the chair. He’s gotten better and better at using them for long periods of time. The doctor has told him that once he can consistently use them from when he gets up to when he goes to bed, without counting showers, he can try to get into the suit again. “Pizza?”

James puts his hand up in a small wave. “I don’t know what I like. I think he might have a plan to find out all of my favorites.”

“Good,” Rhodey says. “God knows, we all deserve to know what our comfort foods are, so that after a battle we can demand it loudly.”

“Damn right,” Natasha agrees as she steps into the room. “It is a rite of passage. Bit late for a meal, Tony?”

“Like any of you fools other than me keep normal hours.” Pepper follows Natasha in. Her eyes land on James, and she offers him a smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too, Ma’am.”

“None of that now. You’re going to make me blush and think that I’m about to get lucky.”

James winks at her, in an action that feels familiar to him. “I’m sure I could make the exception and convince you to go ahead and scene right now.”

Tony tugs him towards the exit rather than letting Pepper try to figure out whether that was flirting or a request. “Call us when the pizza is here. I need to show him the kitchen, and then the lab.”

“Don’t you dare start working when you’re meant to be helping the man adapt to his new home,” Pepper yells after them.

James laughs as they head towards another set of rooms, that proves to be a huge kitchen. He's rather positive that even professional chefs would die for the opportunity to cook in this place with this much tech. “This looks familiar.”

“Things might have been updated, but the best way to cook things is still just fire and heat.” Tony gestures to the area. “The fridge is typically stocked with things that everyone staying here loves, you can ask Friday to stock literally anything, and you can cook in here at any point, and if you need tasters for whatever the hell you make, most of us love giving feedback on such things.”

James walks around and opens the fridge. He glances around for a second before getting a light smirk on his face. If Tony is going to constantly tell him to just use the account, then, he’ll use it right in front of him, just to see the reaction. He wants to see what will happen. “Friday, could you do me a favor and place an order for some plums?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

Tony walks over and digs out a peach from the fridge and tosses it to him. “A whole lot of people who like plums, like these.”

James bites down on it and likes the way the juice comes out in the bite like they do with plums. He smiles at the sweet taste as he keeps taking the bites. “I like it, not as much as I like plums, but I like it. What is it?”

“A peach.” Tony chuckles as he watches Barnes eat it with such clear enjoyment. “Remind me that I should come to meals more often if this is how you eat things.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gives me a whole rush to see that much happiness in a sub’s eyes. Especially if said sub is currently under my roof, where that pleasure could at least partially be ascribed to actions I have helped with.”

James walks over and drops his head on Tony’s shoulder as he takes another bite of peach. “Sure thing, doll. I’ll make sure to throw in some moans when it comes to desserts too, just to see what you’ll do.”

“So, you are a flirt!” Tony claps as he leads James off towards the labs. “I was never sure whether I believed Rogers when he said that you used to be able to convince just about anyone to be ready for you.”

James hums. “Before the serum, I was a switch. Stopped wanting to and using the dominant side after the serum, and now after Hydra, I don’t think I could even come close to being able to do anything. But, yeah, I could convince just about any submissive to kneel in front of me, and that would bring me a thrill. On days when I didn't have to deal with Steve following me or days when the money situation was starting to panic me, I’d go find someone who I could convince to take me for a ride after I got on my knees.”

“What don’t you remember exactly?”

“I don’t have any of the details,” he whispers. “I know what I did, and for the people who I do know, I know the names. But everything else is like this is some movie that I watched without sounds. No clue who any of the characters are, and I’m not sure what half the things in the story are, but I know how the story goes.”

Tony gives him a sympathetic pat. He’s pretty sure that if he had to deal with that, he’d curl up in a ball and never mention anything ever again. “Well, between myself and Friday, we’ll fill in all the blanks.”

“Can I ask you a personal question? One that I don’t think I have. a right to ask, but I'd really like to know.”

“Open book,” Tony replies. “Seriously, James, we’re going to have to go through most of your memories to find some positive association with stuff, and there’s every chance that we’ll have to talk and come up with some of them. So, yeah, you can ask whatever the hell you want.”

“Because of Siberia, I know who Howard is.”

Tony nods. All of that makes logical sense to him. He would probably be the best person to ask about Howard, even if he really didn’t want to talk about his daddy issues right now, and he’s not usually able to keep his disdain from reaching his voice.

“But, while I have no doubt, he was a genius, and I loved his tech, the ones not rooted in war that is, from what I know of the man that Steve brought around, he wasn’t exactly always kind or concerned about the world that would come after him.”

Tony pauses then he lets out a sigh. “There’s some truth in the following statement. I don’t think I would have said a word about what you did as the winter soldier if you had just killed Howard. He’s not a good person, he’s one of those rich assholes who wants the money and the fame more than anything else. He loved the science way more than he ever loved his son. Don’t feel bad for not liking the man, many didn’t.”

James tilts his head to the side. “Have you looked into what your mother did?”

“What?”

“Howard Stark was a priority target because the weapons industry being destabilized would be helpful to our goals, but he wasn’t a mission that the winter soldier would have been deployed for. There were ways to ensure that he would be dead from snipers, from bombs, and those wouldn’t have been nearly as covered up, which would encourage more fear.”

Tony stares at James frozen in his place, no longer leading him to the lab, but just waiting to hear what was going to be said. Because of everyone that he’s ever known, one of the people that would have the best source of information would be James now. Peggy was dead, and she lost her memories long before she passed.

“Think about it, Tony. Your Aunt Peggy certainly wasn’t there for your father. She hated him too, and she would have thrown every fight about how he treated you, so who would she have been there for.” He waits for just a moment. “She was a spy, Tony. One of SHEILD’s greatest assets. To the point that being able to catch her at an event with Howard where we could frame it in such a way that they wouldn’t be able to announce what happened.”

Tony keeps his eyes on James as he snaps his fingers in a nervous gesture. “Are you telling me that Hydra wanted my mother dead more than my father?”

James nods. “I am sorry, I thought that you knew.”

Tony inclines his head and wraps his hand around James’ arm once again as he leads them towards the lab. “James, I mean this in a completely wholesome way, stop apologizing for things that aren’t your fault. You aren’t to blame for the information that I wasn’t told by any of the people that I trusted to tell me, and the fact that once you know about these gaps, you tell me is probably more than you ever had to do.”

“I would like to think that I owe something to the people that I’ve hurt.”

Tony shrugs. “Then make a list of them and try to make amends. Tell them the best truth that you have on why their loved ones died, or why they had to suffer, or even just a simple, I know that I’ve done this, but I don’t have access to the why that Hydra went after them, but I wanted you to know that these criminals are the reason that you have suffered, and I have suffered, and I wish to extend my sympathies.”

James allows himself to be lead as he considers how that would work. After all, he’s not currently safe to go out. And even once he is, going in person as the man who killed them would be terrible. And he had seen the amends letter that Steve had thought to send and it was god awful. He doesn’t want to fail that awfully. “How would I know that I wouldn’t hurt them further?”

Tony tilts his head to the side. “Well, if you send letters, you allow them the option of replying, of reading, or of interacting with you.”

“I’ve seen how those letters can go, and they’re terrible.”

“Only if you’re a dick and not writing them correctly. You can come to me and Rhodey, and we’ll make sure that the letters aren’t going to cause more harm than good. Hell, we’ll even throw in making sure you’re not using any language that is going to piss people from today off.”

James smiles towards Tony. “Thank you, so much.”

Tony rolls his eyes as he walks them into the lab, where he can watch the thrill enter James’ eyes as he sees all of the technology. In all of his years, he doesn’t think that he’s ever met someone else that lights up quite so much as some of the simple tech that he’s done over the years. “You deserve so much more than this.”

“I don’t care.” He skips over to the computer and stares at it. “What all can we do with these?”

“We can connect with people all over the world. If you’re a genius, you can code entire personalities like Friday on them. There are these things called video games that others code, so people can play and learn about things.”

James walks around the lab, and eventually DUM-E gets bold enough to wheel over to him. James Oos and Ahs over the tiny robot and turns to Tony for an explanation as he grins.

Tony hops up into his chair, and he stares at the two of them. He silently types a request to Friday to get him some photographs of this moment. Because this was so cute compared to most of what all of them are used to. “That’s my first AI robot. I gave him a body at the time, because otherwise the code was going to be able to be stolen more easily by the university, and I don’t trust people with some of my tech, a lot of my tech, honestly. I made him when I was 17 at MIT for my first doctorate.”

“You did this at 17?”

Tony nods.

James whistles. “I think I’m starting to understand why Hydra told us to not go after you. They said not to antagonize you, and that if you started interfering with the mission, that falling back was reasonable to get confirmation on new orders. I don’t understand how Stevie didn’t understand how amazing all of this is.”

“He wasn’t willing to look.” Tony sighs and he drops down next to James. “He saw what the rest of the world often sees when they look at me. They see the genius, playboy, philanthropist, and they assume that no one who can manage all three of those tittles without going down is an ego maniac, and they don’t like that I refer to myself with those titles.”

“When did you say them to Steve?”

“I believe he said something about what I was doing after I walked in when Fury called. Then, I was dismissive because at the time, I didn’t care about a war hero from World War II when I had a portal to literally no one knew where, a major theft of an artifact that could level cities, a possible god on the loose, and several agents mind controlled, and I didn’t really want to explain to someone why they thought that I was qualified to be there. He thought that made me a bully. Asked me what I was without the suit, to which I replied with my usual quip. Those three words, and I added to the end what he’d be without the serum. Because without my suit, I could make another one, and I would still have several of my talents by my intelligence to carry me through until I could find a new plan, meanwhile, without the serum, Steve Rogers wouldn’t be a hero, he’d be lucky if he was still alive.”

James tilts his head to the side. “Next time someone asks you that, may I respond?”

“Sure, snowflake. Next time there’s someone out there that asks me that question, and you happen to be near them you can respond. What do you want to say?”

“You wouldn’t just be a genius, playboy, philanthropist. You’d be the crazy person who built it in a cave without any real tools. They take away your suit, and you’re still the man who built it”

Tony throws back his head and laughs. “Hey, Friday, go ahead and let PR know that James Barnes might be giving them some headaches when people insult me.”

“Good or bad?”

“Good, James. Anything that brings you joy is good news.”

“Sent the email to PR. I got an almost immediate response from the head of PR over in California because their day is still ending, to which and I’m quoting the response was. ‘Barnes, as in former war hero, best friend of Captain America, Barnes. Oh, hell release him to the public to see what happens when they insult Tony Stark, that will give us so much more ammunition against the people who believe that Cap was always right.’”

James throws his head back laughing too. “Oh, they’ve clearly never seen the history books of some of Steve’s more unique times, because that asshole was hardly ever right.”

“The history books say that he took down bullies.”

“Only some of them, and he rarely waited to get the full story.” James looks down with sorrow in his eyes. “I lied to him, the day that I went overseas. I was drafted not that I enlisted to serve my country.”

“I know,” Tony says softly. “There are still records from back then, and while the army doesn’t want to destroy their propaganda, they do know that you were drafted. That entitles you to even more pay than you would as an enlisted soldier, because the United States forced you to sign up.”

James boops DUMMY as he considers those words. “None of my commanding officers are still living, are they?”

“Friday?”

“No, boss. The last one died right before the civil war.”

James looks down. “Do you think once we get the words out of my head, that there would be a chance that I could yell at tombstones or something? There are some words that I think I need to say to them, whether they’re still living or not.”

Tony reaches out and pats James’ leg, noting the way that his body leans towards the touch. Touch-starved, yet not currently willing to ask for touch. He wouldn't be surprised if he tries to lean into one of the doms when they’re eating without even noticing it. “Yes, we’ll plan the trip for some time after we get the trigger words out of the way.”

“Boss, Ms. Potts, wishes me to tell you that food has arrived, and that Ross is outside the tower demanding that you hand over the criminal.”

“Tell Ross that unless he’s got a warrant with probable cause and a name for which criminal he thinks I’m hiding, I’d be delighted to entertain these stupid demands, until then, I’m a private citizen who wants my dinner.” He offers his hand over to James.

“He wants me, doesn’t he?”

“Yep, but he can’t get you. There’s no judge on this planet after the charges placed on Ross that would allow him access to you before the trial comes to a conclusion. They might send a general over to try to collect you, but I’ll go to court that day to ask whether they have a facility that can help with the mind control, or whether they would collect you, stick you in a cell, only to ask to pay me in order for me to fix their shit.”

The corners of James’ mouth curves up into a smile, and he lets Tony guide him back to the area where food is being found. There’s a huge plate sitting on a table with a slice of every pizza, with a grin from Pepper.

She shrugs. “We’ve decided to keep track of what all you like. Come eat.”

James’ has a delightful time eating each slice. First, he learns that absolutely no one is going to take his food if he doesn’t finish quickly, and he gets to eat literally as much as he wants. Second, he learns that meats are amazing, and that he wants more of them constantly. There were a couple of vegetables that he didn’t love, and Pepper wrote them down on a list, so that they either wouldn’t order them later, or they wouldn’t cook with them, which he thinks was the nicest thing that she could have done.

By the time that he finishes eating, he realizes that he has a thigh pressed up against both Pepper and Tony, and neither of them are demanding he move, so he relaxes into the couch.

Rhodey pushes himself up and off the couch. “Natasha, mind helping me up to my room, since I’m trying to push myself in the braces more and more.”
Natasha glides to her feet to help take some of his weight. “The stubborn Stark men. You’ll get better as soon as your body is ready for you to be ready.” Still, she helps as he walks to the elevator.

Pepper stares as they head out. “I should fly out to California.”

“Probably,” Tony agrees.

Pepper twists her face into a grimace. “Do I still have a suit that has been made for me?”

Tony drops his jaw, and James turns to her as well. James recovers quicker and shakes his head. “You’re the CEO, but you hate the superhero life, that's like something that everyone was meant to know.”

“I hate the superhero life, but everyone that I love seems to be getting involved in it. And if I must live with that, I must have a suit where when they’re going into danger, they’re not going alone into that darkness.”

Tony nods finally. “You have three marks, but we’re not actually about to go into battle, Pep.”

“I need a little bit of practice before then, and I know the suits can get from here to California in thirty minutes, which means I can sleep in a bed instead of a plane.”
Tony quirks an eyebrow, but she’s right. If she wants to take her suit, she can have her damn suit. So, he hops off the couch. “Well, then, the lady wants to go to bed. Let’s show you your room as well.”

James stands first afterwards and pauses for a moment. He has no clue what the rules are in the future for politeness in an atmosphere like this, and then he decides that none of these people are going to judge him if he missteps attempting to be nice to them. He extends his hand to Pepper.

Pepper places her hand in his and allows him to draw her to her feet. “Tony attempted to design the room in a fashion that he thought that you would like. If there is anything that you don’t like, throw it out. The cleaning staff will make sure it goes to some place for donation, where depends on what you threw and whether you have a preference. If there’s anything that you’d still like that you don’t have, order it on Tony’s card.”

Tony tosses a glare at her. “We came to an agreement on charges for now,” he says.

Pepper blinks. This could be a limit of Barnes, or it could be his guilt showing for Tony Stark, and that he doesn’t have a problem with the idea of being a sugar submissive for any of them, but that he doesn’t want to take advantage of the man. “Right, don’t break whatever deal you have with him.”

James inclines his head in gratitude. He had no clue what he was supposed to do if Pepper gave him an order that mixed with Tony’s, but the quick change that she went for once Tony explained tells him, he won’t have to deal with that much. They’ll make sure that he’s taken care of.

Pepper smirks then, staring straight at Tony. “Put it on mine. I want you to be decked out in whatever pretty things you want.”

James’ jaw drops open. He could understand from what he had heard about Tony Stark, that he would offer without any hesitation for him to spend money, and he would refuse. Tony Stark does too much for him already to add paying for his desires was out of the question. But for a female dominant, who he could easily flirt with, to ask him, no demand him to spend her money. Oh gods, he wants that.

Tony face palms. “Pepper!”

She takes in the blush filling James face, and she claps her hands. She could still tell when a submissive wants to be included but doesn’t quite want to allow a dominant that still has some control over him to hold even more. She suspects that Tony will be his type once he actually no longer has those trigger words where he’s reliant on Tony for the very future he craves. She raises her eyebrows at James.

“Yes, ma’am. If I want something, I am to tell Friday and ask her to please charge your account. Except for the motorbike that Dr. Stark is taking care of.”

Tony groans. “For the love of everything, her account comes from my account, Barnes. Just don’t worry about who’s account the damn money gets pulled from and buy whatever the hell you like. If it will make you feel better, Friday will keep track of how much you spend, but I don’t ever plan on looking at it. Pepper?”

“Why would I question how much he spends? He deserves all of the best things anyway.”

Tony waves his hands as if that proves his point.

James should say no. He should say that after years of torture, he should be on his own that way he doesn’t have to rely on others. But, neither of them are saying that he couldn’t have his own funds. Neither of them are saying that he will owe anything back. This is just an extended gift. He nods.

Tony walks up behind him and starts leading them down the hall.

It takes James a few seconds before he realizes that he’s still holding onto Pepper’s hands. Only she’s not removing her gentle grip, and she’s making sure that he doesn’t stumble when Tony takes a random turn that he’s not ready to turn for.

Pepper drops James’ hand once they're at her door. She opens it just a crack before turning around to James. “If for whatever reason, you have trouble sleeping tonight, you can come back to this room, okay?”

“I thought that you had a busy day tomorrow.”

“That’s not something that you have to worry about,” she confirms softly. “All that you need to worry about, is the fact there is a dominant right down the hall that you know the way to, should you need it.”

James ducks his head into another nod. Only this time, he can’t quite help the few tears that fall from his eyes. He hadn’t gotten this, not since he fell off the train, and even before that, not since he had been trying to find dominants that weren’t Steve to fill the slight urges.

Tony rolls his eyes. “You can also go down to the lab, which is where I will likely be found for the rest of the night because I want a few more things done before Pepper lands for that California meeting.” His eyes light up. “That reminds me Pepper, we’re going into the vehicle manufacturing market for cars and motorbikes now on top of the planes.”

Pepper shrugs. “I’m not announcing that until you give me a bit more information than I have.”

James laughs as he turns his gaze back to Tony. “I’d be fine with a private flying motorcycle.”

“You get the first one that works,” Tony promises.

Pepper closes her eyes and starts trying to count backwards from twenty. “Only on the damn compound grounds until legal gets his pardon through. I don’t even know how panicked the United States would get if you let the Winter Solider have a flying bike before you got him pardoned. We’d all be in jail cells. We’d have to overthrow a government for real, Tony.”

“You heard the lady, snowflake. You can only fly it here for now.”

James allows for Tony to tug him away from Pepper. “Well, if it’s Pepper telling me not to, I suppose I shall have to listen.”

Tony giggles as they make their way down the hall. He can honestly say that he can’t remember the last time that Pepper had taken an interest in a submissive before Tony has completely added them to the family. While he can’t wait to do that for James, he will wait, for James to be ready, which will be quite a while from now.

There are eyes on James. He can tell. He’s rather positive that the widow is watching them from somewhere. He won’t blame her for that. This would likely be a decent place for him to snap if he was going to, because he’s close enough to everyone that he could probably do quite a bit of damage.

Tony however turns to glare at a camera. “Harley, he’s not a danger to us. Put the damn cameras back to Friday’s control. And stop hacking me before you even get here for the Summer.” He turns back to James. “Sorry, one of my not quite kids.”

James shrugs. “I figured that there might be a few more eyes on me right now. I could still go all murderous on everyone.”

“Not willingly, and if you’re still that far under order, you wouldn’t have half of the memories that you do. You’re fine, James. No one is going to be after you here, and no one can reach you here to trigger you. Except for when we’re working on breaking it, then we might have to do some amount of triggering. I’m not sure. The goal is to make it to where the words don’t work the first time we actually try them all together, but this is experimental technology.”

James pauses at the door frame. His name has a plaque on the door in glittering letters. The colors change every few seconds, and he reaches up to run his fingers over the door.

Tony smiles at the way his eyes light up at the plaque. “I wanted to make sure that you knew that everyone here would know that this is your room. No one can come in here without your permission.”

“Exceptions apply,” James adds with a smirk. “You would have override codes in case of emergencies. You’re too smart not to.”

Tony gives him a nod. “Plus, I thought you’d like the tech of the changing colors.”

“I love it.” James swings the door open, and his eyes go wide at the huge blueprint of his room. There’s a king-sized bed in the center of the room where he could see the door clearly, and the window on the far side. Said window, has some super fancy drapes that he can open or close. Several wardrobes, and there’s a computer, tablet and desk over there. He’s even got a fancy couch in here with a nice little table that he can spread things out on if he wants.

Tony stays in the doorway. “May I come in to show you some of the stuff?”

“Yes, of course.” James stares at all the wonders, and he’s afraid that he’s probably going to end up sleeping on the floor.

Tony steps into the room, and he pats the bed. “I wanted you to have the same fancy bed that all of the others have, although I doubt that you’ll want to sleep on it right now.” He walks over to the area that holds the closet and taps the wall. A cot falls down. “For until you want to sleep in the bed or the couch.”

James smiles. “I was wondering about that.”

Tony wiggles his eyebrows. “Recall that my best friend is a military man too. He’s now an officer, so his tours are a bit different, but I still remember his tours.” He gestures over to the tablet and computer. “Those are yours. You get to make the passwords when you first open them, Friday can help if you want. But, no one but you can get into them, both because of those passwords, but also because Friday will make sure of that. This time, no exceptions. There’s not going to be an emergency, where I think invading that part of your privacy that it will help.”

“Thank you,” he whispers.

Tony nods. “And the wardrobes and closet are full of clothes that I thought matched the styles of the person on file. I know that they’re probably not all hits, so like Pepper said. Something doesn’t work right; you can get something else.”

James runs his fingers over the drapes. “I think my momma would have beat me, if she knew that I didn’t keep these drapes. All of the fancy people got lace drapes with the solid backing behind them.”

Tony snorts in amusement. “These aren’t even the super expensive ones, but neither Pepper or I can stand those things, so no one really has them here. Maybe you’ll be the first.”

James moves over and he kind of runs his fingers over the wood of his table. “Maybe. Once I figure out your internet thing, maybe I’ll find these expensive drapes and fall in love.”

“Well, if you do, buy them. And then never tell me, so I don’t lose my mind knowing that I know someone with that awful of taste.”

James laughs as he continues staring at the room. “And all of this is mine?”

“Everything, including this.” Tony pushes open another door to reveal an in-suite bathroom, equipped with all of his favorites. Huge bathtub big enough for three. A shower with more settings than it could ever need. A toilet, nothing special about that. Double vanity, for ease of if someone else is ever in the room. And a mirror so that you could see what you were doing. And once more stocked to the brim with random things. “The scents in here are mine right now, because I don’t like the idea of ordering different scents for people. Too personal without knowing them really well, so I tend to start with my scent, and if they want to change that, that’s chill.”

James stares at the bathroom. “You made sure that if I don’t want to socialize, I don’t have to.”

Tony pats his shoulder. “Yeah, James. Here, you don’t have to talk to anybody, if you don’t want to talk to them. For that matter, while I hope that sometime soon, you and I can start on the words in your head, if you ever need a day or hell even a week to tell me to break, that’s fine too. There’s no time requirement that we have to meet.”

James moves backwards to sit up on his cot. “Okay.” He picks at the kind of thread blanket on the cot, not soft like the blanket on his bed or the one draped over the couch. For his comfort, and yet, he might be able to bring himself to have the fluffy one on the cot. “I might have to take you up on that.”

“Anytime you need,” Tony swears, as he walks towards the door. He pauses before he closes the door. “You can come to me or Pepper if you need anything.” Then, he leaves James to deal with his new room and whatever thoughts might be trying to get through to his mind. He heads down to his lab, because he wants to have the lab set-up for the therapy that they’re going to be working on. And because he needs a few blueprints of how he’s going to get the cars and motorcycles in the air by the end of the week or his brain was going to implode now that he knew his father failed to achieve the goal that he had promised.

Chapter Text

Tony is not young enough to keep pulling over-nighters. That wasn’t about to stop him, but he reserves the right to complain about his aging body when he’s working on things like this. He steps into the kitchen to find Natasha and James trying to make pancakes. He says try since there is flour all over the floor, and Natasha looks like she just got dragged into this.

Natasha turns once she sees him. “I wanted coffee, Tony.”

Tony grabs two mugs and starts pouring them for both of them. “And I’m guessing instead you walked in our one-armed friend deciding that he had to have pancakes right now.”

“It was going fine until I needed to stir,” James whines.

Tony passes a mug to Natasha and hops up on a stool. “No comments here. I have had no sleep, and I’m not about to try to deal with pancakes. And I’m not about to complain about the kitchen actually getting the Black Widow into it, since she has some of the best hidden recipes locked away in her head.”

Rhodey walks by, pauses for just a moment, like he might ask a question, then just keeps going towards the meeting rooms, where he’s supposed to be dealing with Ross again today, and the president who wants to know what kind of problems the public is going to give him knowing that he used to be a captain America fanboy after the charges now released to the public.

Tony salutes him as he goes with the coffee mug and gets flipped off for his efforts. He turns back to James. “I don’t really care when you want to start, but I have the equipment all set up, where we can begin when you’re ready.”

James freezes.

Natasha reaches out to ground him before he drops all of the food, or before he shuts down completely. “He meant what he said. That’s not a today problem, if you don’t want it to be. The biggest problem of your day is how long it's going to take to make pancakes.”

Tony jerks his head into a nod. “Cool, glad we all talked about this, and got it all worked out. With that, I’m going to go crash in my bed. I don’t think I have anything else that has to get done today, after I accomplished what I’ve done.”

Natasha shakes her head. “You’re good.”

With that Tony goes up to his bedroom and collapses on the bed. He needs the sleep this time, because turns out the reason why his father hadn’t kept his promise about flying cars is because they’re really difficult to figure out. At least without using the power source he created, and the government was going to have an entire conniption if he did it for something larger than phones before he gave it to the military. And he refuses to give it to the military.

For the next week, he focuses on the plans for the flying vehicles, because the next steps for the Avengers involves James Barnes, and he meant what he said. Until he’s ready to start, Tony is going to allow the situation to ride. T’Challa has kept them updated on Wakanda, and right now no one knows that Barnes is gone, and Clint is back to not tipping the boat and being as good as he can.

Natasha rages at his situation, but they both know that without actually having Tony show up and blasting her head off, they don’t have someone with enough range to take her down without her being able to try to mind whammy them. That would put him in more danger than what he already is.

His fingers are tapping at the keys as he tries to reason with himself that there has to be a way to get the car in the air, without needing retractable wings. He could put the laser beams that are on his suit underneath the car just slightly further in than the tires, or he could put more flaps over the tires, and place the beams there. When, James steps into the lab jittering.

He turns all of his attention onto James. He looks at him with patience and waits for him to speak. This part of the story isn’t his, and he will not let himself be the tool by which James tries to force himself into anything.

James swallows. “Can you walk me through it?”

“So, the first thing we’d need to do is calibrate it to you and your memories. We’d choose something nice, or rather several nice moments that you can remember. Me and you, we’d walk through it, we’d feel it as if we were there, only we have control as well as our younger selves in the memoires. Or rather the younger you.”

James paces in the lab. “So, nothing bad needs to happen the first day.”

“Hell’s bells, no. The second day, we’d do something crazy and focus on a bad memory that has literally nothing to do with the trigger words, so I could teach you how it works. Actually, scratch that, I would take you into one of mine, and I show you how to change it so that you can heal.”

James stares at him in open wonder.

“Then, me and you are going to make a whole board of the words, in English, and we’re going to find or make better memories for each word, once you’ve got one, or come up with an idea for one of the words, we cross it off the list, make sure the new memory is strong. Only when you’re ready to firmly cross the word off, will we go into the technology, and rewrite the memory with what we’ve changed.”

“I don’t have to relive it until I am broken of the habit.”

Tony shakes his head. “That’s not a cure. That’s torture, a new type of it sure, but torture is torture, no matter what pretty bow we put on top of it.”

James walks over to his couch and sits down. He buries his face in his hands. “That didn’t help my fear, like I thought it would. I mean it puts some of my worries to rest, but that doesn’t make the fear disappear, just change.”

Tony pushes his chair back and throws his legs up onto the couch next to James. “Ah, that’s the thing with PTSD, your fears will never stop, they'll just change shapes. Always a new form of the worst thing that could happen at the time.”

“Spoken like someone who knows intimately,” James whispers.

“That’s why I used this technology to battle mental demons. Because we deserve to be able to try to heal, and that level of trauma doesn’t die down over time, it gets worse sometimes until we can’t reach our demons. And the person who helped come up with this idea hates it.”

“What?”

“He wanted it to be a weapon. I shut down the weapons unit, not to mention I refuse to use people’s memories and fears to force them into those horrors. Even if that was the only way to win the battle, I’d rather lose. There are some lines that you shouldn’t cross, not for anything.”

James stares at Tony with something akin to shock in his eyes. “You said no?” He reaches over and pokes at Tony’s leg. “You said no to someone who helped come up with mental manipulation tech. God, he’s going to come attack you, and you’re not even worried.”

“Wouldn’t be the first pissed off person who has decided that I am the villain of their story, even though, I tried to explain the situation. Even though I told them they could have other jobs as long as he stopped with the war, he refused. Even then, I did give him credit with the name on the paper, I mean he worked for SI at the time, so the design is ours, and my tweaks are mine.”

James growls. “No, no. Absolutely not.” He pouts at Tony. “Friday, can you get Natasha on the communication thing you have?”

“Of course, James.”

“Hello, James. What may I do for you on this day when you have promised that you are going to at least talk to Tony about the mind technology that he has for you?”

“Hi, Nat,” Tony calls before she can continue on that part of her rant. Because James has taken that step at the very least. He’s hoping that he can get a bit further today, but if he can’t, that’s not the end of the story.

James swats his arm. “Tony apparently made an enemy to make sure this tech could be used in this situation, and since I am most definitely not okay enough to deal with it, I’d like for you to.”

Natasha’s sigh could be heard across the line. “Tony, who the hell did you piss off enough that you’ve got Barnes worried on a day when he was already worried about his own issues?”

“Quentin Beck, old employee. He’s a bit angry at the fact that I wasn’t going to allow his technology to be used as a weapon.”

“I’ll take care of it, James, on one condition.”

James hums in response.

“You make me that fantastic blueberry pie again tonight, and this time enough that I can share with Rhodey and Pepper?”

“Not Tony?” James teases.

“Not when he’s apparently being dumb enough that he needs me to go take care of a potential threat. Tony, how high would you rank his anger on a scale of 1, being somebody like Pepper after you shut down weapons, and a 10, being like Stane or Killian.”

Tony swallows. “8 or 9, depends on the day.”

Natasha curses in Russian, letting out her anger. “New rule, you have to at least tell Pepper or I anytime you become aware that anyone above a 7 might exist still in the world. Those assholes always seem to blame you for shit that you haven’t done, and I’m so done with all of them.” Then, she hangs up.

Tony spins in his chair before ending up back to facing James. “Well, that’s one problem that I guess I’m not going to be worrying about in the back of my head anymore. Now, do you have any other questions, concerns, favors?”

James tilts his head back into the comfy surface of the couch. “What happens if I do get triggered at any point?”

“Depends. If I can get you down and out without having to say anything, I will. That means that I’ll probably put you in our comfy hulk room, which is pretty much just a giant fluffy room of good thing but also unbreakable. If I can’t do that, which I doubt because I will have the suit, and no offense intended, but you aren’t likely to get through that. But, if I can’t, I will use the trigger words to become the handler, and I will tell you that it's your mission to get into that room, and then lock the door.”

James drops his head down. “What if I don’t come back this time?”

Tony picks himself up and sits next to James and wraps his arms around him. He leans his head against the crown of James’s head. “Then, I’ll have to wake you back up. I’ll give you your favorite pizzas, and Natasha will come by to make whatever creepy jokes the two of you have, and Pepper will stop by and flirt with you. And we’ll keep doing that until you can wake up.”

James turns and presses himself into Tony, as he lets the tears fall out of him. He has no clue how he’s supposed to deal with all of this. He has to deal with the idea that there’s every chance that his memories will fail. He has to handle the idea that there is a chance that he will be lost again in his own head as someone forces him to move when he doesn’t want to.

“Oh, snowflake.” Tony holds him close and tight. “Whatever you fear, I won’t let it happen for long. I will start entire wars to ensure it. I guess I almost understand Steve wanting to start the war for you.”

James shakes his head. “He was fighting for the old Bucky. He would never have fought for me if I wasn’t Bucky. And if he ever finds out that Bucky is truly gone, gone. He’s going to go off the deep end and probably try to kill you if he finds out that you’ve done anything with my mind.”

Tony reaches over and grabs his phone. He pauses for a couple seconds, before he goes ahead and types in Pepper’s number. She’ll be at the office by now working on the various things that their company needs, yet she would probably be able to help more. He was good at big promises, less good with dealing with fear in a healthy development.

“Tony?” Pepper’s voice causes James to freeze and then turn his head to the phone that Tony’s holding up.

“Hey, Pepper. We’re having a bit of a crisis today about how the trigger words might wipe him of who he is again.”

“James, listen to me, okay?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Tony will not allow those words to be said, until he’s at least 99% sure that he has made sure that it won’t wipe you. There is so little chance of that happening, that we can ignore it. You know why, because first you’ve got to put in the work of how to fix things. Then, maybe you can worry about it, but you know what, not even then, because Tony won’t say those words until you feel like you can survive them. No one will be allowed to enter the compound until that’s done, and if that means that I’ve got to stand in front of the US government and fight them to keep them away, then that’s what will happen. No one gets to dictate how this goes. No one gets to do anything other than offer you support, even Tony. He just happens to have the technology to provide the help once you’re ready.” Pepper’s side of the line starts having some static and different muffled voices. “So sorry, but I’ve got to go. Something is happening.”

Tony and James say goodbye as the line closes, before James turns his head towards Tony. “If I don’t start now, I don’t think I’m going to.”

Tony slaps his thighs and nudges James towards his side of the couch, so. he can stand up. He walks over and grabs his nice wires and helmet to hand over. “Okay, step one is putting this on.”

James takes it from him without question. But then, he sits there with the helmet in his hands. He stares at it.

Tony makes no comment on his lack of movement. He just pulls up a different tab on his touch screens and starts making some new tweaks to the system of things he’s supposed to do. The board wants a new type of phone, because Apple has a new phone coming out. Never mind, that literally no new technology has been discovered by either of the other major companies that put them anywhere near his phones. Still, he’ll have to come up with an actual huge plan to get a phone placed out, because he refuses to do petty cash grabs, but his company still follows the normal rules of wanting to keep up.

He makes a small email to Pepper letting her know that he was going to need at least three months before the update would be even slightly prepped for manufacturing, so they’d be a bit behind Apple on the release date, but that they’d have the better phone, and before the Apple phone hits the market, they’ll have some idea of what those changes would be. That means that he needs marketing to be ready to go, the second that he comes up with what he’s doing.

When, he’s about to pull up the current design of the phone to see what he’s about to try to figure out a solution for, James chooses to speak. “I’ve got it on my head, but I don’t know how to connect the wires.”

Tony turns and gives James a huge smile. “No worries, I can do that for you, if you’re willing. Or I can pull up a video of me putting it on myself and allow you to follow my actions from the video.”

“You can do it,” James replies and then holds super still.

Tony reaches over and starts gently connecting the wires and pads to his temples and one on the back of his neck. “In case you can’t tell, these have no way to electrocute you. These are reading the hormone levels and changing them, but we can do that without the constant shocking now. At least, I have the way to do that right now.”

James relaxes slightly. “How’d you know that was the issue?”

“Took a stab in the dark about how if I was going to go all supervillain and try to hurt someone in this way, how I would try to wipe minds, and what would be triggers after having that done.”

James nods. He kind of shivers as the last pad gets patted down on the back of his neck. “What’s next?”

“Step two, is you choose a memory, a happy one. I’d prefer if you’d choose two actually, so we can calibrate it better. One from now, something since you’ve been woken up in Wakanda, where I can configure the system to take input from the current brain waves of what you have. And then a memory from before Hydra. Hopefully, before the war too, but if you can’t manage that, war but before Hydra will work too.”

“What do you mean choose?”

Tony claps. “You have options. Because here in this lab, there are always decisions to be made about how you want to do any action, because I love having options for people. You could tell me that you have the memory to start the system, and then your thoughts will take over, and we will see it on the lovely floor over there.” He jerks his head towards the weird corner of the lab that has an entire stage set-up. “Or you could tell me about the memory, get it firmly planted in your mind by telling the story, and then I start of the machine, and the memory should then play over in the corner.”

James glances over towards the corner. “I don’t think I’d want to try to speak them. Most of my vocabulary now, isn’t English.”

“You don’t have to speak them in English. I can speak Russian.”

James shakes his head quickly, kind of frantic. “No, no. I can speak Russian, but I will not. The winter soldier may only know that language, and I will translate for him, but I will not allow them to make my words in a language that I shouldn’t know.”

Tony holds up his hands. “I was offering in case that was why you didn’t want to speak in Russian. I would never ask you to do something like that if you don’t want to.”

“Oh,” James whispers. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for needing me to clarify anything that I say. And don’t apologize when one of us blunders into something that bothers you. You just have to tell us, and we will work to not make the mistake again.”

James nods slowly. “Would you mind if I took some time thinking about the memory that I want to use for before the war?”

“You got one from the present already.”

He offers Tony a smile. “The pizza party.”

Tony laughs as he turns back to his screens. “Very important that, and a good memory to choose. Sounds great to me, so just let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll stop staring at what the board wants me to do with my research, and that both myself and the rest of R&D had no interest in dealing with right now.”

While James gets lost in thought, he turns back to his phone problem. He sends a mass email out to R&D to see whether any employee had been looking ahead to the next phone model that the company would eventually put out. Given this was about three years earlier than when they had given a briefing about doing, but evidently, Apple was going to try to upset the market, and they weren’t going to find a way to do that.”

He turns away from that for a moment. He doesn’t want to start his own debates on potential solutions until he at least gives enough time for all of them to read their emails and potentially reply. He turns to the tiny arc reactors in cars. They’d be designed so if they were pulled from cars, they’d shut off for the safety of not allowing other companies or the government to try to steal his technology. That means he needs to have some kill switch installed. He digs out one of the arcs that he has for a prototype and starts tinkering with the potential kill switch.

He pauses before he gets too far into that. He needs at least four R&D workers with him like immediately. And, he’s the head of the department, but he allows Pepper to delegate tasks. So, another email to her to ask which four R&D workers could be placed on a project with him for a whole new design for something that should not be released until they were a bit further along. Because by the Norse gods, he had four months before the end of the year, and he was going to have at the very least the marketing for flying cars available on the market soon, by the end of the year.

They’d need to allow the government enough time to decide whether they were going to try to regulate the systems. Tony bangs his head on his desk. He does not, with capital letters no less, want to deal with the government trying to tell him that he can’t place this on the market without regulations being in place, and try to fight him every step of the way unless he gives them what they want, which he was not giving them.

James clears his throat. “Umm, are you busy?”

“Not by common people’s definitions. I am technically working, however most of my work today involves groaning and moaning about the stupidity of other people." Tony snaps and points at him. “Cars are the first to fly. I’ve got to get a handle on that before I can deal with motorbikes.”

James stares at him before grinning. “You’re working on my flying car already?”

Tony shrugs. “It’ll make the board happy, it’ll distract from the accords and the avengers by the public, which we need desperately, and my favorite, I think it will piss off Ross that in the middle of him trying to fuck with my entire plans to survive his bullshit policies, that I created something that everyone has wanted to years.”

James lunges forward to hug him. “Thank you.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “You’re welcome.” He nods towards the corner of the room. “Are we ready?”

James nods and steps with Tony into the nice bracket.

Tony types some code into the system to tell it that the next memory needs to surround them with the idea of what was happening. “You’re up. Think about whatever you like.”

All around them became a replica of the living room near the kitchen. There are pizzas piled up on the tables and the floor. Over thirty boxes, and they walk into the room. James thinks for a second that he’s about to get overwhelmed by having to make choices on which one to try first.

Pepper walks up to him though with a plate towering with slices of pizza. Every single box has a slice illustrated on his plate. She gives him permission to come eat right next to her.

He drops down onto the couch, happy as can be as he tries the first plate. He delights in the way that the cheese melts in his mouth, and they way that the meat is spiced and cooked wonderfully. He continues down the line, barely containing his moans and groans. The most food that he’s been allowed since before World War II started up. He picks some of the vegetables off the pizza after the first bite, and Pepper makes some waves at the room, to get Friday to run which vegetables those were and to record them as no longer to be bought for James.

When he finishes his plate, and his hunger hasn’t completely diminished, Pepper just passes him a random box close to them, and she doesn’t say a word about how much he’s eating. The rest of the room is speaking, and for once he can say without a fault that he is comfortable, that he is safe, and the danger will not get him when his guard is down around them.

James turns to Tony as the memory fades from around them. “I was right there, but I was also here. And I could basically feel the things that I felt right then. That’s incredible. Also terrifying for later, but also incredible.”

Tony smiles. “I think it's rather beautiful. I’m still debating whether I’m going to put this on the market, or whether I’m going to do a charitable donation to every mental health hospital in the country to have this equipment, and then maybe also packing them up and handing them over to each representative at the Accords portion of the UN.”

James tilts his head to the side. “I think you might be a better person than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“There are several people in the world who will tell you that I’m not a good man.”

“Then, they never bothered paying attention to the man that you were,” James states with force. “Because you’re helping me, even when I’ve hurt you. Because you’re debating giving away technology that would be super expensive on the market for free so that other people can heal.”

“Not completely free, I’ll convince them to pay for the materials, that way I’m not actively losing money, but I won’t charge anything extra that would typically be considered the charge for creating it and marketing it.”

James pokes Tony in the sides. “A good man.”

“Well far be it from me to argue with a pretty man who wants to pay me a compliment.”

“A pretty submissive,” James corrects. He kind of nods towards the blank wall. “If we do the other one, then we’re done for the day.”

“Hell, we can be done for the day now, if you don’t want to deal with another memory today.”

James shakes his head. “I meant like you’d have what you needed to move on the next time that I have the courage to walk down here and work on the next section.”

Tony licks his lips. Part of him wants to tell James that if he’s already questioning that, then he doesn’t have to do more. But he’s already said that, so the only other option he has, is a lie. He won’t lie to James. He just won’t allow himself to do that when trust must come so slowly to the other man, and he’s already willingly given himself to Tony to help with this. “Yes.”

James nods. “Will you set it up again, please?”

Tony types in the same commands, and he wonders what secrets he’s going to be present for this day. He wonders which memory James believes that he knows well enough that he is willing to use it.

The room around them fades away into a rundown apartment with limited electricity in the room. There’s a young boy with blond hair and looking like he’s a moment away from death running through the door. He’s screaming something simple. “Bye, mom, I’ll see you when we get back from school.”

“James, a moment before you run after that hyper son of mine.”

“Of course, Ma’am. What can I do for you?”

“It’s Mrs. Rogers, young man. How many times must I tell you that you have every right to use my title after saving that son of mine from the danger he was in last night?”

“What any good person would do when they see such a small kid getting picked on by the others,” young James deflects as he picks at his jeans.

Mrs. Rogers hands him over a small bill. “I know that it isn’t much, however I was hoping that you might do a job for me anyway. That boy of mine is constantly getting himself into trouble, and then he comes home hurt, and his immune system is even worse because of it. Would you mind trying to help him out those situations, much as you can?”

James tucks the money back into her hand. “Mrs. Rogers, I know that your family is even worse off than mine. At least we still got Pops around to help out. I’ll do my best to help him, since he seems keen on me anyhow, but I won’t be given money for it. I’ll do it because that little kid doesn’t deserve to get hit every time that someone takes issue with him.”

Mrs. Rogers stares at him with pity, as he heads out of the door and towards the area that Steve had left for before.

James stares at the blank wall as the memory fades. “I loved her. She was a good woman, and she tried so hard to get Steve to stop fighting, and she tried to instill him with the beliefs that he needed in this world. She’s one of the clearest people that isn’t Steve, and I can certainly say that my love for her is so much more than that for Steve now a days.”

“She seems like a lovely woman,” Tony offers.

“Worked so many jobs to get by after she left the worthless man that gave her Steve. He was such an ass, half the time my family was sure when he was in town, that the ambulance was going to come to get them and the next day there’d be all of us mourning for their loss. She would have a heart attack at the Steve that's there now. She’d be whipping his ass up and down every day of the week for what he’s done.”

Tony pauses and turns to look at James.

James shrugs. “I had to find a happy memory. All my memories of Steve are tainted by the fact that I know what he’s grown up to be. A man who doesn’t accept that I wanted to stay hidden, a man who wouldn’t accept that the world wanted to at least hear my side of the story in court, a man who flat out refused to tell a man who should have been friends with him about his parents' brutal memory. So, I focused on his mother.”

Tony considers him for a long moment. “That’s why you stuck around him. It wasn’t because you were in love, or because he was your lover, it was because his mother asked you to, and you weren’t about to disappoint her.”

James takes off the helmet and allows the tabs to rip off his skin as he hands it over to Tony. He rubs over the areas gently, before he turns back to Tony and nods. “Something like that.” Then, he walks off.

Tony forces himself to pause for a moment to consider whether he actually hurt James, or whether some of the past wasn’t nice to look at. He figures that he’d be pretty upset if the person that he remembered most was somebody that he no longer connects with.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check. “Friday, can you confirm whether James is doing alright?”

“Yes, boss. He’s fine, he’s grabbed a book and is heading out to the park out there. He’s probably just dealing with his emotions of the past.”

“Thanks, baby girl.”

Tony decides not to think much about it. He’ll show a part of his nightmares next time that James is willing to step foot in the lab for help with his memories. Because he really should make sure that James knows that he can come down here and not expect to work on his trauma. He wants them to be working together and not constantly fighting each other.

He opens his email to find two emails back. One from Pepper, on a list of about ten employees that he could potentially drag into his new project, along with a warning that if he shouldn’t say a word to the press himself, because no one else ever leaks things, but he does it anytime he finds that he wants to distract from what else is happening. The other was from one of the workers in the R&D project. There's some brief text about the blueprint being very early stages, but that he hopes that this would potentially work for another phone update.

Opening the email, shows a touch screen phone, that can fold like the flip phones to conserve space, along with having satellite charging for the batteries, so that as long as you are on in the cities, you batteries would be constantly recharging as much as they could. Tony nods to himself, this would take a while to get to the perfect design, but this would work wonders. He sends back an email saying exactly that, along with a request for everyone on the phone project to stop working on software updates for the time being and work on making this design a reality, because what the board demands, they will manage.

Then, he stares at the list that Pepper gave him, and grabbed four random names with Friday’s help. He tries his best to never have bias on who he works with inside his company. These people he sends the typical NDA for a new project and asks them to sign and get back to him in the next week about a new project that will require several hands-on deck. He’s got the blueprint done for the basic car plan changes for flying, what he’s delegating is different car types, he wants one tiny car that only has two seats and looks sleek. He wants one that is the typical four-person car that is so popular. He wants a bad-ass truck that can fly, just so that he can watch as republican men have to fight there urges to have the fanciest truck on the market, and their desire to never give Tony Stark a dime of their money because he’s just too crazy. Finally, he wants a van like car, that has expandable number of seats, the traditional six, the large eight, and then the huge ten. Just for those with large families that would like to take to the skies.

He pauses as he starts heading to bed. Once he manages to get these guys on the design of these different cars, his next goal should be names. Or rather something that he puts some thought into while the design period is on-going and they’re all shooting him emails about issues, and he brainstorms to solve them. He wants the Stark cars to bring just as much joy as a Tesla or a damn Ferrari.

Rhodey is waiting for him right outside the lab. He’s raising an eyebrow and generally looking disappointed. “How did I hear about you doing flying cars from Sergeant Barnes?”

“Probably because he’s the one who reminded me that my father promised people that, and then never came through with it. And I'm pretty confident that I can, and thus I will. To shove it in Howard’s face, and then also to make several people ready to absolutely squeal in delight.”

Rhodey rolls his eyes. “You terrify me somedays. Only you would decide to make flying cars for somebody that you barely know.”

Tony quirks his lips up. “Someone who I am going to learn extremely well, who has more trauma than anyone should survive, who actually bloody smiles anytime I bring it up.”

“You're building him a flying car to see him smile?”

“Yes.”

Rhodey face palms. “I’ll let everyone know to expect him to be added to the family shortly. There’s no living way that you don’t fall for him at this point, if that’s already how you’re talking now.”

Tony flips him off as he heads to the kitchen for some food. He’s done good for a day’s work.

The next few days are focused only on Stark Industries. The Accords council won’t meet again until the end of the month, where Tony has suggested that the Winter Soldier not only be pardoned but be offered a chance to sign the Accords as a hero. This won’t fix all of the charges in the United States, but the president has already informed him that they won’t do any trial until the words are guaranteed not to be said. The car names come to him slowly, but surely over those two days. Stark Riptides are going to be the tiny cars because he loves the idea of them ripping around in the sky. Stark Lifters are going to be the trucks, and when he said that name, several people groaned. Stark Willow Finders are the vans, because he loves the idea of them being made to find the branches of family trees. Will anyone else get it, he doesn’t care. He knows and someone will ask him about it. Then, finally Stark Phoenixes for the regular car, because he’s been tossed down so many times, that the company shouldn’t still be expanding with cars that will run on green energy with the ability to fly.

James walks into his lab and plops down with a book on his couch. He glances up at all the boards in the room, before propping up his book. “I’m not here to do any work today, but I want company.”

Tony waves his hand in understanding. “Sounds good, snowflake. DUM-E might come bother you, though.”

“Why is his name DUM-E? I didn’t think to ask last time.” James turns his head to stare at him. “Or were you just a dick at 17?”

Tony laughs as he turns around to poke a finger in the direction of the bot in question. “Just a dick at that age but given the number of times that he has almost poisoned me, I feel like I’m allowed to be that salty about the situation.”

“Poison?”

“He puts oil in my milkshakes, "Tony wails with a bit of dramatic arm waving.

James flops down where he’s lying on the couch. “You created him. I feel like this is a you problem.”

Tony shakes his head. “Betrayal. Betrayal on every level in my opinion.”

They go back to working in silence. A couple hours pass, and James finishes his book, and then stares at Tony. “Are you the reason the news is talking about me possibly being an Avenger?”

“Technically, Natasha is filling out the forms with my name right now for that because I am trying to help SI with this phone update that the board needs. I could be working on that instead of the cars, but like Natasha likes helping, and honestly, I’d have lost my mind trying to convince them this was necessary.”

“What are the Accords?”

“What?”

“I’ve read through them. The amendments you’ve gotten put through basically makes it a legal set of laws for superhuman people and mutants, but that’s not what they were originally, they certainly weren’t as bad as Steve claimed, but they weren’t this. So, what are the Accords to you?”

“Accountability after I made some mistakes that can make sure that I don’t hurt anybody with what I've done, along with a way to ensure that I’m not the only one who has to be held accountable after each mistake, because I’m the only one there.”

James tilts his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“Steve never takes an inch of the blame for being team captain, and he’s the first to lay blame on me.”

James scoffs. Then, he swings his legs over the couch and stands up to stretch. “Trust me, Stark, he’s never taken that blame. Not once in his entire life does he say that he should be held responsible for anything. He’ll tell somebody who is clearly having a bad day to shut up, and then blame them for starting the fight, which I mean yeah, they did, but you’re the damn idiot who decided to antagonize them in the first place.”

“It’s Tony.”

James furrows his brow. “Huh?

“My name it’s Tony. If you decide that you want to or are willing to be less formal than constantly calling me Dr. Stark, I will applaud you, but I will also tell you, that you are welcome to use my real name.”

James mouth twitches like he’s trying to contain his own laughter and failing miserably. Finally, he just breaks down and laughs a little. “Thought it was Anthony.”

Tony just blows his eyes wide in supposed shock. “A fucking brat, in my house.”

“Only when I’m comfortable,” James replies. Then, he walks out of the lab.

Tony shrugs and heads back to work. He likes the fact that in the short time that James has been in the Compound, he has gotten significantly more comfortable expressing his opinions and his reactions to different things. He has also noted that since James has moved in, all of them have been eating healthier, just so he doesn’t have to eat alone. He seems to have a deep dislike of doing that.

The phone prototype is giving Tony some serious problems, the next time that James storms into the lab, looking like he’s searching for a body to punch. He’s about to make a quip about whether he needs a suit, when James stops right behind him.

“I need a board or two please,” he demands. Then, he pauses and blinks. “Like the ones that you have pulled up every time I come down here and then can close whenever you’re not working on them.”

Tony glances up at the several ones he currently has up, with blueprints, documents, demands, and a few emails. He should ask James what’s wrong. He should break from what he’s doing and help, but he’s shit at mental health, and he’s having a bad day too. So, he waves an arm, and two new boards pop up behind him closer to James. “Knock yourself out.”

With that he goes back to tinkering on the phone. He needs a better flexiglass than what currently exists. And, that involves trying to come up with the best possible compound to create a sand that would help with this. Thus, he throws the prototype across the room to shatter it as well as he can and pull up a new document and starts his debate on elements that he could throw together to deal with this. He deserves a damn chemistry doctorate if he manages this.

James flinches when the phone lands before he realizes that Tony has thrown it away from him, and that none of this is a critique on him. He continues his drawing with his free hand, before he spins around to Tony. He clenches his fist multiple times, with his body covering what he’s written so far.

Tony raises his eyebrow, as he feels the stare at his back. “Do you need something else?”

“Having one arm is shitty,” James spits out finally. “And I know that Hydra is the one who got my arm destroyed first. And I know that Shuri didn’t make me one when I asked her not to because I’m a danger to society and literally anyone that I might want to get close to one day. But, I still have days when I have rage at the fact that you blew my damn arm off and now I’m trying to learn how to navigate the future, and I still don’t an arm.”

Tony bites down on his lip to stop himself from laughing. The only reason that he hasn’t brought up the arm is because Shuri had warned him that James had issues with it being connected to a person who could still be triggered. If that was no longer the main issue, Tony would be delighted to help with that. So, he turns around, leaving behind his potential sand types. He raises his hand and more blueprints pop up in between them.

“Three designs. You can have your pick of the arm. Two of them are made for someone like you, someone who should have power in the arm because you have super solider genes and also have the ability to fight alongside the avengers and should have a weaponized arm if you want. Third option is the medical version that Stark Industries is planning on releasing in that line in about six months. Your choice, the second you make it, I can have it made in a day and a half.”

James freezes. “You have arm plans?”

Tony nods. “Shuri said you asked her not to, so I chose not to push this on you, until you brought it up. If I hadn’t done multiple designs to be safe for how your mentality would be, the arm would be built already just waiting for your word.”

James trails his fingers over each design before pointing to the one designed for a sniper and spy more than a fighter solider. “This one, please.” He turns back to his boards without another word. He continues scratching some letters out on it, before turning just his head to stare at Tony. “Sorry for being slightly rude.”

Tony shrugs. “We all have bad days, and I just threw a phone at a wall. You’re allowed to have bad days; we’re all allowed to have bad days.” With that he turns off most of his screens for the phone. Pepper would be pissed for all of two minutes before hearing his reason, and then she’d be fighting off whatever fires this decision causes while he works. He starts pulling out supplies to make the arm.

James finishes up his board, and he taps Tony’s shoulder so he could see them.

Tony stares in shock at what’s on the two boards. The first board reads as the following.

• Longing
• Rusted
• Seventeen
• Daybreak
• Furnace
• Nine
• Benign
• Homecoming
• One
• Freight car

The second board terrifies Tony even more, because they’re almost the exact same, only one of them was drawn in the sloppy handwriting of James. And the other tells him that the winter solider isn’t dead, and that James on days like today isn’t about to start him. Because the Russian is precise and perfect in neat lettering. Nothing at all like the man that Tony has gotten to know.

• Желание.
• Ржавый
• Семнадцать
• Рассвет
• Печь
• Девять
• Добросердечный
• Возвращение на Родину
• Один
• Товарный вагон

James stares at Tony for a long minute as he waits for the man to take in the board. To understand exactly what these words are and the fact that he didn’t hide anything from Tony. They are in order, they could be used against him, but he knows that they won’t be. This is a silent offering of trust, and something else entirely. As in Russian cold and clipped, he starts to speak. “Tomorrow, you show me how to disassociate these memories, and the day after, we begin.”

Then, before Tony can get a word out edgewise, he turns back to his list and strikes off three different words in the English list. No longer is seventeen, homecoming, or daybreak on the list. A clean line stops them from being there anymore. James inclines his head towards Tony and marches himself back out of the room.

Tony stares at the place where he was before shaking his head. “Friday, can you confirm that just happened?”

“You mean the lists, speaking in Russian, and making demands.”

“Alright, so that is not a sleep-deprived hallucination. Shit, Friday, call Pepper.”

“I swear Tony, if you’re calling to tell me that we’re going to have more delays, I’m going to strangle you,” Pepper shouts the second that she connects.

“I mean yes, but it's because of James. Who I am calling you because of.”

“What’s wrong?” There’s a worry in her voice that he used to feel heart-warmed whenever that he heard it. Now, he knows that it is likely to be followed by either Pepper with a gun or Pepper with a suit. She’s done being a bystander in these stories, she’s ready to start as many fights as they need.

“The winter soldier is a part of him. That won’t go away, because they’re two personalities in the same body. He’s going to either create something that combines the two of them, or he’s going to switch between them.”

“Shit, alright. I’ll make sure that legal is updated, and that this won’t hinder his pardon in any way. I mean some people are going to try to make sure that it does, and I’ll have to fight them on it, but honestly, I’ve been missing the opportunity to make sure that some of those people look like fools to the public by the time I’m done with them,” Pepper replies.

Tony nods to himself, and then to Pepper. “We’re really not going to panic about what just happened, huh?”

“Well, I’m not sure whether you can feel panic for something this small anymore. You’ve flown a nuke into space to save the city that you love, and you saw an army that could wipe us out if it wanted, and you know it's coming. This is basically just a traumatized man with even more side effects of said trauma. Nothing to panic too much about.”

“What’s your excuse?”

“I love you, and that means that I’ve dealt with the same level of bullshit in a lot of ways. At this point, I don’t think the alien army existing would lead to my panic. I might lose it if they invaded before we were ready for exactly thirty seconds before starting to work with you to figure it out.”

Tony wipes a stray tear from his face, as he realizes just how right she is. They hang up without a proper goodbye, because they’re no longer going to separate places. Pepper comes to the compound more often than not, and she has retaken her place in the family, to the point that she’s even asked for her suit, so she could take to the stars with him.

He heads to bed, ignoring the phone and the rest of the arm for a minute. He’ll have to get up early, and he’ll have to work on that non-stop for like the next week anytime that he’s not helping James with his memories, but right now he needs sleep and he needs it desperately.

A pair of arms tucks around him after he lays down on the bed. Natasha’s red hair brushes across his neck. “Sleep, Tony. I will make sure that nothing happens while you sleep.”

Tony lets out a deep yawn before slipping into sleep. When, he wakes up, Natasha is still lying on his bed with her eyes wide open. She’s not moving though, so he doubts that she’s truly awake or asleep. Somewhere in between, that she’s really good at being. His rest has certainly given him ideas, he thinks he has the best way to create a sand that will make more flexible glass, which he’s going to delegate to someone in the lab to check to see for him, since he’s going to be building a giant arm.
He reaches over with his arm to type up the email so that one of the workers knows that he’s no longer working on how this new phone was going to run, but rather working on the glass type for the phones to work. If he’s right about his compound, will be on the patent, and if the new scientist tweaks it, he’ll put both their names on it, and if the new scientist comes up with something new entirely, then it’ll just be his name on it, along with property of Stark Industries, but that’s just common knowledge for anyone working in the field. The idea is yours, you get full credit for it, but the company gets to use it, because they're the ones paying you to do these things.

Natasha turns on her side to face Tony. “You’ve met the winter soldier, now.”

“You knew.”

Natasha nods. “I decided that his comfort should take priority, since the winter soldier poses no threat to us. He’s not so harmless to whatever broken pieces of Hydra still exist, because I think that he has issues that are deeper than either of us could ever begin to understand.”

Tony allows himself to curl his head onto her stomach. “That was the right call.”

Natasha smiles down at him. “Once upon a time, I think you would have raged at me all day and all night for daring to keep something like that from you.”

“You have my trust, Natasha. You are welcome to secrets as long as they aren’t going to be close to someone in this family breaking down because of the secrets kept.”

“Boss, I hate to interrupt, but James is downstairs in the lab, pacing back and forth acting very nervous,” Friday calls.

Tony groans as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed. Duty calls, and he shall answer. Hopefully, he’ll be able to get James to a point where he’s not super nervous all the time as they deal with these trigger words, because he would hate it, if he has to constantly be making sure that both of them are okay.

He makes his way into the lab, and barely stops himself from walking back out when James whirls around to face him with tears in his eyes. Tony has no clue what’s upsetting him right now.

“I’m so sorry. I’ve been trying to convince him that coming out around other people could be dangerous. Please don’t lock us up, Dr. Stark. I know that he’s not always considered a nice person, but he’s what kept me from dying in the Hydra’s bunkers for all those years.”

Tony reaches out to guide James over to the couch. He keeps his touches as gentle as he can make them. “You’re fine, James. He’s fine, too. He should tell me what name he’d like me to use for him, because I’m not going to look at a real person and call them soldier and nothing else. That would be a dick move.”

“But he made demands of you. You’re a dom, and we’re subs. We’re not supposed to do that, that’s like the rudest possible thing he could have done.” James looks down. “Hell, I was walking the line by yelling at you and being that upset without you telling me I could share that anger. And then, he had the nerve to make demands of you.”

Tony shrugs. “Make whatever demands you want, James. That’s one of the fun parts of being a sub in my house. I couldn’t care less whether you make a demand from me, actually I’m inclined to laugh and do whatever you ask. Or, I’ll tease you about whatever you’ve asked for.”

James lets out a whine as he tries to curl up onto the couch. “Why aren’t you ever mad at me? I’ve done horrible things.”

“No, James, you haven’t,” Tony corrects. “You have had terrible things done to you, and those terrible things are still happening, which is something that I’m fighting to fix. Right now, I don’t have a list of what you like or don’t, so I’m not placing any rules on you. You are a submissive who can ask for anything from me, but until several things change, I am not a dominant who can ask anything from you.”

James peeks his head out of the little bracket that he’s made with his arms. “But that was still me, or at least a part of me. I should have just taken the pain until I died instead of allowing them to convert me into doing whatever they wanted by wiping my memories with the pain repeatedly.”

“We don’t blame soldiers for failing to contain information during torture. Especially if the torture lasted longer than a few months, they have decades with you, James.” Tony drills his fingers against the table. “But if you have a true issue with that, I can get Rhodey down here, and he’ll help with the guilt from a military perspective.”
James shakes his head immediately.

Tony doesn’t bother hiding the fact that he saw that coming. The only two dominants that he seems to trust in the slightest were himself and Pepper, and even Pepper wasn’t treated to the more guilt-stricken thoughts that sometimes plague him. He reaches out and places a hand in James’ hair and starts running his fingers through it. “Whatever you want. Do you want me to show you how to change a memory?”

“What memory were you thinking about using?”

Tony nods as he steps up closer to the couch where he can lean on it, as he keeps the touch at a gentle yet constant level for James. He has been debating that himself. “Haven’t really decided. We could do the one where I should have shut Captain America down when we first met, instead of trying to quip to be slightly better for him to be able to make a friend later. Or we could go further to the past and do the day that I should have taken control myself rather than allowing Stane to have power over not only me, but my company.”

James swallows. “The avengers one is more likely to help me, since I will at least understand some of the characters of the story.”

Tony runs his nails down James’ scalp just to watch as he shivers from his whole body from the touch. He really hopes that James reaches a point where he does want some sex or a scene or something where Tony can do a bit more than what he’s currently doing because this is fantastic. “Alright, that’s what we’ll use then.”

He doesn’t make the first move to leave though. That will be on James today, actually most days if he allows Tony to offer him comfort it will be his choice when they leave the simple comforts to deal with whatever issues are currently plaguing them.

James doesn’t move, he leans into the touch that Tony is offering him. One day, he’ll gather up his courage, and he’ll go to Natasha’s room and ask whether he can join her, and he’ll ask what being a submissive in this day and age looks like. He’ll be bold enough to try to see whether he’s still able to enjoy these things, but for now, allowing Tony to do whatever simple things, makes him slightly happier. “Did I ever explain the boards?”

Tony snorts. “James, yesterday, I think asking for explanations would have resulted in my head being bit off by someone who was having a bad day. Plus, if you want to work down here under supervision, you’re welcome to.”

James freezes. “I don’t know the first thing about what technology now adays entails.”

“Hence the supervision. Because I’d rather my lab with several key products of Stark Industries, don’t explode, but if you want to learn again, I will be the first one to help you.”

James’s smile covers his whole face as his eyes light up. “Alright, well if I’m going to do that, I should probably start by having you show me those memories, so I can start working on my own triggers until they can’t hurt me anymore.”

Tony offers his other hand to help James off the couch and doesn’t let him go. He leads him over to the correct corner. “Alright, now this isn’t going to be nearly as smooth as yours were, because we’re now twisting memories. For my instance, the original scene ended with all of us ready to fight because we were being attacked. In the memory that we are going to create, that fight still happens, but before we get distracted with it, we finish the conversation that needed to happen that day, that I let drop because we had an alien army coming and didn’t think that we needed to rehash that fight.”

James nods. “So, this will be more jagged because where you deem the problem to be, you’re making something new. So, for me, rather than the memories that they’ve forced in for each word that sends me spiraling, I should find real memories that have good associations.”

“Exactly. And for different people, different types of manipulation is needed, so this won’t be a perfect example, but nothing ever is. The goal is to get as close as possible to giving you a point of contact that will let you know what will happen.”

Tony lifts up the device and starts plugging it into him. He knows that if James has half the skills of Natasha, he will realize that this has become natural to him to the point that he doesn’t have to look to attach them correctly to his skin. He lifts the corner of his lips up.

The scene picks up right after they’re yelling at Fury about the weapons, because that doesn’t do a whole lot of good for his switching the memory, because just about everyone but Natasha was pissed off about the weapons. Granted for different reasons, Rogers because he decided that he no longer likes people who make weapons, just ignoring his friendship with Howard Stark the first person to make a million-dollar company with just weapons, and never mind the fact he went to war himself. And Tony, because he has no problem with the government making weapons, but he doesn’t like things that are below the table where the public doesn’t get a chance to say what they thought of it.

Steve steps forward as Fury finishes part of his rant. He stares at Tony with disdain. “I'm sure if he was still making weapons, Stark would be knee deep.”

Tony steps forward and holds out a hand towards Steve. There’s a certain confusion on his past face, because he doesn’t understand the differences from what he had done and what Steve had done, they were working together. Neither of them liked this, so why was he being targeted. “Hold on, how is this just now about me?”
The arguments between everyone become too loud to hear much about what’s happening to just the two of them. And when something that should be uniting comes out, Tony reaches out to place a hand on Steve’s shoulder, a gesture of friendship.

“Oh, back off.”

“I’m starting to want you to make me.” Tony doesn’t handle people rejecting his attempts to be nice, and he hates it even more when he’s confused as all hell on what the fuck was happening. Because he hadn’t done a damn thing to this man, hell he thought that if anything Steve would be upset that he tore down the weapon’s division that allowed for him to be created in the first place, but no apparently that was his sin. Doing the same thing as his father until realizing just how many evil people could use that to justify their evil actions.

“Big man in a suit of armor take that off, what are you?”

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”

“I know guys with none of that, worth then of you. I’ve seen the footage the only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on the wire or let the other guys crawl over you.”

Tony’s eyes narrow at Steve. Anger finally crossing the line from annoyance, because he wouldn’t make the sacrifice play. That’s literally what he’s done on many occasions. That’s why he took the blame for cutting the weapons division, that’s why he was standing here instead of just sitting in his house being comfy away from SHEILD’s bullshit and lies and whatever the hell else they’re going to deal with later. “I think I would just cut the wire.”

“Always a way out, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.”

Tony, the older, wiser version walks into the screen now, and kind of stands behind the younger him to coach him to change the memory. “Actually, Steve let’s talk about heroics. You’re a fucking brat who didn’t like being told that he couldn’t be a soldier, so you ignored every reason that was a terrible plan for someone of your health to join the army. And then, when you didn’t agree with the commanding officers orders, you disobeyed and could have cost us the war. For good measure, the only thing you did for the good of the world was crash that plane in a sacrifice play, only it didn’t actually save anyone, since they were able to find the tesseract almost as soon as you landed because of my father. None of that screams hero to me.”

His face lights up both younger and older at the same time. “But do you know what does? Finding out that your weapons are actually the cause of several of the issues alive in this world and tearing down that entire branch of your company even when it almost bankrupts you. Or, when the terrorist organization comes, making sure that they can’t sprout up again. And my favorite, showing up here when I didn’t have to. You had to, they own you, they control you. They don’t have that over me, and yet here I am trying to help. That’s what makes me a hero, not some self-righteous load of crap that you think makes you a great man.”

He swallows and recalls Natasha’s words. Or maybe they were James’. It doesn’t really matter now. “At the end of the day, take away the suit of armor, and I’m the guy who built it in a desert while being tortured. Take away the serum, and you’re nothing more than a sad, sick man without an inch of hope to lift that shield.”

Tony snaps himself out of the memory as he finished speaking that last part. He stares at James. “Do you understand how I did that?”

“You walked into your memory and said this is what it was, but what happened then was shitty, so I’ve decided to change it myself.” James reaches out and takes hold of Tony’s arm. “I didn’t know that he was giving you shit the whole time, like that since the day he met you. The Steve I knew, knew better than to make assumptions about people without hearing their side of the story.”

Tony inclines his head towards James. “I think that the Steve you knew died with the serum.”

“Good becomes great; bad becomes worse.” James runs his hands over the helmet sitting upon Tony’s head. “I have three memories that I could try to overwrite today. I could take that step right now, at least I think I could.”

Tony sneaks a glance into James’ eyes, and nothing seems to suggest that there’s something wrong in his head that he thinks that he has to do this. The compulsion to do it is his own, not driven by a different emotional scar. “Why don’t you try?”

“I don’t want to have to be restrained today.”

Tony shrugs. “First, I doubt that a single word is going to take you far enough into the headspace they created that you’ll become a mindless soldier again. Second, Friday, lock down the lab and have my suit on standby.”

“Armed and ready, boss.”

Tony spreads his hands out towards James as he plucks the wires off of himself. “The floor is yours.”

James stares at him for a long moment. Then, he lifts the helmet off of Tony and places it on his own head. He squeezes his eyes shut and he pauses again. “May I ask for a favor?”

“Depends on what the favor you need is, but yes.”

“Will you attach it for me this time?”

Tony reaches forward and starts connecting the wires to his skin almost immediately. He amplifies the gentle touches to his neck and chest in between wires as he had been allowed to take such calming measures earlier, and he hopes that this will be okay too.

James twitches his one hand in response. He wants to hide away from being seen while he’s about to go into this memory, and he wants to reach out and grab hold of Tony’s hand and beg until he has no breath left for Tony to never leave him alone with these memories, and these thoughts.

Tony finishes the last wire, brushes some hair from James’ face and takes a slow step back. “You can do this, James. I will be right here if something goes wrong, but I can turn away and not look at the memory if you ask me to.”

James shakes his head. “I’m scared and having you watching might boost my confidence.”

Tony nods. Then, he sits down on one of his wheeled-out chairs. He can wait for as long as James needs. For this moment he will always place to the side anything else that he needs to do. Color slowly spreads across the backdrop, and he gets ready to watch a scene unfold.

“Рассвет”

The winter soldier faces forward as scenes play out in his mind. The sun setting as he lays on the ground as the ice mountains surround him. There is no one coming for him, there is no one who knows that he’s alive, and there’s nothing left for him to do. He’s not dead, and the Hydra agents will find him, and there is nothing he can do.
Hope has left him. There’s only desperation and despair.

James steps forward over the body of the man that he was at the time. The poor little fool of a man that had gotten the draft letter and picked himself up with a gun. He had thought that if he had been good enough at killing the supposed bad guys that he’d get to go home faster. Fucking fool, what happened was that he caught the attention of the others guys.

He extends a hand down. “Hope is not gone. They are not the only ones coming for you. You just have to survive long enough that the people can get to you.”
He pulls the other him up into the space, and he waves his hand. The scene changes, no longer is there snow everywhere as the sun rose over the mountains. Instead, there are green-filled trees and flowers with a gentle sun on the horizon.

James smiles as he stares at the new sun. “This is the sun where you are living. Because the son of one of the people who you were made to kill, chose to be the better person than everyone we’ve ever met before. And this sun is ours to look at whenever we need. I can go to look at this sun, when the nightmares take too much of my sanity, and I forget that I’m not still in the snow. But, we’re not in the snow. We made it out of that white winter. We made it home.”

James steps back out of the white room, and he takes in a shaky breath. “Sir, please, please.” He’s not completely in the subspace that he remembers or the drops that he dreads, but his brain is a bit scrambled after that. Because the idea that he made it out of the snow is insane. That had been one of the lines that they knew better than to ever look for.

Tony reaches out the second the man starts speaking. He’s not even going to say anything against the title. He’ll convince James not to do that once he makes a checklist, for now, they’ll just toe whatever lines they have to tie into. His hands are in James’ hair, and he leads James to his knees. “Everything’s alright.”

“I’m not supposed to have hope,” he spits out.

“You don’t need it,” Tony replies immediately. “The person who you were needed hope. The person who is kneeling in front of me, that person needs to know that he could have held onto that hope, that when that despair dares to creep up again, that this time you can hold onto hope because someone is coming. But, right now, in my lab surrounded by my tech, there is nothing that can reach you, so you don’t need hope, you have safety instead.”

James twists his head to take in the lab. He reaches out to the ground and presses his palm flat against it. “I don’t know what safety is.”

Tony sucks in his breath. He has no clue what safety is. He has a terrible track record with keeping himself safe, but at the same time, he’s the one who gets hurt. None of the people he cares about are ever in danger for long because he will burn the world down for them. He leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to the top of James’ head. “Safety is the knowledge that you are one of my people, a part of my family until the day you choose to ask to be more separated. And the people I care about, the people I call family, aren’t allowed to be hurt. Because anyone who dares to try to hurt you, will suffer, and then they will die.”

James lets out a small whimpering cry. He wants that so badly. He wants to know that Tony will be there for him, even if the pain comes back. But the trust is only mostly there. He’s able to say that as if it is a complete statement of fact, but he’s not actually confident in that.

Tony notices the tension there. He wonders whether he could prove it somehow. “Friday, could you put in a call to President Ellis and ask whether we could get Zemo on death row?”

James’ head snaps up to stare at Tony’s eyes. He can barely believe what he’s hearing.

Tony places a finger over his lip. “That’s going to put me on a direct line, so you’ll need to be quiet.”

“Mr. Stark, I am surprised to hear from you while you’ve been so diligently working on so many things. My secretary tells me that you have a question regarding the trial of Zemo.”

“Indeed. I know that Wakanda wishes for the death penalty. I was wondering how much effort it would take to get him placed on death row either here or there?”

“Not that difficult, especially not for someone of my caliber and status. But, pray tell, Mr. Stark, why do you want Zemo dead? You seem to partially agree with his motives.”

“Well, you know that old glorious statement, sir. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Unfortunately for Zemo, he just managed to hurt a second member of my family to the point that they’re still having lasting trauma, and I've never been a forgiving sort to those people.”

There’s silence on the other end of the phone. “One condition.”

“There always is,” Tony drawls.

“I won’t push the pardon right now, nor in any times of peace, but the second that there’s a war coming, you help me get him home.”

“Done, President Ellis. Thank you for your help.” Tony hangs up the phone. “Friday, send it to Pepper that they will be bringing Steve back for the final battle, nothing that legal has to deal with anymore.”

James stares up at him, still on his knees. “He’s dead?”

“Not like at this exact minute. But, yes, that phone call means he will be dead within a week, maybe two if he manages to work himself into a second trial in whatever place is willing to execute him.”

James stands on wobbly legs, and he walks over to his boards. He stares at one of the words on his Russian list, before turning back to Tony. “Will you say the word, just the one?”

“Рассвет.” Tony watches as. a shiver runs down James’ back, before he grins.

“No snow,” he whispers. He swipes his finger through that Russian word. “Thank you, Dr. Stark.”

Tony lets James walk out of the lab and hopes for the best that this won’t be the last time that he gets to have James on his knees. All of this has proved Rhodey completely right, he is falling in love with James.

Chapter Text

James comes down twice in the next week to knock off several other words on the English list before heading back out. He doesn’t ask to use the equipment again, and he seems to be hanging out with Natasha more and more frequently. He’s typically just content to wait until the next time that he’s needed.

Natasha stops by his lab one day, when there’s only a single word left on the English list that James hasn’t managed to cross off. “I either need your credit card to buy some hefty plane tickets to make sure that James isn’t seen, or permission to fly the quintjet to Japan?”

“Why the ever living hell would you need to go to Japan?”

Natasha glances over to James’ boards. “I am being as helpful as I can in James’ efforts to get these words out of his head. And he’s asked me not to tell you a thing about them until he’s ready to go back in to the memories, because he needs you to be a neutral comforting force, which means you can’t know how he’s going to change the past in his mind if not in reality.”

Tony pulls out a set of keys. “This is the one with the cloak. Don’t get caught, because I have no clue how I’d get you out of it. But Japan won’t give me permission to land James in Japan, and I trust you hiding a jet more than I trust that putting him on a public plane won’t eventually lead to someone knowing things that they shouldn’t.”

Natasha plucks the keys from his hand and presses her lips to his cheek. “Thank you.”

Tony waves her off. “You’re welcome, tell James he’s welcome. Literally everyone is welcome, because I have no qualms doing things to help, and this will hopefully make Pepper super happy, because the phone edition is coming together nicely, and we can release the marketing scheme by Friday, and at the launch gala in about three months, we will have good enough blue prints for the damn flying cars.”

Natasha’s eyes blow wide open. “He wasn’t kidding when he said that you were making flying cars.”

“Dad promised him one.”

She falls over with a laugh and rests her hand on his shoulder. “Oh, only you would honor that promise of your father after all of the things that you know about the man.”

Tony waves her off as she heads out of the lab and buries his head back in work. Until James needs him, or someone else has a crisis. He’s going into the research guru that gave him most of his money and his fame in the first place. Like he said, by the end of the week, they had the phones being on the building press for delivery to the stores at the right day, and his car team now has blue-prints for every car, which Tony is going to hand build the first models of each one before they send it to manufacturers to start the mass production of cars for the new branch.

James knocks on the door to the lab a couple days after that. “Is Pepper going to kill you, if I ask you to take off nine days?”

“For you, she’ll make the days off herself to make sure that you’re safe and happy. What do you need from me in the next nine days?”

“I need to get through a word a day, so that I can be free. And, I would very much appreciate if you would hold me through whatever after effects come over me afterwards on each word because they worked because Hydra convinced me that each of these words would never be anything but what they made them.”

Tony raises his eyebrows. “Of course. I will do both of those things; is there a reason we’re now going to speed run the words instead of taking this at a slower pace to be healthier?

“Apparently, that ex best friend asshole that I had brought a Hydra mind controlling bitch onto the team, and she’s still hurting people, and I need to be myself, so she can’t reach inside my head and pluck the words out when I blow her brains out.”

Tony’s eyes narrow. “Natasha, I swear to god, if you told him that, I will hurt you.”

“I did not. T’Challa called while I was with James trying to help him with the new associations of words, and he was pissed off enough that he ddin’t give me long enough to tell him that I wasn’t alone before he was spitting out the latest Wanda has pissed off everyone in a ten-mile radius that’s not under her control.”

James bites down on his teeth to bare them in a growl. “She had the never to demand that the king give her new toys since the ones you got her no longer work since she chose to fight you.”

“Bitch,” Tony agrees. He shrugs. “Well, I’m not going to stop you from sharp-shooting her, and you won't even have to hide since T’Challa will let you land for literally any reason especially that one.”

James stares at him. “And speed-running the words?”

“Your choice. If you drop, and I haven’t been able to get you up for more than two hours, we skip the next day because I will not allow you to break yourself for this purpose.”

James nods. “That’s fair. I shouldn’t push myself so far that we can’t put me back together again. That wouldn’t serve the purpose that I want anyway.”

Tony pushes up from his desk. “Well, if I’m going to be working on this with you for several days, I need some beauty sleep. Anyone want a cuddle pile sleep?”

Natasha wraps herself around his arm. “I would adore one, and I believe that I could run and convince Rhodey to join in.”

Tony huffs out a laugh. He jerks his head to give her permission to run off, before turning to James. “You’ve never seen this before, but we go up to the giant bedroom with the largest bed that has ever been created, where literally close to 20 people could sleep on it without needing to crowd one another, so that we can have nice cuddles whenever we want them in the night. You are welcome to join us.”

James furrows his brow. “Will Rhodey not need to punish me for my failure to comply to military regulations if he has to spend that much time with me?”

“No longer something that’s done, soldier from the past. We don’t believe that submissives should be treated that differently from their dominant counterparts. The only exception is if the submissive is having issues with guilt because of something that happened, in which case they request a scene with a higher-ranking official to determine what would be the best solution.”

James reels for a second. “Wait, I could have had conversations with him this whole time.”

Tony groans. “Come on, you’re coming with us to the cuddle pile. You’ve got to meet Rhodey.” When they arrive, Natasha is naked and curled up in a sheet in the middle of the bed, while Rhodey is leaning against the wall near it.

“She thinks that I’d be more than welcome to join, and while I have no doubt that I’m always welcome in your bed, Tony. I am not so sure whether I’m welcome in yours, Barnes.”

James sticks out his hand. “I got no problems with you. Tony just explained to me down in the lab that punishments by commanding officers no longer has a place in the military. I am apologetic for causing you to believe I had discomfort with you as a person instead of as an authority that I wasn’t sure I was ready to deal with yet."

Rhodey shakes his hand nice and firm. He pauses to glance at the way that Tony’s hand still rests on him, so he tugs forward until James is in Rhodey’s arms in a deep hug. “The apology is mine to make, I should have sent you an updated brief on what is expected for the military now a days compared to when you were drafted.”

James leans into the embrace. He can’t quite stop the way that his body slumps down into the embrace.

Rhodey pushes himself back to press up against the wall, so they don’t topple. His braces would eventually be good enough to hold both of them, but not when he’s still re-learning how to pick himself up. “Tony?”

Tony grabs hold of James and starts plucking at fabric. “What do you sleep in, James? And do I need to start throwing clothes at Natasha since she’s completely nude?”

“Why would you throw clothes at her? She’s slept naked next to me like seven times now, that’s her preferred state of undress.” James pulls off his own tight t-shirt and tosses it to the ground. He also kicks off his pants. He crawls into the bed, and he allows her to pull him closer to her.

Natasha pouts up at Tony. “I would not strip down without knowing that everyone who might come to the night would be comfortable with it.”

“Unless it was Rogers,” Rhodey teases.

“Psh, he wanted an execuse to run away. I gave him a reason.”

Tony laughs as he convinces Rhodey to lean on him while he helps the man out of his crutches slowly.

James sees the injury and just stares.

Rhodey meets the stare. “Never seen another soldier with an injury or something.”

“I didn’t realize that you had lasting injuries from what the rest of us did in that fight.”

Rhodey allows Tony to guide him to the bed, then he tugs James into his arms. “Don’t you dare start trying to blame yourself for that fight. Everyone was a little bit wrong right then, and the only person that any of us are ever going to blame is Rogers. Everyone else tried to talk at some point or another, and Steve decided to come in swinging.”

“That’s all he knows. He thinks that people are wrong, he thinks that the world needs to change, and he’ll fight every single person in between himself and whatever the issue is, and he’ll never hesitate with that viewpoint.”

Tony flops into the middle of the bed, one arm slipping under James and one slipping under Natasha. “Ah, yes, but if Steve Rogers gets to ruin another night like this, I will actually come and shoot the bastard with a laser beam before the battle we’re planning on leaving him for dead in.”

Vision floats into the room, and he stares at all the people on the bed. He takes in each of them. “I know that I am not a traditional human, and that I do not have a sexual initiation for dominance or submission. However, I was wondering whether I would be welcome to lie with you this night.”

James is the one who twists to get a single arm free to slap the bed on a free space. “The more the merrier, as long as they’re family, right Tony?”

“There you go.”

And so, Vision curls up onto the bed, not reaching out to cuddle with anyone, but taking comfort in their presence until they all fell asleep. The rustling of Pepper getting into the bed several hours later, causes Tony to look up, but Pepper shakes her head. She looks exhausted and ready for sleeping like 12 hours straight.

Tony wakes to low moans being pressed into his spine. He turns expecting to see Natasha and Rhodey getting up to something, and he’s ready to smack them for not remembering to check with James, but what’s he gets is Pepper groaning into the bed, as James is straddling her back and rubbing out all of the sores in her back.

Natasha has a deep blush spread across her face, and Rhodey has his hand hidden under the sheet that she’s barely covered with.

Tony blinks in surprise.

“He initiated that much, and the rest of us have just kind of been going along with it, and we’ll stop if anyone gets uncomfortable,” Natasha explains in between some sharp breathes.

Tony leans back and drops his head into the pillow. “Then, I’m just going to watch, today.”

James presses deeply on the center of Pepper’s back and she grinds her hips into the bed as he goes, and while he’s not giving her any real friction against her sex, he seems to be enjoying the fact that the domme below him is chasing pleasure because of his actions.

Rhodey randomly picks up his pace and backs off as Natasha gets closer and closer to release.

Tony’s eyes tend to follow Natasha more, just because she seems to be waiting for something. Having to ask permission to come is on her limit list, but being told to wait until a certain time, is a huge green yes for her. Which is an interesting line that she needs to draw for her sanity, not that he would ever be willing to say that any limits are wrong, just that some of them cause him to think a bit about how certain scenes would work.

James glances over at Rhodey. “What’s she supposed to be waiting for?” He asks this over Pepper’s moan as she comes as he digs into the last tension point in her neck as her entire body slumps into the bed.

“That,” Rhodey answers before pressing up hard.

Natasha jumps as she comes, and she releases most of her tension.

James can’t quite stop his eyes from falling on Rhodey’s hard member. He averts his eyes once he realizes that he’s staring.

Rhodey reaches over to grip his hand with the one that hadn’t been used to mess with Natasha just moments earlier. “None of this has to be a scene for you. If you want to do something, none of us are going to do a single thing.”

“If I need to say not today?”

“Then, we say raincheck, and you tell us when you want to do this again, and we all leap for the chance, because holy hell your hands need to be used,” Pepper mumbles into the bed. “Tony, I’m taking the day.”

“Same.”

Pepper groans. “Friday, is there anything that absolutely has to happen today for anyone in the company?”

“No, Ma’am although several projects are ongoing.”

“Good, tell every employee that they’re welcome to take today off, paid without being one of their days that the company typically allows, because both heads of the company have chosen this day as a holiday.”

“Done, boss lady.”

James rolls over to face her on the bed, with his head tilted to the side. “You can do that now.”

“You can when you’re super fucking rich, and the government has no real say in the company, and I refuse to allow them to do anything that I don’t like. Plus, if I can’t help my employees when they need it.”

“Boss lady, boss, you just got a semi-urgent email. Or at least something that flags my system.”

Pepper groans.

Tony smiles at her. “Read it off, and I’ll take care of it at some point today, and don’t say names.”

“Right, so it’s a threat delivered to everyone in your research department, saying that if they go back to weaponry under your leadership, they shouldn’t be surprised if they blow up in their beds one night.”

Tony closes his eyes. There are many people who were disgruntled and plain out pissed when he undercut his weapon’s division, but most of those people would be delighted to hear of its return. Normally, he’d try to handle these situations himself, but honestly, this is probably a bit more than he could handle without needing to go into the office, and James is staring at him like he’s terrified that he’s going to have to wait even longer on his mission to get the words out of his head. And this is the opposite of what he needs. Like the peak opposite.

James finally shakes his head. “Lives are more important than me,” he whispers.

Natasha grips his hand as hard as she can “Yes and no. Those lives need to be protected, but this isn’t urgent, urgent, since the weapon’s division is still a hypothetical.”

“Friday, contact the FBI, tell them to find who did it, in the next month before I announce shit, or I will handle it my way at the end of the month. That means, you’re on duty for trying to track whoever the hell this was down and making sure I know everything about them. No limits on what you need to do to track them down.”

“Boss, I am not allowed to do that. Rogers demanded that you ensure there were codes to stop me.”

Tony raises his eyebrow. “I lied; those codes were never in your brain. I refuse to limit a living creature on the word of someone who knows literally nothing about the technology of this age. Also, when the government and several fucking councils who had you testify for many, many days clears you, you don’t get to just claim that they lied.”

Natasha snorts. “But that would mean that he didn’t have a reason to push you from the team where he could go chasing after James without anyone asking those questions.”

“Thank you, boss. I have taken care of it.”

Pepper rolls over on the bed. “I’ll hold a meeting tomorrow, virtual for every employee to join in on the call to speak over the issue. I suppose that since all employees are under NDAs, I should go ahead and tell them that there is a good chance that we will be re-opening the weapon’s division, only not for mass market use, rather for the eventual arrival of enemies that aren’t human that we need stronger weapons to deal with.”

Tony nods. “Do that, it will also make them understand better what the hell is going on in the first place.”

Rhodey turns towards Tony with his head. “You’ll need to buy up some warehouses that you can get enough protections that the government can’t call you out for the improper storage of massive quantities of weapons capable of blowing up countries.”

Pepper fumbles around to be able to slap Rhodey in the arm. “I have been dealing with this shit for several years. I know how to handle this.”

Tony claps his hands and raises himself from the bed, willing away his erection the same way that Rhodey had done. “Alright, I’m feeling pancakes and eggs with helpings of meat for breakfast.”

“That’ll take a while to make,” James points out.

“Hence why we’re going to order it. What does everyone want?”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “Friday, order our usual, doubled so James can try everything that all of us like, and some other time, we can start going through the menu with anything that he hasn’t tried yet and might want to know whether he will and can love them.”

“Done, boss lady.”

Natasha slips from the sheet to find some clothes up in this room. “Where’s the tiny child?”

“Grounded by his aunt for his latest stunt that could have gotten him killed.”

“After breakfast, I’m going to go over and see whether both of them will come over here, so I can see how the kid fights in a training simulation. You’re great at helping him train in the suit, but if he has the strength that he showed when his suit was on such low power, then he needs to get trained in the other ways too.”

James snaps his head around to stare at her. Russian falls from his lips, and for the first time he knows that while the girl from his memories is from far too long to be Natasha, it is still Natasha. They did something to her, and he’s not sure what they did. “You will not train him in the way that the widows were trained. If you even try, your dead body would be his first lesson on how to dig a grave. No more pain for children.”

Natasha’s spine stiffens at the acknowledgement before she inclines her head. She chooses to respond in Russian as well given the importance of what is currently being said for both of their past. “Stand down, soldier. I might still be the widow, but I changed sides a long time ago, I’ll train him the way that soldiers should be trained with simulations and sparring without lethal moves or punishment for failure. The red room burns because I needed it to burn after what happened. No widow still lives other than me.”

James blinks and the gentler side of him comes back out. He closes his eyes. “That’s good, Natasha. One day you’re going to have to explain to me, how the first mission I had as the winter soldier for hydra was to train you as little girls, but you don’t look close to 100 like I don’t look close to 100.”

Natasha clenches her fists, and she carries her body close enough to the bed that she can fall where she’s practically on top of Rhodey where his arms can hold onto her. “It’s the same reason, James.”

“Another knock off serum.?”

“They wanted to get it right, and I’m one of the three of the fifteen girls that you trained that survived the injection of the serum.”

“They would not have graves.” Tears pool in James eyes. “We should give them that much.”

Natasha glances down. “They might not deserve it. They were terrible people; I was a terrible person for such a long time. They had us fighting for all the wrong reasons, and we hurt so many people with our actions.”

“You were less than a year old when they grabbed you. You were barely three when they started your training. You were five when I was brought in, and you were injected likely before your thirteenth birthday. What was done to you is beyond the pale of acceptable, and the children deserve to be mourned, even if the adults they became were nothing more than what they were made to be. Some people deserve redemption, and they are the ones that either die without knowing they were manipulated or those who found their manipulators and broke free.”

Tony jerks his head towards James. “That’s the dude to listen to.”

Natasha smiles at them both as she lifts her head. “Good, now everyone else get dressed, so when breakfast arrives, I’m not the only person trying to drag everything inside because I’m the only one who has clothes on not to scar whoever the poor fool, they send to deliver the food is.”

Tony sits up and walks over to one of the dressers. He grabs some pants and pulls them on over his underwear. “I don’t have to do any lab work today, which makes this the perfect day to not wear a shirt.”

James starts laughing. “So, my memories don’t count as lab work?”

“Not even close, there’s nothing even close to acid, metals, or fire that are involved. No real science, more therapy with a computer, truly.”

“But if it makes you uncomfortable, I will force a shirt over his head,” Pepper finishes with a glare as she picks herself off from the bed. She reaches over and grabs some of her lazier clothes in, which still cost more than most people would ever spend on outfits, but Tony likes nothing but the best.

James remains laying on the bed. “I’ve only got the three outfits down in my room,” he explains.

Rhodey rolls his eyes, and he reaches over to start putting on his braces. “Friday, order the man some new clothes. All of the normal ones that Tony buys for the family, and then anything that you think he’d like based on what style he has, and if he ever asks about a certain item of clothes, buy it.”

James drops his jaw. “You’ll bankrupt somebody like that.”

“No, I won’t. Not when the person in question has an actual billion dollars in the bank. That’s not to mention the company that he has assets in, plus all of the investments and charity that he randomly does.”

Tony shrugs. “Plus, we’re about to be able to give all our employees plus ourselves a huge bonus after the insane numbers that we’re going to drag in with the next to huge releases.”

“The phones aren’t going to be that big of a hit. Most of the profits are going right back into the research fund, since you are doing far more research than normal.”

“The phones themselves, yes. The new flexible glass that doesn't break when you bend it in half that will become a compound created by the company and a patent on, gets to bring in a shit ton of money.”

“And the flying cars will bring in all the money,” James cheers.

Tony waves his hand towards James. “As he said.”

Pepper closes her eyes and counts up to 20. “So, when you said that the marketing department would be going straight into a new project and that legal was likely to have to deal with the backlash of said marketing, what you meant was I’ve decided to start car manufacturing with our company for cars that can fly in the air.”

Tony grins at her. “We needed to remind people that we are the face of the future, what with everyone believing that somehow we are just holding the place for the heroes. And James reminded me that technically this was a promise made by Stark Industries to the public a long time ago. It’s about time that we fulfilled that promise.”

Natasha tosses some clothes over to James. “You’re built around the same as Clint, only taller. So, his clothes should fit you since he prefers clothes that are super baggy when he’s comfortable at home and not on the job.”

Pepper and Rhodey both turn to Tony with raised eyebrows. They’ve clearly got many questions.

“The only two people whose stuff got thrown out, donated, or destroyed were the witch and Rogers. Everyone else still has the fragment of a chance of being able to convince me that they were trying to do the best thing possible for the situation presented to them.”

Natasha leans her head on Pepper’s shoulder. “You forgave me,” she wheedles.

“You at least weren’t being completely stupid, and I suppose there’s a chance the others weren’t either.”

“The delivery is here.”

The entire group crowds into the elevator as they make their way down to get the food. Before the end of the hour, they were able to be sitting around a table eating food, with James getting a sampling of everything. The meats are definitely one of his favorites again, but the fruit salad that Pepper orders every time is also on his list of things that he wants. He also loves the way that both Tony and Natasha will slip him extras of anything that they notice he loves from their own plate as if they don’t also like these things.

By the end of the meal, Pepper leans over to Tony. “I’m going to go to movie theaters and be seen by the public having a true day off and when they ask, I’m going to say that this is now a personal day for all employees as a mental health break as we’ve been debating adding one once a month now.”

“So once a month, there will be a single day where no one can access anything from Stark Industries. Good maybe that will finally get it through to some people that we aren’t actually a government facility.”

Pepper winks at him. “Precisely. James, dear, I know that you plan on working on one of your trigger words today, if you need me home, just have Friday buzz me, and I’ll head back.” She walks towards the elevator to leave and then turns at the last moment. “Love all of you.”

Choruses of I love you s come right back towards her, and when James feels the words leave his mouth, realizes that he feels the same now. He’s a part of this family, and he’s allowed to make that however he wants to make that.

Tony catches his hand before he pulls all the way away as his brain picks up on exactly what he just said and admitted to. He tugs the man towards the elevator.
James turns to Tony. “No one is going to object to me being a member of your family, are they?”

“No one that matters. I’m sure that if Rogers ever finds out, he’s going to raise all kinds of hell trying to say that this is one of the worst things that could have happened. And, on the rare occasion that someone brings up my polygamous ways at a job interview, conservative views are probably going to say that this isn’t right.”

“But no one who matters,” he whispers, repeating the words to himself.

“Mmmhmm.” Tony leads them over the correct section of the lab and hands over the helmet. “You decide which one of our words we’re working on today.”

“Freight car,” James says as he stares at his board. “That’s the one that has the harshest effect on me just hearing it in passing, and honestly, the way that Natasha got me to find a new memory to replace with it, is the best thing that I think I’ve ever heard of.”

That would be a bold choice, but it also makes perfect sense that now that he knows that he can rewrite them, he wants to go after the one that holds the most effect on him. If Tony had found himself in this position, he probably wouldn’t have even gotten the confirmation from the easier one first, so he has no room to judge. “Alright, and if this one happens to send you into a worse headspace, what would you want from me?”

A blush travels across all of James face and starts creeping down his neck.

Tony has to bite his own tongue to stop from laughing. Like he gets that some of this has got to be new to James, and that some of these things weren’t openly talked about, but unless the man is about to ask him to fuck him while he’s panicking about his past, he’s not going to hit anything that Tony hasn’t done before, or at least read about before.

James swallows. “I was wondering whether you’d do what you do when Natasha has a drop.”

Tony blinks in surprise. He hadn’t expected Natasha to tell anyone about what happens when she drops because he wasn’t aware that she trusted anyone with that knowledge. He nods. “Just to check, I’m going to ask you which things you are definitely okay with, alright?”

James nods. He knows that Tony needs to be sure that he’s not crossing any lines, because he’s better than almost every other dominant that he has recollection of.

“Kissing?” A nod. “Gentle caressing?” Another nod. “Restrictive hugging?” That one hadn’t happened the last time she dropped but only because she was freaking out about other dominants, and he needed Pepper to be able to save her from that, but normally that was one of the easiest ways to remind her that she doesn't have to be in charge. This time he shakes his head. Tony smiles over to him to let him know that not only is that completely alright, but also to say that he’s super happy that James is trusting him with this much power over him. “Clothes on or off? Or only parts of the clothes.”

James turns to stare at him. “Why would that help?”

“Skin to skin contact often helps bring people back. For instance, Natasha hates feeling clothes against her skin when she drops. On contrast, Clint usually prefers the clothes so he can remember that there is distance between us for a second if he needs it.”

“You still love him,” James mumbles with a smile on his face.

“What?”

“Clint, he’s done horrible things to you, but you still love him. You’re still going to go save him, because that’s what you’ve decided is important to do.”

“Ah, yeah, there shouldn’t have ever been any doubt about that. Mistakes are human, and sometimes we hurt even those we love when we hit rock bottoms, and the ones that will forgive even those worst moments are the ones that we should call love instead of that fake pretend love that so many people try to manage with each other.”

James stares at him for a long moment, then he dares to bend in and press a gentle kiss to Tony’s cheek. “That’s why you’re the best.” He jumps back and starts fiddling with the helmet as he gets it on his head. “Also, if you could get both of our shirts off, that would be nice.”

“Done,” Tony swears. Then, he takes a step forward keeping his eyes on James to see if he leans away from him, but James remains completely at ease as he gets closer. So, Tony reaches forward to cup each of James’ cheeks and presses the same soft pressure kiss on his lips.

James connects the wires once that’s done, and he leans into the touch on his face for a moment trying to get his breath under order, before stepping back and allowing his memory to shape the room.

Steve and James are both standing on the top of the train in the middle of a fight. And while James knows that from Steve’s view it looks like he’s thrown off the edge of the train, that’s not what happened. Instead, a single word is uttered, the first word that would become a huge line of triggers to force him not only into compliance but to everything else is said by the Hydra agent as James kills him.

“Товарный вагон”

James no longer has all of his attention on anything. His first order given after the torture, the electricity being thrown at his brain until he’s willing to do everything, and he rolls to let himself fall from the train.”

The real James steps forward to stare at the way that he’s falling from the train. “This was the only train that you ever knew. Hydra was careful to never put you on another one, because this was the first word they gave you. The first time they gave you an order that you couldn’t force your brain to ignore.”

He smiles then because while this memory haunts him, this is not the only thing that this world has to offer. “But, this isn’t the only train in the world. This isn’t how the world works.”

The room fades and bright neon lights from a Japanese city comes into view. Natasha has her arm tucked into James’ as they weave in and out of crowds, down towards the train section. And the huge bullet trains speeds to a stop in front of them, and they both enter the train car. They laugh as they ride through the city this fast, with other people turning to stare at them, as they make jokes and tease each other in a country that James had never been sent to as the winter soldier.

“You’re alright, James,” he whispers. “It took a damn long time, but they weren’t able to throw you off every train you’ve been on, and the world has so many more wonders than it once did.”

The memory fades from around them and tears are streaming down James’ face. “Please, test the word before helping me. Don’t make me have to deal with it afterwards.”

Tony wants nothing more than to hold him closer, and he decides that he doesn’t even care about the possibility of James going winter soldier, he’ll be listening to Tony then anyway. So, he steps closer and wraps his arms around James before bringing himself to say those evil words. “Товарный вагон”.

A giant shiver runs through James, and his mouth drops open to say the correct words afterwards, but with great effort, he’s able to stop himself. He still wants to say the correct words, that he’s ready to comply, but he doesn’t have to. And there shouldn’t be any pain that follows.

Tony proves him right when he pushes himself up on his tip toes to press a kiss to James’ forehead. “Good boy, you did it. That word alone won’t send you into the winter soldier, anymore.”

James leans back into Tony with a gentle smile. He presses into Tony and tilts his head back into the man’s chest. The tears are still pouring from his eyes but hearing that he’s good and that he’s done it.

Tony leads them both back to the raggedy couch in his lab and curls up next to James. He starts gently removing the shirt from James as he maneuvers the arm around to get it off. Then, he leans back to pull his own shirt off.

He guides James back into his arms and tucks James head into the cruck of his neck, and he starts running his hands up and down the sides of his torso in gentle motions.

James comes back to himself slowly, and he has tears pouring down his cheeks. “Why did they do this to me?”

Tony wishes that he had a good answer for this question. He wishes he could tell Barnes that only the forces of true evil do this, but he’s known far too many people who fell for the illusion that sometimes doing what is right is not worth giving up the best future. But he does have an answer for James. “Because they wanted a human to be nothing more than a solider, and humans are never going to be weapons, not without erasing every trace of humanity.”

“They won,” James whimpers.

“No, they did not win. You were never just a weapon. You had just enough to wake yourself up when you saw a relic of your past, and you had enough that you avoided hurting the children to the extent that you could. That’s humanity, James. Something that not even their best efforts could take from you.”

James falls silent. “Would everyone stay in the main bedroom until I can make it through all the words? Having that much support was helpful?”

This is the first time that James has a true request of Tony, and Tony knows that at the very least, several of the people would be happy to do just that. “Friday, send that request to everyone else.”

Then, Tony wraps an arm around James’ waist. He’s never tried to pick up a super solider the same way he would pick up Natasha after a heavy scene, but he’s going to find out whether he can or not right now. This wasn’t a scene, but it was probably the closest thing that James was going to allow for quite some time yet. He struggles for a second, and then he summons the arms of his suit to allow him to be able to pick up James. He makes their way to the elevator.

The most he’ll do for the rest of the day is stay close to James in case of a drop and do some minor tweaks on the current shared blueprints for the cars. Only because the sooner, he can announce those new cars, the sooner the news is going to switch from James’ return in the news to the arrival of a brand-new technology.

At some point through the day, Rhodey gets back upstairs and wraps his arms around James too. He allows the man to curl up even further into the two men’s body heats as he glances towards Tony. “How many words are left on his list?”

“Too damn many,” Tony answers honestly.

“8, Colonel.” Friday’s voice fills the room.

James whimpers where he lays. “I can’t do this for 8 more days.”

Rhodey runs his hands up and down James’ arm. He meets Tony’s eyes. “Is there a reason that he has to do them one a day?”

“The fact that he drops like this after each one, and I’d rather not have him more broken than he is now to fix the current problem.”

James moans as he hears this. He knows that Tony’s right, but God he won’t survive another eight days, more than a full week of this torture.

Rhodey throws an arm over his face and groans. Because this is a right mess they’ve got themselves in. “I could take off a few days, come down with you, there’s a good chance that doing multiple memories a day will make him feel better about his progression and stave this off, and if it does get worse, I’ll be there to help.”

James flips himself over to make his best puppy dog eyes at Tony.

Tony rolls his eyes. “If we’re going to be irresponsible adults, we should be really irresponsible adults and start right now while the rest of the merry family is still out.”

Rhodey forces himself to roll out of the bed to offer a hand to James. “What do you say Sergeant? Want to encourage his bad behavior?”

James nods and accepts the hand to get himself out of the bed.

Tony hops up after them, and they head down to the lab. He stares at the list of half-way crossed out Russian words on. a list, and he drops down on his lab chair that has become his post when James is trying to go through a memory.

Rhodey drapes himself on the couch just feet away from the memory place. He glances towards James and then towards the board of half-crossed out words. “Which one has the happiest memory for you to replace with?”

“Homecoming,” James answers.

“Start with that one.”

Tony tosses a glance over to Rhodey. He had never tried incorporating any of the orders into the memories. He figured this would be a decent plan to try, since his way hasn’t really been successful in not sending him spiraling.

James gives a jerky nod to Rhodey, and he pulls on the helmet for BARF. He tries not to let any panic sink into him. He can manage these words, he can handle his own brain trying to mess with him, and he can move forward from this mess. He chooses to just bite the bullet with this one and steps into the correct area.

The room is dark and the solider is standing above him staring down at him. “Возвращение на Родину.”

And then James is sucked into the old memory, the memory of the Russian flag flying over him. The damn flag of his enemy always over him every time he wakes.
James forces himself to take a deep breath. “Those flags still fly, but not over us.” And he brings to the front of his mind the feeling he had when he saw American soil again. The plane descending and Tony Stark welcoming back onto American soil.

He smiles at the memory of the man. “We got welcomed home, finally. Even after everything they did to us, we made it to our own homecoming.”

James yanks himself out of the memory panting, and he turns pleading eyes towards Tony. He has to know whether his intervention works or not.

“Возвращение на Родину,” Tony says. Then, he waits to see if the tension will return to the man’s body, proving that this didn’t work after all.

But James remains completely still, then he turns to Rhodey. “One more down.”

“Your happiest new memory and the least violent of the old memories, likely.” Rhodey leans back. “What word are you most nervous about showing?”

James furrows his brow because the answer is complicated. “Depends, sir.”

Rhodey’s eyes light up, and he tosses a grin over to Tony. “Hear that, I’m sir. What’s it dependent on?”

“Worse one for me to show you my new memory or worse in terms of the one that I think will cause me the most grief to recall how they twisted that word to make me want to hide from any trace of myself?”

‘Typically speaking, whichever one you’re concerned about showing us, should wait for last, where if you want to run away from us, there’s nothing that has to be done right next to us. The other one might be best to get over with.”

James pauses for a moment and nods in understanding. “Probably benign, then.” He taps his foot for a second appearing to hesitate before being willing to step further into his past memories.

Tony twists his lips up. “Ask for whatever reward you’d like in return for stepping into this memory and facing it, and I’ll ensure that you get it.” He has always had a streak for rewarding people, especially when they do something that he wants them to do. He hopes that James doesn’t ask for anything with monetary value though, because those are presents, not rewards.

A blush travels up James’ neck as he glances down at his shoes. He mutters something that neither of the two other men who are standing in the room can comprehend. As he bounces his leg up and down.

“What was that, sweetheart?” Tony adds in the nickname like its nothing, because anything causing this blush to rise on his cheeks was something that he was going to be allowed to encourage with terms of endearment.

“I said, could I ask for kisses? I haven’t had one since before I fell from the train.”

Tony grins. “I think I’d be more than happy to offer you a kiss in return for you to face your fears.”

“I think we can do better than that, how about for each memory you can conquer, you get a kiss from each of us.”

James’ eyes are blown wide, and he nods his head. He takes a step forward into his memories.

“Добросердечный”

The draft letter floats in front of him. He has opened it before Steve got back from his temporary job. If Steve knew that he was getting drafted, he’d do something stupid like trying to battle every government on the planet to save him. So, he picks up his bags and heads down to fill out the correct forms. He can tell Steve that he chose to volunteer.

The bootcamp where he’s taught how to throw a punch. How to fight with a gun in his hand and how to try his best not to end up cannon fodder. And how he learned the sad truth that he’ll probably end up fodder anyway. Those were some of the worst days of his life when he realized that the United States will treat all men during this time as soldiers.

Then, the way that they were traying so hard to find what his specialty could be. And his aim was too good for him to just be on the front lines. He was a sniper by blood and skill, and that’s what he would do. First, he was a killer for the United States.

Second, he was a sniper for Hydra and an assassin of all kinds once they started to train him in other means of attack. And he killed and he killed. There was no peace, not for him.

The bodies of those he killed flashed before him. No need for distinguishing between the ones that he killed for Hydra and the ones he killed for the war. They were all the same. They were killed because some higher up who had never entered the battlefield declared they should be dead, and while he felt less guilt for the ones he did out of his duty to home and country, the dead were still dead at his hand.

Finally, he steps forward to wrap his hands around the past him whose standing there with a gun, shooting each face that pops up. “We don’t have to kill.”

He closes his eyes and pictures his bedroom. The scenery changes and they’re standing in the nice little area that he’s taken to decorating with small things he finds laying around public places, since he’s unwilling to buy anything yet. And he smiles. “This place is ours. No matter what. We don’t have to pick up the gun. If we ask for a way out, we have a way out. We don’t have to serve anymore; we’ve done our duty. We’ve served our time. We can have peace, even while war rages this time. We can allow ourselves to survive.”

He guides the man to set down the gun, and he stares at whatever body fills the screen even on his bedroom floor. “No one else has to die at our hands. We can leave the dead behind us and save the future for the living.” And he steps back and lets the memory fade.

“Think it’ll work?” he asks the room at a large. He’s not quite looking at either of them. Probably too caught up in his own memories to know what the hell is even happening at this moment.

Rhodey stalks over to him though. He places his hands roughly on either side of James’ head while he stares him in the eyes. “Добросердечный” When nothing happens other than a minute flinch on James side, Rhodey leans in and places a gentle kiss to the man’s lips. “Two down, six to go.”

James lets a smile cross his lips as he nods to Rhodey. “Progress.”

“Damn straight,” Tony replies. He pats his legs and stares at James. He’s hoping he can get James to step away the memories for a few seconds. Even if they were going to ignore every possible health concern, they were at least going to pretend to take mental health breaks.

James steps right up to Tony and stands between his legs. “I believe you promised me a kiss.”

Tony laughs before leaning up to press their lips together. Allowing the gentle kiss to last for far longer than what had passed between the other two. Then, he pulls back. “Do one of the numbers?”

“Sure,” James whispers. He steps away and back towards the memory room. “Anyone care whether I start with the best of the numbers and work my way up to the worst one this time?”

“Not at all” Tony glares at Rhodey before he can interject and say that conquering worst fears first is the best plan of action, because honestly, that bullshit only really works four percent of the time. And the mental health crisis on legs gets to make the decisions.

Rhodey raises his hands in defeat behind James’ back, but he has a lazy smile on his face. Probably because this is working way better than they intended.
James plays the memory slowly.

“Семнадцать”

There’s just a baby crying in the hospital. Nothing really there other than the knowledge of existence. The most dreadful memory they corrupted, because he learned to hate the fact that he was born at all.

The closet thing to suicidal they could make him. That way he’d dread the existence that he had.

But that’s no longer what he thinks when he hears seventeen. Yes, he’s no longer dreading his birth year. Because he’s no longer that suffering about his birth. It’s still not nice, but its no longer something to dread with every fiber of his being.

He steps forward. “Do you know what else happened at seventeen? See, I might have been born in ‘17, but this genius kid I know built the first AI robot at 17.”

He places DUM-I right into the memory next to the crib with the younger self. He sits down in the memory. “I don’t have to think about all of the shit that happened when I was born because of my birthday. I can think of some genius man who took us in. That makes living worth it, and he was already the best genius out there at 17.”

He shrugs his shoulders as he walks out of this one.

Tony and Rhodey are staring at him in shock. Tony recovers first and stands up to go to him and wrap him up in his arms. “I’m so sorry, they made your birth something to dread.”

James stares up at him in wonder. “That’s barely like the sixth worse thing they did to me in my mind. Honestly, I’d be more shocked if I didn’t end up at least slightly messed up about my existence.”

Tony huffs in distaste, because yeah that might make sense, but he hates every second of it. He reaches forward and connects their lips together again in a short but firm kiss. “That makes you so unbelievably strong, you don’t even know.”

Rhodey comes up from behind to press into the embrace and kisses him too. Then, he pulls back to meet James’ eyes once more. Someone has to be responsible and say the words. “Семнадцать.”

James waits a few moments, expecting at least the traditional flinch that he’s been used to, but this time he doesn’t have that reaction. The word just washes over him and passes over like its nothing. A part of him wants to ask whether that means he’s free and the other part of him knows that they need to continue, that they need to prove that this won’t get any worse, but lord does the very idea of continuing make him want to plead with either dom in front of him to make the process less painful somehow.

Rhodey seems to understand the flash of emotion across his face, because he leans back into the embrace. “If I had a way to make this less painful on you, I would do it in a heartbeat, but the only way to get past this is to go through, and unfortunately, that’s going to hurt like a son of a bitch.”

James swallows hard. He hates the fact that he’s going to walk back into this terrible world of reliving nightmare after nightmare in his own memories. He takes the step back into the memory box on shaky legs.

Tony watches with careful eyes. “We can break for the day. Just because we have bad science ideas that cause us to want to rush this, so you don’t have to deal with this for the next several days, does not mean that we have to do the bad science idea.”

Rhodey nods. “Just because we want to know whether this is something that can be powered through doesn’t mean you have to be the one to show us, if that would jeopardize your own mental health, alright?”

James shakes his head to both comments. “I think if I stop right now, I’m not going to be able to get up and down to the lab again, at least not for a long time, and these words need to be gone. I need them gone and over and buried with the rest of remnants of Hydra.”

Rhodey makes a noise of understanding. “Alright, well if you need or want anything else from us, just let us know.”

James nods to Rhodey after a moment. The next word was a number in-between the two best and worst, and he’s come to terms with what it means for him.

The solider stares down at him as he’s strapped down to the table. The man has a smirk on his face as he says the next word in the sequence. “Один”

The train fall left him alone in the snow surrounding the pain. But that wasn’t the worse part, no the worse part is when he first glances down towards his body. There’s a missing place where his arm had once been. And then he turns his head to the side to find the remains of his arm standing in the snow, bloodying the white color.
The pain is overwhelming, and he feels as if his life is over with only the one arm left.

He steps forward and kneels over the past version of himself. He tries really hard not to glance to the side to stare at the arm that he misses so much. “It’s not lost, at least not forever.”

He waves his hand and a hologram board that has become oh so familiar to him from Tony’s lab. “This is your new arm or at least the start of what it might one day become. Tony Stark hasn’t finished the design yet, but his AI, Friday, sends me pictures every night of the updated version so I could show you.”

He pats the man’s good arm. “That arm they give you isn’t one, but the one that Dr. Stark will give us is. That’s more than enough to make this worthwhile. Hold on, there will come a day when you don’t have to.”

He wishes he could bring the old him to the future just for a second to give himself hope in the past, but he knows that’s not how this works. He steps out of the memory and lets the off-white drapes recover their normal hue.

This time when he comes to, he turns his eyes to Tony in a silent plea. He needs to know whether this insane play for changing the memory worked, or whether he needs to come up with something not regarding his arm to break the cycle of this word.

Tony inclines his head and repeats the word in his gentle Americanized version of Russian. “Один”.

James bursts into a grin when there’s no mental anguish in his head at the words. He lets himself to a happy little jump before turning to Rhodey with a joyous expression.

Rhodey shakes his head with a wry smile on his lips. He steps forward and moves one of his hands to reach around James’ head and tugs him closer. He presses a firm kiss to James and only pulls back once he’s reasonably positive that there will be a sweet nothing look on his face from all of the attention. That would be something nice for them both. Then, he gives a gentle shove towards Tony.

Tony catches James by his hips and he tugs James down into his lips for a much better angle for a kiss. He keeps the kiss firm but non-dominating just like his best friend had. Both of them were happy to give him the reward that he had requested, but they weren’t about to try to push their luck with James. When he does pull back, he keeps his hand on James to keep him from immediately pull away. “Is the next number what I think it is?”

“Meeting Steve Rogers and then losing everything that stood for when the man believed I was dead? Yeah, that’s what we’ve got on the docket next.”

Tony throws his head back with a self-deprecating laugh. “Are you sure this is the one you don’t want me at the very least seeing?”

“Positive,” James answers. He knows what he’s replaced this memory with, and it isn’t Steve Rogers finding him all those years later. That doesn’t bring him even an ounce of joy, that brings him sorrow and heart-ache, and probably always will now. Because now he’s forced to know what the beacon of goodness that he had held onto turned into. He was a monster now.

He forces himself to take the step into the memory lane. And he forces himself to relive one more nightmare that haunts him when he closes his eyes, so that hopefully they could no longer haunt in his waking hours too, because if it did, he might just lose his mind.

A man stands over him trying to force him to break even though he’s shown no signs of breaking before, and he says another word trying to force the hopelessness into James’ head. “Девять”

The memory overtakes him, the hatred too. As Steve Rogers lays on the ground underneath him, and he has an arm outstretched with a smile. The way that he pulls Steve to his feet and reminds him that sometimes it might be better to let the bigger guy walk away rather than get pummeled into the concrete when the half-assed one-way fight wasn’t likely to change the outcome.

Then, the picture changes. They’re young teenagers, sharing a beer they snuck from his house, and Steve’s looking at him with those eyes that promise you the world. “To the end of the line,” he swears.

And the video they played on repeat for the first month of his waking state with Hydra, where Steve is speaking after he had died but before he had crashed the plane to a couple soldiers that had made it out. “I was with him until the end of that line.”

That’s when the real James steps forward to the younger version of him strapped to a chair. “We used to think the world hung by Steve Rogers’ word. We used to think that if Steve didn’t think that we were alive there was going to be no one who came to us, and they used our meeting to hurt us. Well, now Steve’s hurt us too. So, screw that. The one person we met at nine would leave us, and that line would be severed. How about nine fucking people who we needed to stay alive to meet, huh?”

The picture changes to Princess Shuri holding his hand as she injects the ice into his veins to help him sleep for long enough to heal. “That’s Shuri, she’s a real-life princess, and all we ever have to do is pick up the phone and ask for help and she’ll be there. We don’t need a line or big fancy statements to know that. We know that because she held our hand when she had no reason too.”

He changes the picture to King T’Challa next. “That’s T’Challa. He’s a mess of a man who became king way too young, not that he isn’t a great friend, because he is. But we’re likely going to have to drag him out of trouble the same way that we pulled Steve out of trouble. This time we know he’ll listen when we tell him to back off for a moment though.”

He changes the image to Natasha. Not of them on the plane much as that was memorable, but rather her in the front seat of a car, driving down the changed roads. “That’s Natasha. No fancy titles, but she doesn’t need them. We hurt her, when she was too little to fight back, and she’s still here. She’s the one who dragged me out to deal with finding a way to fight these damn memories. She’ll love us until the day that we die and even then, she's likely to love us in the afterlife too. Because we both broke free and that forms a bond that can’t be broken by some stupid shit from others.”

He can’t fight the smile from his face anymore more. He changes the picture to Tony Stark. “That’s Dr. Stark, he might just be the smartest person that we've ever met, puts his father to shame. See, he has a duty to help us, and maybe I thought that was all it was. But that man, he’s building us flying cars because that was the first thing in a long time that put a true smile on our face. And that’s love. Not the kind that you get down on one knee for, but one that makes damn sure you get up in the morning even when you want to fall.”

He waves his hand and Tony Stark fades to Rhodey. “That’s Colonel Rhodes, of the US military, and technically the only superior officer we have. And he literally never uses rank on us. He also happens to be in the room right now as we struggle through memory after memory. Right by our side, no question about any of it.”

Next up was a picture of Pepper. Her sprawled out over the bed holding him closer as the sun rises in the window. He grins at himself. “That’s Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries and certified kick ass, and she’d be the first one after Tony after us if Hydra ever took us again, and between the two of them, there wouldn’t be anything left but a pile of ashes.”

Then, he pulls up two cats, sitting curled up on an old newspaper. “We only had them for about a week, but they’re ours. Little Tolkien, and Shelby. The memory of them will last a lifetime, even if they’re long gone.”

The last picture is of Sam Wilson. “He’s currently being a little bit blind to the faults of people and a little too critical of the government, but who can blame the guy, turns out the future didn’t get all that better at being kind to his people, no more than they were kind to us. But he gave me a hand when I wouldn’t have been able to reach out otherwise, and if I asked him to throw all his cares to the side because I needed help, he’d do it. He’d grumble, and complain, and call me a fool, but he’d come.”

James turns to Tony as the memory fades. “Steve Rogers holds no place in my heart, not the version of him who remains, and I can’t make a new image with the old. I can make several with you guys.”

Tony winks at him. “Friday, find us some shelters to go to the second his pardon goes through for some kittens, and remind me to introduce him to other people once that happens as well.” As Friday confirms his order, he tosses his head towards James. “Девять”

James just raises his eyebrow. There’s no real effect on him anymore. He’s pretty confident that having this many of the words gone have caused him to stop fearing the idea that the other part of him would come out just to follow orders to avoid suffering the immense pain.

Rhodey walks up behind him and tugs on his hair until he leans back for his kiss. “Pepper wouldn’t make it to you second, you should know that.”

“Wouldn’t you need to wait for clearance?”

“Not if I claimed that I was doing damage control for the lunatic that would reach you first to avoid sending the country into war.”

Tony nods to James and steps up to kiss him himself. He nips at James’ lip just to see the way that he flushes up to his cheeks. This would be fun given that’s what he’s requested. He rests his chin on James’ shoulder. “Does Wilson really trust me so little he thinks that I would let the government hurt him with those bullshit restrictions?”

“Don’t think he ever trusted you. Steve told him that you were practically the devil. Told him you couldn’t be trusted to take down Hydra because you might think they had the right of things. Natasha can tell you more, but I have fond memories of him trying to keep me alright.”

Rhodey sighs. “Can we have one thing that he hasn’t screwed over?”

“You’ve got me,” James teases.

Tony has to cover his mouth and pull away to stop himself from launching at the man immediately. He doesn’t know what he does to them with these flirty comments he throws in every now and then. “Alright, so which word is next?”

“Well, I’m between the one that horrifies me to this day or the actual torture they put me through to make sure I’d remember the pain. Which one do you think?”

Rhodey runs a hand over his eyes. “One day, I’m going to have you make a list like this only filled with happy memories so I can bury this one under some damn happiness.”

James tilts his head to the side. “Will I still get my rewards?”

Rhodey turns to stare at Tony with a look that clearly asks whether or not either of them are prepared for a flirty James Barnes who they’re trying to save at the moment. And the answer is so complicated that he’s no longer sure that either of them know. Then, he just swallows down his hesitation. “Tell you what, I’ll do it for a scene, have you nicely under doing whatever I say, pulling up whatever memory I want, and each time you do as I ask, I’ll actually get you slightly closer to coming.”

James opens his mouth wide and then gapes for a couple moments.

Tony takes pity before James combusts from the statement. “Let’s store the torture for second to last, and you show us what horrifies you when the other option is torture.”

James keeps his eyes on Rhodey for a minute longer than he needs to after he nods. But, his thoughts are too busy buzzing around trying to figure out whether that was a genuine offer or not, because if it was, he thinks maybe he’s gotten himself into exactly what he wants, and he’s not sure just how glorious that would be or not.
Then, he’s stepping into the darkness of his head again.

“Ржавый”

James watches as the arm turns from the silver color into a sickly grin. He’s been in the ice for longer than ever before. More than three months have passed, and they didn’t intend for him to be on stasis instead of working for this long, so his arm is turning to rust. They realized how broken that made him when they dragged him out next.

The new scientist added that to his word count to turn him into the soldier just to be a spiteful dick that would hurt him at every opportunity. This was his least favorite decade as the soldier, the people around him and in charge were just dicks. They weren’t just evil fanatics, they were dickish evil fanatics. And it feels like if they were already going to be awful, they didn’t need to add on purposefully being worse. OR at least that’s his opinion on the matter.

He steps forward and stares at the arm. “Looks awful.” He shrugs then. “But the rust isn’t what hurt you, it was the fact they forgot about you. They refused to give you that death you craved, and then they had the nerve to leave you there, not even using you. I’m pretty sure this is the only time that the soldier felt anger.”

He stares at the arm for a long moment. “But like I said, rust didn’t do that. Rust did tear down their abandoned facilities though.” He changes the images to a computer scrolling through abandoned sites. “Remember that one, was where we were told to treat as a safe house after assassinations, it’s nothing but rotting metals now.”

He shrugs again. “Nothing wrong with a bit of rust, a lot wrong with being abandoned, but they were never smart enough to really understand why the things they did hurt us, now were they?”

The image fades and James stares there. He doesn’t step towards them this time. He just stares blankly at the wall. He hadn’t expected the rise in the anger over that memory, he hadn’t remembered that he had always gotten pissed at the entire world after hearing that word, after seeing that damn rusting arm.

He tenses when an arm slides around his waist, but then he’s being dragged down onto Rhodey’s lap on a couch, away from the memory room, that he’s pretty sure he’d hate if he didn’t love.

Rhodey holds him close, and he’s saying words. But, he realizes that James isn’t really hearing him at all. He still continues to whisper sweet nothings in his ear, trying to bring him back.

Tony stares at the both of them and then raises his eyes to the ceiling. “Ржавый,” he says.

That snaps James back to the present. He has the nerve to glare at Tony while shaking. But, nothing comes out of him. No soldier, no violence, just even more rage rolling under the surface.

Tony inclines his head. “Good to know that shitty reformed memory worked. I had my doubts given you still seem super affected by what happened.”

“I’m affected because I’m pissed as hell. How fucking dare they? Who gave them the right to keep me from the death that was rightfully mine to make me into a soldier to perform their acts of terror, only to forget about me? I want them to burn, and I want to watch as the flames take them, maybe then the screams will stop for more than a minute.”

“So, burn them to ashes.” He spreads his hands like, why is he the one suggesting this.

“Pretty sure that breaks several international laws,” James points out with a pout.

“So, break the damn laws,” Tony continues.

“I’d like to not return to prison.”

“You think anyone is going to arrest a member of Tony’s family when he’s actually vouching for them. You’d be more likely to catch Natasha without a weapon.”

James twists to stare at Rhodey. “Shouldn’t you be trying to stop this?”

Rhodey meets Tony’s eyes over James. “Tell me when and where. I kind of want to watch the flames myself after what they've done to him that I’ve had to witness.”

“Of course, Pepper’s likely to be the only one behind to cover for our asses.”

“Well someone has to provide cover and fan the asses of the people who might try to use this to destroy us. They’d find out pretty damn quick why that’s a bad choice, but still better not to give them the shot.”

James shakes his head wavering his eyes between the two of them. He can’t make his brain understand the words that they’re saying. No one was going to help him burn down Hydra when they weren’t a threat, unless. “Wait, if I had managed to get a message towards you in that airport that the main reason everyone was moving was because we learned of a threat about Hydra?”

“We all would have gone to deal with that before returning to the issue at hand,” Tony answers off-handedly.

“Minus, me. I would have had to fly back and try to cover because Pepper wouldn’t be able to, and I probably would have.”

James can’t stop himself from crying then. Because he wouldn’t have had to go back into cryo if everyone had gone together. The witch wouldn’t have been able to continue the mind control through what Steve had done, and the lies wouldn’t be present.

Rhodey keeps his arms wrapped around the man and he presses a kiss to James’ forehead. “You didn’t know us, and the people who did made their choice.”

Tony snorts. “Or one did, and the rest followed like sheep.”

“Why did he cause so much suffering?”

Tony pauses to consider that one. “Because in his eyes, I am the bad guy. I’m the one who made Ultron and broke the team apart by doing so, no matter that I did it because of immense trauma and mind control, because that doesn’t fit the narrative. In his eyes, he is above the law and governments, but no one else should be. I need to be held more accountable, he needs zero over-view, and there’s only so much that I can do about that. And unfortunately, he has the power to cause damage when he gets it into his head that he’s better than others.”

“Someone has to stop him.”

“Someone will,” Rhodey promises. “Right now, it’s T’Challa ensuring the man can’t continue a crusade without permission from any government and get more civilians killed. Later, it will be Natasha and Pepper killing him right at the end of a battle that we’ve won, not allowing him the chance to get back home.”

“Will they not be punished?”

“Who would know?” Tony counters. He steps up to the couch leans down and presses a kiss right over where Rhodey did. “There’s no clear way to tell crossfire from actual attempted murder in a war field, even less so when Natasha often uses alien tech to kill them. We’d just have to be careful.”

“Oh.” James realizes slowly that in this family, there is very little that he could do that would hurt him in the long run that he didn’t want. He could get away with murder and all he’d have to do was look towards the people of this family, and they’d cover for him until no one was looking for him anymore.

He considers things before looking towards Tony. “Question.”

“Answer.”

“Could I be a part of the family?”

“Kind of already are. I mean we weren’t going to push the issue and ask for your agreement to it before you were a bit more healed from all the trauma, but all of us already considered you a part of it.”

Rhodey nods. “Pepper was going to take off work for you. She rarely does that even in the family, let alone outside of the family.”

James smiles and he slips off of Rhodey’s lap. “Then, let’s finish this, so I can get back to being a part of this family and helping Natasha with her issue.”

Tony claps. “Only two words left.”

James stares at the board. “They put my legs in a fire oven, and they kept them there until the burns were bad enough that I’d need several hours to heal. And they'd repeat the second that they stopped. Furnace.”

“Jesus, you sure these people weren’t just rapist sadists.”

That startles a laugh from James. He had never even considered the possibility of that. “Last time I checked, no one wants to be lit on fire.”

“Don’t knock shit in this family,” Rhodey warns. “But no one here would ever do it without safety training and consent.” He stares towards the memory room. “You can do this. You will make it through this, I promise.”

James laughs again. “I think that might be my problem, Rhodey. I seem to always make it through, it’s whether that’s worth it that’s the question.”

“Means you made it to us,” Tony whispers.

James steps into the memory. “True enough.”

“Печь,” the soldier says to him with a smirk on his face, one of the men who was there when this word was coded, oh so happy to watch him relive the trauma.
The scent of his own burning flesh hits him first, and he powers through the screams, to step over to himself and hold onto his hand. “Hey, hey. Listen to me, not to the assholes laughing over there.”

He waits until the laughter dies down through his own sheer force of will. “Trust me, this isn’t all that bad. Yeah, burns are nothing compared to the isolation of ice, or the betrayal of those you love.” He pauses. “And plus, this piece of shit ain’t a furnace, it’s a ill built torture made to see whether they could torture you in this new way.”

“A furnace,” he continues with a smile on his face, “is for pie.” The memory changes. Natasha is propped up on the counter as he’s struggling to get a pie into the oven at the Tower. She’s kicking her feet out, and the scent of cinnamon and chocolate is in the air. Both of them reclaiming the Russian dish they had memories of, but no fond associations with.

“A furnace is for proper decorations.” The oven has a sheet of popcorn and cranberries on a string laid out to dry. Natasha’s the one putting them in the oven with a laugh. “Orthodox Christmas, huh?”

“They’d usually let me out of cyro and have a drink. Nothing to get comfortable or nothing, but something at least.”

James smiles as he lets the memory fade, he has friends now, and he has something worth living for. Even if those things were still routed in what happened to him. That’s just what life is some days.

Tony stares at him. “You didn’t tell me, I would have gotten you a gift.”

“Don’t think I could have handled that much yet,” James admits. “But I put decorations up in Natasha’s room.”

“Why not yours?”

“I didn’t care for sleeping alone, so most nights I don’t.”

Tony furrows his brow. “But Natasha often prefers sleeping alone.”

James stares at him. “Yes?”

Rhodey nods softly. “She’s made an exception for you.”

“For as long as I need until I feel I can encroach on the rest of you on a bad night. And if she has a bad night, I sleep on a couch out here, and Friday is nice enough to speak in low tones the whole time I sleep, so I don’t feel alone even when I know there’s no human there.”

“If it had gotten worse, I had gotten permission to call for you, boss.”

“Thank you, baby girl. And James, you can call for me at any time, screw everything else.”

James swallows hard and turns his head away. He doesn’t verbally answer.

Tony’s pretty sure that he’s hiding whatever reaction passed through his head at that declaration and while normally he would be a pushy bastard about that when it comes to his subs, he finds that he doesn’t want to this time. Not when James is opening up way more than he used to with them. So instead, he tucks himself where he’s pressing up against James’ chest to lean up and give him a kiss. “Anytime.”

Rhodey sneaks up behind them and leans over to press a kiss to James’ lips before leaning back. “And if he’s not sleeping, you can come to me. I’m on permanent stay here because of my injury and the desire to have some military presence in the Avengers.”

James leans into them, and he tilts his head to the side. “But what if you get tired of me?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

Rhodey watches as he ducks his face because he doesn’t believe what has been said. So, he sighs. “James, you’re a member of the family, it means that we will always be okay with what you need.”

James stares at him. “Anything?”

Rhodey nods slowly at him. “Yes, anything that you want, you can ask for and one of us will try their absolute best to ensure that you have it.”

James sucks in a large breath. Then, he moves back towards the memory box area. “Let’s finish this.”

“Желание,” the first word is said.

James is sucked into the nightmare. He is never allowed to dominate someone again, because they have stripped him of every hormone that would allow him to do so. And then they made him more able to be subjugated, the hormone for submissives. By the end of the first decade, he was a submissive by all intents and purposes.

And he never even gets to submit. They will break him, they would use him, but they would never allow him to have the sweeter version of that. He would just suffer.
James himself stares at the longing desire to submit. “You can submit you know. To dominants that care no less. And the fear that you have doesn’t even need to be considered.”

James changes the scene to where he’s laying across Natasha’s bed, and she’s got a hand in his hair and is gently petting him. “Do you want me to tell you?”

“Yes, please.”

“So, Pepper is the queen of just saying orders and making you want to obey. She’ll have you make her food, rub her feet, and run a bath. And the whole way, you’ll feel nice and fuzzy. Tony is down for everything. He’ll follow whatever you’ve asked for, and he’ll read your body in the moment so well that you’ll debate whether he can read your mind. Rhodey is more stern and firm presence that can help when you’re feeling overwhelmed.”

James smiles at hearing her voice. “See,” he whispers. “It’s okay to want to submit now. We’re going to be okay.”

Both Tony and Rhodey are staring at him as he comes out of the memory. His blush travels all the way up his face as he realizes exactly what he’s asking for. And what the memory meant. And the fact that he’s mostly wanting to submit right now.

Tony however holds onto his control for just long enough to string together all of the words in order to make sure that James would be safe, that no one would be able to use the solider against him ever again. “Желание, Ржавый, Семнадцать , Рассвет, Печь, Девять, Добросердечный, Возвращение на Родину, Один, Товарный вагон.”

When James breaks out into a huge grin as the words have no effect on him, both of the dominants in the room share a look with each other, as they both realize that he’s okay. That they did manage to push through the rest of the winter soldier in the span of a day, and the more important part, that he asked for a bloody scene in the most damaged way possible with a memory room.

Rhodey leans back on the couch. He tosses a pillow to the ground and meets James’ eyes. “Would you like to kneel?”

Chapter Text

James stares at them. He doesn’t remember whether he’d ever been given that option before in his life. Probably because as the soldier points out in the back of his head, he hasn’t been given one before. His legs are shaking, his fingers twitching against his thigh, and he turns to guide his gaze towards Tony. He’s silently begging the man to understand his hesitation. To help him with what needs to be done before he loses his mind entirely.

Tony meets the stare head on as he tries to understand where any of the hesitation might come from. Since the memory had just clearly shown them both that he does want that. Except the man might not know what to expect. “Oh, sorry, snowflake forgot about those problems today. We’re not going to take you that far under, just a little, since we don’t have any of your limits. Okay, for today, stop just means stop. And for that matter, if you always want stop to mean stop, that’s going to be just fine with all of the rest of us, I promise.”

Tony reaches out with his free leg to nudge Rhodey into speaking assurances too, and since he’s the one who imitated this little game, he needs to be the one who defines what things are going to look like tonight. Or at least he’s hoping Rhodey has a plan because while he’s real great as winging it when it comes to science and aliens, he’s less great at being able to wing it when it comes to people and their emotions. Those are too complicated for him to understand with simple words.

Rhodey smiles as James gently. “Before I do anything, before Tony does anything, we’ll just ask you a simple question, which is do you want what we’re about to do. All you have to do is give an answer and let us guide the rest. That easy.”

James takes a step forward. Then, he pauses again. “I don’t know any of the steps. I don’t know the proper positions to kneel with, and I don’t know how to submit. Everything that has happened to me before has been through force, and I know I don’t want that. How do I do this?”

Tony quirks an eyebrow up, knowing that he’s hidden. He had known from his father that James had once been a dom, but he assumed that he had been a switch whose trauma had given way to only submissiveness. And this means that was a theory thrown out of the window, hydra forced him into a whole new position entirely and changed the foundations of his DNA with their serum, no wonder he always seems so confused when he craves touch. “Hey, James. Yes or no, right?”

James nods slowly, unsure of where Tony could be going with this.

“Do you want to kneel?”

“Yes,” he whispers softly. The hint of a blush is back on his face, and Tony can’t wait until the day, he gets permission to trace that blush all the way down the other man until both of them know each other better than they know anything else in this world.

“Good. Second question, do you want me to help you kneel?”

Rhodey shoots him an approving glance at that. He probably hadn’t thought of that being a solution to the current problem, because neither one of them were used to things being that simple. But, Tony is getting used to the idea that when things are going well, simple is the right answer, in fact simple is the only answer.

James sticks out his bottom lip and there look to be tears forming in his eyes. “Is that even allowed?”

“No, no, no, baby.” Rhodey’s hands are on his cheeks and soothing out the tears. He’s standing on the braces and leaning over James where the other man can feel his presence all around him. “Tonight, there aren’t any rules. There’s not a single answer that you can give that would be wrong.”

“Unless it’s a lie,” Tony quips. “But you wouldn’t lie to us, would you, snowflake? No, you’re far too good to do something like that.”

James lets his head fall forward and most of the tension in his body dissipates. “Yes, please.”

Tony furrows his brow for a moment, before remembering the question that he had asked to spark all of this. He was going to help James kneel, and kneel in front of a handsome dom on top of matters. Oh, if he wasn’t straight in that regard, this could be even more fun, alas, some things stretch even his bounds of what is acceptable and what is not.

He steps up to be behind James, and he wraps on arm around James’ waist. He doesn’t quite meet Rhodey’s eyes, because they both know that he’s going to be tender as hell with this, and that’s going to end with him on his knees too, and if they look at each other, they’re going to end up having a laughing fit, and then James would get all confused, and nothing would be going right. He tugs on James until the man has most of his weight leaning onto Tony instead of supporting it himself.

James leans into the contact once he’s been given the permission to do so. He loves the way that Tony’s allowing him to just exist right then, and he doesn’t have to do anything but answer those simple yes and no questions.

Rhodey reaches out to cup James’ cheek. “Let’s get you on your knees, dear.”

Tony presses his knees into the back of James’ knees until his buckle down. Then, he’s kneeling down with James on top of him. He can guide James off of him once he gets onto the cushion, which is exactly what he does. His free hand reaches around to grab James’ arm and tuck behind his back. He can’t help himself from leaning forward and pressing a kiss into the back of James’ neck.

James watches as he’s suddenly lower on the ground. He had anticipated even with the gentle way that Tony speaks that there would be at least some pain with having to kneel. Most submissives when he had grown up expected to be put on their knees when they were daring to stand at the start of anything. But there’s no pain, just a gentle pressure at the base of his spine where Tony is holding him close. His arm is twisted around to his back and that should send him into a panic. However, the only people here are people he trusts, so he just lets himself go into the floaty space where his mind is completely up in the air.

Rhodey gives him a moment to adjust, then his hand is in James’ hair and tugging him forward. His head rests against Rhodey’s thigh as he smiles down. “Good boy,” he murmurs. His eyes flickering over to Tony wondering what they should ask him next and what either of them were willing to push when he was in such a vulnerable state, especially when they hadn’t done any of the normal prerequisites to a scene like this, but this is what he longed for, longed for enough that they actually managed to break some of their rules to give him just a hint of something.

Tony runs his hands through James’ hair as he meets Rhodey’s eyes. “Yes or no, only. Do you want Rhodey’s reward to be making out with you?”

James’ eyes blow wide as he hears that option. His brain going completely numb as he nods mutely. He hasn’t had a touch that possessive since the war, and he misses the way it feels to have someone else’s mouth on yours with no break anywhere in sight until both of you are happy and breathless. He nods hopelessly.

Rhodey lets out a dark chuckle as he leans forward to press a dirty and messy kiss. He pushes his tongue into James’ mouth and dominates the man with a hand in the back of his hair right above Tony’s hand. And he notices that Tony has the grip against James’ arm being the only reason that James isn’t soaring to meet him all the way. And he realizes that James’ eyes are about as blurred as he’s ever seen in a submissive in subspace, and they’ve barely done anything.

When he pulls out of the kiss, he lets his hand linger on James’ cheek. “What about Tony, hmm? He owes you something too.” Rhodey hums as if he’s actually thinking about what would be best suited for this. As if his brain hasn’t been working with ideas of what has been happening since they started this whole adventure together. “Would you like him to leave some nice hickeys on your neck?”

Tony shrugs his shoulders at the suggestion. He has no problems attempting to do that, although he might need significantly more force to bruise a super solider, and his mouth isn’t something that he can push himself to do with the suit if a super solider ever asks him to give him bruises. Because he’s been wondering about how to do that since T’Challa’s spanking, because between the two of them, both of them know that for a more serious infraction, his baseline human strength isn’t going to do shit to the man.

James rolls his head to the side, letting his neck show to both men and his long mangily hair fall across his face. “Yes.” His eyes pinch together from their mostly closed state. “You don’t have to leave bruises though, if it isn’t the easiest.”

Tony smiles. “Good boy.” He realizes that James needs a way out of this one that won’t have to be talking judging on the way that his words are already slurring together being this far under. He’s almost used to it by now when a submissive gets this gentle. “You want me to stop, you just squeeze Rhodey’s leg or his arm, got it?”

“Yes, boss man.”

Tony can’t stop himself from laughing at that even though his lips are right over James’ neck, and judging by the way that James shivers under that movement, tells him how much the man actually likes that. He presses a trail of soft kisses up and down James’ neck, marking which ones draw the most reaction from him. In the end, he chooses the spot right next to his collar bone, and starts sucking into the skin. He grazes his teeth over James’ neck as he sucks, and the more he does it, the more moans that James releases.

Rhodey notices the way that James twists as a bulge grows in his pants. That would almost definitely be considered taking things way too far without having any conversations about limits or anything else, and yet he’s encouraged to try it anyway. This should be about whatever James wants and as long as he’s getting a verbal yes, he’ll go with that flow, but he won’t allow anything less than coherent verbal consent.

James pushes himself back into Tony. His brain all kinds of fuzzy, but all he knows is that this feels good. So much better than anything he could have ever thought about, and way better than anything he’s felt for years upon years. “More, please, please.”

“No need to beg,” Rhodey interjects smoothly. “Whatever you want. Tonight is about whatever the hell you want.”

Tony widens his eyes at that statement, because he had intended to pull back long before they got to that stage, but he’s not about to deny Rhodey his right to choose that or decide that would be the best option at the current moment, and far be it from him to say a word against that.

James’ eyes focus on Rhodey. He knows that it is someone else sucking at his neck and doing the infuriating little teases with his teeth, but Rhodey is the one that he has eyes on. Rhodey is the one that he can see and plead with nothing but his eyes if he needs to. Rhodey is the one that he can trust right now because it’s what’s right in front of him. “Please, can you ask him to bite for real?”

Rhodey has to choke on his laugh to not destroy whatever moment is going through James’ head right now. But holy shit, begging the other dom to make the one currently doing something to you to do more, that might be a new kind of crazy. At least that seems like a new form of insanity. “Well, his pleas are so pretty, Tones.”

Tony barely stops himself from losing control and falling forward with laughter, because seriously even in some of the family orgies, he’s never had a submissive find a different dom to plea towards for another one to do more. That’s an interesting play, and it will certainly work tonight. He sinks his teeth into the flesh, being exceedingly careful not to draw blood or inflict more pain than pressure.

James’ mouth falls open as the pleasure racks through his body. He’s starting to understand why Natasha says that there are ways that pain can become pleasurable. He’s not sure that he could ever deal with someone raising a hand to him, not after everything that has happened to him, but he’s pretty damn sure that he loves this, the gentle way that his nervous system can respond to teeth and pressure. He’ll find a way to ask Tony for more one day, or maybe Rhodey.

Rhodey watches the way that his hips search for something to grind on and finding nothing. He wonders whether the man has had an orgasm in the last several decades and decides that the answer is irrelevant. If he wants one, he’ll get one, if he doesn’t know whether he wants to trust that or not, that’s okay too. “James, sweetheart,” and he’s picking up on Tony’s inane ability to call everyone by a nickname at some point, “do you want me to move my leg where you can grind against it?”

James wonders whether that might be the first trick question of the night. Every good sub knows that the dom is meant to come first. But, these doms have literally never been the definition of normal or sane, and he’s not been wrong before tonight in what he wants to do. “Yes, please, sir.”

Rhodey moves his leg brace to where James’ hips could reach it, and he thanks the stars that Tony had been nice enough to make the braces flesh like so that he wouldn’t be something odd for James to deal with as well.

Tony’s staring at Rhodey in partial shock. This would be far beyond what he would have suggested for the night. This might be further down the path that he would have taken it, but again, he’ll move with the flow. He trails his mouth back up James’ neck until his mouth is right next to James’ ear.

Then, he waits. He waits until James is frantically trying to move his hips far enoguh without needing to break the way that he was kneeling oh so perfectly in the way that Tony has him positioned. Only then does he whisper words into Jame’s ear. “Come for me, James.”

James comes with a yelp and a surprised look on his face as he gazes at Rhodey. Ready for their to be anger at worst, and a distant kind of acceptance at best. What he got shocked him even further, because what he got was a wild grin and an arm to get back up on his own feet.

Tony pushes off his knees around the same time, popping all the bones in his legs. “Might be getting too old for this shit.”

Rhodey snorts, still holding James close in his arms. “Yeah, well consider it revenge for the number of times, I’m going to have to plead with you to quit.”

“Ouch,” Tony replies. He wraps an arm through James’, and he walks all three of them to the elevator. “So, James, you’re a free man, what will you do now?”

James’ eyes harden, and the cold raging behind them was far too at ease with violence to have been the side that is just a traumatized man, but rather the personality that survived the decades of torture. “I hear there’s a hydra witch running around playing hero. It’s about time, there was someone to remind her that if you play with fire, someone will eventually play back, and they often don’t play nicely.”

Rhodey glances down at the man in his arms. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“There’s never been a case that I haven’t managed to come back from. Not since Hydra trained me anyway. They don’t damage their weapons, they want them back in peak condition.”

“Humans can’t be weapons,” Tony says.

“Sure they can,” James retorts. “That’s not all they are, but there are many ways to make someone believe that they are more weapon than human, and I promise you that Hydra has always been very good at that.”

Rhodey sighs. “None of that was a promise.”

James pushes up on his tiptoes to be able to place a gentle kiss on Rhodey’s chin. “Sorry, sir. I promise to be careful and make it home to you as soon as possible.”

Rhodey allows that to be a simple peace-making gesture. Again, mostly because none of them know James’ limits, and he has some concerns about rules being a primary part of anything for James, because there’s a good chance that he’s going to take them as less of suggestions and more as harsh reminders. And Rhodey absolutely refuses to be anything like Hydra handlers, not without some serious mind control going on, and one of the only players they know who can do that will be dead before the end of the day.

Pepper is waiting up in the bedroom for them when they get there. She’s got a glare on her face that softens the second she sees James, naturally more happy than she’s ever seen him before.

They all curl into one another, and Tony’s rather sure that when he wakes up, he’ll realize that James is gone. He’s confident that Rhodey has noticed the same fact. So, there are at least two people here who have realized what will happen come morning, and they're not going to stop him from doing whatever is needed for James’ sanity.
Morning comes, and James sneaks out of the bed. The only one of the people in the bed used to dealing with slight movements, meeting his eyes. He stares at her for a long moment. Then, in a hushed tone, he speaks. “I have a debt to pay, and you have a friend, I need to go save.”

“I want you do that more than anything, but I can’t justify asking you to do it.”

James leans over and places a soft kiss on the top of her head. “You’re not asking me, you’ve just told me of a problem that my debt to society, to you, and to Tony all demands that I take care of, so I will.”

Then, he walks out of the room. His phone already lit up with T’Challa telling him that if Friday directs one of Tony’s planes then he’ll be in Wakanda in no time, and that the king will not ask what his plans are for accountability reasons, but thanking him all the same for agreeing to help given the situation that they all find themselves in.
He picks up a sniper rifle on the way too. There’s a part of him that’s truly shocked at the way that both Tony and Rhodey are just willing to hand him weapons after everything but the more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense. He had been trusted with weapons before Hydra and he’d be trusted with weapons after Hydra. A round circle for his life.

He can tell when Tony wakes up because a message comes through Friday to stay safe and to call if he runs into any unexpected trouble with his plan. He smiles at the way that offers him no censure for leaving while everyone was sleeping, or any commands to turn back and talk this through, and even more that this tells him that Tony trusts him to take care of this.

His mind relaxes until he gets a video call from Shuri. Then, he’s wide awake and staring in horror as her face pops onto his screen.

“I’m patching you through to a security camera. Apparently, we don’t get nice things and you’ll be coming into a fight happening.” She goes silent and a video is now being played for James to be able to see.

There on the screen shows the witch with her hand on Steve’s shoulder, glaring daggers at Sam. “If you’re worried about your friend, we could storm in and demand to be seen. There’s no sense for all of us to be upset when we have such an easy way to handle the situation without needing to deal with the worry.”

“The king asked us not to,” Sam points out with a growl in his voice. “The king who is currently shielding us from several other countries who want us arrested for crimes against the world. A king who we have a vested interest in keeping on our side and not upset with us.”

Steve glances towards Sam with a shake of his head. “You know that the world isn’t in the right trying to arrest us, the king sees that. He won’t turn us in just because we upset him. The most he’ll do is give us another stern lecture.”

Sam shakes his head. “No offense, but I’ll pass.”

Steve sighs. The patent, I’m disappointed in you, sigh that he’s perfected over the years. “I won’t force you, but it would be nice if the team would work together again.”

Sam appears to have a moment of anger pass across his face. “Tell that to the ones who aren’t here, Steve. I’m still standing with you. I’m still here, trying.”

Wanda reaches for him, but he side-steps her. He raises his hand in a wave before stalking off.

James furrows his brow and types up a message to Natasha while keeping one eye still on the video. His message is simple as it pertains to the other soldier. “Sam, why did he stay by Steve’s side? And how much of it is his issues from his own time at war?”

He watches as Steve and Wanda head out of their rooms and head towards the laboratory. He’s at least confident that they won’t think anything of the fact that he’s not there. Because the king has told them that much at least to get them from knowing the truth up to this point.

Natasha’s response comes in almost immediately. “Don’t ask. I’m serious. Sam and his issues are deep and not all of them are because of the war, a good portion of them are because of what our government has done to his people throughout its history. And the other parts of them are because of a traumatic event that happened when it shouldn’t have, and Steve has definitely used that to his advantage.”

Steve on the camera has turned to a scientist in the lab with a stern look on his face. “I would like to be taken to Bucky Barnes, immediately.”

James double checks how quickly he’s going to arrive there. Because he has a gut-feeling that when Steve gets angry, the witch is going to get a little bit sketchy in terms of not harming people. And he still has about thirty minutes before he lands. Looks like he’s about ready to have to set up a shot immediately upon landing.
He shoots off a final message to T’Challa telling him to stall with the truth if needs must, since he’s still a ways out, and he’d prefer to keep Steve talking rather than Steve inconsolable in a corner and the witch doing whatever she thinks would be best during this time.

The scientist lets out a breath as he inclines his head to Steve. “I’m sorry, but I do not have the required clearance to know where he is, or to override the king’s order that he is not to be disturbed. My apologies.”

James knew the lie as soon as it was said, which is unfortunate. Because that suggests that the witch would be able to tell if she had been looking with her mental powers, and he has doubts on why she wouldn’t be using them at this time.

“He’s lying,” the witch calls as she paces across the lab floor, staring at everything they are currently working on. At least from what he can tell, Shuri has managed to clear most of the sensitive projects out and also gotten herself to the back labs.

Steve starts to look around the grounds. “Well see that’s rather odd, because I could have sworn T’Challa told me that the reason all of this was happening was because there was some kind of construction going on in the lab. However, I see no issues in this room.”

The scientist twists his lips up into a hint of a smile. “Far be it for me to correct my king.”

Steve shakes his head. “No, no, no. You have no reason to follow someone that you suspect of lying to someone, especially someone that you know you can trust like me. Lesson number one on learning how to be a good person, never cover for liars or bullies.”

James facepalms on the plane. Of course, Steve is still claiming the high road and cannot understand the loyalty to someone else’s politicians.

Shuri’s voice interrupts the video for a second. “Sorry, Barnes. I’m going to have to cut the feed. My brother is about to march down there to stop Steve or the witch from going any further in their interrogation on civilian scientists.”

“Have someone there to lead me to a vantage point about three floors away with a clear sight.”

“Of course, sergeant.”

James falls silent counting the measured seconds just as he had been taught. In order to make a proper assassination attempt, he needs to be calm, he needs to be prepared for anything that might happen. His gun rests comfortably in his hands as he works through his notes on what type of shot, he should take. A headshot would be his preference.

By the time that he lands, James has started to get completely into the correct headspace. Shuri kept her word, and there is someone waiting for him the second he gets off the plane. He’s grateful for the way she leads him without speaking a word. One of the Dora Milaje leading him to kill a witch. His life really couldn’t be any crazier without being actual insanity.

The place that she leads him to has the voices playing of the king and Steve arguing loudly.

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Steve’s scream echoes around the room causing James to flinch even with his concentration being on someone else in the room that’s currently obscured enough that he can’t get a clean shot off on her.

“As I’ve explained repeatedly today, he was woken when there was a viable treatment option available. As his own person, he chose to take that option, which required he leave Wakanda under the supervision of someone that I trust immensely. He then asked both me and my sister to not say a word to anyone until he was ready to speak to you in his own time.”

Steve narrows his eyes. “Wanda, is he at least telling the truth?”

“Mostly. The person he released Bucky to was Stark,” she spits out.

T’Challa throws his hands in the air. “I was not aware that was a lie. He is a person whom I trust, a person who I might add, is the reason that no one has found out that you are here and demanded my head or yours.”

Steve shakes his head. “You’ve betrayed us.”

The second he says those words, three things happen. T’Challa takes a wild step back as red magic fills the room. Wanda steps forward to direct her magic in a more specific path towards the king of Wakanda. James takes the shot straight at her head.

Wanda falls, blood dripping from her head as she drops down to the ground. There was no time for screams and the magic retreats from the room.

James knows that he’s not up to dealing with Steve Rogers today, but he also has no desire to leave T’Challa to deal with the consequences of the dead body, so he pops his head over the balcony to stare at the king, someone he would call a friend with a smile on his face. “Sorry for the fact I didn’t get here sooner to take care of your Hydra problem.”

Then, he stalks out, ignoring the way that Steve calls his name followed by Wanda’s name. He keeps walking even as Shuri comes to walk at his side.

Shuri walks silently all the way to the plane. Only then does she reach out to touch his arm. “You don’t have to be a soldier anymore.”

“Yes, I do. That’s part of me, and I’ve found that it might be the best way to heal from my trauma. I don’t want to Hydra to live, so I should be there to help tear them down lest they get some genius idea to do something worse in their downtime.” He nuzzles the hand high on his arm. “Don’t worry about me, Princess. I’ve got a real lovely family waiting for me back home.”

With that he boards the plane to head home. The place that he wishes he had been in all morning, where he could have lazily woken up to Rhodey’s arms around him or maybe even Pepper’s. Life for him has brought many pains, and for the first time, he’s happy to be going exactly where he is.

Chapter Text

Natasha steps into Tony’s lab. She silently stands behind him looking at the project that he might have started for James but has quickly become the golden standard for his company at the moment. When he pulls this off, the world will once more be praising his name and the company as if it were made of gold and silk.

But what she wants, what she needs, isn’t something he can do while working on the plans for Stark Industries, and she almost feels awful about interrupting him. However, she would not be the kind of person to hide things from him ever again, and she’s sure as hell not going to throw her other best friend to the wolves, so her best option here, honestly her only option here is to interrupt. She slides her phone across his desk until its laying right before him.

Tony glances down at the phone and reads the sender name and hisses. It’s one of Barton’s codenames, of course, it’s one of Barton’s codenames. They all knew tht his mind was being targeted by Wanda, and her death destroyed that magic. Now it was all just a question of how much of it was her, and how much of it was him, and none of the options are nice enough that they were rushing towards the answer with any symbolance of rushing.

Tony spares a look towards Natasha who looks like she’s contemplating begging on Barton’s behalf, which absolutely would not be allowed. Not in this lifetime, not in the next. “Tell him that I’ll hear him out.”

“What?”

“He gets himself here to me, Friday will have orders not to intervene. Friday will have orders not to attack. And he will have the same chance I gave you, an opportunity to explain, with the obvious caveat of if I won’t forgive him and I won’t let him try to earn his place with this family, then he’ll give in to the authorities that I call.”

Natasha nods immediately. Already knowing how to phrase that in hidden messages, the same way that all orders for missions are given. She pauses when she realizes that’s what she’s treating this as. Not someone going to get a fallen or a hurt teammate but as a continuation of a mission that hasn’t ended.

Tony waits for her to voice whatever made her pause. He’s never been the best at reading people, and if her hesitation isn’t something that he’s planned for, he needs to know now in her own words.

“He was under mind control,” she whispers. She knows the excuse holds water, and yet she also knows that sometimes what’s done is done, and there’s nothing more to be said about the situation. There’s no magical way to erase the pain that’s already been inflicted, and there’s no way to reverse time back to when that hadn’t happened.

“Yes, but he was under Wanda’s, which is a whole mess. Because she is so much more subtle than Loki ever was, and I need to know which parts were her, which parts were him, and which parts were something else entirely since her powers come from a gem that made Thor nervous.”

She swallows down the instinctive bite to crawl up her throat. She’s not looking to injure her dom, her friend, she just needs to know what’s changed. “How did we get here? How can he be blamed for things that weren’t all him? Why do we live in a world where I have to ask you about what level of control is needed for complete forgiveness, and which isn’t?”

Tony turns to face her. “What if all her magic was used for, was to get him to run away from his family and all the rest was him? Or the opposite, what if he chose to abandon them without a trace of magic, and the war was what she used her magic for? What if he hasn’t had a free thought in three years? What if all he’s had are free thoughts and Wanda’s control was only over actions? What if Wanda put thoughts there and he chose what actions to take? Because some of those, most of those I can forgive, but not all. And regardless of any answer given before, do you think his guilt will vanish without a trace? Do you think he’ll survive this without some punishment?”

Natasha flinches, and she doesn’t hide. “He’s the best person I knew before you. He couldn’t have fallen that far.”

Tony reaches out and brushes her cheek with his fingers. “An unfortunate truth that I’ve learned the hard way a good few too many times is that no matter what we think we know, we don’t know the lengths a person will go to when they fall. Sometimes the man who kept you safe from your father’s beatings turns out to be the man who will blow you up to continue making the profit.”

She shakes her head. “Not him, Tony. I know him, I lived with him when I was at my worst, with Coulson too. I promise that this wasn’t all him. I know it wasn’t.”

Tony pushes himself back, and he wraps his arms around her in a tight hug. “I know that’s what you want to believe, but we have to be careful. We don’t want the family to get hurt one of these days because either of us chose to trust in people who betrayed us.”

Her face twists up into a sorrowed expression. “And what about what Rogers did?”

Tony lets out a rough sigh and buries his head in the crook of her arm. Because yeah, that’s going to be a mess to deal with. “There’s going to be some trauma surrounding everything, and more than likely he’s going to safeword throughout every punishment that he might get, and I’m going to do my absolute best to ensure that he’s okay by the end of it, and I promise that every other dom in our family will be updated with whatever triggers I find in my session, and they’ll be careful too.”
“I just want my best friend to be happy and healthy again.”

“I know, my dear.”

She stays there for several moments, sucking the comfort that he’s offering. She understands why he’s requested to double check everything after how many times they’ve been betrayed both as a team, and as individuals. Then, she pulls back to leave. All of the words she needed to say were already said.

Tony waits until she’s gone before turning away from his computers. “Friday, send a message to Pepper warning her that Clint is on his way, and he’s either going to be a mess or a wrathful irritated superhero on the way to kill us. One of the two.”

Pepper barely waits to respond almost as if she had a prepared message and reply. “I’ll move his wife and kids just in case, but I think the best-case scenario is likely to be the one that happens.”

“Also,” Friday interjects. “Most of the time, if people are coming to attack you, they don’t send a question asking for permission to come from someone that they’re reasonably sure will let the person they’re planning on attacking know that they are on their way, boss.”

Tony chuckles. Leave it to his creations and the light of his life to correct his paranoia anytime that he needs it. He clicks save on the files that are close to finished at this point. Almost all of the cars have been prepared for the first test forms to be built, so in a few days he’ll have to go into the office R&D holds to help out with those test runs. He doesn’t usually follow safety precautions with his suits, but he will with his employees. He’s not that much of a careless asshole.

The days pass relatively quietly. He has Friday monitor the different radio communications of other countries. Much as he might claim that Clint has to get to him on his own, that was just a pretty lie about needing Clint to believe he got there on his own. But Friday was always on alert, and if she caught a glimpse of him before anyone else did, well it is rather easy for an AI of his to delete that evidence immediately.

Work happens to be the most fun he’s had in years. The whole team is there when they’re all working on the first prototypes of the cars. For once, there are no explosions as they attach all the moving parts together, granted this is not the first time that arc reactors have been used by Tony for such purposes. Even though these are different, much weaker versions, because he does not trust the public with all his secrets.

Everyone agrees to get these sent over to the compound grounds for testing since the property is in Tony’s name and has a decent air pathway down where they could see how high they could go, whether new laws would need to be made or whether they’d fly low enough that they could follow the current roads at the same speed limits. All of them sign the email to legal to double check what kind of policies would need to be passed before they released the cars to the market after the tests are complete.

Tony almost feels bad for his employees who are going to have to open this massive email announcing the fact the company has flying cars. However, then he remembers that these are the same poor people who had to deal with the fact that he became a literal superhero after being kidnapped and assumed dead. This would not be the worst thing they’ve dealt with, and he’s alright with barely not topping himself for that record.

He does however avoid common spaces when he arrives back home as he heads up to his private bedrooms. He knows that Pepper will be on a warpath for him daring to actually involve all of the company in this new endeavor no matter how much this will benefit the company due to the amount of extra work it will involve, and he doesn’t want to be praised by James for a positive review either.

He shouldn’t be surprised by the archer kneeling at the foot of his bed. He really shouldn’t be surprised, if anyone was going to sneak into his private rooms in order to apologize it would be the super spy, Clint Barton. He closes his eyes, then he lets the door close with a noise so Clint would know of his presence.

“Hello, Tony,” Clint says. He doesn’t turn, and he doesn’t rise from his position. A perfect image of submission at the moment.

Tony meets his energy by dropping his hand down on Clint’s head. He watches the flinch carry through Clint’s body, and he curses in his head. Fuck, he hates when people abuse other people. Is it really so much to ask that no one hurt others on purpose for the clear objective and hurt them? “Hello, Clint.”

Clint takes a severe gasp of air. “I’m not sure how to start. Should I start with the begging part of the process or the explaining part or maybe the I’m an idiot part or maybe the I’m not sure of all what I did part?”

Another string of curses crosses his mind, this time a good portion of them cursing someone who is already dead. If she wasn’t dead, he thinks he might reconsider his position on torture after knowing this. “How about we start really simple, okay? Why did you come home to me?”

Clint’s body wracks with several shivers as he tries to force his body back to calm. “Because I know I wronged you, distantly at least. I remember lashing out. I don’t know what I did to my wife or my kids, I don’t remember leaving them, I didn’t know I had until her spell broke, and I realized she would have called or at least left a message if I hadn’t. But I couldn’t tell you when I did it, or why?” A sob leaves him as he admits this.

Tony breathes out through his nose. Of course, the witch was to blame for that set of circumstances too. What else was new? “Friday, send a message to Laura letting her know that the reason her husband ran out in the middle of that vacation was not in fact because dear old Captain America called with orders, but because a mind-raping hydra bitch got ahold of him and potentially that none of us noticed before it was too late.”

“On it, boss. If she wants to ask someone about it?”

“Route her to Natasha and then Pepper.” Tony blinks as he considers this. “And tell her that if she wants I will call her after I deal with her husband myself, and that Clint can call her anytime after that also.”

Clint fights the urge to turn to be able to stare at Tony. He fights the urge to try to lower himself further too. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, Clint.” Tony reaches out, and he runs his hand through Clint’s hair. He lets the moment settle for a minute or two while he tries to figure out what has happened that Clint knows and where there are gaps. “Clint, can you take me through what's happened since you left in your own words?”

Clint frantically nods, so happy to have a simple task to accomplish. He leans into the touch he’s been given as he relaxes on his haunches. “I retired, and the news said something about heroes needing to sign something or retire, and I thought to myself what luck, I’m already retired then. Things are a bit blurry after that. I remember a phone call, couldn’t tell you what was said, and then all that mattered was Wanda. She was such a young girl, just like my daughter and it was my duty to protect her, you know I failed at that before.”

Tony can’t stop himself from interrupting with a growl. Fucking hell, the magic went deeper than he had thought, if Clint was comparing her to his daughter, if he was saying that he had failed, when he hadn’t even known of her existence. He uses his grip to send Clint tumbling into his legs where the man could grab hold of him. “I’m going to make you pause for a second.”

“Of course.” Clint doesn’t move his hands, not yet. He just tilts his head ready to hear whatever Tony needs to say for the time being.

“You can touch me,” Tony offers softly. He knows that his guilt will ensure that he takes Clint the rest of the way through a pardon, at least enough of one that he can go home to his wife.

Clint moves his hands to wrap around Tony’s ankles and bows his head low to be pressed up against his foot. He relaxes further at the touch that he’s been granted.
Tony wants to create some new cuss words for what has to be done. “Clint, darling, how old was Wanda?”

“What?”

“Her age, do you know what it was?”

Clint shakes his head silently.

Tony lets out a breath. “Okay, so when you came to get her from my house, she was 27. She was born in 1989, and when the bomb hit her house in 2008, she was already 19, and she didn’t join Hydra until even later. So, she was never a child. She made those choices as an adult. She just made us see it as if she was a child.”

Clint raises his head to look at Tony with confusion in his eyes. “But, that’s not what my memories are telling me.”

“Oh, darling, I’m so sorry. She got in your head, and she changed what you saw. Your memories likely aren’t reality. That’s why I need you to tell me what happened to you in your own words, because I’m willing to put money on the idea that some of them are wrong, just dead wrong, and you need to know what happened.”

Clint swallows hard, and he rocks back onto his heels. There are tears pouring down his cheeks. “No, no. Not again, please. No.”

Tony squeezes his own eyes shut. He can’t handle the fact that he has to be the one who does this. The one who has to break him in order to ensure that he can heal later. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. That’s the only thing he can say. He can’t change anything. He can’t erase the history of what happened, all he can do is reach for Clint when Clint reaches back.

Clint cries silently for another few minutes. “So, she wasn’t like my daughter. And I’m guessing that means that she wasn’t trapped here.”

“Not by me,” Tony agrees. “Technically, she was trapped here because the US government said if she left the compound grounds and people freaked, they were going to have to deport her. You know since she never had citizenship or a visa.”

Clint buries his face in his hands. “There was a fight. Umm, I was told to go after Natasha. I thought that we were just trying to buy ourselves enough time to escape, but Wanda told me to stop using non-lethal attacks. Oh my god, I helped her send cars down on top of you,” he screams.

Tony reaches out with a hand. He holds Clint in place until he regains some calm. “That fight was clearly her playground. None of the rest of you, even Steve, would have used lethal attacks against friends. I don’t blame you.”

Clint eyes go wide and he starts gasping. “And Rhodes! He fucking fell, Tony. Oh Jesus, I don’t even know if I managed to ask about him when I was in that fucking cell. All that was left was the fact that I wasn’t able to trust you. You were the one abusing me.” He pauses.

“No, Rhodes fell. I don’t know if he is okay. I wasn’t supposed to trust you, I was supposed to believe that you were the one abusing me and that no cop would ever go after you. You had too much money, you had too much power and fame. But, you never hurt me. That was always Steve. And I made a quip about Rhodey because I couldn’t remember.” His eyes furrow and he pinches the skin of his hand.

“Wait, no! Rhodes fell, Vision hit him aiming for Sam. You went after him, and you knocked all of us on our asses, minus the ones that had already gotten out, and it’s a bloody miracle you didn’t kill us.” He grips his fingers tight around his own arms and he leaves bright marks as he scratches down.

“No, that’s not true either.” His head jerks up to stare at Tony. There are tears streaming down his face, and there’s a pale frantic look in his eyes. As if Tony will hold the answer to every question that he seeks, but he knows that in the end, more than likely everything has to come from his own head, and he no longer knows what the truth is. He sucks in a deep breath.

“Rhodes fell, Vision hit him after aiming for Sam. You realized something was wrong, that this was no longer a battle that got out of hand, you called to him to go hard. He did, but he missed. You took the rest of us down, and you did it without injury. Not even her, you didn’t even hurt her. And we were taken to a prison of some sorts. Not a legal one, but then, you wouldn’t have had time to fight that with Rhodey in the hospital. You would have been there. Except you weren’t. You came to the prison. You still reached for us. But I had instructions, instructions that her binds still held onto. Because that type of magic didn’t fade with her powers locked, she had already planted it deep. As long as she was alive, every time that Steve hurt me, I was supposed to believe that it was you.”

He meets Tony’s eyes and reaches forward for a hand, which Tony gives him without question. “But you didn’t. Not ever. You listened to my limits. You followed my instructions, and you left room for Laura anytime I needed her, and not you but couldn’t get to her. My memories were lying to me, and I didn’t want to trust you. Every part of me wanted to fall to my knees in front of you, but I didn’t do that. Instead, I did the only thing I could think of to make sure you hurt like I hurt. I took a shot at the fact that Rhodey fell. I told you that it was your fault. Bloody fuck, he was in the hospital, and I didn’t ask how he was. Instead, I insulted you.”

He gulps. “I have no right to ask.”

Tony gives him a shallow smile. “He’s alright. He’s got braces made by yours truly to make sure that he can walk again, and he’s got Natasha forcing him through every therapy session with only the brute force of a former Russian spy could conjure. And he’s got the rest of the family right next to him.”

Clint bends at his hip, prostrating himself on the floor. “I am sorry.”

Tony hates the fact that neither of them will heal without a punishment. But they won’t. And so they need to fix this, because Clint deserves that much at least. Because Clint doesn’t deserve to suffer for eternity just because of what happened. Clint deserves the forgiveness that he can offer, they just have to force themselves to get far enough to reach that ending.

“There’s only one thing that I’m angry about,” Tony says. And he finds that it isn’t necessarily a lie. Well it is, he’s going to tell Clint about the not trusting him thing, about not trusting instincts, where Tony could have saved him. Which is the only thing that Clint did to bring his anger. There’s plenty of shit that he’s pissed as all fuck about. Like the fact that Wanda dared to make him the abuser. He would never. He would actually cut off his own hands first.

Clint stares at him but then nods. He’s agreed to trust Tony’s judgment over his own this time. And god doesn’t that make things just a bit easier for Tony.

“I’m angry that you ignored your instincts. Because if you hadn’t. If you had fought just a little harder instead of cowering behind the defenses of a fucking 12-year-old, I would have seen that something was wrong, and I would have gotten us both out of this mess so much earlier than what I managed.”

Clint inclines his head. “Am I to be punished for it?”

“Yeah,” Tony admits softly. “But not tonight. Tomorrow, let’s say evening after dinner. Tonight, go curl up with the assassin that is your best friend, go reassure yourself that Rhodey is alright, and remember that just because you have a punishment waiting, doesn’t mean that you are currently unforgiven. The second you consent to that punishment, you’re fine in my books, we’re just waiting for the right moment to continue.”

Clint shoots off the ground. He darts over to press a kiss to Tony’s cheek before rushing out of the room.

Tony brushes his cheek with a distant grin on his face. Yeah, his family was going to be fine, he was going to make fucking sure of it, and this time, he’s got help. He’s got so much help that he doubts that he’s ever going to have to hesitate to love ever again. He’s got a support network from hell to aid him if something stumbles.

Chapter Text

Tony should have seen the phone call coming. He should have expected to get woken up by Friday because Mrs. Barton is very insistent on talking to him at this very moment, and he had promised her. But, damn, he was really looking forward to a decent night’s sleep before he had to deal with the countless situations of the morning. He pushes all that to the side when the call connects. “Hello, Laura.”

“Did we really all miss the signs?”

“What signs?” Tony sighs. “Wanda didn’t leave any that were major red flags that he wasn’t himself, at least none that we knew about at the time. The biggest one is the fact that his memories are different from reality, but how would any of us know that until we snapped him out of it enough that he would think for himself and wonder why on Earth things went like that.”

“So, my husband fell under mind control again, and not a single one of us could tell. And you want me to believe that the fucking 27 year old wonder villain hero combo of Wanda was stronger than a literal god at magic.”

Tony pauses for a moment. The two types of magic were completely different, but he at least had data points to draw from both. “No, she wasn’t stronger than Loki. The reason why hers was so much more dangerous is because one, she played a game of subtle changes. Making him run away from family, making him protect a person that he should hate, and so on and so forth, rather than betray the organization that he’s worked with for practically his whole life, which by the way, I have questions about.”

“You mean how did Fury get away with running an organization that was taking advantage of just about any skilled submissive that they could get their hands on? Because the answer to that is very simple: your father and your god mother didn’t want anyone to know about the plan, that way when things went haywire, the world wasn’t left stranded, and Fury took advantage.”

Tony closes his eyes and counts to ten. Yet another thing to put on the toppling pile of things that Howard did that left terrible impressions on him. That stack just keeps growing larger and larger as time goes on, and he really wished that it didn’t. “Right, and two, Loki wanted to fail, so we needed to know that his victims weren’t willing. Just like we needed to know how to destroy the portal, and why the attack happened in an area where we had the advantage and the knowledge of terrain.”

Laura sucked in a sharp breath. “You think he was trying to lose?”

“When we fought him, his eyes were blue. When we turned him over to Asgard to face justice, his eyes were green. I assume since the all father has supreme intelligence and all that, that he knew these facts during the trial, so I allowed Thor to take him. I didn’t really want to deal with the press and legal aspects of, yes he was the one mind-controlling all the little humans, but there was something bigger mind-controlling him to do that, so is he guilty of anything?”

“I’m flying up with the kids.” The change in subjects, clearly an indication that if she thought anymore about that particular line of thought she was going to topple over in sheer anger at what the fuck was happening.

“Do you want a private plane that can land directly on the property of the compound?”

“Pepper’s already got me covered on that one, and she’s coming down to fly back with us, so she can help field some questions from the kids on what’s been happening.” Laura pauses for a moment. “He tells me that you’re going to punish him?”

“We can’t move forward from this one without one. This type of manipulation was far worse than what Loki did in some ways. And I found something that was more him than her that I could use as the reason to try to make sure both of us can move forward. Don’t know what you’re going to do, but that’s the best I can come up with.”

Laura breathes hard over the other line of the phone, and he hears her close a few doors. “I told him that if you were the one punishing him, I’d take that as good enough for us too, given most of his crimes against me were done from mind control, and that we were once part of your family, and I would have trusted you then, so I damn well ought to trust you now.”

“But?” Hesitation had come through so clear in her voice, that he doubts that anyone could have missed it. Even people who aren’t used to looking for the things that people aren’t saying at times like these.

“Do you remember his limits? Because of the Loki situation.”

Tony blinks. “Yep.” He makes sure to pop the p in that word. “He can’t handle anything coming up from behind him, and he can’t be blindfolded ever. The first stops me from doing any sort of punishment spanking on his ass, because that would be from behind. The second stops me from doing anything like a sensory deprivation punishment, not that I ever would have with him. I would potentially have used that in a scene with him, but never in a punishment, he’d take that way too harshly.”

Laura stays silent for a long time. Over five minutes pass with just breaths coming from the other line of the phone, and if Tony didn’t know them so well and know that she was clearly struggling with what needed to be said, he’d probably hang up. But, he never cut them from his list of family, and he never hangs up on family. Unless he’s flying into a portal in space to send a nuke at an alien army, or other various potentially life-threatening situations.

“Never tell him that I’m why you know this,” she finally says.

“Secrets, my my, what a wonderful way to try to repair a bridge there, Laura.” He lets his judgement slip out on this one.

“Tony, promise me.”

“Why?”

Laura lets out a few Russian curses that he’s sure that Natasha taught her, so the kids would be even less likely to replicate what she said in a moment of despair. “Because he said your name, and I should have known it was a lie, and instead I trusted him and brought him home. And since it clearly wasn’t you, and there was only one other dominant on your team at the time that wasn’t literally Asgardian and not initiating scenes, you can place money on who can be assumed to have done it.”

“You thought I abused him,” Tony snaps. His voice is cold, and he’s wondering whether he should reconsider the letting her be a part of the family. Because if she doesn’t trust him to this extant, there’s no patching that with what’s coming. Yet, she is placing her husband’s, her sub’s punishment in his hands. Too many mixed signals, and he really wants to hang up and go back to sleep like a normal person.

“I knew someone did, and he gave your name. And while I should have trusted my instincts and found out what was wrong, I did something else. I believed my husband at face value. Could you really tell me that you wouldn’t have done the same? That if Natasha had walked up to you one day with tears in her eyes, clear bruises on her ass after knowing that’s a limit, and told you it was me. Would you have asked a thing?”

Tony sucks in a breath. “Yeah, because I would have needed some more evidence to drag you to court. But I see your point.”

Laura sighs in relief. “Just so all the air is clear and all that, I am sorry. I am sorry that I didn’t think to check with any of you for the truth of the matter. I’m sorry that I just ran off with him and hoped like hell that it would make things better, because clearly it didn’t. Some things apparently can’t be made better with some gentle words and spoken promises. And I’m trying really hard not to have my own break down over everything that we learned and that’s not quite fair either, but that’s all I’ve got. So, I’m sorry.”

Tony’s the one who lets out the sigh this time. Not one based in relief, but one that’s sick and tired of apologies. Yeah, they were great and cleared the air, but the ones who really owe the big apologies don’t seem keen on giving them, and he’s honestly pissed off about it, and he’s thinking that he’s going to choose to stay pissed off about it instead of dealing with it like a reasonable person too. “Forgiven.”

A pitying laugh carries over the phone. “Should I be?”

“Hell if I know, I’m making this shit up as I go along to try to patch a family back together, and as far as I was concerned you were never not in it, so I guess that means that I need to find a way to forgive you. And I understand you, and I don’t necessarily know whether if in your shoes, I would have done anything different.”

“I could have come home.”

“Yep.”

Laura lets out a few more of those curses. “Anyway, moving on to my point that we’ve got a little bit side-tracked from at this point. Rogers probably ignored both of those limits during punishments, at the very least the one with attacking from behind. And I know that sent Clint into so many sub drops that he did eventually fight through the witch’s mind control enough to allow me to force Fury into giving him that retirement.”

Tony throws his head against the headboard behind him. “Fuck, alright. Eggshell punishment it is.”

“What?”

“One where I’m walking them through each step and reminding them every new thing that happens during the scene that they can say no, that they can back out, and that won’t affect my forgiveness. It just means I have to be a bit creative finding a different punishment, and hell if none of my normal ones work, I will ask someone to drive to the store, pick up a fucking bag of rice and have him kneel on it while I’m doing some other task and call that a punishment. Jesus, I want a drink.”

“You’ve been sober for close to two years now, don’t throw that anyway because of the asshole whose done this to us.”

Tony laughs and then he falls over on his soft cushions laughing harder. He hadn’t even thought about his sobriety in the past few months. He’s just been running from one crisis to another, never having time for a drink, let alone one when things were getting bad because there was every chance that he was going to have to go right back into the fray of things.

“Tony,” she calls.

“Sorry, sorry about that. I had completely forgotten that I hadn’t had a drink during all of this chaos without even needing a meeting because before now there hasn’t been time.” Tony closes his eyes. “Not to worry, hidden agent of the farm, I won’t drink tonight, and if the cravings get bad, I’ll go interrupt one of the family members sleep enough that they can stay with me the whole night to keep me from it.”

“I’ll be there soon,” she promises, “and then you can wake me up for that anytime you need, and I’ll get you a kid pile to cuddle with until the urges die down a bit because you don’t want the kids to know something is wrong.”

“You, my dear, are a trickster in disguise, and I look forward to your arrival. But if you don’t mind, I do need a bit more sleep than what I’m running on to do a proper scene later today.”

“Sleep well.” Then, the line clicks off.

Tony rolls back over and buries his face into the pillow, when he hears the door creak, and he’s about to curse, when he sees James just slinking in.

“Nat’s waiting for Clint to join her, and Rhodey currently has him, and Pepper is off preparing for a trip of some sort, and I can’t sleep alone tonight,” he rambles.
Tony raises an arm and beckons James under the covers. Before long both of their eyes are drooping shut, and there’s nothing more that needs to be said about the situation.

By the time that Tony rejoins the land of the awake, Natasha is propped up in the corner of his room in one of the armchairs that both her and Pepper had cornered him into buying one day. There’s a book in her lap and tension in every crevice of her body.

“What’s wrong?”

“Clint didn’t come to my room last night, and after I asked Friday to ensure myself he was alright, I realized that I didn’t want to sleep, and I didn’t want to be alone, so I figured the next best plan that I had was coming to you.”

Tony tips his head back and ends up burying it further into James’ stomach, not that the other man seems to mind in the slightest. “He’s probably still with Rhodey then.”

Natasha swallows hard. “Did he remember?”

“Rhodey getting injured, barely. He kept having to restart trying to push through the memory enough to find out what really happened, as his memories were still there just buried under everything that she manipulated. What he did?” Tony wavers his hand in between them. “He could remember that he did something to try to push me away, because that bitch took everything that Steve did to him and transferred it to me, so he’d hate me.”

“But his instincts knew better,” Natasha murmurs. “They’d have to, because the two of you are so drastically different in how you handle scenes, and submissives, and people in general.”

James grumbles as he hears that. “Not only that, but anyone who pays attention knows that even when not in a scene, Steve treats them differently than Tony does, and the way that Steve does it is going to be more alarming than when Tony does it.”

Natasha’s head shoots around to look at James. “What do you mean by that?”

James barely raises his head from the pillow to jerk his head towards Tony. “When was the last time that you did anything, and he didn’t ask you whether you were going to be alright? When was the last time that you looked upset, and he didn’t naturally step in front of you to field whatever was coming out? When was the last time you were in trouble, true honest to god trouble, and he didn’t come?”

He waits for Natasha to try to puzzle out the answer, and he watches as she realizes just how long it has been. “Now answer the same for Steve.”

Natasha inclines her head. “I hadn’t realized all the small things that make it obvious who would be abusing the submissives. But now that you point it out, it seems so clear.”

James groans as he can’t bury his head again, because he’s clearly being asked to participate and explain why he saw this so quickly. He plucks himself up and props up on his arms with his head in his hands. “Because this culture is normal to you. These micro differences are the norm in your time. That’s not true in my time. In my time, Steve would have been like the cream of the crop. Now, he’s the scum of the dirt, and I can see that so clearly it hurts some days.”

“Why does it hurt?” Tony asks softly.

“Because that means the world has changed without me, and while it might be for the better, it still aches. It aches knowing that despite the fact that I am the older brother, I will live in a better world than my sister, who I will not see again until death takes me. And it hurts knowing that a man I once would have trusted with my very life is so rooted to the past, that he will not grow with the times. He’ll just plant his feet and believe in the past.”

Natasha steps forward, a hand outstretched to touch him, to reach for him and hold way against the darkness trying to invade his soul, but James rolls away from her. She frowns as she can’t think of what she’s done that would result in that reaction.

Neither can Tony for that matter, they always seem close as can be.

Then, the door bursts open and Rhodey stalks in. He takes one look at all the people there, sucks in a deep breath, and then releases his anger in a controlled flow of breath. “Hi, three questions. Why is it that you’ve chosen Tony’s private rooms to invade and curl up in, when we have a group room for this exact reason? Why is Clint curious whether I’m going to punish him too, as last time I checked he hadn’t done shit to me? And finally, why is Clint here and not with Laura?”

Tony darts his eyes around to see whether anyone else is going to take any part of this and when there’s little to no reaction, he quirks a smile at Rhodey. “Well, we’re all here, because we were expecting the night to go in a different direction than what it did, and we didn’t want to change what we were doing once we realized that the plans had changed drastically. Survivor’s guilt most likely, since he just remembered the accurate depiction of what happened at the airport. I trust that you told him that he was at no fault according to you to avoid a meltdown. And Clint came to family. He’s always welcome to come to family.”

“Of course, I took care of the potential meltdown, I’m not a fool. And yes, he can come to family as always, but typically if I’ve fucked up on this absurd of a level, I’d go to the person who swore to be by me through thick and thin, not the guy I screwed over most during my time.”

Natasha smiles bitterly at Rhodey. “He’s got one of those in Laura and one of them in me. And me and mine can tell him which parts are real and which are her mixed up in his mind even after death. Laura couldn’t give him that.”

Rhodey counts to ten loudly. Then, he stares at Tony. “I assume that you are planning on adding him back into the family.”

“Obviously.”

“So the kids and Laura are where? Because they need to be home at least for the first little while after Clint gets back or he’s going to feel like he’s being pulled in two directions and that wouldn’t be nice to him at all.”

“Pepper’s flying out to go get them.” Tony swings his legs off the bed and makes a show of grabbing clothes to throw on. “Speaking of which, Friday, the tests yesterday, how did the surveys go of the ones watching for issues?”

“The only issue that several people are concerned with was the shakiness of the straight up path to get in the air.”

Tony points towards the ceiling in thanks. “Alright. So, here’s how the day is going to go for everyone who is moderately concerned about one portion of it or another. Natasha, go curl up with bird brain and make sure he knows that he was never in any danger of losing your support. Rhodey, if you could pretty please make sure that spiderman has some training, since it is a weekend, and he doesn’t have school. James, do whatever you would like. And I’ll go work on the flying car bugs until dinner. Then, we all eat a huge meal before I drag Clint up to this room, and none of you interrupt us.”

James nods. “Pepper told me that my pardon had been cleared, so I thought I’d try to go out for coffee and a walk in a park that’s not owned by you.”

“Sounds good. Use Friday to call someone if something goes wrong while you’re out and about.”

He nods to everyone and heads down to the lab. While he’s doing that he wonders how much of a liar he is, since he knows that the flying cars are barely even going to be in the third branch of what he’s got to do before dinner time. Step one, review the list of things on Clint’s limits with a laser beam focus on the things that are limits because of mind control. Step two, come up with a way to remind Clint that he’s safe with Tony after a different dominant has likely done horrible things to him repeatedly. Step three, fix the bugs on the flying car, so he can throw some keys at James sometime soon.

The first step turns out not to take a bunch of his time. That had been made easy by Laura’s reminders in the morning, and also some added notes that Clint scrawls in whenever he thinks of them, and he’d clearly thought of a few while in Wakanda and just used his Starkphone. Lucky him that Tony never stopped those from syncing to his tower.

But on the how to make sure someone who has been abused knows that they are safe, that he’s struggling with. Because both James and Natasha had an intrinsic trust in him and the fact that he’s never hurt them. He doesn’t think he has that with Clint. Not that he’s ever hurt Clint, because he wouldn’t. Not even close. However, the witch put memories of him doing just that into Clint’s mind, and he has no idea how to combat the fact that there are false memories of him hurting someone he cares about, and he has no good way to stop those from coming up, time and time again.

His list of reasons why he’s super grateful that James shot the witch increases with each minute, along with his list of reasons why Steve Rogers should be buried in a pit and left there to rot until the serum stopped saving him. Although in his opinion that list is starting to become longer than some of the people that he’s always seen as enemies and that’s a new kind of terrifying too.

His foot taps against the ground, and he throws his hands in the air. Maybe the best plan isn’t one that intends to convince him that he’s not in any danger, maybe its one that reflects exactly what his scenes have always been about accomplishing which is trust. He trusts that Clint will safeword, and he watches for any hint of hesitation, and then he fixes it when the problem arrives. And he assures the man that all this is about is assuring the transgression doesn’t happen again, and that he’s forgiven. That he’s been forgiven since the moment he dared to walk into Tony’s bedroom and ask for it.

With that decision made, he turns in his chair to face the computer and he pulls up the data from the issue. The destabilization is because there’s nothing to adjust the stability in the arc reactors at a fast pace. He refuses to be like apple, google, or god forbid amazon and place a fake AI in stuff for them to talk to, nor does he particularly want the government to start trying to regulate actual AIs like the ones he could create, because they would as more people got ahold of them. Maybe he could make one, a single AI, that would control the cars that are sold. He’d have to use a significant testing period of making sure that her protocols were tied in him and SI, and that while people had some commands they could give, they couldn’t get more. But, that would fix his issue. And it would place a proper AI on the system.
He starts working on the code, Friday starts to help him as well. He can feel her excitement at having another AI friend to talk to, to communicate with. He feels it to in a different way. He supposes that some of them may have been right in their assessment to call his systems his children.

A sharp rap on his desk commands his attention up to find James staring down at him with a slightly smug look on his face. “What’s up, James?”

“I was told by no less than three people to make damn sure you didn’t miss dinner. You seemed inclined to miss it with your head buried in those screens ten minutes before dinner, so I figured I’d make good on my word and drag you up to the table.”

Tony laughs. He’s glad that he’s got family to hold him to his promises like that, because otherwise absolutely hundreds of promises would be broken. Not because he meant to spite anyone or cause anyone to have any upset at all, but because he’s so terrible at managing time once he gets sucked into a promise.

James quirks his lips into a smile as well. “Now come, mister science man, we must do the family dinner thing.”

“I wanted him to have a semblance of structure first. I thought it might help him.”

James twists to regard Tony. “Does it matter why? It is now something that we have told several people we will do, and thus we need to do it. Does the original purpose matter to me?”

Tony spares him a glance as he marches towards the elevator closing everything down as he goes. “Of course. One day you might wonder why I’m doing this for you. If I tell you why when it’s someone else’s turn, you’re far more likely to believe me when it’s you.”

James tilts his head to the side as he considers that, then he nods. He moves suddenly to tuck himself into a brief embrace before stepping back. “Like I said earlier today, you are a good man.”

Tony chuckles as he directs the elevator to take them up to where dinner will be taking place. “I stand by my opinion that you are the first person to say that within a month of knowing me.”

“You never bothered to put up your masks with me.” James opens a door for him.

Tony allows the simple ways that James goes out of his way to make his life easier. Like the way that food will always be in the lab around meal times, regardless of whether he’s sent Friday to ask whoever’s cooking to make him something. Or the way that doors seem to always be opened right in front of him by someone who was mostly invisible before that very moment. Or his favorite, the way that just about everything he’s meant to remember has a human connected to it.

Clint sits on the chair at the table with his fists clenched tightly as he stares into the kitchen.

Tony follows his gaze to find Natasha and Rhodey fixing up a rather nice taco night. Which is great because he has yet to meet a single person that doesn’t like at least one form of tacos. So, he turns his focus right back to Clint. “What’s got you so tense?”

Clint drops his jaw and just looks at him with confusion.

“It's dinner, Clint, not a swinging sword coming for your head.”

James slips into a seat near Clint and moves some of the dishes so both of them have some right in front of them. “You don’t have to be nervous. Everyone’s going to follow Tony’s lead, and he says that you’re part of the family again, so you get to eat some fancy food, and then you get to go with Tony to do whatever it is he has planned, and you don’t have to worry about a damned thing through it all.”

Clint jerks his head between everyone. He makes several attempts to utter a sentence, but they all die on his lips, because he’s just so confused. He finally throws his hands towards Natasha clearly asking her to explain.

Natasha drops some of the food into the middle of the table before even looking at him. “I believe what James means to say is you are a member of this family, and we’ve been asked to do a family dinner minus Pepper who is too busy at the current moment to be freed, so you’ll sit at this table and eat the food. Then, after dinner, you’ve been asked to do a punishment scene with Tony, where your only job is to make sure he knows that you are comfortable or uncomfortable and what level of those you are. Everything else is on someone else.”

“Dinner is on those two,” James says with a nod to Rhodey.

Rhodey rolls his eyes as he brings the rest of the food. “And if you think all of us have lost our mind in the time since you’ve been gone, I can almost guarantee you that you are correct.”

Clint turns to Tony then. Still a panicked look on his face and confusion written in every place that the panic hasn’t won out in. His eyes so wide that Tony’s afraid they’re moments from popping out of his skull all together.

“Breathe, Clint. The assholes are just being their normal annoying selves.”

James blows a kiss at him while tucking into the food.

“See the resident winter soldier, also happens to be a brat. I’ve got a brat living with me now.”

Clint lets out a bark of a laugh. Then, he clamps his hand over his mouth and his eyes fill with tears.

Tony barely stops his hand from face-palming. Whatever the hell Rogers did, left marks deeper than he thought. “You’re welcome to laugh, Clint. You’re welcome to do whatever you want in response to their teasing including ripping into them for being assholes. Especially Natasha, since she’s supposed to be your ride or die bitch.”

“I think I’ve fallen into an alternate reality,” he whimpers.

“Sorry, still our world. Unfortunately for you, those memories of yours are shit when it comes to recollection thanks to a certain witch, so instead of remembering that this is perfectly normal, you get us forcibly proving it over a meal.” Rhodey starts layering food on his plate too.

Tony reaches out to grab some food too. And then after a short moment where everyone but Clint had grabbed food, he spun Clint’s plate to be facing him and made the tacos the way he briefly remembered the man liked them from the short periods of time where he lived in the tower, before pushing it back towards him.

Clint looks between them all before digging into the food.

Tony tosses a glance over to James. “Any chance you know whether Rogers didn’t want the submissives to prep their own food?”

James pauses after swallowing a bite. “That would check out. He’s always been pretty particular about the fact that the dom is supposed to be the first to eat, the first to serve, and so on and so far.”

Clint nods along with what James says. “Me and Sam got pretty good at doing snacks throughout the day, that way we wouldn’t have any issues sitting on our hands for close to an hour while he ate and wouldn’t reach for food until he was done.”

Tony’s eyes fall closed he had forgotten that Sam was still in that situation. He’ll have to ask T’Challa to reach out and see whether he’s doing okay, because if he’s not, Tony’s going to have to do something slightly bolder in order to save him.

Clint notices the way that Tony seems to suddenly recall the other submissive that had never been one of his, and yet he still feels a slight responsibility for. “Sam is fine. Sam has dealt with worse things than Rogers, and he’s very good at slipping through everything. Natasha avoided getting hit by passing as a switch. Sam gets by because he’s been trained to deal with dominants who are pissed off or who are naturally violent without setting them off. Most of the time when he seems to be heading in a direction that Rogers might take badly, he backtracks suddenly enough that it doesn’t do anything that offering Rogers immediate submission doesn’t fix. He’s never received a true punishment from Rogers, occasionally he’ll get a light swat or something, but he always responds to those with such immediate submission that he gets away with nothing but the threat.”

James tenses in his seat. Because that would work fine when Steve had multiple submissives, but Sam’s the only one left, and Steve’s going to be pissed as hell. “Tony,” he whispers..

Tony opens his eyes and reaches over to lay a hand on James’ shoulder. He looks over to Rhodey, because both of them had seen the memory, where Sam was one of the people he cared about most.

Rhodey nods. “I will send a message through T’Challa where Sam knows that he can contact us at any time, and one of us will go to pick him up. No questions asked, and whatever needs to be done with his part of the accords can be handled at a later time once he’s no longer in any danger.”

James jerks his head up and looks at Rhdoey as if he’s a savior.

Rhodey twists his head away from that heady experience rather quickly. And turns to Tony. “Problem mostly solved for the moment.”

Tony smiles in thanks, because seriously he doesn’t know when everything got so bloody complicated when it came to all of this, but what he knows for sure, is that it did in fact get a whole lot more complicated when he wasn’t looking for some bedamned reason. He removes his hand from James and transfers it over to Clint.

Clint nods as soon as the hand touches him and slides out of his chair. He allows Tony to direct him in the direction of the bedrooms, in particular his. He doesn’t turn back afraid that if he does, he may have a breakdown of fear on the way there and that wouldn’t be the best for any of the situation.

Tony notes the way that he appears to be marching towards doom and chooses to get a little bit more loose with his normal rules that he normally would. Once they’re both in the corridor and no one else can see them, he leans Clint up against the wall. Then, his lips are pressing against Clint’s and tipping his head back to the wall under the pressure of Tony.

When he pulls back, he can see the way that Clint is looking at him for guidance, and he places lighter pecking kisses all across his face. “You’re good, Clint. You’re so bloody good. All that’s happening right now is we’re going to make sure none of the guilt over what happens still plagues you after tonight.”

Clint looks back at him and ducks his head into the crook of Tony’s shoulder. A wetness spreads underneath where his face is buried, and he’s sure that he’s silently sobbing now. His body wracks under his weight.

“Hey, hey, now. Breathe for me, bird brain.” Tony runs his hand through Clint’s hair. “This ain’t one of Rogers punishments, okay? This is us making things right for us and that’s it. That means that you aren’t comfortable, you safeword, and I come up with some other plan to help you. That means that for whatever reason, you can’t handle anything at all, that’s okay too. And we’ll create a plan on a different day.”

“But I was bad,” he chokes out. Fear causing him to want this comfort that Tony’s giving and yet at the same time wanting to run in the opposite direction.

Tony shakes his head. He starts pulling them towards his bedroom until they’re behind a closed door. Once that’s accomplished, he slides down to his knees pulling Clint with him down to the floor where he can wrap Clint into his arms and hold him there. “No, you weren’t bad. You did a bad thing, that’s all there is to it. No such thing as being bad in this family. We’re all too damn selfless for that one. Each and every one of us has every right to tell the world that we’re done with their shit, because we’ve done so much good for it, and yet we’re still fighting those fights. That makes us good.”

Clint pulls his head up to stare at Tony. “I did something bad,” he whispers.

“Mmmhmm. And we’re going to fix it.” Tony keeps him locked in his arms. He pulls Clint’s arms back until they’re bracketed underneath his body, and Tony’s got him splayed out. “I know normally you prefer scenes to take you by surprise, but I also know that sometimes things change, so let me ask you a simple question, okay? Would you like to know what’s going to happen tonight?”

“Yes, please.” Clint twists in the hold until he can kind of wrap his body up a little more into Tony’s space and feel him everywhere possible.

Tony moves his arms further into the center of his back to stop him from being able to move, but he also tugs upwards until Clint is completely on top of him. “Hmm. Alright, so I was thinking that we would do a cock and ball torture scene. I know that it's not on your list of limits and will allow you to see me coming at all times.”

Clint makes a sharp sound, and Tony pauses his explanation. He’ll respect Clint’s right to safeword, he’ll always respect that. But no sound other than that comes out of the man.

“My main plan is to crush you under my foot. I know there are other methods, but most of them, I don’t particularly like as punishment scenes, and the actual spanking of a cock is not my normal bag of hats, and I don’t want to go too far on accident because I’ve never done it before.”

Clint remains still and silent. The only movement of his chest as he breathes in and out over and over again.

Tony glances down towards Clint and seems to realize that he’s waiting for something. He can’t quite figure out what the man might be waiting for after everything. It dawns on him slowly that Clint is waiting for permission to respond. The only way he has right now is verbally, and he doesn’t want to respond verbally. “Give me consent, and you can do whatever you want, Clint. Just tell me that my plan isn’t completely against your wishes.”

Clint swallows hard. “Yes, I accept the punishment you have laid out for me.”

Not exactly what Tony was hoping to accomplish or gain by asking that question, but also not completely against what he had asked for, so he’ll honor his word. He drops his arms so that Clint is free to move.

Clint keeps his hands behind his back as he shimmies off Tony’s lap. He crawls to the center of the floor on a rug, his back laying against the softer fabric instead of the tougher wood. He huffs at the pants still on his body and spreads his legs as wide as he can get with the fabric still on. “Please.”

Tony blinks. Then, he blinks again. He could have sworn pain play was not one of Clint’s kinks. Actually, he is positive of that, he’d reviewed the damn document earlier in the day. So, why the fuck would the man be inviting pain, looking so damn eager for it, and saying the word please. None of this makes any sense as far as he’s concerned, and he’s getting pretty sick and tired of shit not making any sense. “Clint?”

Clint pushes up just enough that his head can make out Tony’s eyes instead of being flat against the ground. “Tony?”

Tony debates in his head how to phrase this. “Hate to tell you, that you aren’t actually supposed to enjoy a punishment.”

Clint furrows his brow and narrows his eyes. “Uhuh. There a reason why you think I’m going to enjoy having my dick crushed underneath you?”

“How about the fact that the second I gave you permission to move that you got into position without being asked? Or the fact that you look fucking happy to be in that position? Or or the fact that you fucking asked me to start?”

Clint makes a gentle o face. He moves his arms, unlocking them from the position at the center of his back to push himself up into a seated position. “Right talking things through. Not excitement to receive the punishment, or at least not excitement about the upcoming punishment. More genuine, whole relief at the fact that this is to be the punishment.”

Tony widens his eyes and throws his hands out wide. He does not understand that any more than he understood any of the rest of this. Why would someone dread punishment and be relieved that it had been sentenced? He knows some subs that are complete wrecks without one, but Clint isn’t one of them, and also that doesn’t involve relief at the punishment usually but at the end of one.

Clint takes in that position and sighs. He reaches out a hand and waits until Tony’s hand is curled in his before speaking again. “Limits aren’t meant for punishments in Rogers’ eyes. The last time I had someone be considerate to what triggers me to what Loki did, was when Laura punished me gently after forgetting a few too many house chores and I asked her for that type of scene. There’s a certain eagerness to what I’m doing because I want it so bad. I want a punishment that won’t render me close to a drop just by nature of what’s happening.”

Tony squeezes the hand in his grip. “I need you to know that I would never do that.”

Clint uses his free hand to tap his head right over his temple. “There’s knowing something and then there’s feeling something. I know you wouldn’t, but my head still feels like you might and each time you prove that wrong, my reactions get a little more normal. Right now, I still have a fear that you’ll change your mind, thus I want to be as good as possible to avoid that.”

Tony shakes his head. He crawls over on the floor too until he can lean over and press another deep kiss to Clint. “You don’t have to be good to deserve to have your limits listened to.”

Clint throws his head back and laughs. A full body laugh and when he comes back, he’s the one who initiates the kiss and keeps them as close as possible. “Punish me, please, so my brain can stop fighting me and sending me opposing signals every five seconds.”

Tony pulls away. That’s the closest thing he’s ever let a sub do to begging in the middle of a punishment. This is the furthest he’s gone towards romanticism in the middle of a punishment. None of this was the smartest thing to do when the lines were already blurred for this submissive. But as he stands, he can’t bring himself to care. Not when Clint looks more comfortable than he has all day, not when he knows what’s going on inside Clint’s head for the first time in forever too.

“Clothes off, then on the floor on your back with your legs spread as far as you can hold for a long period of time,” Tony commands.

Clint rips his shirt off in a blur of motion, and then he starts working on his pants and his underwear.

While he’s watching Clint closely, he kind of starts planning in his head. A crushing should build up and he certainly wants reptation, not just going all the way until Clint’s screaming on the first pass, although he does want tears. Maybe ten seconds first, then thirty, then he’ll go for as long as he thinks Clint can stand without falling forward, then he’ll work backwards once more.

Clint presses himself into the carpet. He appears tense with Tony standing over him, towering over him really since Tony was a good five feet over him. Still, he spreads his legs out until there’s a subtle burn in his thighs that he’s sure will cause him to feel more pain in the morning, but he could hold this for an hour if necessary, and he doubts that Tony will have him maintain this for over that long, and if he does, he’ll safeword to explain the situation.

Tony walks over right next to Clint to consider his outfit. He probably should have changed at some point. The good news is that he is still wearing shoes, so there’s that. He stops with one foot in between Clint’s legs and the rest of his body off to the side.

Clint squeezes his eyes shut, and he twists his head to the side. He fights his desires for three seconds before blurting the word out like it stung the inside of his head, and he has no clue what will happen once he says it. “Yellow.”

Tony stops all of his movements. His head is staring straight at Clint. “What’s wrong?”

Clint forces his head back to forward where he can see Tony. He can't quite stop the way that tears leak from the corners of his eyes. “I can’t handle this if I don’t have the comfort of your touch to help me remember that I’m not actually going to be alone in the end.”

“Shit,” Tony mumbles. He slips back down to his knees, and that’s not good on his old knees, and he needs to invest in several more dominant kneeling cushions for when he ends up on his knees to be comforting one of his subs. This is becoming way too common not to.

Clint curls into Tony’s arms once they’re there. He lets Tony guide his head into his lap with his legs still spread across the floor.

“Shit, Clint. I can’t do this scene on the ground with you. I’m not that kind of flexible.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Not your fault,” Tony assures him immediately. He starts petting Clint’s hair. “Relax for a minute while I try to think of a solution, okay.”

True to his word, Tony spends the next minute trying to figure out how in the hell to salvage a scene that requires a humanoid standing practically on top of Clint. “Alright, I have two options. You are in complete control of which one gets chosen. We could Rhodey in here. He’d be more than happy to help with the scene although he’d probably need to hear from you why we’re doing it this way. Or I could have Friday summon a suit. The suit’s going to hurt a hell of a lot more than me doing it, and while I have a keypad to instruct it without telling you what’s happening, I can’t adjust nearly as much on the fly.”

Clint sucks in a breath. He wonders whether this is a trick. If Tony was Rogers, it would be. He’d want Clint to choose the one that would be worse for him, and Clint’s not even sure which one of these would count as that. The one that puts him through the most embarrassment. The one that puts him through the most pain. But this is Tony. Tony the dominant that immediately fell to his knees when Clint called yellow. The one reworking a perfectly good scene because Clint had an issue with it. “Suit, please.”

“Friday, you heard the man.”

“Boss, I must say that this is a terrible plan.”

Tony lets out a dry chuckle. “Sure, it is. But between me and bird brain, it’s the best one we have, so that’s what we’re doing.”

Clint turns and presses a kiss to the thigh nearest to him. “Thank you.”

Tony wants to tell Clint that this isn't something he’ll take thanks for. He'll accept a lot of things, but not this. Because this is basic human decency and he shouldn’t be applauded for upholding that, but he will be. Instead, he waits in silence for the suit to get there. Once it does he types several things on his keypad. He’s not bloody doing his original plan. He’ll do ten seconds, then two rounds of thirty and then a final five second one. He’ll do the first two on 30% strength, the third at 35%, and the final one at 40%. And he’ll hope like hell he’s not miscalculating anything.

He nudges Clint’s leg with his hand. “Spread.”

Clint opens his legs immediately. His head twisting for comfort, while his body is open wide ready to accept whatever pain is coming to him.

Tony nods to the suit, and the giant metal foot begins pressing down.

Clint squirms and tears form in his eyes as his cock is pressed into the ground and the pain floods his system. He knows that this is far from the worst it could get, but god it hurts. But, he doesn’t try to close his thighs, and he doesn’t plead for mercy.

When the suit backs off for the moment, Tony leans down and presses a kiss on Clint’s forehead. “You’re doing so well for me, sweetheart. Can you take more?”

Clint nods. Anything. He’ll do anything if it means more gentle praise, if it means he’ll be worthy of whatever Tony tells him that he’s worth.

Tony takes in the desperate way that Clint nods, and he licks his lips. There’s a reason that dominants feel the urge to participate in play too, and the power rush from knowing that someone is trusting you with their pain is heady. And he loves it. He nods again to the suit.

This time Tony counts out loud for Clint. Because this time when the pain starts up again, Clint thrashes with his arms. They’re pinned by Tony, but they flail as he tries to alleviate his pain in any way except move out of the way. By the time thirty comes, Clint is panting and squirming and staring up at Tony almost begging for his mercy, but he’s still not saying a word, and he’s certainly not screaming yet.

Tony has no doubt that the next one is going to cause one of those two things to happen, and he looks forward to it. Because that will be cathartic to Clint, and it will bring him some more of the feeling he craves. And Clint looks as far away from his sub drop as you could get, and he’s certainly in subspace, staring up at Tony like the light falls from his eyes.

Tony drops two kisses on top of each of Clint’s eyes. “You’re doing wonderfully. Just a bit more for me, okay?” He still phrases everything as a question, as a way to get out of things if Clint needs it. He doesn’t mean to break anyone, let alone his family, but he does mean to take them to the edge at times, and right now, him and Clint are falling down that path.

Clint stares at Tony. This time he manages to get his brain and mouth to coordinate to speak the words that he’s been thinking. “Anything you want, Tony.”

Tony barely stops himself form letting out a moan. If this was anything but a punishment session, he’d roll the man over and have his way with him for those words. Those words nearly make him lose it, and come morning if Clint’s in the mood, he really is going to prove they’re alright, more than by just fucking the man until both of them are brainless and Laura can pull them from the bed once they’re done.

Tony finally regains enough control to give the go ahead to the suit.

The extra strength causes Clint to let loose a scream. He clenches his hands into Tony’s arms leaving little bite marks from his nails as he tries to control himself in the face of pain. It’s a constant pain, and there’s bruising already prominent, and god his brain is nothing but mush. He can’t even remember the last time he’d felt anything quite like this.

When the suit pulls away, Clint holds tight in his grip on Tony. “Please. Please.”

“Please what?” Tony humors him. He has no idea what Clint is going for here. He could actually be asking for relief, and at this moment Tony is inclined to give it to him. If he asks for it to be over, Tony will ignore his last segment of the plan. It wouldn’t be like anyone but him would know it was ever scheduled, and Clint’s doing so beautifully.

“More,” Clint chokes out. “Finish me, please. Make me hurt, really truly hurt. Please, I want to suffer for what I did. Please.”

Fuck, Tony thinks. This could get bad real fast, but Clint isn’t showing any signs of a drop, he’s still at a healthy place. And dammit if Tony would refuse a submissive. He jumps the pressure way more than he should up to half. The pain would be excruciating. “You’ll get what I give you,” he says, acting as if this was always the plan. “And you’ll take this last one without closing your legs either.” An order to keep him hopefully from floating too far from reality. Not that he’s confident that he hasn’t already gone too far with that plan.

“Yes, yes, yes.” Clint blabbers that word over and over again. Until the pain hits him, and then all he’s doing is screaming and praying that his will to hold his legs apart is strong enough to overcome whatever this is. Oh, he swears this might be the worst he’s ever hurt at least without being actively tortured, but that was a long time ago.

Clint’s not sure when he realizes that the pain isn’t coming anymore, and he’s also not sure when he realizes that Tony is telling him just how good he is, or the fact that he’s in a bed with fluffy blankets over him and not laying on a floor.

Tony notices the second that Clint comes back to the surface and appears confused. “You took your punishment so well, baby. Now, all you have to do is rest, here in a bed with me.”

“Don’t you have to tell the others, that it's done, since they're relying on you to do my punishment.”

“Oh no, darling. They’ll trust that I did it without any proof.” Tony brushes a hand over Clint’s hair and watches his eyes flutter closed. “Would you like clothes to sleep in?”

Clint remembers distantly uttering no, before he falls into a deep sleep.

Chapter Text

Come morning Clint is curled completely into Tony. Tony’s generally calm about that, because Clint has always been a major octopus when it comes to sleeping in the same bed, and honestly, he finds it mostly cute. The only slight thing is that he’s got a raging hard on, and Clint’s body is like providing warmth to all the best places to deal with. that, and Tony doesn’t do things while other people are sleeping because that’s a clear violation of all forms of trust.

Clint wakes slowly. The first thing that he can tell is that he’s got a dick poking into him, and he wants more of that. He hasn’t had true sex mixed with pleasure since before he ran off because of the mind control. Apparently, there were lines that neither Wanda nor Steve were willing to cross, not that he’s particularly happy about the placement of those lines given everything else that happened, but still that’s something that he doesn’t have to deal with.

Clint waits for a moment to see whether Tony is going to say anything. When there are no words forthcoming, he rolls his hips back into the other man. The low thrum of pleasure rushing through his body brings him immense joy.

Tony groans at the way there’s a warm body pressing up against him in the most pleasurable of ways. He rolls them until he’s on top of Clint and can have him pressed down into the bed. “You shouldn’t tease, Clint.”

“Who said shit about teasing?”

Tony leans down and places a kiss on the center of Clint’s neck in the back, right above his spine. “Are you sure? I understand completely if you want to take things slow as you find your footing after everything.”

Clint shakes his head. “The only thing I want right now is the reminder that I am yours, and later once I’ve apologized profusely to my kids who won’t understand mind control, a reminder that I am Laura’s. That I’m part of this family still, and that I will be family for the remainder of my life.” He swallows hard. “I think this time, I’ll actually ask her whether her and the kids are willing to move up here with us.”

Tony presses his hips down to give Clint a preview of what they could do. “Yeah, you want to live here, where you can curl up with me any night you want? Or maybe you want to be right next to Natasha when things go sideways next time? Or you might want to stay to assure yourself that Rhodey is perfectly alright?”

“Yes, no, and yes.” Clint wiggles until his ass is more directly under Tony’s barely covered erection. “Please, won’t you fuck me, Tony?”

Tony couldn’t handle resisting the man for another minute, let alone however long he would have had to accomplish if the man had continued begging afterwards. He drags Clint further down on the bed and reaches over to his own bedside drawer to find some lube.

Clint lets out a loud keen as Tony opens the bottle. “Please.”

“Hush,” Tony chuckles. “I fully plan on fucking you. No need to continue to beg.” Inside his own head, he knows that the reason he must ask for that, is if the man continues to beg like that, there’s a zero percent chance that Tony will be able to do much more than come on the man’s back, and that’s not what either of them crave at this point.

He drips the lube over his fingers and rubs them together to warm them up. No sense trying to shock Clint with the cold lube, when this isn’t really a scene or something that he’s fully planned for. He runs one finger over the edge of Clint’s asshole and waits to see what will happen if he just keeps rubbing.

“Fuck,” Clint moans. “More.” This time he manages to drop the please, remembering at the last second that was something that Tony had asked him to do. Although whether he meant it for this purpsoe would be a question for a different time.

Tony pushes his finger in, meanwhile his other hand travels forward to do a casual brush over Clint’s cock.

Clint hisses. There’s no pleasure at his cock being touched, the bruises are way too fresh, and the pain threatens to overwhelm him again if that continues. He’s about to open his mouth to beg Tony not too or maybe beg him to do more, he’s not really sure anymore which of the two he’d prefer when Tony pulls back.

Tony leans forward, searching with his finger for the prostate. He kisses the side of Clint’s throat in a gentle way. “Sorry, darling. Wanted to know whether I could get you off like that while I fucked your ass, but that won’t work apparently. Which is fine, I’ll be creative to make sure that you come.”

Clint groans and twists his neck around until he can manage a brief kiss to Tony’s lips. “Thank you.”

Tony rolls his eyes. The number of times that he ends up getting sincere gratitude for doing something that bloody well should be common sense is starting to get ridiculous. At this rate he’s going to fund a program entitled How to dominate someone and not be an asshole while doing so. He aligns a second finger and pushes into Clint. He stretches the man out while listening to the way that he moans and groans as he does so.

After a certain point, Clint drops some of his weight forward, shoots back towards Tony once he realizes that if he’s not holding himself up, his cock has to constantly be in movement with the sheets on the bed, and while those sheets are soft as hell, they are not quite soft enough to not feel like torture on the poor man at this point. He pants from the effort to try to maintain himself from screaming in pain or pleasure as Tony has managed to brush his prostate every second it seems like since he first did a lazy pass over Clint’s dick.

Tony wonders silently if he puts pressure on Clint’s hip, whether he’d accept the pain with his pleasure this morning. Not that he has any intention of mixing those two with Clint, but just a mild curiosity all the same. Instead, he wraps an arm around Clint’s waist and pulls him further up where Tony’s holding his weight. “You can let go if you want to now.”

Clint leans back and lets himself fall back into Tony. He feels warm and happy knowing that at least right now, nothing he does will be judged. He starts rolling his hips back to rock into Tony’s fingers.

Tony laughs as Clint starts actively chasing pleasure now that he no longer has to worry about trying not to send himself into a mess of pain. He pulls his fingers out and when Clint lets out a whine, he taps the man’s waist with his fingers. He lubes up his dick quicker than normal before settling Clint on his lap.

Clint realizes why Tony pulled out as soon as the man starts moving him on top of his lap, and he nearly sends them both toppling over with his eagerness once they get into a good position for Clint to glide down, but Tony manages to steady them both with another amused huff. Clint couldn’t care less about whether he was being super clingy or whether Tony had several questions about what was going on in his mind because right now, he’s got exactly what he wanted.

Tony moves so that Clint has a better grip to move himself and then he starts placing kisses all along the man’s neck. Careful to never let any of that edge towards the direction of a bite or pain, conscious of the fact that they are edging on one of Clint’s limits in this position. This is the best position for Clint to not be in pain, but this is also the worst position for Clint to know where he is and what he’s about to do.

Clint throws his head back to rest of Tony’s shoulder and give him more access as he tries to use his legs to bounce up and down on the other man’s dick. The main problem that he’s running into is that he can’t hit his prostate nearly as accurately while trying to do this, and that’s probably the only way that he’ll get off when touching his dick would cause so much pain.

Tony feels the hint of frustration along with the building pleasure in him. He jerks his hips up as he comes inside of Clint.

Clint slumps in Tony’s arms as he realizes that he’s successfully gotten his lover to come, but he didn’t get there himself, and trying to touch himself would bring agony.

Tony lowers Clint back on the bed. He scoots backwards until he can bend his head over Clint’s cock. “Let me know if this hurts.” Then, he’s licking the head of Clint’s cock with the gentlest touch that he can manage.
Clint has to fight himself not to jerk his hips up, because that would put more pressure on him, and that would cause pain. But, that’s all he wants to do, because he’s got Tony’s lips wrapped around his dick and that is a sight worthy of being framed. Or photographed or anything else really. He should be embarrassed by the way that he comes so fast once Tony has his lips around him, but all he has is an appreciation for the fact that Tony has given him this much leeway.

Tony pulls Clint into his arms after they’re both spent, and he closes his eyes again.

Clint pokes his arm. “Much as taking a longer time getting up sounds good, we kind of do need to be at breakfast, because I’d like to be awake and in a public area when my kids arrive.”

Tony sits up immediately. “Right, yes. Small children, in the compound. Friday, do we have all the safety briefs in place? And toys?”

“Laura will have brought toys with them,” Clint says with a laugh in his voice.

“Yes, boss. I ordered some of the fancier toys last night, so that the kids playroom wouldn’t be barren. And everyone is aware that there are kids here, so that some safety functions should still be ongoing. Ms. Potts asked me to remind you that the biggest issue when failure to comply with safety procedures would be yourself and to please not hand any children blue prints or lab access cards.”

Clint falls forward laughing this time. He had forgotten about the way that Tony dotes on his kids. And the way that Tony always makes sure that everything is ready for them before they arrive and that nothing bad is going to happen to them. This is what a family was meant to do for each other when it comes to kids, not call someone out of the middle of a vacation for a non-world threatening event after he had retired.

Tony throws his legs over the bed and starts trying to find some clothes to pull on. There’s no chance that he’s going to go into work today. He’s gotten enough done in the past few days, that the company shouldn’t have anything that absolutely needs his attention, so he pulls on a pair of sweatpants and a random t-shirt.

Clint makes grabby hands towards Tony, because he doesn’t really want to walk to his room nude to pick up his own clothes.

Tony raises an eyebrow. “My shirts will be skin tight on you, and I don’t even want to think about the amount of pain that you’ll be in should you try to tuck yourself into my pants today.”

Clint’s eyes widen as he realizes why this is a terrible plan. He will be in so much pain if he does that, but he still doesn’t want to go through the whole house naked.

“If I may interject, boss, Natasha left some of Clint’s comfort clothes outside the door last night. She made no indication to try to hear what was happening in the room, nor stay anywhere near, so I saw no need to worry about it.”

Clint claps his hands as he runs over to collect his clothes. He pulls them on quickly. He throws a grin over to Tony once they’re both dressed and heading to the elevator. “My best friend has my back when I forget to think about certain things that I should have thought of.”

“Your best friend had your back while you were in Wakanda too.”

Clint leans his head on Tony’s shoulder as they ride down. “Never doubted that.”

When they both walk into the room, they see an interesting sight. Rhodey is sitting at one end of the table with some toast in front of him, eating it slowly as if he doesn’t want to move too much. And then on one side of the table, there’s James curled into Natasha with Natasha barely leaning forward bracing on the table. Both of whom look like they’re hungover.

“Did you three decide to have a party last night?”

Natasha’s head jerks up to see him. She shakes her head and passes over a tablet with the news journal heading on it. To no one’s surprise, Steve has found someone willing to take his view point on recent events including James’ pardon without asking questions. The real one that Tony has is how on Earth he snuck past both Shuri and T’Challa, but then James had kind of blown up most of their plan for containment when he killed Wanda, so possibly this was the best of the worst case scenarios that they had found themselves in.

The title already tells him that there’s bad news, worse news, and a whole shit storm coming for them. Because the title happens to be Captain America Believes Tony Stark Could be the Next Hydra Mole. He sighs and drops down into a seat. “We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

James barely looks up. “He says the only reason you would have come to get me is to control me yourself. He says that I’m nothing but a mind-controlled solider in your army now and that damn news person reached out to the judge who granted my pardon, who says that this new evidence might warrant a new trial.”

Clint walks over and kneels down next to Rhodey, placing his head in the man’s lap. “It’ll be alright. Tony’s got teams of lawyers for this stuff, and Rogers isn’t well liked in the public at current times anyway. There’s a good chance that we’ll just have to provide some basic understanding of how it works and slap another slander suit on Rogers.”

Rhodey hands Clint a piece of toast. “I know that nothing is likely to happen, doesn’t mean that I want to deal with it either.”

Tony takes in everyone’s appearance and leans his head back. “No, seriously, listen to the bird man this time. This is nothing. First, that judge was the one we picked because he’s mighty conservative and no one was ever going to question his decision if he said you were innocent, which you are. Second, most of the public would like to kill him or see him sent to prison for all the things that he did. Third, legal will take care of all of this, they’ll call us when something comes up that they need us for, otherwise, we’ll be fine. Maybe stay in the compound until I get it cleared with legal that all things are good and fine.”

James pulls his eyes further up to meet Tony’s eyes. “He said that you would never do anything that wouldn’t benefit you.”

“He’s said that line since the moment that we met. He seems to forget every time I prove him wrong, like when I flew myself into a wormhole, or protected a person who hurt me on his command.”

Natasha shrugs. “He’s tried to hit us where it would hurt. And he found one of them, he could get James locked up again.”

“They’d be more likely to put me behind bars than James.”

Pepper stalks into the room in a pant suit that screams money and a look of pure annoyance written across her face. “Shut the ever living fuck up. Natasha your best friend is home, safe and sound, be fucking happy. James, you have the trust of literally every person in this house, they’d have to fight through multiple superheros to take you in the first place, and then several dozen more to move you, so stop panicking. Rhodey, you know better, get the fuck up. Now, I am going to march into the nearest office and wage a war against the idiot who published this piece. The kids and Laura are walking from the airstrip now, instead of asking Friday to have a suit to carry me here. So they’ll be in a few minutes.”’

Tony glances towards her. “You need me?”

“No,” she says.

That’s all Tony needs. He turns back towards the rest of the table, all of whom look far better than they did moments before, and he shakes his head. It makes sense that they all trust Pepper more in certain situations. She’s the boss, she’s the one who can make getting kidnapped into a good thing for the stock market, and he’s just the one that will blow things up when it gets too difficult to use the other means, but still, they could at least take him at his word.

Clint’s eyes are glowing in happiness as he taps his foot. He’s counting down the seconds until his kids come into the room. He might want to see his wife, but they are okay. They’ve made their peace with what happened, the kids though he hasn’t talked to yet.

Rhodey rolls his eyes and pats the top of Clint’s head. “Try to be a little calmer.”

Clint shakes his head with that same joyous expression on his face.

Laura walks into the room a few moments later, leading the children into room. She lets the children run to their dad wrapping him up in all their arms. Meanwhile, she walks over to Tony settling her arm over his shoulder.
Tony reaches up and covers her hand with his own. He leans into her slightly.

She keeps her eyes on them. “I told them that daddy had to go undercover to help Uncle Tony and that he couldn’t tell me about it until a long time afterwards otherwise both you and him were in danger. I said he wouldn’t have done it unless it had been important to you.”

“Why use me?”

“You’re there hero now. You brought the suits when the mean men with guns came. You were the one who stood in front of them and offered them a safe place to land. And you’re the one who made it so Auntie Nat could call again. I don’t think there’s a person in this world that they’d accept more from than you.”

Tony raises his lips into a smile. “Tell me when you want your husband alone, I’ve got the kids an area set up.”

Laura rolls her eyes. “Of course, you do, how overboard did you go?”

“Wrong question, agent wife. I let Friday choose everything out since I was busy. So, the question is how overboard did the AI system go for the kids?”

“That terrifies me.”

“Don’t worry,” James pipes up. “Tony wouldn’t let her break the bank.”

Laura coughs to cover her laughter. As she raises her hand to cover her mouth as she turns to Tony with an amused expression on her face.

“Introductions, real quick. Laura, meet James Barnes, are rescued winter soldier. James, meet Laura Barton, Clint’s fantastic wife and probably the closest thing to a miracle that all of us will ever meet. Also someone who has never been on a mission in her life and could probably keep up with the best spies in the world.”

Laura inclines her head to James. “Nice to meet you. And just so you know, I’m never worried about anything breaking Tony’s bank, I’m worried my kids are going to fight me to stay right here next to him.”

“Why fight them?”

Clint’s head shoots up over the kids to meet Laura’s eyes. He hadn’t expected Tony to bring up the offer to move in first, in fact he had anticipated the other man ignoring the offer he had made entirely unless it had been brought up differently. “Umm, Tony may have said that all of us could stay, if we wanted to.”

Laura doesn’t turn towards Clint. She keeps her eyes focused on Tony, because at the end of the day this was his offer, not Clint’s. Clint may have had a hand in ensuring that it got offered in the way that it did, but that does not necessarily mean anything in the long term for them. She swallows. “I assume there would be conditions.”

“Sure, conditions are as follows. You’re part of the family, you can live in the family property. Preferably not try to kill me or other family members at any point outside of mind control.” Tony turns to Natasha. “Did I miss anything?”

“Be prepared for random ass shit to go down as Tony collects family members like a spider.”

“And yet I’m not one of the spiders,” he teases.

Laura glances between them and back at Clint. “I meant what my role would be, what Clint’s role would be, where the children would fit in?”

Tony has to fight off the sigh that wants to build up in his throat. He can understand why she asks. He can even understand why all of this is hard for her to accept. But, he hates trying to explain to people that his family just is. Whatever units pop up, are whatever units pop up. “I’d assume that for now, the only true relationships you would have are the ones that you would come in with, although those may change as you stay around other people. You would be Clint’s wife, Clint and Natasha’s dominant whenever they wanted and you did as well, and the children’s mother. As per always, Clint would be your submissive, my submissive, and quite likely Rhodey’s at this point. I have no indication that he and Pepper have a relationship at this time, but again that may change. He’s also of course the children’s father. As for the kids, they’re kids. I would presume that in a situation that might pop up any of us would watch over them, and that I’d still be Uncle Tony in the same way that Natasha is Aunt Nat.”

Clint smiles at Laura. “When he says family, he means it. We’d be a part of his little dysfunctional family unit that defies society’s pressures rather consistently.”

James watches as Laura’s face furrows further. He stands up and walks to where he can whisper and only be heard by her and Tony. Everyone else has no need to know the question he’s about to ask, and that he’s hoping to get a true and sincere answer to. “Do you want me to take the kids down the hall to the nice playroom Tony has set up, where you can ask your questions without worrying what they might overhear?”

“I wouldn’t ask that of you.”

“You aren’t. I’m offering.” James turns back to the kids and kneels down next to them. “What are your names?”

The oldest boy looks at James closely before choosing to answer the question. “I’m Cooper. That’s my sister Lila and my brother Nathaniel.”

“Well, hi, Cooper. My names James, and I’m a friend of your Uncle Tony and your Aunt Natasha.”

Cooper’s eyes go wide as he stares at James. “You know both of them, and I haven’t met you before.”

James winks at him. “I’d say there are times when I’m mighty hard to find, but you know as much as you kids probably love being able to catch up with your dad, I’m sure your mom wants some time with him too.”

Lila turns around and frowns at him. “But we just got to see daddy again.”

James crinkles his eyes at her. “Of course you have, but he’s going to be here the whole time, and if you let him and mommy have some time now, then by lunch time they’ll be all yours.” He drops his voice so it will sound like it might be some kind of conspiracy. “In fact, I bet if you try hard enough, you’ll be able to convince your uncle that he should take everyone out to some fancy lunch.”

“Do you think we could get him to spring for that super fancy Italian place? We’ve only been once, and Nathaniel has never been.”

Laura laughs as her daughter fails to keep her voice at a low enough level to not carry to the rest of the adults in the place.

Tony joins her laughter. “I think mini agent that you have some training to do for when you want to conspire with someone, but I’m feeling generous so we can go there for lunch.”

Lila’s eyes light up. She jumps out of Clint’s arms to throw herself at Tony. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Rhodey looks over at Lila. “Who all gets to come to this super fancy lunch that you’re planning, little miss?”

Lila contemplates for a long moment. “My brothers have to come, so do mommy and daddy. Since Mr. James suggested it, it would be super rude not to invite him, and we need Uncle Tony to get us into the doors since they're fancy people and they don’t always like us people who look poor trying to get into their shenanigans.”

She pauses for a long moment. “And I think it would be mighty sad if Aunt Nat didn’t come and witness her namesake getting to eat the best Italian food ever. And if I don’t invite you, mommy will inform me that I’m playing favorites with my uncles again, although I’d like to point out that you’ve never shown up to my birthday party in a suit to make an impression on my friends and prove that I do have superhero uncles.”

Rhodey burst out laughing. He pats her head. “Tell you what pipsqueak, next birthday of yours, I will show up in my military gear so you can show your friends that your uncle is not only a superhero but also a regular one too.”

Lila spins towards her mom suddenly forgetting all about that for the time being. “What about Aunt Pepper? She’s not here, so how can I invite her? But she’s even fancier than Uncle Tony. No one would ever dare turn her away from a restaurant.”

“They wouldn’t turn me away,” Tony says.

“Regardless, I’d be delighted to come,” Pepper interjects walking back into the room. Her suit jacket looking like a suit of armor instead of fabric at this point.

Cooper stares in between all of the adults. “The news said that they speculated another new family member. We should invite them too.”

“Alas, he would be unable to make it at this point. See, he’s the king of Wakanda, so he can only make it sometimes, when he has an excuse to visit that isn’t just wanting to see family.”

Cooper and Lila’s eyes go wide. Meanwhile, Nathaniel stares at James. “What’s Wakanda?”

“It’s a country in Africa. Maybe one of these days, I’ll take you.”

Nathaniel stares at him. “And we have a family member that is the king?”

“Mmmhmm, and one of my best friends, is the princess ,and she’s a genius just like your Uncle Tony.”

Nathaniel turns back to his dad. “I think your friend Mr. James might be a liar.”

Clint bursts out laughing as does Laura. “Normally, Nathaniel, I would agree with you all together that you’re right because who knows royalty. But, I can guarantee you that Uncle Tony could call him right now.”

Nathaniel stares down Tony and crosses his arms over his chest. Clearly daring someone to prove all of the bold words that have been claimed at this point.

Tony rolls his eyes. “Friday, would you call T’Challa? Make sure to tell him that this is less of an emergency and more of a personal call.”

“Of course, boss.”

The line rings a couple of times before it clicks into connection. “Tony, please, please tell me what personal thing has to happen at 1 in the morning. I mean I’m not asleep yet, much to my despair, but I would very much like to be.”

“Well if you would believe it, I’ve got the kids here who don’t believe that I call a king of Wakanda my family, and I thought you might want to give them some confirmation.”

T’Challa’s tired chuckle could be heard over the phone. “Hello kids, so sorry to have missed you. I’ll have to try to make it next time you’re in town. I am King T’Challa, you may call me whatever you like. I believe Tony’s personal favorite is king kitty because I also happen to be the black panther. I would call myself his family, extended though I am.”

“That’s so cool,” Cooper says with a sway in his voice.

“Do you think I could get him to come to my birthday party?”

Laura face palms at her daughter. Only she would ask a king to come to a birthday party.

“Well as king, I would be hard-pressed to be guaranteed an opportunity to make it on a specific date, but tell you what, if your mom and dad say that you’ve been super good all year for your birthday, I’ll make sure my sister can at least make it.”

“A princess?” Lila squeals.

“Yes, indeed.”

Clint’s smile could probably blind the sun at this current moment. He’s staring at all of them in wonder. He hadn’t been sure that everyone would welcome him once he had been freed from Wanda’s control or that he’d be forgiven some of the actions he had taken while under her control.

“Glad to talk to you Tony, but I’ve got to go. Apparently, Rogers is determined to not let me sleep anytime this week.”

“Do you need help?” several people ask at once. Natasha’s voice being the one to ring out the loudest echoed by Tony and Pepper and Laura.

“Not yet. I’ll let you know if that changes. He’s finally figured out that the reason I haven’t kicked him out of my country is because I’m keeping him imprisoned in my country.”

Tony makes a noise of understanding. “What’s his biggest complaint right now?”

T’Challa scoffs. “Didn’t you know that Rogers believes that you’ve got James brainwashed into another assassin? And that Natasha has been reconverted by Hydra and that Clint’s been kidnapped.”

“The news did get wind of that.”

“Bast! He got that to the news. I’ll have to do another scan of who he has access to.”

Tony quirks his lips up. “Well that answers whether you knew about that or not.”

“One, I would have tried to stop him had I known. Two, if I had failed to stop him, I would have at least sent you a message to tell you that I completely screwed up and there’s a news leak. At least he hasn’t been dumb enough to leak where he is.”

Lila pops her head up. “You should let him know that if he dares to say that, then Uncle Tony will have no good excuse to allow him what limited freedom he has. You should also let him know that while I am small right now, I saw Tony in the hospital after what that man did, and if he tries anything funny, I will find a way to kill him super solider or no and prisoner or no.”

“Right, I’ll do that.” T’Challa pauses. “Who should I say the message is from?”

“A niece of an enemy.”

Natasha is the one that facepalms this time. This might be the stupidest thing that Lila has ever said, also the bravest.

“I’ll let you go,” Tony interjects. “Keep us updated.” And the line goes dead.

Laura kneels down in front of Lila. “Darling, you can’t kill people.”

“Sure, you can. You just can’t get caught otherwise they’ll try to put you in jail and Aunt Pepper will have to spend many hours with the lawyers to get you back out, and she’ll be put out.”

Clint has to cover his laughter with a cough now. These kids might be the death of the whole family at this rate. Absolute insanity is what this. “I think your mother might be talking about the morality of people killing others.”

Lila frowns. “I thought that we were supposed to ensure those we love don’t get hurt and that the morality of hurting people who pose a threat is nothing more than pre-emptive self-defense.”

“Where have I heard that one before?” James eyes Natasha.

“It was your saying first,” she counters.

“No teaching my daughter assassin stuff,” Laura demands.

“Never,” James agrees. “At least until I can teach her how to lie and scheme consistently. Like there’s a hierarchy that we are clearly skipping here.”

“Stop him,” Laura commanded of someone in the room.

Tony barely flicks his eyes up. “Be sure to make sure that one of the first things that you teach her is how to sneak. I feel like that might even come before lying. Because the lying is for when you’re almost caught or caught, so the first step is to make sure that they don’t get caught. Then what to do when things fall off the rails.”

Laura throws her hands in the air. “Kids, go with James to this toy room, I do want to talk to your dad before we go out to lunch.”

All of the kids happily head after James now that they believe that he will teach them how to sneak things past their parents. That’s one of the top ways that Natasha got their trust, and it will likely work wonders for James to.

Once the kids are out of the door, Laura spins to Tony. “What do you mean we can live here? We’re not superheroes.”

“No, you’re family and this is quickly becoming a family house. And if you’d like to be a superhero, we could definitely train you to be one. You are in fact scarier than Clint most days.”

Clint stands up and walks over to his wife. “And it would mean there are no more debates on when I can be home and when I need to be with the kids for special events. I’d be there. I’d always be there.”

“Both for avenger’s business and family matters.” Laura closes her eyes. “And the farm?”

“A pipedream that we both tried to cling to. Neither of us were happy there, Laura. You wanted the kids to have more than the life you had, and I was always running between finishing projects and flying off for the next mission. They’d have their aunts and their uncles right here. They’d be able to lean on any family member, any time.”

“Plus, they’d have my older kids to keep them company,” Tony points out. He misses everyone turning to him. He misses the way that Pepper sighs.

“What kids?”

“Umm, well there's the spider-kid that Natasha knows.”

“He’s your kid,” Natasha says in disbelief.

“Not like genetically, but I’m helping raise him with his aunt. And then there’s Harley down in Tennessee.”

“The one that you currently have written to take the company in the case of your untimely demise,” Pepper adds.

Tony nods. “Yes, of course. He’s not the oldest, but while Peter has the brains to do R&D, he’s never going to be the best fit for the company. He’s not cut out for the cutthroat side of things. Meanwhile, Harley has the violence needed for business, the intelligence of R&D, and the insanity of a Stark.”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “Also, his mother has put the fear of god in you, if you shaft him for your new kid.”

“That too.”

Clint raises his eyebrows at his wife. “Wouldn’t it be nice to be right next to family? To know that even if I don’t make it home, that someone will? To hold someone’s hand while we’re away because you won’t be the only one staying behind?”

Laura has tears in her eyes as she nods her head. No one really wants to go into a battle stuck in a palace where they are safe, but knowing that their loved ones may not be.

Pepper flinches. “We can’t promise you the last one, at least not anyone other than the children.”

“You don’t go into battle,” Clint replies. Confusion seeps into his voice, and he looks like he’s ready to lose it, if that was also a memory that the witch took from him. Because that would be and is something extremely important to him, and he has no clue what to do if he finds out that he lost that too.

“I haven’t before, that’s true. But Siberia happened, and I was nowhere. The witch got to you, and I never knew because I was never there. Tony will keep flying into danger, and I couldn’t and can’t live with him going that close to death without being there, so instead of distancing myself and trying to separate Tony Stark from Iron Man, I should come up with a way to be with him in danger. He offered me my suit.”

“Made the design years ago. Never thought I’d build the thing though.”

Laura blinks the tears out of her eyes. She hates that they would all charge into the mouths of hell, and yet at the same time that was important to every other person in this room. “One of you better fucking come home. You ever break that promise and I end up with my kids and Tony’s in a compound that wasn’t built for regular people like me, and I will personally find a way to drag you back from the dead to kill you again.”

Natasha reaches out to touch her shoulder. “We’ll do our very best to never make a liar out of that promise, but if it comes to the world or us, we can never choose us. That’s the choice of a hero.”

“Then, I guess I’d like to meet a villain one of these days who will say fuck the world, I choose family.” But she loves the current family all too much to give it up, even when it could hurt her. “Lunch?”

Nods surround the adults, so they go after the children and a nice afternoon without dealing with any of the complications that have arisen forever more.

Chapter Text

Lunch is a much more peaceful time than any of them expected. All of the children were on their best behavior as Pepper led them into a fancy restaurant, glaring at anyone who dared to look like they had a question that would contradict what was about to happen. The food is delicious and it makes Tony crave his mother’s old desert recipes, and he makes a note to dig those out at his next opportunity.

The ride home is a bit more chaotic because Nathaniel turns to him in the car and blurts out a question that no one had been prepared for. “What happens to the bad guy who hurt daddy again?”

James coughs. Tony rubs his hand over his face. And Pepper manages to sigh and lean her head back against the cushions.

“If you need people to humanize Clint, so they understand how much pain they caused, we can help,” Lila pipes up.

Natasha shakes her head at all of the dramatics. “There won’t be a trial.”

Lila frowns. “They don’t get to get away with it.”

Natasha scoffs in disbelief. “In what world does your father get hurt, and I don’t make sure he gets his vengeance?” She jerks her head over to James. “He shot the bitch in the head.”

“Language,” Laura shouts. She should not be the person most calm in this situation. She should be the one ready to start a war against the person who hurt her husband, not yelling at the godmother of her children not to cuss out the horrible woman.

“Sorry, Ms. Laura. I killed the vedma and put a bullet into her head while I saluted a king.”

Both Natasha and Tony snicker as they translate the word in their heads. The way he spits the word suggests that in his head, that’s a far worse insult than the one that Natasha had uttered. And because Laura doesn’t likely know Russian, the kids were probably going to get away with saying it on a semi regular basis.

Lika pouts. “We’re supposed to help take down the bad guys after Loki got away.”

Clint flinches hard in the backseat of the car in between the kids. He reaches out his hand, and both Laura and Tony squeeze back on him. He hesitates for a long moment, then he speaks softly to his daughter. “Loki deserved to get away.”

Laura turns to face Clint. There’s some shock on her face, as she has probably never had a kind word for Loki in all the time that she’s known of his existence.

Clint can feel the eyes on him and the confusion of what he’s said. Before everything, he hadn’t been okay enough to explain any of his conflicting emotions on the matter, and he’s not certain he is now either, but he can no longer hear people wanting to harm Loki without snapping at them. He swallows and clamps his grip on Laura and Tony.

After a few more seconds, he feels like he can speak without losing his mind. “I will always be traumatized by what happened in New York, about how my mind was turned against me, and I was told to kill and nothing was there to stop me. And I will be traumatized by the way that the Chitari treated submissives. But, I was not the only submissive there, and I wasn't the only person under mind control. He tried his best to keep us as protected and under him as he could. He deserved to survive.”

Lila stares at her father. “But he’s the one who chose you.”

“I was there,” Clint murmurs to her. “He didn’t choose me because he had something that he wanted from me or because he wanted to hurt me specifically, I was just in the right place for him to choose. Which is the worst thing to ever happen because of a shield mission, but that’s not on him and it’s not on me. The person to blame would be Fury or whoever the hell had Loki under mind control.”

Tony pats the hand that Clint still has extended to all of them. “The only thing I’ve learned from going over what happened in New York is that absolutely no one wanted to be there and no one came out on top of that fight.”

Clint nods.

Laura looks around the car and realizes that most of her kids have lost interest in the conversation. Lila wouldn’t dare to contradict her dad on whether a person deserves to be saved or not, because he’s the one who found Natasha and saved her from what happened. The other kids didn’t seem all that surprised in the first place, granted all of them had been younger when New York happened, so asking them to remember everything might have been asking for a lot.

Instead of dealing with her own issues over the idea that Loki was to be forgiven, she pushes that to the side for the moment. If Tony agrees with Clint on this one, she’ll try to deal with her anger in a healthier manner. “I think we could use a family cuddle pile when we’re back at the Tower.”

Cooper spins in his seat to be able to see his mom. “Really?”

Nathaniel’s eyes go wide. “With snacks? And movies? And singing?”

Clint’s lips twitch into something that he’s trying really hard not to die laughing about. “I think all of those things might be doable.”

Laura tilts her head to Natasha, in an invitation to join should she want to. She knows that Nat loves the kids, and she knows there are days when Natasha wants nothing more than to be able to curl up with their little family. The kids see her as part of the immediate family, so there wouldn’t be any issues if she did want to come, and there wouldn’t be too much backlash from the kids should she say no.

Natasha thinks about it for a moment or two, and then Pepper leans over to whisper in her ear.

“Not to pressure you in the slightest, and you should choose whatever you think you should do, but I think you should know about the other option in this case. I think that you deserve a reward, and I was planning on once Laura got the kids into a more relaxed state, to grab Tony and do exactly that.”

Natasha slumps back into her chair at the words. She can’t think of anything that she’s done in recent months that would deserve a reward. She’s mostly just been pleading with people to save the others as they need to be. But, she’s never turned down a reward from Pepper and Tony because they always make sure that no matter what happens she flies high for the next few weeks. She shakes her head to Laura.

Everyone exits the car once they finally make it back to the compound.

Tony spends a moment wondering how much faster traffic will be once they are in flying cars. He wonders whether there will be speed lanes at different heights. They’d still need to follow the general paths of the roads because those typically are cleared in the air too, and there will be some paths that aren’t allowed because of buildings in the air. Maybe they can build in some map lights to show people the road lines even when they’re not on the ground where those roads are paved.

Pepper taps his shoulder. “I can see you about to enter, Tony Stark genius mode.”

“Do you need me in business mode for a few things, because I can totally do that?”

“Not this time, no. I kind of need the dominant mode. Because in my opinion are lovely black widow deserves a reward for choosing to back down on her own desires to get Clint to safety immediately in order to not only help Barnes but continue to do so even now that Clint’s here.”

Tony recalls the way that he had seen her in the kitchen helping him bake pancakes and the way she showed up in his lab to demand a way to get to Asia to show him some of the new glorious trains. And how through none of those times had she brought up Clint, because she knew that they needed to save James first. “You know, I think you’re right.”

Pepper grins at him. “I’m sorry, did you doubt?”

“Never, my lady.” Tony holds open the door for her. He runs his eyes over how Laura is getting all the kids set up with the snacks as they bicker over which movie to watch. Lila wants to watch the pirates of Caribbean movies. Cooper is voting for something with a huge family or a happy one, so Lilo and Stitch appears to be the favorite for that group of ideas. Nathaniel wants to watch Frozen.

Natasha leans over the couch, encouraging compromise. She asks the main themes of each movie and then she starts popping up some options that would have everything. She believes that the movie Brave or Tarzan would give Lila her action, Cooper his family love, and Nathaniel his Disney kick.

Tony on the other hand watches Natasha closely before coming over and settling a hand on the center of her back. She’s extremely wrong in this case, not that these movies weren’t the best compromise possible, but that Lila would still enjoy them. She’s just old enough to have a sense of what she loves and what she doesn’t, and she no longer wants to watch the movies where the girls get saved in the end by a man, even Brave, hell even Mulan, by the end the man saves them. She wants to be her own savior.

He leans his head over the side where he can whisper to Lila. “If you let your brother’s watch the Disney movies where the good guys always win and the girls always get saved, I’ll let you go to my library and pick any book you want to read.”

Lila narrows her eyes at him. “Are there any where the girl ends up in power after everything and the men don’t come to save them at the last moment?”

“Hmm.” This is him stalling for time. He hasn’t read many of those books more than once and some of them he never read, he keeps it stocked with every book that they might love both those are mostly for when Natasha wants to read or when Bruce wanted something that wasn’t non-fiction as a pallet cleanser, or now that they have James, something that reminds him of when he was younger and more carefree.

James walks over to them, and Tony suddenly recalls the annoyance of having a super soldier in your house, speaking under your breath doesn’t do shit. “Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. The first one, you might think the girl is being saved, but by the end, you’ll know the truth.”

Lila stares at James for a long moment before turning back to Tony. “And I can read it?”

“Yes.”

“If you have questions about anything and you don’t want to answer your parents, come to me,” James offers. “I love books, and I’ve been trying to catch up on some since I got back.”

Lila purses her lips and stares towards her mother. “I will consent to watch whichever Disney movie my brothers settle on, if I can go grab a book from the library.”

As the rest of the adults start dealing with the new situation of learning that Lila would be reading while the others were watching the movie, Tony starts herding Natasha into a different room where Pepper was waiting for them. He feels slightly bad that it took him that long to rescue Natasha from the situation, but at the same time, there were children in the tower and that was a common thing to have happen with children in the tower.

Pepper smiles as they join her. “And here I thought that the two of you had been won over by the children.”

“And miss a chance at whatever reward you’ve told Tony I deserve, not a chance in hell,” Natasha teases.

Pepper slides an arm around Natasha. “I’m of the opinion that you’ve been beyond good lately. Helping others even when it means that something you want very badly won’t happen for a longer period of time.”

Natasha frowns. “I did the right thing when I helped James, I don’t need rewards for doing the right thing.”

Tony snorts as he pushes open a door to one of the play rooms that the tower has and the one closest to where they were. He lets Pepper herd Natasha in before he speaks up. “You get rewarded whenever your doms choose to say that you deserve to be rewarded and this time, you have two of them looking at you and telling you, you did well enough for a reward.”

Natasha ducks her head in a nod. She may feel like this isn't something that needs to be rewarded she’s also not insane enough to turn down the offer from her doms when it's so clear that they want to do something for her.

“Here’s what I was thinking, since it is a reward and all. That you’d have Tony underneath you with your mouth around his cock, while I give you a nice hand spanking until you make him come, and then Tony and I would switch positions.” Pepper runs a hand down Natasha’s back slowly lingering over her butt. “And of course, I know how much you love games, so the next part of that game would be the fact that you can’t come until both of us can if you want just the gentle hand spankings, or you could come as often as you like as we spank you, but afterwards, we spank you with a paddle of your choice for say two minutes for every orgasm.”

Natasha’s eyes blow wide open as she gets lost in the very idea of a fantasy like that. “Do I need to choose right now?”

“Nope.” Pepper grins. “You could change your mind on a whim because you don’t want to try holding back pleasure in the moment, and that would fit with the game perfectly. As long as you’re okay with that happening.”

She jerks her head into a repeated series of nods. “Yes, please.”

Tony starts stripping out of the clothes off. He gets himself comfortable towards the top of the bed, where Natasha could reach him and still be either up on her knees or over the edge of the bed depending on what she would prefer. He pats the mattress with a goofy expression written across his face.

Pepper moves over to the side, but she does strip off most of her layers. She keeps her panties on, but both of her partners in the room know that’s because she prefers them on, if she’s not actively chasing pleasure at that moment.

Natasha follows there lead in taking off her clothes, but she pauses at her underwear and turns to Pepper. Asking whether she’s meant to be taking those off or leaving them on, and which one would be preferred by her dom.

Tony admits that he probably could have made the call, but this isn’t really his scene. He’s a player in it, but he’s following the others guidelines for the evening. He has no qualms about this either. He’s not a switch, he takes no true enjoyment out of following orders, but he’s also a slut for being a service dom, and this is close enough to check all of his buttons.

Pepper raises an eyebrow at the question. “You can leave them on, if you want me to randomly pull them down. Otherwise, take them off, so I don’t have the temptation.”

Natasha furrows her brow, and both doms know it’s based on what her current plan for the orgasms is. If she wants the pleasure and the paddle, she’ll leave them on. “Yes, Ma’am.” She pulls down the underwear and leaves them on the floor. Then, she crawls onto the bed and lays across him with her ass propped over the edge.

She licks her lips slowly, and finally she wraps her lips around Tony’s cock and starts moving up and down. She appears not to care that the other part of her pleasure today with the way she takes to her task.

Pepper winks to him, before she raises her hand and lands the first slap against Natasha’s ass. She watches as Natasha’s whole-body shutters under the hit, the pleasure and dull tints of pain. She does it again, just to watch as Natasha tries to keep her own rhythm sucking Tony off, but by the time that they’ve gotten to ten hits, they settled into a pattern.

Tony starts rocking his hips up into Natasha’s mouth. There are tears in the corners of her eyes, but the sheer bliss underneath that shows how happy she is. There’s a debate going in his head whether he should go for a long drawn out orgasm just to watch the way her ass bounces every time that Pepper’s hand lands.

Natasha glares up at him, when she realizes that he’s purposely fighting off his orgasm. Not that she doesn’t love the feel of Pepper’s hands against her skin, but more because of the fact that she’s trying to stave off hers until she gets two people off while having pleasure racking through her body.

Tony laughs over her glare, and he jerks hips up to follow the heat of her mouth. His body tenses as he comes straight into her mouth and he has to swallow his groan as she continuously swallows around his cock to make sure that the come didn’t fall onto the sheets.

Pepper stops her attacks on Natasha’s ass. She places one of her hands on the center of Natasha’s back to hold her steady as Tony starts moving off the bed. She takes her other hand and runs her nails over the red skin on Natasha’s butt.

Natasha jerks under the nails, and she shouts. She clenches her hands around blankets as she fights off the orgasm coming, and then she forces her body to lay flat on the bed. The tremors through her body slowly stop coming after a few minutes.

Tony cups her cheek and turns her head to the side to gaze into his eyes. He’s noticing the way that her eyes are glazed over with the soft space that submissives get, and he wonders whether if he asks a true question, he’ll get a real answer, so he switches from the question he was planning on asking. “Color?”

“Green, Tony.”

Pepper chuckles herself as she moves towards the bed, pulling her underwear off. She moves until she’s mostly under Natasha and reaches a hand to curl into Natasha’s hair. She pulls Natasha towards her sex but holds off at the last second. “Tap one of us twice if that changes.”

Natasha agrees automatically. Before going to town, slipping her tongue through Pepper’s folds, she squeezes Tony’s hand. She knows that Pepper doesn’t like stimulation on her clit until once she’s closer to being ready to come, so she’s careful not to do anything.

Tony moves around and lands a soft blow to her ass more to see the color change than to do much of anything. He sets up a heavy tempo, pushing Natasha forward with each blow, and he makes sure that she’s gasping at each blow. He wiggles his eyebrows as Pepper climbs higher and higher as those breaths land on her sensitive vagina.

Natasha occasionally starts to flick her tongue out to circle Pepper’s clit, and she lets the pain of her hair yanking bring out more distance from her ass. Her ass might as well be on fire by now. That fire feels like something that she would run to in a burning building to feel alive.

Pepper realizes what’s happening, and she kicks one of her feet out to stop Tony from landing some of his blows. She shakes her head at him. The game changing would be alright, because Natasha is so close to exploding that he has nothing left to do but back off.

Only a few seconds later, and Pepper falls over the edge into a climax. She gasps in little sounds that both of the partners in this bed have heard many times before. She leans herself down on the pillow afterwards as she lets her grip in Natasha’s hair go limp. Her eyes fall to Tony. “Would you mind helping her? I don’t think I can move for another minute or several.”

Tony’s shoulders shake in silent laughter. He slips his fingers down Natasha’s slit until she moans and moves backwards. That’s when he pushes his fingers into her. He pumps them in and out, until she’s screaming as she topples herself off the bed into his arms for her orgasm.

Her eyes blink up at him. “Hi.”

Tony moves his arms to be able to support her as he carries her back onto the bed. He drops into bed next to her. “Friday, no one is to bother us until all of us are back up and ready to deal with the world.”

Chapter Text

Natasha floats on cloud nine for the next morning. She had barely slept the night before, but then neither did Tony. The only one of those three with a decent fucking sleep schedule is Pepper. Still, she has a breakfast to make. Traditional Russian breakfast as reward for family being together in the house, if she had enough prep time, she would have called T’Challa too, but she cannot.

Instead, she sent Shuri the recipe and asked her to please beg the chefs to cook it for him this morning. She had sent confirmation that it would be done, although there was confusion upon the occasion. She had responded honestly, that she just needs to know that she had done something for every person in her family today, and this was the easiest way to do it.

That had put her on a phone call, where Shuri was paranoid that she was going into a drop. Alas, her subspace often replicates aspects of a drop because the red room is made up of only assholes. Shuri makes a whole lot of promises to ensure that those people burn in the deepest pits of hell should she ever have the opportunity to do so.

Now, she’s cooking in a kitchen with a sappy smile on her face and an urge to hum Russian songs under her breath.

Slowly, words start accompanying the hums that she’s giving. It takes her a few moments to realize that James is right there behind her singing the correct words. There are plenty of signs, but sometimes she forgets that he shares her heritage more than he shares the American ideology.

She leans into James’ warmth for a long moment. “Do you know how to cook this?”

“They didn’t allow me food.”

She arches her brow. “What on Earth could have you done with access to food that they didn’t want to allow you to have?”

“Suicide, murder, self-sustainability.”

She hums in agreement. That sounds like the red room alright. They would take everything that would give you hope, everything that would give you a strand of happiness, and they’d rip it to shreds in front of you to ensure your loyalty. They never did figure out that would only sow disorder.

James watches as she continues moving around the kitchen, coming back to be pressed against him in between steps during weight times. “Your happiness is catching.”

“Good,” she murmurs. She bends over to reach into the oven and pull things out. She digs out plates to start piling food onto plates. She’s not going to do the whole self-serve thing, they’ve been doing recently. She’s providing for them, so they don’t have to do everything.

James continues watching her for several minutes, then he starts moving the food to the microwave. He makes sure that the heat won’t fade as he closes the last plate in there. He turns to Natasha. “Have you checked the time?”

“Morning.”

“I suppose that’s technically true.” He guides her over to the couch. “It’s currently four in the morning, and I’m pretty sure even Tony is asleep on the couch in the lab.”

“You are correct,” Friday chimes in.

Natasha grins up towards the ceiling. “How are his projects?”

James closes his eyes to hide some of his amusement behind his closed eyelids. “Friday, don’t answer her.” He crouches down in front of Natasha. “What’s got you on such a binge that you got up and cooked a meal for everyone this early? Do you need me to go get one of our doms, because any of them would get up to help you.”

“I’m still in subspace. Or, kind of. I came all the way up before we all went separate directions, but then I was alone, and I kind of fell back into a slightly fuzzy state. More awake than the deepest parts of subspace for me, but also way more blurred than what I am when I’m fully up.”

James stares at her for a long moment. “Why would that leave you happy?”

That shocks Natasha down to her core. It’s like ice cold water was dumped over her head, and she’s forced to think about things in a different light. She had heard from Rhodey that him and Tony had a small scene with James, and she swears if they hurt him, she’d have to commit murder. There’s just nothing for it. She’d feel bad, because she likes being loved by them, but she can’t allow for something like this to stand.

“James,” she whispers. “Please tell me that no one in our house, our family, has hurt you.”

James curls his lips up in distaste. “Of course not, why would you think that?”

Natasha forces herself to breathe. She needs to handle this with care and respect to keep him from panicking. “James, sweetheart, at the end of scenes, you’re supposed to be happy.”

“But subspace is when you fall down that hole and everything that happens makes you wonder whether you’re a terrible person or a terrible submissive. Or whether or not you deserve to still be alive in this world. You know, not a pleasant thing.”

Natasha winces. She can’t help herself. He doesn’t realize what a drop versus subspace is. He probably had scened with Tony and Rhodey and gotten to a nice mental state, but he didn’t know that’s what it was. “Honey, that’s a drop.”

He furrows his brow. “Drop only happens in cases of extreme abuse.”

“Friday,” Natasha calls.

Laura steps into the living room. She wraps her arms around James and pulls him into a deep embrace. “She already took care of it. She realized that I was the one most likely to wake, so I’m the one here.”

Laura waits until she feels like James has relaxed in her arms slightly. She honestly thought he might buck against her, but Tony had spoken true, if he says that she’s part of the family, then by god, she’s part of the family, and that’s how everything is going to go down, so help him god.

James appreciates the contact, the human contact. He had gone so many years without it, and everyone in his family is so nice to give him that when he asks, and sometimes even when he hasn’t realized that’s what he needs. Plus, Laura feels so soft. She has no aspects that could remind him of Hydra. The rest of them could have been Hydra if they weren’t good people.

“Hi, darling,” she says drawing his attention. “Drop happens when a submissive goes from a happy place into a dark place when they’ve done a scene. What Natasha was trying to explain to you is that when a scene is done right, and the dom is a decent person, this happiness is normal.”

“But that means Tony and Rhodey scened with me,” James mumbles.

“Did you not want them to?” Laura shares a look with Natasha. Because that would be so not good. She has no doubt that if either of them knew that, they’d turn themselves in. But also, that implies that something weird had happened, and she needs to be worried about how that went down.

James’ legs fail him, and he would fall to the floor if Natasha hadn’t moved to catch him at the last second. Between Laura and Natasha, they get him to a stable position on the couch. “No, I asked them, but I didn’t go down. I just felt fuzzy and good. That’s not allowed.”

Laura closes her eyes. “Someone is killing everyone who ever touched them. I will provide whatever alibis need to be given, but those people need to be dead. Like knowing why they died type of dead.”

Natasha nods to her. “Pepper and I have it covered.”

Laura re-opens her eyes and focuses on James. “Baby, that is subspace.”

“Happiness and scening aren’t supposed to be in the same scenario.”

Laura comes up onto the couch and press into him on the side. She gestures for Natasha to do the same on the other side.

“Do you still have sharing scenes on your okay list?”

“Yes.”

“Does Tony?”

“That man is so much of an exhibitionist, so yes.”

“Pepper?”

That one causes Natasha to pause. Because the simple answer is yes, and the complicated answer is no. “Only to family.”

Laura taps James on the cheek to get his attention. “Honey, can we show you what happened with the scene for Natasha early today, so we can show how well it can be compared to what happened to you in the past and why all of that was fucking abuse?”

James pinches up his lips as he glances between the two of them. “Isn’t that private?”

“Sometimes,” Natasha answers. “But, I’ve already shown you one before, remember. This would be extremely similar to that in my eyes. For a different purpose, but still the same thing.”

James nods once she explains it to him. He presses into Laura and lets Natasha move into him.

Friday starts streaming the scene that had happened earlier.

His attention is rapt, because the scene looks like it should be causing pain. But, Natasha looks like she’s about ready to come several times, and she never loses sight of what her goal was, which was to bring her doms pleasure first. Then, he watches as Tony checks in with her before they switch with a gentle touch and a soft question. Later still, Pepper stops Tony from going farther than what she thought Natasha could handle at that moment. That intrigues him on a whole new level, because he thought that was the point of safewords.

Natasha catches his confusion. “I was happy, I wouldn’t have done it. I wouldn’t have even realized that the last few spanks had gone over the boundary of my normal non-punishing amounts of pain. I would have known that I was meant to be in slight pain had we gone towards the paddle route, but I would have asked for that.”

“How isn’t that dangerous?”

“It is.” Laura nuzzles his neck gently. “But the key is finding people that you trust. Ones that wouldn’t hurt you on purpose, who will lay down in front of you and tell you that it isn’t on you that something happened. Ones that would read your body the same way that you read your body to ensure that everything goes according to the plan.”

James flips until he can bury his head in her neck instead of the other way around. “Does that mean that if I ask for a scene, I can expect something like last time? Where I don’t get punished when I say the wrong word? Or have to deal with them taking me down with the most creative pain that he can think of?”

“Of course,” both women reply immediately.

Laura hears footsteps behind her and sighs. The kids are up at 6 in the morning. That’s too early for any sane person.

Lila catches sight of all of them on the couch first. She bounds up to them and pounces on top of James. She places her tiny hands on each of his cheeks and turns his head to the left and right. “Who made you sad?”

“No one tangible.”

Lila pouts. “No, no. You don’t get to play games with me. Auntie Nat has given me just enough to know better. Who made you sad?”

Laura is not going to be surprised when her daughter turns out to be a dom. She’s already doing half of the skills that doms do in this world, and she’s so good at it already. She’ll have to teach her all the basics and look towards other family members for assistance on the parts she’s not as good with. Like ropes. Laura can’t manage ropes to save her life. Those knots terrify her, especially the idea that she couldn’t rip them off easily if something goes wrong.

James tilts his head back. “What do you know of my past, child?”

Cooper rounds the couch and passes Nathaniel off to his aunt. He sits on the floor cross-legged as he turns to stare at James. “You’re the winter soldier, recently pardoned for the crimes that you did while under mind control from that organization of neo-nazis.”

“You’re someone that Tony believes is family.”

“You also happen to be someone who has been screwed over by circumstance. Your one connection to the past is someone who the world largely regards as a terrorist. There are several issues with that, but right now, we need to know who hurt you.”

Laura changes her mind. Both of her children old enough to start displaying signs of their orientation are going to be doms. They both know how to use that to their advantage too. She’s going to have her hands full.

James looks between them for a long moment. “The people who mind controlled me caused this pain. We’re trying to build from the past, but there are some things that are hard for me to deal with because of what they did to me.”

Lila huffs. She pushes herself off his chest and plops with her feet to the ground. “You were a super solider and a sniper, right?”

“Umm, yes.”

Laura has a gut feeling she’s going to have to remind her children that just because they are superheroes, doesn’t mean that they don’t make mistakes, and doesn’t mean that they don’t have their own breakdowns at points in time. She wishes that her children didn’t have to learn that young, but that is the consequence of having one for a father and one for an aunt. There are some things that have to shatter early.

“So pull out a gun and shoot the ones who hurt you, and if that doesn’t work, call in the family for backup. Auntie Nat would be there with a knife for sure, and daddy would come if Auntie Nat said please, and I’m sure that Uncle Tony would too.”

James snorts. “I see the apple does not fall far from the tree. Some issues you can’t kill.”

Cooper rolls his eyes. “What issue are you facing right now? Is it because of what they taught you?”

James’ eyes go wide and he gestures towards Laura begging her to get the child to be quieter, or at the very least less invasive.

“Personal things, Coop.” Natasha shoots him a glare. “Personal things that aren’t going to be discussed with children.”

Nathaniel flops in her arms to get closer to James.

“Fine, you don’t have to answer. You should listen.” Cooper stands up to his feet to stand next to his sister. “Whatever hurts, it can be fixed by trusting your family. If you can’t shoot this problem literally, shoot it to death figuratively.”

James throws his head back into the couch cushions. “I’ve got children lecturing me on being a more active member of the family, even though I’m the one that helped them yesterday.”

“You did it because you didn’t think you had a right to be there for the adult debate happening for the family,” Lila reasons.

Laura bites back her laugh. “Friday, get the rest of the adults up and ready for breakfast before my kids end up killing James from embarrassment.”

Pepper is the first one down in the room and takes turns staring between the cuddle pile on the couch and the scent of food wafting from the kitchen. Then, she just turns towards Natasha. “I have to head into the office today, there’s a bit of work to be done.”

“What kind?”

“I’ve heard rumors that someone in the Chinese government is planning on attempting to divert the plans for clean energy in China, and since we are a clean company, we need to make a statement. However, because we also really like the world to continue existing, I think I’m going to send a bit more of potent message and see whether or not we have the funds to open up a branch in China. I mean we should, but I need to check some data points just to be sure.”

Natasha nods to her. “I’ll do my best to ensure that no one on our end causes any issues for the company to need to deal with, while you’re fighting this.”

Tony walks out of the elevator already dressed to the nines. “I’m on video call, right?”

“Yes,” Pepper answers. She holds out a hand to him as he guides her to the table.

Natasha stands to start heading for food as the rest start filing around the table. Although the children grumble about the formality. Only for as long as it takes to see the food piling on the table as Natasha brings them all out the fancy dish.

James takes great care to sit right next to Tony at the table. He knows he’ll have to drop his voice low in order to be heard by Tony, but everyone but the kids isn’t going to judge a single thing that comes out of his mouth. At least, they aren’t likely to eavesdrop with their parents right there glaring daggers at them if they dared.

Tony spares a glance towards James as he notices that most of the other adults make sure that he gets the seat next to Tony after Tony took the one next to Pepper. He’s honestly a little curious on what is going to happen next. Is he about to get told off about something? That’s usually when the adults in a room gang up on him.

But, no. James eats slowly as if he’s trying to buy himself time, which he is. He doesn’t want to try to have this conversation because he doesn’t want to make the dom feel guilty about what has happened before and the fact that he hadn’t known what subspace was.

Tony chooses to match the energy that James is giving off and starts to eat. Small conversations pop up around the table, mainly the kids asking about plans for the day. Tony mostly gives it no mind, other than to nod to Clint when a question comes up about whether or not they can take the company car and stuff.

James makes up his mind to speak around the third time that he notices Tony’s fork scraping against the plate. “Does Pepper need you for anything after that video call?”

Tony furrows his brow. He runs through his schedule. The cars are on track to be announced at the new year’s eve convention, and the new phones are going to be released by the end of the month. The reason he has to go to this meeting is to prep the board for the flying cars that are coming, and he’s already prepared for the amount of questions about motorcycles and why the engines don’t run off gasoline or diesel. He wants to get ahead of some of that.

“Have them sign the NDA before you tell them anything,” Pepper warns seeing the look on his face.

“Then, no.” Tony pauses. “I should be free assuming that none of those assholes on the board try to skirt signing the NDA for whatever reason. Or rather I should be free as long as I don’t have to put out any fires before the news leaks information, I don’t want them to have.”

Pepper grins at James. She rests her hand on his leg. “Don’t worry, between Tony’s threats and mine, they won’t dare.”

James nods. Then, he turns to Tony and bites his lip hard to control the various emotions on his face. “Would you mind if I waited for you somewhere so we could take afterwards?”

Tony crosses his eyes for a moment. He hates the idea of what a talk like this could signify, and if James said he wanted to leave their little family, he’d let him. He’d have to, but lord, he would scream for ages afterwards. “Of course, where would you be most comfortable?”

“Lab,” he whispers.

Tony nods. “Okay, I’ll meet you there and actually use my office for the meeting.” With that he stands with a flourish as does Pepper as they both exchange papers as they walk for the elevators.

James leaves shortly afterward, not willing to do more interactions with people. He gets down to the lab and then curls on the floor next to the bots. They all crowd around him trying to give him as much comfort as he can get from them.

Tony’s meeting goes about how he expects it. Small pushback on signing the NDA, followed by immense participation after being reminded that Pepper can and will bury them alive if they try anything to untoward about the company. After that it was a rather pointed conversation about advancing the amount of access to some of his technology that the public has and why it changed was brought up, which is flying cars. That made sure to get everyone’s attention and ensure every single of one of them was willing to go with the flow.

After that he throws off his suit jacket on the back of his office chair and heads towards the lab. He tries to keep steady, but he’s walking at an accelerated pace. He freezes when he sees Bucky, curled up on the floor with his bots. That doesn’t look like someone who wants to leave the family.

James’ head jerks up when he hears Tony’s small gasp. He bites his lip again. He doesn’t make a move though, he’s more comfortable here with the bots around him than he has been in a while.

Tony jerks forward and falls to his knees to press his thumb against James’ mouth. He plucks the lip out from under James’ lip before he realized that he probably shouldn’t have done that without making sure that it was okay.

James pushes his head down into the palm of Tony’s hand, selfishly seeking that comfort without explaining again. And just like every other time that he’s done this to the man, Tony lets him get away with it. “Umm, we need to talk.”

Tony takes note of the way that James is pressing into him and the tension in the man’s body. He tucks his legs under him and gets into a seated position with him on the floor. “Okay, what would you like to talk about?”

“So, before Hydra got me, I registered as a switch and back in the 40s, being a male submissive or a submissive in general wasn’t always the best for your health, so I didn’t acknowledge that side of myself. And then, they wiped out whatever part of me had been dominant.”

James takes in several breathes that come out as more of deep pants than of anything else. Before he can manage to continue with what needs to be said, because there are several things that he needs to say. “Because of that, I always thought that subspace and subdrop were the same thing. I didn’t know that wasn’t true until this morning when Natasha really explained it to me with Laura helping. Umm, part of the reason that I didn’t ask for anything or consider making a full contract with any of you, is because I didn’t know that.”

Tony blinks. That makes an eerie kind of sense and explains why James had still been nervous even after kneeling for them. “Okay, snowflake. That’s no problem. I mean we probably should have realized, but none of us did, and now you know.” He wants to ask whether this changes anything, but he won’t push. He’ll be the good guy for James anytime that he needs.

James surges forward to knock his head into Tony’s chest in a more complete embrace. “Umm, I don’t know much about kinks and limits and stuff, and today I don’t have quite the nerve to deal with it. Could you do something gentle, please, and show me when I know what’s happening?”

Tony takes a deep breath and runs a hand through James’ hair. “I’m going to need you to be a tad more specific when you say gentle, because scening without a contract or clear communication beforehand is extremely dangerous both for you and me.”

James swallows, but he inclines his head. “Similar to what you and Rhodey did the other day, where you just give me simple choices or commands, I guess, and I can drift away and have you take care of me anyway.”

Tony smiles at him to let him know that’s a great start. Because it is, he could probably go off just this and be alright but expanding what he knows slowly is a goal of his. “What if we went up to my rooms, and I made sure that you knew how special you are?”

“Sure.”

Tony narrows his eyes for a moment trying to read whether or not James is being truthful. The way that sure sounds like an off-handed way to give Tony’s way priority doesn’t sit right with him, but as he looks into James eyes, he realizes that's not what this was. This is a simple way for James to show that he trusts Tony, and he wants to show that.

Tony places his hand on the center of James’ back a mirror of what he done to Natasha just the day before. He leads them both towards the elevator.

James leans into the gentle touch. His head going light with the knowledge that at least for today, he doesn’t have to worry about that gentleness being taken away. He will have his hope given to him, and he doesn’t have to plead for it.

Tony glides them both into his rooms. He slips the lock on the door. More of a formality than anything else, because literally everyone in the tower could get through that precaution if they thought it was necessary. Still, the lock will tell everyone else that in any case other than an emergency, not to interrupt.

James bites into his lips as he tilts his head to the side. “Should I kneel for you again?”

Tony hums. That had certainly helped James get into the right headspace last time, but he wants to try a different method rather than the traditional now. “Not yet.”

James nods immediately. He waits for the next suggestion to fall from Tony’s lips. He'll order James once he’s gotten the okay to move forward, but at first he always asks. He asks for permission before doing anything, which is so different from most of the doms that he’d ever known that it was awe-inspiring.

Tony stares at James with a look of happiness. “Would you mind taking off your clothes?”

James starts on his shirt. That takes the most of his time, with the fact he only has the one arm still. He hasn’t asked Tony about the other one again, and he’s not planning to. That arm is something that will either be freely given or it won’t exist. He doesn’t need the arm to be a happy person, and he certainly doesn’t need the arm to be a better one than who he had been under Hydra’s control.

“Yours should be done in like a couple weeks. I sent the bulk of it to Shuri with instruction for how the vibranium should go on it.”

James freezes with the shirt covering his face. “My arm?”

“Were you expecting something else made with the fanciest metal on Earth? Yeah, your arm. T’Challa and his sister are helping part of their remorse over the actions and all that. Personally, I think his reaction was a valid thing that he did, but he’s a bit headstrong to accept that without trying to make amends now that you’re part of the family, so you’ve got to be prepared for that jazz.”

James huffs out a laugh. “I didn’t realize you had started,” he explains as he pulls the shirt off all the way at last.

“You told me to wait until the trigger words were gone, I started right afterwards.”

“I should have expected that,” he grumbles. He’s slightly sick of the fact that Hydra has convinced him that nothing good was going to come without a price, and he hadn’t realized that other people were going to be willing to help him with less now. He unbuckles the button on his jeans and pulls down the zipper. He shimmies them down his legs, so he can remove one leg at a time.

He pauses with the jeans on the floor as he realizes that Tony is now standing right next to him with his eyes burning a hole into James.

Tony reaches out and runs a hand down James’ arm as he stares at the skin available for him to see for the first time. They hadn’t really gone that far last scene, and James is buff. Like ripped as all hell, with muscles that could hold you under them. He bets that if he plays his cards right later, he can convince James about the glory of bottoming from the top.

James swallows down the words that want to say that he’s nothing special and doesn’t need Tony to coddle him with the gentle glances, but he’s so grateful for the attention that he refuses to say the evil things that his brain tell him about himself. If Tony wants to give him that, Tony gets to give it to him. He does his socks next and just drops them on his pile of clothes. He hooks his fingers around the front of his underwear and turns to Tony. He needs the confirmation that this is something that is wanted and not just another assumption that he’s making.

“Those too,” Tony says after a second. He assumes that if James had an actual problem with taking that article clothes off, he would have had a verbal cue towards that, either now or when the request had first been made. The lack of that allows Tony to be bolder in making a demand rather than an offer.

James yanks them down to avoid giving himself the time to second guess himself or to make a fool of himself. His underwear fall to the pile on the floor, and god does he hope that he’s not going to be made to bend over to fold them. It’s a simple trick to get a sub lower into headspace, but he swears that if Tony doesn’t touch him in the next few minutes, he might actually die. Like a spontaneous combustion.

Tony reaches out to grab hold of James’ hand and gives him a tug away from the clothes and into a tight embrace.

James closes his eyes. The rough texture of the fabric rubbing against his bare skin, causing him to realize how much power Tony has over him at this very moment, and the fact that he can’t bring himself to give a single shit about it. All he can do is be so incredibly happy.

Tony nudges his hand under James’ chin so he can force the sub to stare him in the eyes. “Will you take off mine too?”

James’ eyes go wide, because yeah his shitty clothes that he allowed the AI system to buy and order him could be crumbled on the floor all he wanted. The most that would do is cause him a bit of anxiety when he asked Friday to please ask the laundry ladies to bring him an iron and they said, they’d take care of it. Because he’s not trying to make more work for them, he promises. But, Tony’s clothes, those probably cost more than he’d ever dream in spending in a day, and he doesn’t know where the hangers are.

“Yeah, mine you probably have to fold before you set them on the floor, but they require enough specialty to clean that the wrinkles aren’t going to be an issue.” Tony arches an eyebrow. “Assuming that you are willing.”

James jerks his head into a series of nods that leaves nothing to the imagination in regards to the fact that he wants to, he wants to so badly that it almost burns him in its intensity. He rushes forward to the tie against Tony’s neck, the gentle fabric in his hand makes him wonder what it would feel like to have Tony place it over his eyes and gentle touches to his hair as he pulls it out of the way to tie it against him. Or maybe he would ball it up and slip it between James’ teeth where he didn’t have to think about the words rattling in his head in both English and Russian and a mix between the winter soldier who still exists as a aspect of him and the soft man who wants only for soft things and a lack of blood.

Tony chuckles. “Not tonight, but you want a tie of mine around you one of these days, I’ll be happy to oblige. Maybe I’ll make a game out of it that day, how many of my ties can I wrap around you in a single moment.”

James drops his jaw before he manages to control his hands enough to get the tie off. He has to fight himself to let it drop to the ground folded by his nimble fingers. He presses his hands through the jacket of Tony’s suit. “How bold can I get?”

“Do whatever you want, I’ll stop you if you do something I’d prefer for you to wait for. Or, if it’s something I have an actual issue with.”

James spreads his hands out and explores the wide shoulders under the clothes. He knew that a man who flew around in a suit that weighed more than some cars and built even more on top of it would have to contain. He loves the way they move under him. When he glances up, Tony seems mostly amused by his exploration, and not even close to inclined to stop him from touching.

He removes the jacket slowly. He folds it in his hands and bends down to set it on the ground, unwilling to allow it to change shape in the air. He hopes like hell that doesn’t seem too suggestive because that’s not what he’s going for here.

Tony reaches out and runs a hand down James’ spine stopping short of going towards his ass. He will not initiate any sexual escapades that come tonight. He’s just going to guide the other man down, which starts with getting them both naked so he doesn't ruin this suit with bath water as he buries another sub in his care.

James pops the first button of his shirt and pauses. Tony had promised to stop him if he goes too far, but will he think that James is testing boundaries or will he know better? He fights off the worry and trusts the man in front of him. So, he leans forward and trails his mouth over the now exposed skin. Before popping the next button and going further down, which he continues until the shirt is fully unbuttoned and he’s at his knees in front of Tony.

Now he has choices, he can stand up to take care of the shirt himself, but if he does that, he’s likely to lose all of the nerves he’s been building up by nipping and sucking and kissing the man’s chest to go further down, which had been his original goal, or he could see whether Tony would indulge him and take care of his own shirt, so James could focus on the more important things, like the bulge sitting in front of his eyes as he’s down on his knees, he happens to believe that is a crucial bit of information right there. In the end, he doesn’t have to make up his mind, because Tony shrugs the rest of the way out of the shirt and folds it himself before letting it fall to the floor.

In Tony’s defense, he can’t think of a better way to put James to ease about what is going on other than to just consistently prove that it’ll be alright. He’s just allowing James to set the pace for now, as long as it ends with him getting his clothes off, he’ll call it a win. If James wants to do other things while he’s completing his assignment, Tony will thank the gods for allowing the man to express more of his thoughts and desires.

James glides his hands up Tony’s thighs to build confidence before he slides them down and helps the man step out of them, so he can neatly fold them with the others. He keeps his eyes down while he’s accomplishing that goal, because he doesn’t want to get distracted by the underwear that Tony wears, but he swears his brain short circuits when he looks back up only to find Tony’s dick right there and a smooth expanse of skin.

Tony bites down on his lip to stop himself from laughing at the awe on James’ face. He’s not sure whether it is at being allowed this luxury of taking his time with something or whether it’s the fact that Tony doesn’t have to wear underwear when he doesn’t choose to, but whatever put that look of wonder there, that needs to be prioritized at all costs. He’s about to tell James how much of a good job he’s done, when James places his hands on Tony’s hip bones, and Tony freezes.

James for his part may have been expecting a bit more time to kiss Tony’s thighs and maybe leave a mark or two there if the more dominant man had nothing against being claimed in turn before actually revealing the prize of the show, but he’s not going to allow Tony to believe that this wasn’t something he had thought of. He leans forward and presses a kiss to the tip of Tony’s penis before pulling back. “Fair warning, haven’t ever done this before, so feel free to direct me.”

Then, he’s opening his mouth and swallowing Tony wide. He knows from having women do it on him that trying to take the whole thing at once is a bit like asking for trouble, so he doesn’t go all the way, just until his mouth feels comfortably full. He starts making small movements with his tongue, just to brush up against what was in his mouth.

Tony lets out a groan of delight as pleasure rocks through him. He had imagined a lot of things since James had gotten on his knees, and while this featured in his fantasies, he had firmly placed this in a box labeled not going to happen today. How lucky he is that he got that part dead wrong.

James keeps going though, he starts to put suction because he remembers that’s something that he liked when he could convince someone to do it. He wonders how nice it would be to have Tony’s hands in his hair, or even more how fantastic it would be if Tony were to grab his head and make him move the way he wanted. That would be glorious, and he feels his mind fade a little more as he wonders about it.

Tony lets this go for as long as he can before he’s on the brink of coming, which he doesn’t want. Not this early in the night anyway, he is on the wrong side of 40, and that means going once in a night is about the maximum that he can manage, although he’s sure a super soldier could probably go more if he wants to. So, he drops his hands into James’ hair and gives a soft pet first before gently pulling him away. “Such a good job you did.”

James almost forms the question for why in his head, before deciding that would be far too much for him to know, he’s much happier right where he is now. He just gazes up into Tony’s eyes letting the feeling of getting told what to do wash over him.

Tony’s plans involved letting James tell him yes or no for a longer portion of the night but judging by the fact that James looks about as deep as he’s seen a submissive get, he probably should just let it go for now. “Can you stand for me?”

So polite. That’s what his dom is, James thinks. Always asking for permission, always coating his orders in pleasant little questions ready for an answer should his submissive want to give one to him. Not that James has any plans of ever telling him no, not unless he does something like slap him, but Tony had promised no pain, and Tony is a man of his word. A good man. That’s what Tony Stark is.

After a few moments, he realizes that Tony is just waiting for him to make a decision about standing, because he is in fact still on his knees. He places his hands on the floor and pushes up. It takes him a few moments to actually get himself all the way up to his feet, because kneeling is so much easier, but he manages it.

Tony reaches out and steadies James on his feet as he sways side to side. He gently coaxes James towards the bathroom with slow and sure steps. He makes sure that his feet are always leading the way, so he doesn’t feel like he’s being asked to do the leading or any other potential brain weirdness. Once in the bathroom, he grins as he realizes that Friday had responded to the non-verbal cues to get the bath prepped.

He keeps walking until they’re right in front of the tub. “In you go.”

James furrows his brow. From what he recalls some submissives greatly enjoy being allowed to bathe their dominant, but he’d never seen that situation where the submissive had entered the bath first if at all. He could still force questions to the top of his mind, he could ask what was going on. Instead, he just lightly lays his head on Tony’s shoulder for a moment.

Tony huffs a laugh, as James curls into him rather than try to get into the tub. He taps James’ leg and waits until the leg raises to put it into the water.

James droops the second his foot hits the water. Warm water at the perfect temperature to lure him into the trap of going in. Before he knows it, he’s laying in the tub, his head still in Tony’s hands as Tony is now sitting outside of the tub smiling at him.

Tony loves that he’s finally managed to get James far enough down that there are long moments of complete bliss on the man’s face where nothing else matters. He also loves that he can gently move James, and he’ll just move smoothly with the request. He runs his hands through James’ hair slowly.

Eventually, he thinks that James is floating enough to not panic if he reaches away for a few seconds so that he can reach for the shampoo. He runs the soapy substance through James’ hair, being careful not to tangle it more than necessary as he gathers more and more lather.

James appears to be blinking at him on occasion, but he never actually says a word. He just allows the gentle menstruations to go over his head as things become more and more fuzzy within in his thoughts. Happiness is just around the corner.

Tony moves where one hand is cradled underneath James’ head. He could of course cup the water and have it fall over James’ head, but he’s always preferred the dunking method, if his partner trusts him enough to allow something that could easily become breathplay. Not that he plans on going that route today, not with James so new to the world of subbing. However, the gentle reminder that he could, probably wouldn’t hurt anything.

James realizes why Tony’s arm moves to hold the back of his head as Tony’s weight presses him towards the water. He’s pretty sure some light panicking would be understood, but he can’t bring himself to muster that kind of panic. It’s only Tony, Tony who had every right to beat him to the ground the moment he stepped out of a plane, and instead gave him new better memories of what the world should be.

Tony presses down, and James goes under the water. Tony’s other arm keeps his face above water, but James puts no efforts into straining against either. He’s still completely lax. Even as Tony removes the support brace of his arm to start running his hands back through the hair to rinse out the soap.

There’s a beauty to the way that both of them are breathing together by the time that Tony sits him back up and reaches for the actual soap to wash off his body. An arm lifts up for Tony at nothing more than a brief tap. The silence which once would have been unnerving to either of them, has become proof of the bond between them.

Tony doesn’t play around much with the soap. James has already fallen into subspace, and while he will finish out the scene he has planned, he doesn’t need to improvise around it to help James out of his own head. That is accomplished for him via the gentle scene already set up.

James stands when Tony asks that of him. Still neither of them really speak, just hands tapping, pulling or otherwise guiding each other into the steps that they need from one another. The sort of gentleness that has been foreign to him for way too long.

Tony dries him off with the fluffiest towel that he can muster up before gently patting himself dry from the spots of water that had fallen on him. He snags a bottle of massage oil from the counter as he joins James in the bedroom again. “Lay face down on the bed for me.”

James drags his feet across the floor as he gets into the correct position that has been asked of him. He shuffles once on the bed, unable to bring himself to do more than the bare minimum of movements. He just wants to feel light and fluffy and be happy.

Tony smiles at the way that James moves. Maybe that’s something they could play with; how much James could keep himself poised while in subspace. That would be a fun adventure for Tony, and it would probably ensure that James would only be proving how far he could go, no chance of punishment or failure, just a simple task.
He moves to press James down on the bed with one hand, while trying to gauge the best position. What he wants to do is straddle James’ thighs and just slide himself down as he needs to, but that might be way too much.

James groans as the hand pushes him down, and he blinks several times in succession to try to get a semblance of thought back into his pretty head. “More, please.”
Tony grins. “Tell me if I go too far.” That’s the only warning he gives, before placing his knees on either side of James and heaving himself over James to press kisses against the exposed skin of James’ neck returning the favor for earlier.

James groans in appreciation as he can suddenly feel Tony all over him. He has no clue why the man thinks that he’ll cross some boundary that doesn’t exist. The boundaries that he has for things like this are ones that Tony would know to watch out for, and he refuses to believe that the other dominant would have the nerve to cross those. The kisses don’t even give in to the urge to mark, because Tony knows that he would prefer that pain stay far away from his pleasure.

Tony remains like that for arguably longer than he was intending to, but he can’t help himself when James is making such pretty little whines and pleas under his breath. Still he manages to push himself back and spread the oil across his hands. Then, he’s pressing into James’ muscles and he’s getting actual friction and true pleas that have words to them as James begs him for more, or his favorite just saying please over and over again.

James doesn’t remember anything other than the hands on him now. Those hands are pushing into muscles that he thinks might have been tense for close to a century, and the way that Tony is pressing them back into what they are supposed to be is going to drive him insane before the end if he keeps going like this.

By the time that James’ back is coated in oil and the muscles are back to a normal shape, both of the men are panting hard. Tony’s erection is laying on the bed as he’s glided down to the lower part of James’ back. And James’ erection is gaining friction as he moves up and down the sheets.

Tony’s impressed by the way that James keeps himself from ever actively chasing that pleasure though. He's giving himself a nice amount of pleasure but never enough to push him over the edge. Almost as if he’s determined not to do anything more. So, Tony decides to see what’ll happen if he adds to that pressure. The oil on his hands isn’t as good as lube, but he so doesn’t want to reach away, and he knows how to make sure that it still doesn’t hurt. He trails one finger of his hand down James’ crack and waits.

James stills his hips to a stop at the brush of a touch. That’s what he wants. More than anything else, he wants to feel Tony more. He doesn’t need the man’s cock, although he wouldn’t object, but fingers, tongue, something to remind him that Tony’s willing to give him pleasure. “Please.”

Tony chuckles under his breath once he realizes that James hadn’t frozen because it was too much but because he wanted more of it. Only James would assume that he needs to stop what he’s doing to get something new. “You can keep moving your hips, Snowflake, I’m just going to help you along.”

James nods in jerky motions as he starts moving again. Pleasure is probably going to make him come long before Tony was going to start thinking about maybe doing more than just fingers, but that’s alright. If today is any indication of the future, he’s pretty confident that he’ll be able to get Tony back in a bedroom.

Tony presses down with that finger. Just pressure around the ring, not actually trying to get into James yet. He watches as that drives James crazy, as he fights with himself to do what Tony told him and keep moving himself across those sheets, or to get up on his knees to have the correct contact to push back into Tony.
The first time that James’ leg comes up to hold himself way more up, than what Tony wants, Tony uses his legs to press him right back down, and places just a bit of his own weight there to remind him that Tony wants him on the bed like this, and nothing else.

James feels his eyes roll back into his head as Tony keeps him pinned to the bed, where his only escape is just rubbing his cock against silk sheets. That is until he thinks hard enough about it, then he pushes his hands back under his head, ready to bury his head in his hands, if this doesn’t work well at all. “Please, Tony, I want your fingers in me.”

Tony lets out the groan of pleasure this time, and he waits for a moment. Then, he presses that finger in and crooks it at what he’s hoping is the right angle. Judging by the way that James leaps out of the bed, he’ll give himself full credits.

James pants as he comes down from that pleasure, barely having held onto his ability to not come all over the pretty sheets of his dominant. He knows they don’t have a contract, there’s nothing written to say that he needs Tony’s permission, but he wants it anyway. Because if he has it and then goes over the edge, he’s likely to be told that he did so good and all that. “Tony, can I?”

“Can you what?” Tony’s a bit confused. He’s surprised with the level of jerkiness that the first brush to his prostate managed that James didn’t topple over the edge, and he certainly doesn’t know what on Earth James might be asking permission for. That just seems redundant.

“Can I come,” James clarifies. Wondering slightly whether the humiliation of having to say those words out loud were part of Tony’s plan to ensure that the memories of this were rooted into just about every aspect of play that doesn’t involve pain.

“Snowflake, that’s the whole point,” Tony says with a laugh. “Come whenever you like.” Then, he crooks that finger again, just because he can, and because he loves the way that James’ body will respond to him in such a beautiful way when he does it.

This time when pleasure shoots up his spine, James doesn’t fight it. He lets the pleasure crack over him in waves as he comes. His vision going dark for just a second.

When James wakes back up, Tony is holding him with a smile on his face as they lay side by side on the bed. There’s just one problem with this in James eyes. Tony’s still got an erection, and James needs to rectify this immediately. So, he reaches over to grab Tony’s cock with his hand. “Would be a shame to. let this go to waste?” he teases with that same smile on his lips.

Chapter Text

Before Tony can say a word in response, there’s a low buzz suggesting that Friday had been about to say something, and then Natasha is in the room. Her eyes are wide and slightly nervous. “Tony, there’s a huge spaceship entering the atmosphere, and its calling out Bruce’s code word.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” she snaps. Then, she takes in a breath trying to calm herself. “We’ve convinced them that since that since the signal is going up, the avengers should be the first on scene in case something that governments wouldn’t necessarily know comes out of that ship, but they demand for that to work that someone gets there before it touches the ground.”

“And the suits are the only thing that could make the trip.”

Natasha takes in a breath before nodding. “I know it’s a terrible time, but..” she trails off not knowing a polite way to finish that. Because she does know how awful this timing is. The first real scene that James has since all of the trauma that Hydra did to him, and she’s got to interrupt with tearing his dom away.

Tony for his part rolls off of the bed, ignoring for the moment the fact that he’s naked, or that he doesn’t have a plan on what to do, and pretty much everything in between. “Is it his distress signal or just his regular, it’s me signal?”

“Distress.”

“Alright. Friday, tell Pepper to choose right this second whether she’s suiting up or not.”

“I’m in,” Pepper’s voice comes loud and clear over the speakers, seconds later. She probably had her mind made up long before just this instance, but good practice to make sure of that before doing anything too insane.

“Natasha, call T’Challa and get him out there. If its really bad, we’re going to need king kitty. Umm, if James is up and not in subspace and wants to come, get him a damn sniper rifle, he’s damn good with them, and assuming he’s got some practice in it, that can be done with a single arm. Obviously, you and Clint are following us in the quinjet.”

Natasha stares at him. “What if?”

“If he drops, call Laura, and I’ll beg for forgiveness when I get back from dealing with this,” Tony answers the unasked question. He hates himself, but he’s always put the world first, and he’ll keep putting the world first, because his family can’t live on a husk of a planet overrun by what’s coming for them. His suit forms around him, and he’s soaring through the air once more.

Pepper and Rhodey catch up to him in no time flat. The silence on the flight only lasts for a few seconds before Rhodey asks the question that they were all wondering. “What are we doing, like if Banner is in trouble obviously we’re going to have to intervene, but he’s been gone a long time?”

“We’re winging it on the rest of that front. We have to figure out what the situation is first, and then, I can try to make a response of some kind towards his opinions on the accords, his position on the fact that we are now helping family but that being an avenger doesn’t automatically make you family, and the whole he hurt me in horrible ways and then fucked off apparently into outer space.”

“Let’s try to keep an open mind, if we get that far. We all know how complicated things can get when space travel is involved,” Pepper warns.

“Also you miss Brucie bear,” Tony adds.

“And I miss him.”

Rhodey sighs through their open comms. He can’t handle the sentimentality sometimes. Like he gets it, he does, he loves Bruce too, but he made his choices, and he’s going to have to be the one that fights for that to be better than what it is right now, not them.

Meanwhile, back at the Compound, Natasha stands there staring at James for a minute, before about to call Laura, when James stands up. His eyes are less faded over and sterner. She swears for a second that it feels like she’s still standing back in the red room waiting for what comes next, before she remembers that the soldier is still part of James, and the soldier is the one who can handle the situation best, so of course, he’s going to be the personality that comes out right now.

James meets her eyes with a tilt to his head. “You know where the rifles are? Please allow me to get one.”

“Yeah, no question about that if you want to go. Tony already gave permission for you to go.”

“Does he have that authority?”

Natasha can’t help but laugh as she threads there way towards the armory for the avengers. “Yes, no, and it’s not like it matters whether he does or not, because there’s no one alive on this planet who has more support for whatever hair-brained decision he makes.”

Clint drops down on them, his bow already across his back and suited up in his own gear. “What’s our status?”

“Get the quinjet ready to get us there. I’m getting James a weapon, and then while I’m suiting up, I’m calling T’Challa to get us a bit more support,” Natasha states. She sounds like a general, and she supposes that in terms of the Avengers, she probably is one. That feels odd, as even the red room had kept her in a solo position, and now she’s not only playing nice with others, but she’s the leader in some ways.

Clint nods to her and then to James. “Let’s try to hurry before Laura gets even more freaked out about the fact that we’re more or less just going in blind.”

Natasha silently agrees with him as she moves them a bit faster towards the lockers that Tony installed for all their equipment. She types the code in to access the extra weapons shed and throws her arm wide. “Grab whatever the hell you like. Preferably make sure that you can use it, but you’re the winter soldier, I’m pretty sure there’s not a weapon invented that you haven’t been trained in.”

“Can’t fight in an iron man suit,” James teases. His voice is still the low cold tone of the soldier, with the hint of a Russian accent, but he’s still the person that has gotten used to the gentle teasing of family and the way that it can calm the atmosphere when people are stressed, and he can tell that the air in the room is stressed, it’s almost suffocating in the amount of pressure that is everywhere. Clearly, something had gone off the rails and no one had decided the best way to fix it yet.

Natasha smiles at him before opening her own locker and starting to strip down. “Friday, can you put me through to T’Challa? Make sure to mention the words spaceship and emergency.”

“Natasha, what the hell is happening? The accords council is blowing up my email, and then I get Friday saying that you need to talk because there’s an emergency with a spaceship.”

“The simple answer is that we need you in all your black panther glory to meet us in residential Arizona where a spaceship is about to land. The complicated answer is that we’re rather sure that the missing avenger Bruce Banner aka the Hulk is on said ship, and that he’s in some kind of trouble. Only since no one knew where he was and even less knew that there was a chance he landed in space, we have no clue what kind of trouble that could be. Oh, and to make it worse, I may have betrayed him mere moments before he ran off, on orders from Captain America before we realized that trusting his orders is an absolutely terrible idea. And that Bruce actually managed to hurt Tony pretty significantly right before that happened. So, regardless of the Avengers level trouble, there’s also the family level chaos that’s about to be introduced,” she explains as she continues carrying on getting her weapons on her.

T'Challa’s line goes deadly quiet for a few minutes. “Why do I love you people?”

“Because when we care, we care with everything that we’ve got, and even when the explosions rock us so far backwards that you can’t see each other, you can still follow that love all the way home if you needed to.”

“I’ll get there as quickly as I can.”

Natasha makes a hand motion to get Friday to cut off the line. She waits the five seconds for James to close the locker before locking the thing. She has no desire to come home to a massacre because children got into weapons that arguably no government should even have.

Soon, they were on that quinjet, Clint flying them off in the correct direction. Each of them tossing up some polite begging to whatever controls their world that this doesn’t become the mission that sends one o them into an early grave.

Tony stares at the spaceship as it touches the ground. He can tell that this ship holds more people or more enemies than what the three of them could realistically take on. Maybe if the Hulk was a player, they’d be able to hold long enough for others, but even that was a question.

The ramp to the ship opens up, and standing there are Bruce, Thor, and Loki. All three of them still looking like hell had warmed over from the battle. They could have done a bit more to clean up, but they’d been spending every moment trying to figure out how best to approach the situation with Earth, and specifically on helping them create a place for Asgard’s people who deserve more than what they have been given.

Bruce is meant to be the one that says the first pieces of their story. He’s supposed to be the peace keeper and calm voice, but he sees Tony and everything just fades to blankness. This is who he wanted, this is what he wanted when he had thoughts in Hulk’s head. Because he had fucked up, and he meant to say the words sorry in less than a week after, but Johannesburg had happened. And then, he was gone. So far gone, that none of his words would make a damn bit of difference now.

Tony flips the facemask of his suit up. “Hey, guys, want to explain some shit?”

Bruce takes off at a run. He can’t help himself as he collides with the metal suit, holding on in a hug for dear life. Holy shit, Tony Stark is right there. Tony Stark, his closest friend is right there. A man that he loves is in his grasp, and he doesn’t know any of the story and eventually someone has to use words to say something. Instead, tears start pouring from his eyes as he leans on Tony, hoping like hell that he doesn’t get pushed away after everything because he doesn’t know if he can handle that again.

Tony blinks as Bruce starts crying into him. He raises his arms to embrace Bruce because there are so many words that still need to be said, but none of them are near as important as this one. “Missed you too, buddy.” He turns his gaze back to the two nobles standing in front of the nation of Asgard on a ship.

“Friend Stark,” Thor starts out.

Tony narrows his eyes in a glare. That’s one thing that he won’t tolerate. They aren’t going to pretend like him and Thor are buddies. As if they had any trust between them, as if one of Thor’s last actions on Earth hadn’t been to almost kill him in a fit of rage over the very thing that everyone had at least initially agreed he should attempt.

Loki elbows Thor in the abdomen, making him bend over in a coughing fit. There’s a tense smile on his face as if he’s trying not to have a breakdown. “My apologies, sir Stark.”

“Just Stark is fine,” Tony interrupts.

Loki inclines his head, accepting that without another word on it. “We find ourselves in need of assistance. Our planet has been destroyed, and we have reason to believe that there’s a madman who happens to be from a race of alien creatures stronger than those we know collecting infinity stones to destroy half the universe. Now, we have no place to go, and a war that likely needs to be waged. Your Bruce Banner suggested that you might be able to help.”

Tony closes his eyes. That checks out with the distress signals that had been sent by Bruce. He hears the whirls of the Quinjet behind him, and he knows that the decision has to be made quickly. “Pepper, you and Nat and T’Challa, go to the accords council as fast as you can. Push something through that will give them all asylum somewhere.”

Pepper nods. “Stark Industries has enough properties spread out somewhere that if all else fails, I’ll use that.” Her suited arm comes up to point directly at Thor. “You hurt him again, and I will not stop until you are dead and have suffered through whatever pain you put him through.”

Thor’s eyes go wide as he turns to his brother for help. He has no clue what is being talked about, and while the hostility is not exactly something that he’s going to deny, he can’t apologize for what he does not know.

Loki refrains from rolling his eyes, but only just. “Lady Pepper, we would not dare harm the one trying to save our people. That would be the height of stupidity, and I’d like to believe that neither of us can claim that title.”

“I’d threaten you too, but I’ve recently been informed that your actions against me and mine may not have been willing. My apologies for the suffering that must have caused you.”

Loki’s jaw drops. Of all the outlandish things that he had been expecting to come out of this meeting, someone admitting to the idea that he was mind controlled wasn’t on his list, and someone then apologizing to him was out of the question. “I don’t understand.”

Tony exchanges a glance with Pepper in question. “We were led to believe that you were under someone else’s control during the battle of New York.”

“That does not pardon you from crimes on other planets,” Thor explains.

All three suits drop their heads to avoid literally launching themselves at Thor for the blatant admission that he had known and done nothing. They would have to do some massive PR to stop that from being several steps backwards in the direction of fixing laws for those who have had mind control used against them.

Clint steps out of the quinjet to stare towards Loki. He nautches an arrow, and shoots it at Loki’s feet. “Even?”

“What in the Norns?” Loki demands. He really can’t wrap his head around what’s happening right now.

Tony realizes that they’re about to get into several conversations that should probably be way more private than they were about to be, and that there were so many more issues to deal with. “Pepper!”

Pepper snaps towards him, and then she’s off in the air, opening comm units and flying Natasha to a different type of aircraft probably with T’Challa.

“Rhodey, go to Congress, get them asylum status. I don’t care whether you blackmail every senator there or whether you convince them with actual laws, but they need to be protected like five minutes ago. Clint, with him just in case there’s some nutjobs looking to start trouble with the whole aliens on earth or don’t trust Avengers stuff.”

Both men nod towards him before taking off.

That leaves Tony in the weirdest position yet. What to do with a spaceship full of people that need a place to stay and really can’t stay where they currently are? “Do you have fuel left?”

“Yes,” Loki answers, grateful that they seemed to be back at questions he had at least had a faintest idea of why the answer might be important. Unfortunately, that doesn’t bode well for them getting aide, but its still a shitload better than being blown up, which had been something he expected.

“Great, does whoever is flying this ship have enough skill to fly you to a set of coordinates that I give to you? Because this isn’t the greatest location to wait for the decision of politicians that I will be fighting to get you all aide, but like staying here is likely to cause trouble.”

Loki stares at Tony with a shock in his eyes. “Yes, I can fly us to coordinates.”

“Great.” Tony claps his hands, and he has Friday give him the best coordinates for a location on the compound property to land this ship on. He passes those numbers on without a single break or pause. “Hey, snowflake, could you get on the ship and give everyone a briefing on Earth’s laws and what not to do while I try to fix this shitstorm?”

James quirks his eyebrow up. “And what makes you think that’s a good job for me?”

“You’re a super soldier, so you’re actually way closer to them than I am without the suit on. Also, everyone else has some missions, and I’m going to have to start trying to buy up supplies for temporary shelter on the compound grounds until we can figure out where they’re going to go.”

Thor looks like he’s about to interrupt again, but Loki’s glare shuts him up before he can get the words out. “It would perhaps go better, if my brother was to tell my people of what rules need to be followed, and which can be waived as long as among only our own people.”

Tony barely pauses at those words. Of course it would go over better, and he’s likely the only one that the Asgardians would listen to, but that’s not how he’s playing this. Because he knows that they only really follow show of forces, and he doesn’t want to have bloodshed before he can get everything wrapped up into a bow. “James, give them the run down. Anyone tries to question you, make them bleed. Any of them try to actively harm you, kill them. And try to make it clear that if they mess with the rules you laid down later, it will be worse,” he commands.

James huffs. He can now clearly tell that this is a play of force as well. He plans on making sure that Asgard does not get the chance to mess with the family he’s built. “And?”

Tony glances down at the way that Bruce is still clinging to him. Not a single word having been spoken, and he knows that’s going to have to be one of his first concerns, everything else can come second. “And, Thor, you were once part of a group I cared about, you hold none of that affection left, don’t push your luck. Loki, you saved someone I love once, and you are probably the only reason that his children do not suffer. If you wish to be away from your people or wish to be amongst people who will treat you as an equal, you are welcome in my home.”

Loki pauses at that. “You no longer consider my brother a friend?”

“No, I don’t.” Tony bites down the harsh words that want to come bubbling up, the harsh words that want him to start a fight and hurt the rest of them right there. Because he could probably destroy Thor’s entire nation where it stood, and if someone got a word of why he was angry, there was a chance his good will wasn’t going to be enough. “And if he wants to know why, he can ask for a meeting in my home with several concessions made.”

Thor looks horrified at those words. “Please.”

“Let’s get your people settled first, then we can deal with personal stuff.”

Thor nods to him. “If that is your preference.”

“My preference is before you landed here, in my semi-rebuilt life without having to deal with some of this, but I have to deal with this anyway, and that’s what it is. I will still help you, because your people don’t deserve to suffer any further than what they have, and because Bruce ran to me, begging me to fix it without words, and I tend to help those I care about. And Bruce hasn’t completely burned the good will I had for him.”

Bruce sobs where he stands. He knows he should pull away and fall to his knees. He should start begging now, and then continue whenever, wherever that Tony wants. But there’s a grip on him that holds tight.

“I’ll meet you at the compound to see what all I can do,” Tony instructs. “I’ve got to try to get Bruce back to a normal level, deal with Asgard, and then the rest.”

Then, Tony holds Bruce carefully in his arms and takes off back towards the compound grounds. He doesn’t know what’s causing Bruce the level of distress that he’s displaying or why on Earth if he’s this panicked that the Hulk isn’t coming out, both of which he needs to figure out before he can do anything else.

Chapter Text

Tony makes sure that his arms are holding Bruce tight to him as they go into the air. Bruce barely liked going onto airplanes or quinjets, let alone to be in the air in Tony’s arms, so Tony’s anticipating him to jerk once he realizes that they’re flying, but none of that comes.

Bruce makes sure to stay rather still while in Tony’s arms. He’s not sure that the Hulk would come out if he fell right now, and even if the Hulk did come out, he’s not sure what the other’s choice would be. He might just run right back to Thor, which he kind of wants himself. He’s agreed to be the god’s submissive, primary submissive. He made sure that Thor knew that he still planned on being part of Tony’s family, and one of his submissives as well, which Thor took very well.

Tony gets them into the compound as quickly as he possibly could. This conversation absolutely must happen otherwise, he’s pretty sure Bruce is going to go even further into a drop, and he’s going to end up in dom drop before the end of the day, because he wasn’t able to prevent one of his submissives from dropping further even when he was in the process of trying very hard to do so. He didn’t need that type of problem right now, what he needed was for everything to get quite a bit calmer very quickly.

Bruce allows Tony to settle him on the couch, before latching onto the man’s hand before he could back away. He has no right to draw upon this comfort, but the idea of Tony leaving him, was unbearable. He needs Tony.
Tony pats his hand, gently. “Hey, Brucie bear, I’m just going to take a step back to let the suit off, so I can get onto the couch with you and embrace you without a metal suit blocking us, okay?”

“Promise?” he asks softly. Another terrible thing to ask after what he’s done, he’s not allowed to do this, not until he’s groveled, but his brain needs to feel his dominant.

“Of course,” Tony whispers. “Hey, Bruce, look at me for a minute.”

Bruce snaps his head up quicker than just about any other movement since he took off at a run towards Tony. He stares into Tony’s eyes, and they’re gentle and kind to him.

“I’ve never once left you to experience a drop alone. I’ve never let any of my submissives go through that alone. We need to figure out what’s going wrong in your head, but I promise, that right now, there’s zero chance of you making my ire rise. The most that you’ll get is that I agree later on we need to have a different conversation about a punishment because of what you’ve done, but that’s the closest you’ll get to upset.”

Bruce’s face falls. “I don’t deserve that.”

“You don’t get to decide that,” Tony says with a joyful tone trying to inject some of their normal levity into the conversation. He does get Bruce to let go of his wrist, so he can allow the suit to fade away from him with the nano tech. Once the suit is gone, he pushes Bruce up on the couch, so he can get below the man and curl him up to his chest.

Bruce knows that he’s the one that should speak first, but he doesn’t want to go into his head quite yet. “Will you tell me a story?”

Tony smiles softly. “Once upon a time, a scientist got dragged into the world of superheroes and aliens, not because he was prepared for a world like that but because he was a genius. And he tried really hard to build a family there, not just for himself but for others too. The first time he did it, it failed. It failed because he hadn’t actually made sure that everyone in the family knew all the rules and expectations for a family. It failed because he didn’t think about the fact that just because he craved a family not everyone does. And finally it failed because he forgot to ensure that all of the family members knew about the others. The second time he did it, it went gloriously because he built from a solid foundation, and he didn’t dare repeat his mistakes. Now his family gets the glorious distinction of being one of the top superhero families the world has ever seen. And do you want to know a secret?”

Bruce nods. The story is clearly about the original Avengers, and the team that had shown up to the ship. Pepper Potts in a suit of armor had been a shock to see, no question. And Rhodey standing side by side Tony instead of out at the government’s request was also new. Clint being willing to follow orders when it came to Loki was something of a miracle. And Natasha didn’t even waste a moment when Tony said to leave him alone with Bruce, even though she had so many things to say to him, the same things that he needs to say to Tony. Apologies and all.

“The family still have some places to fill, especially for a person who most of the family misses desperately.”

Bruce can’t help the tears that fall as he hears that. That’s an invitation, one that he hasn’t earned. All of them have a hundred reasons to despise him. They should despise him, why can’t he be hated as the monster he was? Not just as the Hulk but the horrid human that he is to his friends.

Tony runs his hands up and down Bruce’s arms. He’ll wait as long as it takes for the other man to form words and explain what’s happening inside his head. He’ll stay right here, with Laura less than a room away, ready to start a fight if anyone tried to interrupt them or if Tony pushes a line that he should know better than to press against.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce chokes out.

Tony pauses his movements for a brief second, then he’s gathering Bruce back up into his arms. “You’re going to have to explain that one to me. What are you sorry for?”

“I hurt you. I knew I did about five minutes after we got off that plane, and god I wanted to tell you sorry right then, and tell you that I was being a bitch about it, because I got overwhelmed, but we were in that fight. I wasn’t willing to throw off your concentration when we were about to go into a fight, and then Natasha triggered the Hulk, and he doesn’t feel guilt for my actions. He was planning on coming right to you, to ask for your help. And then the witch, happened. And then we were messing with the scepter, and I can’t remember why I no longer felt bad, not for a long time away, when I realized that her magic was making me want to hate you. Not that anything could ever make me hate you. But, then another attack, and I was the Hulk in a spaceship, and I was gone. I didn’t become Bruce Banner for close to the whole time I was on that planet, it wasn’t until Thor shook me out of it that the Hulk let me back out, and gods, Asgard was in danger from this being named Hela. And I was running with them. I was fighting side by side with Loki, who by the way is likely the only reason any of us are still alive right now. And like Thor actually loved both sides of me, and I was so happy. And we were fleeing, and the only person I could think of was you. So, then we were flying towards Earth to beg for help, but I saw you. I saw you, and you should hate me. I hurt you, and then I disappeared. I disappeared, never got to say I’m sorry. And I am. I am so fucking sorry, I was just being scaredy cat, and by the time I knew that the world had done a full 180 on me. My first words to you after everything were going to be to ask you to help people that you hardly knew, and I couldn’t make my tongue move to make sounds because that would be the worst thing I could ever do, and then you were still being nice, and I was crying,” Bruce rambles.

Tony sighs. His poor baby. He leans over and presses a gentle kiss to Bruce’s forehead. “One, yes, you hurt me. You aren’t the only person who has hurt me. You certainly aren’t the worst of the people who hurt me, and you didn’t mean to do it. If you ask me to, I will punish you for it, but trust me, you can earn my forgiveness without it this time, because had you interrupted that fight with the apology, I would have forgiven you on the spot. Because that proves that you were truly sympathetic.”

“Please,” Bruce interjects. He twists his body until his face can curl into Tony’s neck.

“Please forgive you or please punish you, so you can believe me when I say that you’re forgiven?” Tony’s willing to go on this side quest. He can start thinking about what he should do if Bruce asks for a punishment if he knows that something is what he wants. “And just so you know, we’re going to have to stabilize the situation with Asgard before I have enough free time to do a punishment scene.”

“Of course.” Bruce turns so that Tony can see his face. “Please punish me, I think I would have asked you to back then, and I think I need it now, otherwise each time I come even close to screwing up, I’m going to think about this and whether it has been solved or whether someone is going to call me out on it in a few minutes.”

“Okay.” Tony pointedly doesn’t say the words that went through his head, that if he had asked for a punishment right then, after what Maximoff had done to all of them, Tony would have dragged him into the bedroom, made a blanket pile, and demanded that he forgive himself for the sorrow of what happened. Because that’s not where they are, and that’s not even the biggest problem to be found from what’s happening. “Two, do we need to be worried about Hela following you here?”

Bruce throws his head back and laughs. Laughs until there’s a since of craziness in his eyes. Thor had been blinded, Loki had done the very thing that had caused his father to hate him since the moment of his conception, and Bruce had been a witness to it all. “No, no. We made sure that she was buried in a pile of her own ashes with nothing left for her to do but die. Not that Odin’s parenting didn’t cause her to do all these things, but we couldn’t let her hurt our people, so we had to improvise.”

Another question burning on his mind was what he said about Thor, but Tony’s going to deal with that last. Because if he wants Bruce back into his family, that means he’s going to have to accept Thor by the looks of it, and he doesn’t want to accept an abuser into the family. He won’t accept one. He just won’t. The children will never learn that any of their parents or uncles and aunts were willing to put up with abuse for any reason. So, that has to be his last question. “Three, what about Loki was saying about the madman after infinity stones?”

Bruce’s eyes go wide. “Wait, he told you about that, willingly.”

Tony nods hesitantly unsure why Bruce seems surprised by this. He’s not shocked that Bruce didn’t necessarily remember what had happened while he was in drop earlier, and he’s glad that Bruce seems to be coming up now that Tony has said he can earn forgiveness and take a punishment, but he hadn’t anticipated any response other than answers to these questions.

“Thank god.” Bruce glances up. “Thanos is the madman that Loki is talking about, he’s the one who sent Loki here during the battle of New York, and he’s the one who might be following us. Loki stole the infinity stone that was still present on Asgard at the time of the battle, that way Thanos couldn’t pick it up from the wreckage of the planet, which places several infinity stones here on Earth.”

“Well fuck. That’s not great.”

Bruce shakes his head. “But, we’ve got a good head start on them. And assuming that Vision is still where you can easily contact him, we have two stones in our grasp where we can discuss how best to avoid him getting a hold of all the stones to eliminate half of every population.”

“Delusional mad man with a power fantasy with some hints of reality.” Tony sighs. He knew that something was coming, he didn’t really want it coming this soon, and with this level of fanatic belief, because fanatics are always the worst thing to have in a situation like this. “Four, you said Thor loves you, what’s happening there?”

“I’m his formal submissive. I have status on his planet as something very close to a wife or husband. And I love him. I don’t know what he did to deserve the ire that you have towards him, and I’d prefer if you discussed it with him and not me, because I have a certain issue with being a mediator. But, when I accepted his proposal to be his submissive, I told him that I would also always be yours. Because you loved me first, and I love you back, and no amount of happiness could ever compare to the way that you didn’t flinch away from me even as I got frustrated.”

Tony can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him. He holds Bruce tightly into him and sways them gently on the couch. “Well, I can’t promise that me and Thor will ever be on the best of terms again, I don’t have true malice towards him most of the time. I think for you, I can promise to never actually go after him.”

Bruce cracks a smile towards Tony. “And I’ll talk to him about trying to figure out what he did, and whether it’s something that can be fixed, because I know we’re both big believers in that everyone deserves another shot.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Sure, you do that. While you’re at it, convince Reindeer Games to come by, because Clint has some words that he wants to say. Plus, I want to extend him a formal offer to the family, on the basis that Laura could use someone like him in the family, and he deserves someone who won’t allow him to be punished for what others did to him.”

Bruce stares at him. “You plan on forgiving Loki for what he’s done.”

“His crimes against me and mine weren’t ones that he did of his own free will, and his other crimes I feel like were punished when they chose not to consider his innocence during the battle of New York, and whatever Thanos did to him.”

Bruce tucks his head into Tony’s chest as he smiles. “You always were willing to forgive anyone who was willing to reach for it. Question, if he asked you to punish him for things that he didn’t do to you personally, would you consider it?”

“If he asks me to, yes.” Tony frowns for a moment. “Assuming that he wasn’t led to believe that he needed to ask for it by another person, because that’s not consent. That’s not even basic consent. That’s just cruelty.”

“Loki would never ask for that from those he doesn’t trust, and I’m hoping that he’ll trust you enough after your offer to trust you enough to ask you to help him get rid of his guilt for what happened. Because he regrets it deeply, but no one has ever bothered to ask him why he did it.”

Tony closes his eyes. “Remind me why you haven’t gone to kill Odin?”

“Because Loki got him in the end, which is for the best, the ones that he screwed over most, deserved to be the ones who chopped off his head in the end.”

Tony laughs. “Alright.” He waits a moment. “Hey, Brucie bear, are you in a good enough place that we can go help Thor and the others as they land on the compound grounds, preferably to get a few temporary shelters set up?”

Bruce shoots up from the couch. “Of course, I’m sorry. I forgot that all of this was happening at the same time.”

“Hey, no, you’re allowed to need assistance when you drop even if it is at an inconvenient time.”

Laura pushes open the door to push a bottle of water in both of their hands. “Hydrate, because I know neither of you are likely to be breaking for food for a while yet, but I won’t have you dehydrated too. Tony, I’ve been coordinating with Pepper and Rhodey. The US government is willing to give us most of the government owned land near us to create a bigger compound ground as long as we are willing to back the infrastructure of the new nation of Asgard. The accords council are willing to help with some of the costs as long as Bruce Banner, Thor, and Loki sign the accords. Their stance on Loki is to acknowledge Clint’s experience as true as he’s the closest person to the situation.”

“When did you become good at that level of management?”

Laura slaps him up the back of the head. “When I ended up in a family full of people who needed assistance with global law of course.”

Bruce glances between them. “Sorry, aren’t you Clint’s wife?”

“Yep,” she says with a pop. “Which means the absolute teddy bear of a sociopath asked me to be a part of the family, which I gratefully accepted. Now, I deal with the shitstorm that comes from not being on the battlefield, especially now that Pepper Potts soars in the skies, next to the man she loves.”

Bruce snaps his head back to Tony. “What the hell? Pepper wasn’t just showing up for the political aspect, she was gunning for a fight?”

“If you can’t beat them, join them is her new philosophy.”

Bruce raises his hand to run it over his face. “Okay, so what supplies do we need?”

“I’ve already ordered and had shipped several sources of food, plus farming materials, and tent like structures. We’ll have to build actual housing and buildings is inevitable, but the farms and basic shelter are more important for now. I asked Loki for the numbers. Point of interest, he’s standing in the forefront of the building waiting for you, when you have a moment.” Laura shrugs at the dual looks of amazement.

Tony pushes up from the couch. “Let’s go deal with the Prince of Asgard then, Bruce.” With that he takes off towards the entrance of the compound. He debates pulling his suit back on, but there’s a certain amount of trust that can be shown by not doing that, and Friday will have her sights on him at all moments. In the end, he remains in the mess of clothes that he had thrown on before his suit when Natasha banged into his room.

Once, he catches sight of Loki, he pulls up his most formal training for when he’s dealing with people that need careful handling, like business CEOs, and foreign leaders. “Prince Loki, members of my family have sent for supplies for your people. We have also been given permission to house you on our land for the creation of a new nation. I would ask that we be considered something other than citizens under your king, but I will rely on your expertise for that.”

“Ah, thank you.” Loki glances towards Bruce with a question in his eyes. “Of course Asgard will remain in your debt for the aide that you render us during these questionable times, however I have come to iron out some of those details with you. I know that apparently you and my brother have a quarrel to settle on your own, but as the current crown prince, I have authority to try to prepare such deals where you do not have to deal with personal issues at this time.”

“I am more than willing to deal with you, Prince Loki. Although if King Thor would prefer to be here, I could and would go to him to meet and discuss things. I am not so cruel that I would turn him away at this time.”

Loki huffs. “You had to bite your lip at the usage of his title. I would not want to upset our host, and for that matter, I do not want to know my brother’s reaction to the situation that we find ourselves in.”

Bruce glances between them. “Well, in that case, I’ll run a message to him about what is on its way, and how best to start moving towards setting up his people on this ground. Tony, may I have a map of the areas that are now open to us for use?”

“Friday, get the man a map. Also, make sure to leave a bit of land for us, for our landing strips and potential training grounds, please.”

“Done, boss.”

Tony waves Bruce off as the map is downloaded to the phone that had probably been dead before he had stepped into this building. But let it not be said that Tony doesn’t have several tricks up his sleeves.

Once Bruce has left, Tony turns back to Loki. “The choice is up to you. Would you like me to lead you to a formal office similar to what most business people would meet in or political leaders for that matter, or would you like me to lead you to our kitchen where we can probably convince a family member to get us food while we figure all of the details out?”

“I wouldn’t want to put you out anymore than what you already are, especially when you are giving us land to build a nation of our own,” Loki says.

Tony realizes with a start, that Loki believes that the only reason he’s being given any support by Tony is because of his status as a prince. That wouldn’t do at all. Tony steps forward until Loki’s forced to look at him directly. “I meant what I said earlier Loki, you are welcome in my home even without a reason to do so for Asgard. So, if you wish for this to be formal so you can separate what happens here as a family from what happens here when you must be the prince of Asgard, I will offer no disagreement. However, you do not have to keep them separate. You can let Clint’s wife feed you, you can let me provide you with what you want and need without question. The choice is yours.”

Loki closes his eyes. “You asked before for the personal stuff to wait until after the immediate crisis is over, can I ask for the same curtesy?”

Tony nods.

Loki keeps his eyes squeezed shut. “Can I also be really selfish and still ask for the food? We haven’t eaten well since being on the ship, and I crave a meal.”

“That’s not selfish,” Tony whispers. He swallows back any more of the things that he wants to say on a personal level, because Loki is right, some things are better off waiting until things aren’t quite so complicated between them. “Follow me, Prince Loki.”

Loki follows him further into the compound, and Tony doesn’t bother to lock any of the doors. He chooses to place some amount of trust into the tiny bridge of trust that they’ve created amongst each other. Neither of surprised that Laura was already in the kitchen by time they arrived.

Laura stares at Loki for a long moment before walking over. She brushes her lips across his cheeks. “That’s for my children.”

“I would think that you would owe me something very different for your husband,” Loki says.

“Perhaps.” Laura smiles. “But I’ve got a habit of letting Tony deal with punishments in this family, because he’s pretty excellent at balancing issues.”

Loki’s jaw drops open.

Tony fights back his urge to laugh at the way that Loki seems like he’s seconds away from jumping ship because all of them have clearly lost their minds. Because he’s got the right of it, this seems like the craziest type of bullshit to come about from this. And yet, this is normal for their family. “Personal stuff later, Laura. We’re going to save his people first and worry about the rest later.”

“As if the fact that you consider Bruce family isn’t why you’re giving them your land. As if the fact that you would like Loki to agree to be a member because you feel as though the world turned against him at the wrong time isn’t part of why you’re going to help build a nation worthy of praise on this planet.”

Tony winks at her. “My motives are my own.”

Loki lets out a hysterical little laugh. “Thor never mentioned that you were all fucking insane.”

“Doesn’t that make us your people?” Tony teases. He pulls out a chair. “Come on, let’s figure out all of the details of how this is going to work.”

Loki takes the seat that is pulled out for him. He sets his hands on the table. “Would you mind if I draw this up on a contract written in All Speak so that both my people and yours can read it?”

“Be my guest.”

Loki blinks before shaking his head. “Your planet does not have issues against magic use, then?”

“Sure it does, but I’m trying really hard to be a better person than some bigoted asshole, so I choose not to. If this would make life easier for all of us, that’s what we should do, even if it involves something I don’t understand.”

“Then, why not ask me to write them in both languages?”

“That would require far more of your time than the other, and there’s no need for us to waste that time.” Tony leans back against his own chair and stares at Loki. “Where would you like to start?”

Loki swallows down his desire to start asking a hundred questions about the situation they find themselves in. Instead, he clasps his hands together. “Perhaps we might start with what you and your governments are offering us and expand upon those as needed.”

“Sure,” Tony agrees readily. He flips open the tab on his Stark phone that has all of the different inputs from Pepper, Natasha, Rhodey and more filling him in on the current situation. “I will apologize in advance, as I’m sure I may have to change the wording halfway through as the finalities of my governments are still squawking about details, but I will try to ensure that the things I can guarantee to you are not things that they can try to take from you.”

“This has been a rather sudden intrusion; it would be rude of me to assume that you would have all answers at this time.”

Tony offers a wry smile, because that’s an understatement of massive proportions. “Alright, the world seems content to allow you safe harbor on our planet. This means that you and your people are welcome to stay here. However, that brings up the issue of where you should be and what you should be considered for purposes of our inter-world politics and dangers. With that the United States of America will give you land around this area along with myself as a private person allowing you to use my private land, and the Accords council has agreed to acknowledge you as a nation outside of UN’s branch of influence.”

Loki holds up his hand to stop Tony from continuing. “I have a few questions about certain parts of this.”

“Of course,” Tony says. He hopes that these questions aren’t nearly as tedious as the last time that someone needed him to explain basic rules of thumbs for going into foreign nations.

“One, this land that your government is allowing us to use, would it not be enough for our people where we would not have to take more from you than is already being given? Two, as an independent nation, what will expectations on us be for interacting with the other nations of your planet? Three, would it be possible for you to help us find a human ambassador to smooth those processes for the time being?”

Tony flinches at these questions. He had really hoped he wouldn’t have to admit some of the things that these questions will bring up, but he should have seen this coming. It’s not like the world would ever deem these people reasonable on their own. “I’m afraid that one of the conditions for allowing you this land is that by the legal standards of the United States, the property is my own that I am allowing the foreign refugee population of the new nation Asgard to settle on for an unseeable period of time. I am sorry for that as I am confident that your people do not want to be under such strict regulations but previous interactions with your people has not left many comfortable with you having complete free reign.”

Loki nods at once. “This is understandable given the situation. My main concern was for the amount of materials that you plan on giving us, but we will have to work that out later.”

“Right, similarly, yes you will need a human ambassador, and since my family has already begun doing this during this time, the governments will anticipate that you will continue to use me as that resource. I am unwilling to send you spiraling into the depths of the government without someone well adept at getting them to not try to abuse the liberties that they’ve been given. Thus, I will assist for as long as necessary. As for conversations with other nations, there will probably be many as we start to establish you, but for now, those conversations will likely be mostly diplomats trying to gain some favor or another for an endeavor they wish to accomplish.”
Loki closes his eyes. He had feared that the other nations would likely try to make bargains with a refugee population, and they would have to choose which things they were willing to live with compromising in order to bring about the safety of their people. “Right, would you be willing to give aide in figuring out which of those diplomats are being cruel to our status to try to take advantage?”

“Yeah, sure. Although, you can just tell them all that you will not be accepting proposals while still not completely developed.”

Loki cracks one of his eyes to stare at Stark with a mixture of disbelief and distain. Surely, the man has not lost his mind so much as to think that their situation is one where they can be picky. “We will need assistance getting things up and running, such as supplies and food and the like. Of course, we are likely to have to accept proposals.”

Tony stops his fidgeting and sighs. “That was the next part of what I planned on mentioning. I have access to a mass amount of funds that is separate from any true nation, which I am going to dip into to try my best to get the necessary supplies to you that you need to build your nation without having to accept any shitty deals from stupid politicians who care more about advancing their small populations rather than trying to see the Earth as a whole.”

Loki’s eyes go wide. “And what exactly do you want in return for this?”

“Oh, shit. No.” Tony buries his head in hands. “Okay, let’s back up to the start of this mess. There are a few insurances that I want from you and Thor as I do this, that way there’s no chance of me getting screwed over during this, however, and I cannot stress this enough, there’s no deal on what you have to do to get the aide that I’m offering. I’m offering it freely, of my own volition.”

“Why?”

“Because despite the fact that I’d sooner let you throw me from my tower with no hope of my suit catching me on time than allow Thor to call me his friend, he was one once, and I’ve always done what I could for my friends.”

Loki’s gaze softens. “May I ask?”

“You can ask anything, I might refuse to answer, and I might give you a look of disbelief if you choose to ask something clearly personal. However, there’s a good chance that I will be willing to answer you.”

“What did my king do to you? What made you turn from him, since I know Bruce feels extraordinary guilt for something that happened, yet you appear to still call him friend? And I quite literally tried to destroy your world because of a series of unfortunate events, but you are willing to allow me into your family, so what I want to know more than anything, is what my brother did to you?”

“Almost strangled me to death while most of my so-called friends stood by and watched. And then said that I deserved to almost die.” Tony quirks his lips into a smile that does nothing to disguise his true feelings. “Then, there’s the fact that not being able to breathe is literally one of my worst fears because of what they tortured me with in the desert.”

Loki flinches wildly back. His eyes going wide with terror. Good lord, just about anyone in Asgard would agree that someone guilty of such crimes should be punished in the manner chosen by their victim, and he doesn’t think being king was going to change anything.

Tony freaks out for a second wondering what on Earth could have set him off like this, before realizing that his words might have done something, because Loki has no reason to trust his word that he wants to help. He reaches over and lays his hand over Loki’s arm. “Loki, listen to me closely, okay? I swear that I’m not planning on seeking out revenge on your brother. The most that I plan on doing in regards to this, is never talking to the man directly unless absolutely necessary.”

“This is a crime,” Loki whimpers. “You’re helping us enough that there are none left in Asgard who dare deny you the rights of a citizen even though you’ve asked to not be one. That means that by law, you can take vengeance, and you can do it with the full support of a nation.”

“Right, well I’m not going to do that.” Tony strokes his fingers down Loki’s arm. “I have no desire to watch Thor suffer the way I did. I’m not a big fan of the idea that an eye for an eye is the best model for punishment.”

Loki’s eyes meet his, begging him to understand. “My brother never would have done that if he had known that it would put you at risk, or that you had such trauma from it. I don’t think my brother has ever even come close to the level of disrespect that calls for, so I’m sorry. I’m sorry on his behalf, because right now, you can’t handle speaking to him, because I promise, the same way you do, that my brother would not have done this with foreknowledge.”

Tony wants to shoot him down. He wants to say that it doesn’t matter whether Thor did it with knowledge or not, because he had still done it, and he hadn’t even realized how bad that made things for Tony for a time. Instead, he forces himself to be slightly calmer. “I won’t accept an apology for someone else. However, I did mean what I said, once this whole shitstorm is over and your people are not clambering for the need of a king, he’ll be allowed into my house once to go over what happened between us, and if he apologizes to me, then I’ll try my best to give him the chances I give everyone else.”

Loki nods. There are a few tears in his eyes. “If you can’t forgive him, there’s no way you can forgive me.”

Tony barely resists the urge to place his hands in his hair and start pulling and screaming. Why does he keep encountering submissives who he wants to be a part of his family who don’t believe that they are worthy of forgiveness? He’s about to start keeping a tally of how many times one of them says that shit and create a new rule in the house that if you say that, he will punish you for it since you clearly weren’t over your guilt. It’d be a building punishment each time the words were said. Instead, he takes a deep breath because all of this is because of trauma.

Tony makes a few circles with his hand still holding onto Loki’s wrist. “How about we leave it to me to decide what I will and will not forgive, huh?”

“Not today,” Loki offers. He knows that it’s rude to hide a part of himself when Tony had bared a part of himself at nothing but a request from him, but he couldn’t deal with baring his soul for someone to judge today.

“Of course, whenever you’re ready you can come to me. And if you’re never ready to tell me about what happened before you came to the family that’ll be alright too.”

Loki shakes his head. “No, I can’t possibly allow you to offer me so much without having told you what I’ve done. I just can’t do it today.” Then, his head tilts to the side. “One more small thing before I think I’ve written this up to a decent level where no one is going to start asking too pointed of questions, but I have one of my own. Obviously, you are not going to be under the command of our king, but you are also not technically a king of your world, what status would you like us to claim you as?”

“What would you do if it were just left up to you?”

“I’d probably give you the status of prince. High enough that there is acknowledgment that you have impact on governmental status within reason, although you can’t just make it so. And also high enough that the amount of aid that you’re giving us does not seem widely irresponsible or damning.”

“Do that then,” Tony says. “I honestly don’t particularly care about my reputation among your people outside of the necessary components that I need to have in order to help right now.”

Laura comes up and taps Tony on the shoulder. She waits until both people are no longer speaking to each other. “I’m glad that you guys are mostly done, because Pepper has called to inform you that there’s a new player for the Accords, he signed them today during the Asgard debate, and now he’s at New Asgard.”

Tony buries his head in his hands and groans. “Please tell me they have a better name.”

“No can do, that’s what we’re stuck with. But Pepper suggests you go meet this guy, so that he can be called upon by the Avengers when needed, since the Accords council has largely just placed that burden on your head. Actually, they put way too much on you, so maybe we should show them how bad that can go.”

Tony waves her off. “Better for me to be in charge and the world to be saved than for them to be in charge and the world burning when it doesn’t need to.”

Tony slowly pulls his hand away from Loki’s wrist, ignoring largely the fact that he very much wants to keep Loki in his arms for the rest of eternity. Because the man fit every type that he has, including the mostly batshit crazy. He’s starting to see why Laura knew that the second Clint gave the all-clear towards forgiving the mind-controlled alien, that he was going to be brought into the family.

Loki offers his arm in an age-old practice of leading someone somewhere. “Would you allow me to lead the way?”

Tony circles his arm around Loki. A smile spreads across his face as he lets out a small breath. “Yes.” He has hope that this will end up better than any parody of a family that they had before.

Chapter Text

There’s a man floating in a cloak standing in front of Thor with a frown on his face by the time that Tony and Loki make it all the way to the main camp area of Asgard. Said man turns at the sound of their footsteps. “Dr. Stark, please tell me that you are not planning on allowing these people to stay on our planet. That this is merely a temporary sanctuary offered because of your fondness, not because you think this is sustainable.”

Tony stares at the man in front of him with disdain. Already like 30 seconds into a meeting with someone, and he’s making unlikely demands of him. His current only saving grace is the fact that he used his title and appears to be in shock. “The people of Asgard are welcome here for as long as they would like to stay here. I will give them sanctuary until such a time as they no longer require it, but they can require it for as long as they desire, because I will not give them another home, only to rip it away at another moment on the drop of a hat.”

This man buries his face in his hands. “You recognize the fact that there are in fact at least three intergalactic criminals that you are offering your aid to.”

“There’s Loki, who are the other two?” Only Tony doesn’t ask that of the man himself, he turns to Loki expecting a true and honest answer to come out of his mouth, which causes Loki a surge of pride that he didn’t know he still had the abiltiy to do.

“You’re right, there’s me. There’s the Valkyrie, she’s the one currently talking to Bruce. And I would assume the last one is still Thor, unless I’m mistaken and Sif has done something incredibly stupid since Thor’s been gone, but I’ve tried my best to mitigate that risk as much as possible.”

“Actually it’s both of them, Thor and Sif,” the man whimpers. “You haven’t been on that list in years. Literally the closest you came wouldn’t be considered criminal. Imperialistic, yes. Criminal, no. Although some people are likely to disagree with that interpretation of events.”

Thor’s jaw gapes open.

The man continues as if he hasn’t just dropped a loaded bomb onto an already tense system. “I mean, I like your brother more, and I’d prefer if you were trapped inside of another dimension to never ever come back again, but by standards of intergalactic proportions, you’re fine to be granted sanctuary. It’s the rest of them that are going to cause problems if anyone comes looking.”

Tony really wishes that the world would stop throwing him curveballs at every opportunity. He’s a pretty chill guy, and he’s more than happy to play along with whatever comes his way, but he doesn’t want to deal with intergalactic criminals. That is so above his paygrade. “Right, and you know this because.”

The man snaps out of his daze, and he slumps back. “My apologies, it is easy to get lost in the scale of things, I forgot that you haven’t met me yet.” He extends his hand towards Tony.

Tony grasps it in his hand. “Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man and current saving grace of the population of Asgard,” he introduces, making sure to put the fact that he was still standing in front of Asgard as one of the crown achievements of his existence, because that would be important should this dude try to fight him on the fact that they deserve to be saved. Not like he doesn’t have ways of just ignoring the fact that it would be happening, but better safe than sorry.

The man smiles with a fondness that betrays so much more than Tony was ever anticipating, but with a sadness laying in his eyes. “Doctor Stephen Strange, sorcerer supreme and keeper of the time stone.”

Tony cracks an eyebrow at that last bit. He’s pretty sure with the way that the Asgardians in hearing distance tensed up, this was another one of those infinity stones. How many does that make Earth have now? Enough that the battleground for the last moment is almost guaranteed to be on his planet. Not exactly what he’d like, but he’d have to deal with it. “And you know me how? And you know about their status because?”

“As the sorcerer supreme it is my duty to protect the planet from that which would do it harm. As the keeper of the time stone, the best way to do that, is to occasionally reverse time, and some of the futures that I see, some of the futures that I know, I meet people, and by the time I come back, I don’t always remember which is which. So, apologies, I had forgotten that despite the fact that I am very used to your presence, you have never known mine. As for those three, I know because there are several versions of this future where someone chooses to attack Earth on the principal that there are criminals being harbored here.”

Tony wishes that didn’t make sense, but it did. In a this is my life now kind of way. Because why wouldn’t there be someone travelling in and out of the present like a god, that got attached to him. And why wouldn’t there be the possibility of Asgard being hunted down while on his planet that he might have to deal with. To top it all off, why wouldn’t it be on him to come up with some sort of plan for that.

Strange holds up his hands in an effort to be non-threatening. “I did not mean to antagonize you. The issue is that if we give them longer than the minimum time to recover here, the risk of being attacked goes up.”

Tony ignores the man for a moment. Something that might be considered a plan popped into his head, and he’ll need to see if it is viable or not. “Thor, you are king, yes?”

“Yes,” he forces himself to cut off and not try to say more.

“And you have one of the best militaries in the galaxy from what I’ve heard, yes?”

Loki shakes his head. “I mean we used to, but we didn’t save all of our people, and the armies were some of the first to defy the woman who wrecked our planet. So, moral of the story, we used to, but we don’t anymore.”

“Could you build it up again? If we gave you soldiers, would we be able to possibly have an army worthy of fear?”

Thor and Loki nod together. Both of them suddenly in a silent communication about what it would take to succeed in the way being described. Probably partially going back to old methods of leaning on each other in times when they weren’t sure how to accomplish the task being placed in front of them.

“Alright, Thor, I need you to prep whatever counts for letter on an intergalactic level to each monarch of any nation who might be willing to listen, and I mean all of them. You’re going to tell them that Asgard has been destroyed and due to the presence of infinity stones on Earth, you have chosen to seek shelter here. Tell them that the battle against Thanos will have a battleground here on Earth. We welcome any allies who wish to come, and any criminals who wish to receive pardons for their crimes are welcome to come as well to earn amnesty by risking their lives for the known universe.”

Thor stares at him. “If you do this, I cannot guarantee that the galaxies will still consider you a non-emerging power.”

Tony glances towards the sky, where they still cannot travel. Not with the technology that they currently have, and how he’s been trying to build a better future each day that he’s been alive. “I think it’s about time that we admitted that we’ve been dealing with aliens long enough, that we are an emerging power, just a little bit backwards in our order of events.”

Dr. Strange raises his eyes to the sky with a large sigh. “Dr. Stark, please consider for a moment that you don’t have your whole team.”

“We have a full team,” Tony answers. He can feel the way everyone in their presence responds to the clear danger in his voice.

Strange groans. “Life would be so much easier if you weren’t taking what I say as something that I would say as someone who doesn’t know all the facets of your existence in this universe and several others. I’m not referencing Captain America. I would never reference him, because he tends to do good work up to a point and then make everything so much worse.”

That causes Tony to freeze, because outside of Steve Rogers. His team is relatively complete. There’s a small chance he’s talking about Sam Wilson, but that seems unlikely. That one person would lead to the doctor responding in the way that he has. Which is not great for him, because that means there’s something happening that he hasn’t planned for.

Strange winces. “Sorry, please don’t follow that path. If you try to figure things out on your own, that will result in worse things happening in the long run, and I don’t want to deal with that.”

Loki reaches out to briefly lay a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “If you would not mind following his advice that would likely be better for our eventual collision with other forces.”

Thor nods. “And of course, I will follow your instructions regardless. Assuming that this is the plan you choose to go with, as you are likely the leader that will determine battle strengths for the time being.”

Tony flicks his eyes between them and turns to Strange. “You’ll come when the Accords demand you do for a global threat?”

“Yes, although not always in a way that will be easily understood by the public. But, I’ve cleared that with your council already.” He pauses. “You don’t have to forgive those who have wronged you.”

“No, I don’t.”

He jerks his head in a nod. He holds out his hand and a small business card floats over to Tony. “If you have need of me, you can contact me. I would suggest not using it for frivolous reasons, as I am likely to judge you harshly if you do.”

Strange turns back to Thor. “If you and your people cause issues for my world, I will consider it my personal duty to ensure that you are no longer on my planet.”

Thor raises his head to stare the man down. “That right belongs to the person who gave us sanctuary, not you.”

Tony desperately wants to be somewhere else, and his phone was starting to blow up with messages from various parts of his company trying to deal with how this would go in the long run. So, he steps in front of Thor. “If his people cause issues on a level that is manageable, I will handle it. If I need help kicking them off the planet, I’ll call you.”

Then, he walks off. He ignores plainly all of the stuff happening behind him as he digs out his phone and starts reading messages. Today was going to be a long day, and the sooner he gets started the better.

Pepper calls shortly after he gets inside the building once more. “Okay, we’re going to have to do a press conference. And I actually mean we this time, both of us up on stage backing each other up.”

“I figured. The food?”

“Should arrive by the end of the night.”

Tony considers that a miracle of nature and decides that should be enough for the time. “What news network should we give the honor to the interview or are we doing a full press conference?”

“Full would be better, so I scheduled one for nine pm tonight. The president chose to label it an emergency statement along with a press conference so the whole country will be watching, and we have several new agencies coming from international sects as well.”

Tony slams the door behind him, flat out ignoring the way that Laura turns to him as he does so. He wishes he had the time to reassure her and the kids that this wouldn’t be the end of the world. However, it probably is the end of the world as they know it, and he refuses to lie.

Pepper walks in a few minutes later, trailed by Natasha and T’Challa, both looking exhausted. She’s on her phone the same way that Tony is, working on whichever delegation task she’s decided has the most importance right now to the fabric of reality that they stand on.

T’Challa stares at Tony. “I’ve been up for over 30 hours now, may I crash here until I recover enough to get home safely?”

Tony waves his hand. “My home is your home. Friday, show the king to his room.”

Natasha crosses the floor in a couple large bounds. “What would be the most assistance right now?”

“Go make sure James is giving them the complete rundown on laws that they absolutely must follow while on Earth. Like no convincing aliens to attack the planet. No raping or killing. No kidnapping. The basics of human rights and stuff.”

Natasha almost glares at him before catching herself. “You don’t trust him to do that alone.”

“I sent him there alone in the first place, but I’d prefer for him to not have to stand alone the entire time while he tries to teach people basic human rights when they aren’t human and probably don’t follow the same guidelines,” Tony snaps. He’s tired, and apparently Bruce has enough guilt to drown in, and Loki has reasons to believe that everyone wants him dead, and there’s a strange wizard whose name is Strange who is now in the picture and knows a version of him that isn’t him, and Thor is back in the atmosphere, and Tony has to play nice with all of it otherwise innocent people are going to die.

Natasha swallows, presses up on her tiptoes to place a kiss on his cheek. “I meant no offense. I just wanted to be sure,” she whispers before she heads back out.
Before she can get too far, Tony lunges for ger arm to catch her before she leaves. He pulls her into a tight hug. “Today has been a long day for everyone. Bound to say some things that don’t come out quite right.” He closes his eyes. “Also, Bruce is there.”

That gets Natasha’s full attention back on him. “He’s in Asgardian territory.”

“He’s Thor’s chosen submissive. I believe based on what I heard from his lips and what I heard from Loki’s, that Bruce is a citizen of Asgard by rights, a ruler by choice, and even though he wants to come home, he’s likely to split his time between here and there.”

Natasha smiles grimly. “Well, he always did say that one of these days he wanted to be with someone who could dominate him and not be terrified of the Hulk.”

“Yes, he did.”

She slowly pulls herself out of the embrace. She straightens her back. “Into the fire I go.”

“You don’t have to,” Pepper calls. She could get Clint back here in a matter of minutes if she sent the correct series of words, and no doubt Clint would take care of the burden now resting on Natasha in a second, if she so much as asked for that help.

Natasha waves her off with a roll of her eyes. Seriously, she might lose her mind if she keeps getting every dom that she cares for telling her that she can back off any moment that she wants.

Tony waves back at her with a teasing look on his face. Because they had both been whispering their conversation, so Pepper had no way of knowing that someone had already checked with her. After he watches her leave, he reaches over to grab an apple and start eating it fast. If they were going to do a press conference likely to last well into the night, he needed food, and he needed a shower. He still hasn’t asked the time of the press conference. “Do I have time to take a shower before you pull off whatever miracle press conference you’ve chosen on with less than a day’s notice?”

“If you take the suit, we’re doing the conference in DC. I’m leaving now.”

Tony nods. “Meet you there, the world shouldn’t be too surprised to see me showing up in a suit today, not when aliens landed on the planet asking for sanctuary.”

Pepper raises her eyebrows. “Like what people said of you in the suit ever once stopped you from taking the suit when you wanted to do something that would put you past the time restraint.”

Tony ignores her statement. Mostly because she’s not wrong, he has a habit of trying to do too much within the span of 24 hours most of the time. Instead, he places a small kiss to Laura’s cheek and heads up to the shower.

He shouldn’t be surprised when Loki just teleports in and averts his glance. “Your spider woman has informed me that you are planning on discussing my people to yours in some sort of accepted medium. My brother has commanded me to discover whether you need assistance, and I have deigned to follow this order.”

Tony blinks and just starts rubbing shampoo into his hair. “And the reason you chose to still ask the question instead of leaving and coming back when you would be reasonably sure I finished?”

“I do not know the time of your meeting, whether you might need to leave immediately, and I understand from my previous experience on this planet that surprise arrival in front of everyone might lead to undesirable results.”

His voice is too formal, Tony realizes. Like Loki is trying very hard to be the prince that he was raised to be and nothing more. There are many reasons for this to be the path that Loki tries to take. “I allow most of the members of the family to ogle me at will, you know.”

Loki freezes. His hands jerking at his sides downwards. “Please, just answer the question. I can’t do this before I tell you more about me, and I can’t.”

“Breathe,” Tony orders. He waits until Loki is steadily breathing on his own before doing anything else. “No, your presence there would not be helpful. However, if you want to provide assistance, there are several things that need to be done.”

Loki flashes a quick smile. “If it is all the same to you, I agree there is much to be done, and I’d rather be with my people.”

Tony wraps a towel around his waist and starts stepping out of the water’s stream. “No hardship to me that you go wherever you want. Just don’t cause any international scene before I can at least get the signatures on several forms that you are allowed to be present.”

With that he starts pulling on an actual suit. He wonders whether he can blame the amount of times that he’s had to sit in front of people in a black tie formal appearance on Rogers or whether that is his own folly at daring to deal with the governments of this world.

Clint slips into the room before he actually manages to finish tying his tie with a sad look on his face. “This is going to be a blood bath.”

“Yeah, well, I’m rather good at convincing this world to let people with a history of massacre save the planet anyway.”

“It burned you last time.” Clint glances down. “I don’t want my words to be why you put yourself into another traumatizing situation.”

Tony spares a glance towards Clint as he summons the suit towards him. “Sure, but I wouldn’t be doing this on your word alone. I mean, sure yours is the one I prioritized, but that’s because if you had said no due to the trauma he caused you, I would have kicked him on his ass. No, the reasons I’m doing this are as follows: because I knew he was innocent and let Thor take him anyway, because Bruce spoke for him, because you spoke for him, and because he still trembles at every brief idea of getting forgiveness which tells me that he’s probably just as broken as the rest of us poor fools.”

Then, he’s off the ground and out of his own window. Because the amount of emotional conversations he can have in one day had been reached a while ago, and he’s at least put a patch on whatever guilt Clint is choosing to carry around now. He has places to be that involve ensuring that the world doesn’t riot.

Everyone sees him coming. He can feel the flashes of the camera as he arrives and slips into the backstage and the suit falls from around him and folds into the briefcase. He can also feel the stare of Pepper on him.

“A world-wide military, no one is excluded.”

Tony nods. “And SI will once more be in weapons trade only this time, there’s not a single use outside of said world-wide military, and if any country ever tries using those weapons against each other, then they will face the Avengers as a whole.”

“There will be talk of pardoning those left from the civil war to get better protection.”

“Let them,” Tony answers the unspoken question of whether they were going to allow that or whether they were going to kill the captain before the war was over. “We flat out say, that the pardons should not be done until the current military set-up has been finalized and the start of training with other units has begun.”

Pepper reaches out and wraps a hand around his arm. There’s a sorrow in her eyes as she stares at him. “I am sorry that in the end you do have to make weapons again.”

Tony lets out a small laugh. “I’m starting to learn that war is inevitable. I will not allow weapons to still be used on my people, but I will use them to defend my people. It just took a while for me to figure out that all humans were my people, and that is who I should have been fighting for this whole time.”

From the stage, they hear the President’s press secretary saying that the news tonight contains important information about aliens, the future, and how our world is preparing to handle it. She keeps droning on about how the president will not be speaking tonight because he is not the most adept to answer these questions. Rather that the leader of the Avengers and the CEO of Stark Industries would be here to discuss it.

Once they heard those words, Tony and Pepper walk onto stage right next to each other. If this was a normal day and there weren’t aliens landing on the planet requesting refuge, they’d probably make the news again about potentially being in a gay relationship among two dominants, and whether or not this would doom the company. Lucky for them, Tony supposes, that today that would be like maybe a two on a 10 scale for what was important about what’s happening.

Pepper gives a smile out to the crowd. “We will of course be taking questions since this press conference not only involves the United States, but also every other country on this planet. However, we ask that you please allow us to finish speaking first about what this means, about what has led to this, and how we hope to deal with it.”

Tony waves out to them. “I will be starting this talk, and Pepper will likely follow up with a final statement on what our company plans on doing during this, because she’s the voice of the company, and I’m the voice of the Avengers. Before we start though, I want to allow a brief pause in memory for the only other time that aliens have shown up on Earth and lives lost.”

The silence is loud, as everyone is thinking of the victims of the Battle of New York, and more importantly, the way that other countries are remembering that the United States hadn’t called any of them for aid or to give fair warning. That’s an important piece of ensuring that the US couldn’t try to back out of the plan suggested by him today.

“The Battle of New York changed things for our planet. Aliens knew we were here, and because we managed to push off an invasion, aliens knew that we were able to play on a larger scale than what we were every planning for. There are a few facts about the Battle of New York that are needed to understand how this ties into what happened today.”

He takes a moment to grab a small bottle of water and take a small sip. “One, the news in this country and likely what has travelled across the world is that the alien prince named Loki was at fault for the Battle of New York. This is a small white lie that I have never taken the time to address before today because doing otherwise would only cause panic. Loki was under a mind control very similar to the one that plagued our own human population during this time. As we did not have the technology to break that hold, nor the ability to assist him afterwards, we allowed Asgard to do as they wished. This is now a regret of mine as I have recently found out that Asgard’s old king did not believe that was an exemption to being tried for a crime as in their world, being weak enough to be controlled is a crime itself.”

Tony meets everyone’s eyes as the crowd goes a little frantic jaunting all his information down. He can tell which ones are ready to ask follow-up questions that will be useful and which ones are ready to tear him apart. “Two, we did not win the Battle of New York. We avoided a hostage takeover, which is commendable, but we did nothing to the army coming for us. The nuclear weapon I sent at them destroyed a scout party ship that they had sent out after us. Eventually, the rest of that army will come for us. Before today, I had no idea why. Now, I have a very good idea of why, and that is because of Prince Loki’s information now that the hold on his mind has been broken.”

Tony taps his fingers against his thigh as he considers the best way to continue the conversation without having severe issues. “Before the Battle of New York, Asgard protected us from the rest of the galaxy potentially coming to discuss us in depth. I do not have the full scope to understand this, but from what I have gathered from King Thor and Prince Loki this was a debt occurred due to a battle that happened before our planet had written history. I understand also that those battles are what gave us the mythology that we currently use to speak of them. Asgard is no more, and we cannot rely on their help alone. Which is unfortunate because we have the stones that the dictator by the name of Thanos wants. We have several of them. We don’t know how they got to our planet, and honestly, this may have been a move by a different galactic power to drag us onto the board, but at the end of the day, we can’t worry about that right now.”

Tony sips at his water as Pepper supports him from behind. He hates what he’s about to say. This is the most insane thing he’ll ever place before this world. “There’s an army coming for us, which means that we need one. And due to whatever powers ended, our planet will be where the battle against Thanos and the galaxy will be. King Thor has offered to create an Asgardian army here, we will create an international army which will only be used in defense of the planet with soldiers from every nation, and we will call for aid. We will ask the other galactic powers whether they wish to be a part of this battle, and then we will offer them a place to stay in our planet. I don’t know whether this will be worth it. I don’t know whether this will end in our victory, but I do know that this is the best way to have a shot.”

“Earth’s role in the international army will be led by the Accords council of the United Nations. Because this is what the Avengers were founded for, but this is beyond what a group of people can do. This requires all of us. We will have to work together, and we will have to look towards others and be willing to make trades. Welcome to the future, we are not alone, and now we must face that.”

Pepper steps forward until she’s facing the crowd. “Stark Industries has two parts in this. Our military angle and our business angle. On a business standpoint, we have chosen to open trade relations with the new nation of Asgard until such a time as they get back on their feet. Once they are back on their feet, they have offered us significant resources as payment for our assistance during a time of need. Our business will likely be galactic and inter-planetary shortly after the war concludes and Asgard has the option to find a new planet to house themselves on. We highly suggest that any other company that wishes to be in talks about this, to get in contact with King Thor or Prince Loki about how talks work in Asgard and whether other planets as we include war talks would be interested in deals with businesses of humans.”

She raises her eyes to meet the President’s as she starts this next part, because he’s the one who is mostly likely to have an issue with what is going to be said next, and he’s the one who has the most right to make their lives far more difficult than what they should be as they keep going. “The military angle is more difficult. Stark Industries has largely demanded in the past that our weapons no longer be used in war times. That remains true, we do not wish for our weapons to be used as a way to harm each other. We are all human, and we are done with allowing each other to harm each other as if that’s a reasonable thing to do with everything we now know. However, we also know that our weapons are the height of innovation for war and if we are going up against an enemy that has unknown skills and huge technological advances on us, that we need all the help that we can afford to give. So, Stark Industries will re-open our weapon’s division, with the caveat that these weapons will only be provided to the International Army, and that if any country chooses to try to use these weapons in anything other than the defense of the entire planet, that the Avengers will come after your country to stop you.”

Tony grins with his teeth shining. “And I’ve been told, I’m rather unforgiving when it comes to my weapons being used against humans.”

Jaws are dropped open through-out the crowd as both Pepper and Tony stand down from their position of speaking above the others. They give a few moments for the shock to die down from everyone’s faces before they start speaking again. “Are there any questions?”

Every hand in the audience pops up.

Tony points at one at random. He knows that these questions will be important, and they'll be here for a while longer.

“If Loki is innocent as you claim, why did he not attempt to defend himself?”

“When would he have?” Tony shoots back. “Seriously, that battle was a clusterfuck. No one had ever done anything like this before on Earth, and the alien wanted him arrested. By the time that he had the option to speak for himself, the Avengers were busy with the red tape of after a battle, and Thor was following the orders of his king. He defended himself the moment that he arrived on our planet again, and it was confirmed by the sorcerer supreme and by fellow avenger Clint Barton who knew about the mind control in a vague sense for a long time.”

“Follow-up, how do we know this isn’t a trick?”

Tony rolls his eyes. “I suppose if you believe that a singular entity could fool the entirety of the current Avengers team, the current king of Asgard, plus several other magical beings, yes he could be tricking everyone. However, that seems unlikely as all hell.”

Pepper glares at Tony. “Not to mention that Prince Loki has offered on several occasions since arriving that he would be more than happy to undergo a trial by our people or accept a reasonable punishment to allow it easier time to relax. At the current moment we do not want to stress relations with the King by holding his brother in a cell or issue a punishment without clear understanding of what is acceptable in the cultural differences.”

She does not allow the same reporter to keep speaking, she points to someone in the crowd who looks to have a translator, because the foreign questions are likely to have a larger impact on the entirety of their plan.

“Will your weapons be limited to the United States?”

“No,” Pepper says clearly without any hint of a different answer. “In fact, the United States will have no access to the weapons. Soldiers from the United States may be given them, if the United States chooses to send soldiers to the training with the UN and they get placed into the international army. However, our weapons are only going to that army, and at that point, the soldiers would no longer be considered one of their nation’s soldiers or at least we hope they wouldn’t.”

Several of the foreign reporters and ambassadors in the audience give distinct nods at that and start typing out messages on their devices. In the back of his mind, Tony starts thinking about coming up with a way to make sure that his Stark phone could register every language.

Pepper points to another reporter from the US at random.

“So, you wouldn’t provide weapons to protect the US from threats outside of our borders, but you will against aliens? Are you saying that Stark Industries does not see America as its people?”

Tony shoots a glare towards that reporter. “If you want to play that game, I could ask the same of the United States government. They arm the military but not the people, are they claiming that only the military are their people?”

Pepper holds out a hand to stop Tony from continuing to start a fight with this reporter. “More importantly, our reasoning isn’t that we don’t consider Americans our people, but that we see the whole world as our people. And we all should consider seeing all of us as equal always.”

A new reporter stands to raise their hand, and when Tony nods to them, starts to speak. “That seems like a noble goal, and as you’ve mentioned expanding the business past Earth, I have a question regarding equality. Should we see aliens as the same as humans?”

Tony bites down on his tongue to keep himself from groaning. Because he should have seen this question coming, and unfortunately there’s a difficult line to walk when it comes to this issue. “I think that this is a larger issue than it is on the human scale. On the human scale, we are all dependent on each other. We all live on the same planet, we all share the same resources, we all stand together as a species. When it comes to aliens, they aren’t relying on this planet, most of the time. They aren’t dependent on our resources, they have their own. And so on and so forth. However, we do still owe them the right of decency. We shouldn’t just consider them lesser than us, we should keep in mind that they’re different though.”

Pepper smiles and nods to him. “Yes, that’s well said. The best way to consider them would be as people, but they aren’t people from our planet, so they don’t share our issues.”

“Except for Thanos,” the press secretary says.

Tony inclines his head towards the president and his staff. “As you say, yes. We will occasionally share issues. When some madman with an army and more power than several militaries decides to show up and try to conquer, its an issue for more than just a single planet. Just like when it was world war II, Hitler’s design didn’t just concern the nations he attacked, it could have doomed us all.”

A new set of hands pops up, so Pepper points to another one at random again.

“Hi, thank you for trying to explain all of this to us. I have a question that is regarding the threat level. If this is such a huge issue that you suggest that every nation works together despite the existing tensions between governments, will your group do the same and offer to take back the Avengers or anti-heroes who do not sign the Accords?”

“Great question,” Tony says. This buys him enough time to convince his heartrate to go back down to a normal level. “We don’t want a new set of people getting access to better weapons by my company because of a threat if they are then going to become a threat themselves afterwards. Think of what a mess that would be.”

He allows the crowd their moment of laughter, as he’s confident that they would vilify him if that happened. He probably even could say that those who told him that he should forgive Steve Rogers would be the ones saying that if he had seen this coming, he was responsible for the outcome. “At the same time, we do need all hands on deck. We’d have to discuss with the accords council and the president about pardons and whether service could be considered prison time, and many other things before they would be ready to come back. Plus, we should probably make sure that we are working as a well-oiled machine between the new nations forming the new army before we start bringing in members that might cause stress on the system, so we know whether it is possible before we go too far.”

A reporter blurts out their question without waiting this time. “Does that mean that you will forgive the man after the battle?”

“Personally, no. I will offer him no forgiveness for the things that he’s done to wrong me and members of my family. Professionally, if the world believes that is in the best interest of the world, I will let him be. I will allow him to exist and be okay with the situation as it exists.”

They remain silent for a while after that. No one having another question. But, finally, a brave reporter raises their hand. “I think this might be the last question, but since Asgard is on our planet, what will they owe the public?”

“The hope is that our planet will consider their information and assistance in fighting Thanos as appropriate payment for allowing them to stay and not have to settle a planet while the madman is out for everyone.”

“And if that does not meet public approval?”

“Then, I would suggest that the United Nations come up with a bargain the public would agree to and then enter negotiations with the king or prince of Asgard.”

Pepper glances over to him. “Or of course, since the United States is the one holding Asgard, they’re more than welcome to do the same. However, as Stark Industries has taken over the financial burden of supporting them, I would highly suggest not lying to the public about whose money is funding them or anything else. I might have to take offense at that.”

Tony jerks his thumb over to Pepper. “What the CEO says goes.”

With that the press secretary takes back over with explaining the president’s position as Pepper and Tony sneak off the stage. Both of them leaning on each other as they make their way to the car to get home. There’s nothing more that can be done anytime soon.

Chapter Text

Tony’s life becomes a series of decisions and meetings. Between his flying car prototype to be unveiled to James in less than a month, the Asgard situation, and needing to handle the family dynamic of children has taken all of his time. Still, Rhodey is the one who storms down there on the seventh day to turn off his screens.

Tony raises an eyebrow at the dramatics, but he doesn’t say a word. Just turns his chair to face Rhodey and waits for whatever words are about to come out of his oldest friend’s mouth.

“Were you planning on using excuses forever to keep Bruce from feeling comfortable staying at the compound?”

Tony blinks. “I wasn’t actually intending to avoid him, although I probably need at least 12 hours before I can do anything now, just because I do actually need a plan of attack for how to punish him with his guilt without crossing the lines that he has on his accept list, and since this will be the first time he’s ever taken a punishment since turning into the Hulk, I’m so unwilling to wing it, it’d be funny.”

This time it’s Rhodey’s turn to blink objectively surprised by this outcome. “Then why’d the hell you put it off this long?”

“Have you taken a look at the current political climate? If I don’t respond to emails every five minutes, it feels like someone has done something irreplaceably stupid, and I’m somehow in charge of fixing it. On top of that, I made a promise to James before this whole mess showed up on our doors a week ago, and I’m not about to break a promise if I can help it, so I’ve got that on my plate. And then there’s the fact that we have actual children in this house and that means sometimes if I’m the one up when one of them has a nightmare or can’t fall asleep, I’m the one that Friday calls. So, no, I’m not putting anything off. I’m trying to balance more work than what I did when we were a literal war company. Arguments out on whether we currently count as one of those, so even better for me right?”

“Sorry,” Rhodey grumbles. “It felt like you weren’t taking this seriously. I should have known better, you wouldn’t do that to a submissive even if you were getting cold feet.”

“Yes, you should have.” That’s all there needs to be said about it, in Tony’s opinion. He can’t blame the fellow dominant for being worried, but by gods, he has earned the right to say with a straight face that he’s never hurt one of his submissives. He’s earned that for a while now.

Coming to think of it, maybe he should just call Bruce down here and they can brainstorm together what kind of punishment is needed. Because having the man who has issues with punishment helping choose his punishment could probably only help the situation further. He hopes. “Friday, could you see if Bruce is willing to join me in my lab for a discussion?”

“Do you have the time?”

Tony briefly runs through his calendar and his workload. “I should. I’ve gotten everything pretty stabilized by now.”

Rhodey squeezes his shoulder. “If you need backup, Pepper and I were planning on treating James to a nice movie while he kneels tonight, so just have Friday ask one of us to come down. Try not to need us both.”

Then, Rhodey does something that he hasn’t had the courage or the intention to do since they were both young and in college and experimenting. He leans over and presses a light kiss across Tony’s lips. “I am sorry.”

Tony rolls his eyes. Now that they are extending the family, apparently no one was planning on avoiding kissing him or giving casual affection. That was going to cause an uproar the first time one of them did it in public. And someone was definitely going to do it in public, because if none of them did, he was. He’s not going to stick with lying to the public because its easier ever again. All that ever does is ensure that people want to break shit and distrust one another. All worthless.

Luckily, Rhodey doesn’t do anything else to cause Tony’s brain to want to melt slightly more in the presence of the panic. Not that he has more than a minute or two to enjoy that when Bruce steps off the elevator, his arms wrapped around himself to avoid moving too much. “Friday said you wanted to meet with me.”

Tony stares at him. “Sure did. There a reason why you’re standing all the way over there?”

Bruce eyes dart around the room. “Pretty sure I don’t have the right to demand even more comfort from you after what I did to you, after what the others did to you, before I’ve had my punishment.”

Tony moves forward, pushing his chair towards Bruce. He wraps his arms around the man’s waist and then hoists him up into his lap, where he can hook his chin over Bruce’s shoulder. “Nope. You’re more than welcome to ask for comfort anytime you’d like. I’d actually prefer it if you would always ask for comfort when it is offered.”

They sit like that for a minute, with Bruce tense within Tony’s arm, but not trying to get away or speak or say another word. Tony’s never felt this much pressure to get a punishment right before, but it is rather clear at this point that if he doesn’t get this right, Bruce is going to catapult himself over a ledge out of his guilt that’s been building this whole time. “Did someone tell you about what happened while you were gone?”

Bruce shoots him a glare. “They filled in the pieces that I couldn’t get through research, or did you think I was going to land myself back into our world and then not bother to look up what has changed since I was gone?”

Tony claps. “Human emotion, good. No more sad Bruce. It’s depressing to watch the science bro just mope around a room.” Then, as the serious expression on Bruce’s face doesn’t lessen, Tony takes pity on him. “It is not your fault you weren’t here to back me up for that fight. It’s not Natasha’s fault that she made a super shitty call in the heat of the moment. These are just the facts of how things are. No one can say anything else about it.”

“You were betrayed by all of us. Not a single one of the family you were working so hard to make for all of us, and not one of us managed to save you or choose you. And yet you can look me in my face and tell me its not my fault that I wasn’t here to fix some of that. Because I would have. I would actually started a fight had Steve said some of those things in my presence.”

Tony shakes his head. “Darling, we don’t get to change the past. You didn’t want to not be here. You got sent on an adventure through space because of wonky magic. None of that was your fault. Now, if you chose to start quoting the same things that Rogers has said to me in regards to the fight because you agree, then you might be at fault.”

Bruce can’t help but quirk his lips up to. “I think the only thing the two of us agreed on during that whole fight is that Ross deserves to be in a cell not a position of political power.”

“Good thing, I’ve gotten him arrested by now.”

“Were you working on it then?”

Tony shrugs. The timeline of him doing a takedown of Ross was a bit of a mess. “Depends. If you mean did I have a plan to and an intent to destroy his reputation and expose him for a war criminal, yes. If you mean had I started collecting evidence, maybe. Kind of. I more made sure that there were AIs prepared to work on it, the second I got enough political power or legal necessity to release some of the restrictions on them. Oh by the way, that was Rogers doing after Ultron, despite the fact that I’m literally the leading expert in the field and had way more information on why that was both unnecessary, harmful, and irrelevant. But, alas, it happened, so it took some time to be able to show that I was in fact the more reasonable person in the team and should be listened to.”

Bruce tilts his head down. “I wouldn’t have signed until he had left.”

“I would have never asked you to, if everything with the others had still gone down, I probably would have had to ask you to retire until that time, but I wouldn’t have asked you to sign a document still being worked on by the man who hates you enough to have attempted to kill you more than once.”

The gentle silence covers them once more. This is normal for them, and the important things that they hadn’t talked about yet were explained, so now they should be okay. Or at least closer to okay than what they had been. There was still the matter of the punishment that Bruce has asked for.

Tony moves the chair over to a couch and tips Bruce down onto it. Then, he throws himself to the couch and kicks the chair away. “Okay, elephant in the room. You asked for a punishment.”

“Yes, please. I’d like to feel comfortable staying here some days and getting to know the family. But I won’t feel comfortable doing that until I feel I’ve earned the forgiveness you offer me.”

“You should,” Tony admonishes softly. “You know full well that when it comes to punishments, I’ll deal them out in order to help either one of us, but I never ever say that they are a requirement of my forgiveness. Only something that needs to happen for the two of us to continue as we had been. You have every right to tell me that you want to exclusive to Thor and thus don’t feel comfortable with me punishing you, and we’ll mend our bridges the old fashioned way.”

Bruce lets out a wet laugh, there’s a few tears leaking out as he tries to make himself function like a normal person. “I want what we used to have, and I know your soapbox when it comes to this, and I know how my brain works. This is a better order for me, in this situation, and I promise I would tell you if it wasn’t.”

Lord knows that Tony understands that sometimes the way things are isn’t how you see them, and that previous tramua can bleed over into anything, yet he still doesn’t necessarily want to go into the punishment when one of them has the mindset that it is required to go back to normal. That puts a pressure on someone that can and has led to someone choosing not to safeword when they ought to have.

Bruce sees something in Tony’s face, and he leans closer into Tony’s embrace on the couch. “Tony, I have not nor will I ever continue a scene past my limits. I will safeword.” He averts his gaze for a moemnt. “Plus now a days with the closer relationship I have with the Hulk if I even tried to push myself slightly further than I should, he’s likely to come out to force an end to the scene himself.”

That startles a laugh out of Tony. “Are you telling me that I should have the suit on standby during a scene, so Jolly Green doesn’t hurt anyone after we go a bit far?”

“Of course not. He’s much better at avoiding violence now. He’s learned about civilization outside of battle. I didn’t take back over the first chance I got, and so he learned that there was more to life than well war.” Bruce reaches into his pocket. “Speaking of, an updated limits list. I know normally we go through them together randomly whenever either of us are thinking of something, but since I haven’t been here for a while, I thought that giving you the list might be a better idea.”

Tony unfolds the crumpled parchment and starts allowing his eyes to scan it. He’s noticing that several things that used to be on the list as hard limits have both a black mark for a hard limit and a green one for enjoy. “Bruce, I’m going to need a bit of context of what’s going on here.”

“Oh, right.” Bruce averts his gaze. “Umm, being in a relationship with Thor highlighted some interesting things that I hadn’t considered before. Like the fact that the Hulk is also a submissive, and that he likes very different things than me. We’ve mostly agreed between the two of us, that unless severely planned out we shouldn’t try scenes that have both of us in them. We’ve also said under all circumstances, if one of us getting a punishemnt for whatever reason, the other one is not going to deal with the consequences that we brought on ourselves. So, for instance, today this is my problem. This was my choice and my mistake, I’m the only one that’s going to be given the punishment about it. The black marks are me, Bruce Banner, sceintist and overall slightly hesitant man. The green marks are the Hulk, super solider and overall confident man.”

Tony grins. “Do you want to know something, Bruce?”

“Hmm.”

“This is the first time that I’ve known you, that I agree with something you said about the Hulk. And I’m so fucking proud that you got there.”

Bruce doesn’t fight the smile that travels across his face at those remarks. He knows that most of the arguments that they used to have had to deal with his issues when it came to the Hulk and knowing with a straight face that Tony is proud that he’s made progress is delightful. “Does that mean I can have a reward sometime after the punishment?”

Tony chuckles without thinking and presses a kiss to Bruce’s temple. “Sure thing, just let me know what you’d like.” He takes a second. “Both of you.”

Bruce’s eyes flash green for just a moment and the smile gets wider. He brings his legs up onto the couch to lean further against Tony and no longer be connected to the ground. “You’re still the best.”

“Even above Thor,” he teases absent-mindedly. His mind already switching over now that’s gotten an updated list to how the punishment should fit the crime and manage to not cross over any of Bruce’s limits and yet still make him slightly uncomfortable in the sense that Tony wants him to know that there is real hurt there. Enough time has passed that Tony’s betrayal has dimmed considerably. And so many worse betrayals have been done to him, that he can’t really say anymore that this even hits the list of the worst things that have happened to him, so what even is the point of worrying about it if Bruce didn’t want the punishment, but if they were going to do it, they needed to do it right.

“For some things, definitely.”

A comfortable silence fades over them once again. Bruce trusts that Tony is hard at work thinking about how he wants to do this, and his trust in the man means that all he’s got to do until Tony’s ready to let him in on the plan is relax and wait. Once upon a time, this would have caused Bruce to jump up from the couch and start pacing the room, unless Tony had flat out pushed him to the ground and gotten him into subspace right then and there. That had only happened once, when they first moved into Stark tower, and Steve had gone over rules for submissives after missions, and Bruce had just about had a heart attack.

Tony pets through Bruce’s hair. The main thing that he wants to impart upon Bruce during this punishment is the way that silence can eat at you rather than be this comfortable thing right here. “Most of this is going to be in the moment type of situation. So, I’m only going to ask you things I need to know before we get started. Is that going to be a problem for you today?”

Bruce shakes his head. It makes sense that this punishment wasn’t going to be one with a clear-cut end point, or a clear-cut plan of action on what’s going to happen. His deeds have been done, and his dominant is going to fix his guilt.

“Gags are on your willing but dislike list, are you willing to wear one for this punishment?”

Bruce twists up his face. “I’d prefer not a plastic one, but yes.”

Tony thinks for a second about asking why on his preference there. But, honestly, that doesn’t really matter for his plan. He can make a cloth gag just as easily as he can grab one of the plastic ones, and if the cloth will make Bruce’s life a bit easier, he has no issues doing so. That’s not the point of the discomfort of the gag. “That means I already plan on taking away one of your easiest ways to safe word out, so I want to be clear, if you need to safe word, you should snap your fingers. No matter what.”

“Yes, Tony.”

Good. At least no one is going to be fighting him about that issue. He appreciates that for the day. “On the same vein of thought, can you handle being both gagged and blindfolded?”

Bruce knows that he’s not supposed to be asking questions. That’s the surprise part of the equation, even still that question causes him a bit of discomfort. More than one of his normal avenues for communicating gone from his is a big step, and yet at the same time, he finds himself completely willing to trust Tony with this. “Yes, with you, yes.”

That brings some questions that Tony should want answered at some point, still he doesn’t completely want to derail the conversation towards the new relationships both of them are in. He just smiles at the man gently, because honestly that kind of trust would cause anyone to get a bit happy. “Final question, how long could you manage with your arms tied up above you where only your toes were touching the ground?”

That startles Bruce into tensing up. Not because he’s unwilling to do whatever Tony would like, but that’s not something that he’s been preparing for. He has no clue the answer to that question. “I don’t know.”

Tony shrugs. “I’ll settle for an estimate. How long do you think you can manage in that position? It’s not like there will ever be consequences if you’re wrong and need to safe word because your body chose to implement a limit that you weren’t aware was there. Just like with a heavy impact scene where someone thought that they could take a number and at some point during the scene, they realize that the pain is no longer within an acceptable range. I just need to know whether my ideas are even feasible or not, because if you don’t think you body will hold for the time I’m thinking of, then I need to rework the plan ahead of time. I don’t set my submissives up for failure.”

Bruce stares at him. “How do you do that?”

“What?”

“The being calm even when your plans for a scene might be rendered useless and stuff. How do you never get angry?”

Tony chuckles and leans his head back against the soft cushion that he’s had since he was back in college as he considers the answer. “There’s no point in being upset. My job is to earn your trust and keep it. Just because you can’t handle something that I would like to do, isn’t on either of us. It’s just the truth of the situation that we find ourselves in. Nothing wrong with that.”

Bruce ducks his head, a blush spreading. So many people he knows would not be this considerate when it comes to a scene not working, and even less people would say that their job as a dominant was just to earn the trust that’s placed in them. “Probably a little under an hour. I could push it to an hour.”

“Don’t you dare push yourself towards anything. I decide what level of discomfort you’re in, and I decide whether that bleeds over to pain or not.” Tony narrows his eyes. “You hear me?”

“Yes, Tony. I meant that to be a complete answer of what is possible, not that I would ever lie to you or try to cover up my reactions to hide it from you.”

Tony grins and jumps from the couch to hold out a hand to Bruce. “Fantastic. Then, would you like to accompany me to a playroom?”

Bruce takes the hand and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. “I thought part of the reason you hadn’t talked to me in a while was because you had too much on your plate to deal with my punishment.”

“Yes,” Tony says shortly. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t on my priority list, it just wasn’t the literal highest. Mostly because an entire planet’s worth of refugees got the first spot on the basis of being an entirely unknown situation to ever have occurred. And a previous promise to someone else came second, because I don’t like going back on my word and the assholes over on the board for SI were going to make me a liar if I didn’t do something.”

Bruce blinks. Then, he decides that is mostly normal for Tony. Why wouldn’t he be balancing all of this like it was a child’s game? This is all still in the realm of normal for the mad scientist that Tony is. He tracked down the tesseract in a couple of hours. He found out the scepter’s powers in a few days, and then he tracked Ultron too. This probably doesn’t even rate as something that took more than a normal amount of sleepless nights. “Some days you scare me.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because if you wanted the world to listen to you when it wouldn’t, you could take it over in a matter for months. It wouldn’t even take a war.”

Tony winks at Bruce as they get onto the elevator. “There’s an old joke among Stark Industry employees that says, everything is fine until Pepper and Tony are in agreement about taking over the world. After that, all bets on anything are off.”

“You let them say those things out loud?”

“Who could do anything about the amount of power I have? Congress would actually have to tax billionaires to increase how much I pay, especially since I don’t usually fight anything when it comes to taxes. They would have to place limits on businesses in order to stop me from having an international company that could probably harness of enough energy to make everything else obsolete. Not to mention if I actually chose to start a fight, they would have to declare war on a citizen because I have a one-man army and that’s not even an exaggeration of my skill. Everyone who has power knows that I’m a danger to them, and they have no way to stop me.”

“That’s why you hold press conferences. If the public knows, the government can’t run a smear campaign either.”

Tony gives him a thumb’s up as he leads them into the playroom where most of their hooks and ropes are set up. He could probably do this scene in any of the rooms with a ceiling hook, which is most of them, but he likes the idea of this room. Especially since it has a couch, that he can curl up and sit on while Bruce is hanging up there. He feels almost a bit cruel, but he’s sure that the feeling will fade as they go through the punishment scene, because this is a good way to get the message across and ensure that Bruce finds his peace.

Tony walks over to drawer full of rope and pulls out some long strands. He does want to actually ensure that Bruce’s arms aren’t going to buckle on him, so he’ll tie them up nicely so they can’t.

Bruce steps into the room and then fidgets. First with just where he’s standing. Is he standing where Tony might want him to be at the moment? Should he move to the part of the room that he’s pretty sure that he’s supposed to be in? What about whether he should go ahead and kneel and wait for instructions? That leads to him starts to jostle his legs. Because it would make sense to be kneeling. Kneeling is usually always a good choice, except its Tony. Tony who doesn’t always enjoy the predictable, and if he wanted Bruce on his knees, he would have asked him to get on his knees, or gently pushed him down or something. That’s the way that Tony does things. His fingers start tapping against his arms as he tries to figure out what to do. He’s in his head a lot, and that’s not the greatest place to be right before a scene like this.

Tony notices the jitters in Bruce, but he calmly unfolds the rope first. There’s no sense in him trying to comfort Bruce down from this anxiety, when this one is just caused by the beginning of a scene. Once Tony gives the first instruction, Bruce’s nerves will still as he waits only for whatever Tony says. That’s part of the reason why Tony’s always so careful for the order in which he says things when scening with Bruce. Everything has meaning. “Bruce, would you mind getting out of your clothes for me?”

Bruce freezes his motions. He glances up at Tony in confusion. He can’t remember the last time they’d done a punishment scene where Tony had actually asked for him to be naked. He’s not sure why this one would be different. But his hands find the buttons on his shirt and start popping them off, so he can shrug off the shirt and then pull off his undershirt. He gets his pants down and his socks. Only then does he realize he’s very grateful that Tony hadn’t called him down for science because he hadn’t bothered to put on any shoes before coming down to where Tony had been. The only clothes he’s still wearing are his underwear, and he’d like another order before taking those off. He doesn’t want to be considered presumptuous.

Tony wonders what level of soul-searching is fair for this punishment. His intention had been to have Bruce completely naked, feeling extremely vulnerable while the silence builds around him. That’s still most of his plan, but he could give Bruce the allusion of safety with the underwear. He really could. It changes nothing in his plans if Bruce doesn’t feel comfortable with them off even at this early stage of the punishment. He tosses the rope up towards the hook and starts working on the knot that he wants to hold Bruce with.

As he does this, he turns to stare at Bruce, which is when he realizes that he might be reading the situation with the underwear wrong. The way that Bruce is waiting, his eyes following Tony’s every movement suggest that he’s fallen into the head space where he waits for Tony to be specific with any and all orders because he doesn’t want to make a misstep and its so easy to just wait for Tony to give him the right direction to move. “Bruce, honey, you can take off the underwear too.”

Bruce immediately drops them and folds them on top of his other clothes. His hands coming to clasp together in front of his stomach with perfect posture waiting for the next time that an order comes.

Tony knows they’re going to be more frequent now, after he finishes up the first of the ties with just the position that he wants to make sure that when he’s done tying Bruce up, the ropes will be holding him up. He points right in front of him and says, “Bruce, come here.”

Bruce moves quickly to the new location, stepping one pace back from where Tony pointed, where he can hold out his arms for Tony’s use and have them be directly at the spot pointed to.

Tony grins as he reaches forward to grab hold of Bruce’s hand and then tug him right back into that space. Then, Tony shoves his arms into the air with that same smile on his face. “Perfect.”

Bruce blushes and it travels down his chest. The worry of having done something wrong completely gone with Tony just gently correcting his position. That’s the safe part of being in a scene with Tony, if you misunderstand something, he’ll just fix it. No need to be worried that he’s upset. He’s never upset with a misunderstanding, just gently corrections to ensure everything goes the right way.

Tony starts weaving the ropes around Bruce’s arms as he joins them together up at the top where the hook part of the rope is now hanging. He strokes Bruce’s skin as he goes, giving him those hints of compassion and companionship. “Rule number one for today, you can’t relax your arms. I mean you could try, but the way I’m tying these you shouldn’t be able to relax them. I want you to feel the burn and the slight panic of only being able to reach a small bit of the floor.” He yanks the final part of the rope, which brings Bruce up to his toes.

Bruce’s eyes are wide as he stares at Tony. He gives a shaky nod to Tony though. This is a rule he can follow. Just feel the way the ache will travel across his body standing like this for a time.

Tony reaches into his pocket and digs out a tie that he had fished out from one of the drawers while he was working with the rope earlier. He knots it together to form a ball at the center and slips that into Bruce’s mouth to tie it in the back. His hands petting through Bruce’s hair when it was done to assure them both that everything was still alright. That they were still doing okay even if they were dealing with this. “Rule number two for the day, I don’t want you speaking. You can make all the noises you need to, but don’t try to form a word sound.”

Bruce nods again. That’s another simple rule. He can do many things, except for this one thing. That seems like a fair deal. He’s still not sure what part of this is going to constitute a punishment, but right now everything is still just fine where they’re at.

Tony waits a brief moment just to make sure that he’s not going to panic once he realizes that his speech is gone. Sure, they’d played around with this before, but never during a punishment, and you never know what kind of reaction you’re going to have in a new situation. Then, he digs the blind fold out of his pocked and slowly winds it around Bruce’s head where his eyes are completely covered. Just like with the gag, he ends up brushing locks of Bruce’s hair as he finishes up. “Rule 3, you’re going to hang here in silence and in darkness for the full time that you left me without a word as I bared my soul to you. Do you know how long that was?”

Bruce’s head hangs lower in same as he grunts out a negative. It’s not that he didn’t know the information. He’s sure that shortly after the battle he probably could have been accurate up to the second. But, its been years, and his guilt has been replaying that day on repeat for most of those years, so he’s no longer confident where one starts and another ends. He’d offer another apology, but Tony has said that he doesn’t want anything close to words to come out of his mouth from behind this gag, which is mostly a respectable thing to ask given the current situation.

Tony has to stop his impulses from reaching out to guide Bruce’s head back up and offer reassurance. The fact that his anger is no longer burning at all, does have some negative impacts upon the current situation. Namely that he can’t really muster any of his normal sternness for the punishment. That’s fine, Bruce hates the way those scenes go anyway. He hates himself and his actions enough for the both of them. “It was 13 minutes and 54 seconds. My plan is once I stop talking, I start the timer. I won’t speak to you for that entire duration.”

He pauses. This time, he feels the need to get continued consent for this right now, because honestly, he’d probably safe word out if he was in the other’s shoes. But, he also has trauma from being left alone from parents and terrorists. “Do you need to safe word, Bruce?”

Bruce shakes his head. This was going to be a trial. To not try to fill the empty silent space with his apologies, to not search for some comfort, or to panic. That he supposed is the point of his punishment, and he wants to see this through. He wants to be sure that he has earned Tony’s forgiveness that he offers without any requirements.

Tony’s pretty sure that’s the guilt causing Bruce to shake his head, but he’ll intervene himself before they get to safe word level of bad today. He takes his position on the couch and watches.

Bruce decides by the time that he manages to count to sixty that this is going to be the longest several minutes of his life. He can barely control himself enough to keep the count going to try to tell himself how much of this he had suffered. His arms are already burning from his control, and now he can’t even pretend to know how much time has passed. The whimper escapes from his lips before he can stop himself.

Tony jerks his head up to stare at Bruce at the noise. He hadn’t said anything about Bruce making noise, in fact that’s one of the few ways that he can still check in with Bruce in a scene like this. The whimper suggests though that he’s feeling the overwhelmed nature of everything.

Tony moves before he can talk himself in or against whatever action his body has chosen to try. He’s going to allow Bruce to have whatever natural instincts overtake him today, because those at the very least are likely to be pure and reasonable when it comes to these things. When he reaches Bruce, his hand stretches up to twine in between Bruce’s and squeeze.

It’s just a half second of contact, but Bruce feels it throughout his entire body. Tony’s not ignoring him as he hangs here in the silence. He’s still just as attentive as always, he’s just showing that not having anyone to hear you is terrible, and that silence is awful, especially when your head is being loud against your mind because of everything you’ve done recently.

Bruce holds onto that contact for a long time, the gentle knowledge that he’s not alone in this situation, but then there’s a bit more struggle as his arms actually try to bend to relieve the pressure there. There’s no give in the ropes, not that he ever suspected there would be. Tony’s good at what he does, including tying people up to remind them of what they’ve done. The gasp that flies out his mouth around the gag is nothing but reflex to make noise to reflect the pain, not him trying to avoid is just dues or anything like that.

Tony glances at the timer running on the screen. Only five minutes left, and Bruce’s arms appear to finally be testing against the ropes. Option one, he could just leave Bruce hanging there. They both knew that he had heard the gasp, and they both knew he was watching carefully. Five minutes would be an awfully long time for Bruce to wonder though, and while Tony feels as though in this case, he had been left to wonder the same on that plane, he’s also pretty sure that Bruce wasn’t trying to be cruel about it. They had both been overwhelmed. Option two, he could go over there and run a soothing hand down Bruce’s arms just to see what would happen.

Option two wins. Honestly, he’s not sure any of the other options would have ever come close to winning. His hands land up on Bruce’s hands and rather than squeezing to remind him that he’s there. They travel downwards with just enough pressure that the pain of the ropes would fade for the seconds that his hands were on Bruce’s arms.

Bruce has to fight himself not to try to mumble out the words thank you. That would break the rules, and he’s being good. He’s following the rules, so that Tony could be pleased with him. He thinks that he’s mostly succeeded on that part. Still, event he slight reprieve from the pain, doesn’t save him for long.

There’s too much of literally everything. There’s too many thoughts rattling around in his head now. Because he’s been good, but also there’s absolutely no praise during this. That’s part of the point, there’s no indication of whether Tony is happy with him or not. Other than these touches, but those could be false positives showing things that he wants to feel so that when tony proves his real point that Bruce hasn’t succeeded it will hurt worse.

There’s too much darkness too. Normally, Bruce would be able to make something out from body language. He’s doing good, because Tony’s not making any motions to indicate that he’s upset. But, he’s hanging here naked, and he’s got absolutely no clue what Tony’s thinking.

That’s another thing. It feels like there are too many eyes on his skin. He’s completely at the whim of anyone watching him. He wouldn’t know if they got closer unless they touched him. For all he could know they might never come anywhere closer to him than where they are right now. That brings him on edge too.

There’s just too much in this world. He’s hanging here, and no one is with him. He’s alone because of his screw-up right now. And that’s horrible. Utterly horrible, and he’s probably made someone feel even worse than this, because Tony isn’t leaving him completely. He still knows that Tony’s there.

The tears start coming now. He can’t hold them back, and he’s not sure that he wants to anyway. The sounds coming out of his mouth might be closer to the inhumane than he ever would have guessed they would as he sobs and sobs. There’s probably tears peaking out from under the blindfold and running down his cheeks. There’s even a good chance that he’s got snot dripping from his nose.

Tony startles at the noise coming again. Then, he realizes that Bruce has hit the point where he’s just crying because he knows why everything’s happening and the guilt is leaving him. The second realization hits him less than seconds afterwards as it dawns on him that he doesn’t like to see Bruce cry even now. That all of his instincts want to speak and calm him. Tell him that he’s being so good for him, and that everything will work out.

Tony can’t make those promises though. At least not with words, because to go back on what he has said the punishment would be, is a terrible idea. Bruce could drop, he could drop, or they both might manage to avoid the drop but then never actually move on from what happened between them. All of these things would be horrendous.

Tony’s still close enough to reach Bruce. He’s still right there next to him and without thinking, Tony wraps his arms around Bruce’s waist and molds his chest up against the man’s back. He doesn’t offer support through weight, so Bruce is still hanging there, his weight being taken on by his arms, but he’s not alone.

Bruce can’t understand the arms around him. Sure, they’re nice. And they show him that most of his fears are completely invalid, but why isn’t he being made to suffer alone? It doesn’t dawn on him until moments later that Tony had never told him that he would have to suffer alone. Tony told him that he’d have to suffer in silence.

The timer goes off across the room. Tony doesn’t even bother to try to make a move to shut it off, just makes a movement with his hand to get Friday to do it for him. Because he’s automatically ready to reassure Bruce. His hands slide up to cup Bruce’s face as he rounds the other side. “You took that so well for me, darling.”

Bruce leans into the touch, begging for more.

Tony slides his hands up to go around the blindfold’s knot in the back of Bruce’s head. “Close your eyes, doll.”

Bruce closes his eyes, and he feels the fabric coving his eyes slowly slide away. He blinks them open, so he could see his dom again. He sighs in relief as Tony’s smiling face comes into his sight. His body releases a lot of its tension, as the pain from the ropes reminds him that the scene might be over, but it will still take a solid minute to get him into a position where they could curl up together.

Tony’s fingers end up down over the gag around Bruce’s mouth as he tugs the makeshift gag down. He doesn’t bother untying it yet, he just needs Bruce to be able to stop him, if he’s going too far while untying him from the ceiling. “I’m going to work on letting you down now, but your feet are going to be wobbly.”

“As long as you come right back to me, I’ll be fine.” Bruce’s voice is scratchy from the amount of time with the gag in. He runs his tongue over his lips and realizes that they’re completely dry. “Can I ask for some water first?”

Tony pauses in his movements. Bruce hanging there for longer wasn’t part of his intentions, and he knows full well that Bruce is feeling the pain of hanging at this angle now, which while the point of the punishment is over now. He doesn’t want the man to think that he hasn’t been forgiven or any of that jazz. That would be beyond rude for what was happening, and Tony wanted no part of that at all. At the same time, he never denies a sub when they ask for something especially water. So, he moves over to the minifridge to find a bottle of water.

Tony undoes the cap and lifts the bottle up to Bruce’s lips. He’s careful to do it in small segments of water, so Bruce doesn’t get overloaded by water or anything since he isn’t controlling the flow himself. “Better?” he finds himself asking as he pulls away the water.

“Yes, thank you.”

Tony nods and reaches up for the rope. The first undone knot is the one attaching him to the ceiling, all the rest holding his arms together are still there, but Tony drops his hands to steady Bruce and lead him to the couch. This wasn’t one of those things that had to be done all at once, it needed stages.

Bruce stumbles, but there are arms to catch him when he does. He can’t help but roll his head backwards to stare at Tony. “Missed you.”

“Missed you too.” Tony gets them situated on the couch where Bruce could be pressed up against him all he likes, while he’s picking apart the remaining threads of the rope.

Bruce starts slowly moving his muscles to get them to remember that they did still exist and should probably at least function as a normal appendage. As he does so, he recalls that he has another question. “Does this mean we’re good?”

“Yeah, Brucie bear, it means we’re all good. I mean don’t expect everything to be normal right away, a lot has changed. But we’re good.”

Bruce closes his eyes and leans against Tony’s chest. “Told you the way we were was a ticking time bomb. Said it once, said it twice. Change is good.” His body starts going lax. “I’m going to sleep for a while, will it bother you to have me on top of you?”

“After a scene like this, it will never bother me.” Tony settles into the couch, and his brain is allowed to fade into a more peaceful state of bliss

Chapter Text

Much as Tony appreciates the way that the scene had given him a break from his life missions, eventually he did have to go back to work. Work that as he might point out is getting crazier each day. The weapon’s division has to be re-opened, and almost all of the employees that had chosen to transfer wanted back in. He swears that he’s going to end up going bald just by all the applications that he has.

Pepper’s downstairs with him for the first time in forever. He’s working on which applications should be granted, which ones should stay in their department to avoid a shut down until he can hire even more scientists for the process, and which ones should be denied outright. She’s working on the legal paperwork for once each transfer is complete, because they have the technology locked down for the other departments to make sure that no one can spread information, but they are working on a new level of nope.

Because they aren’t just saying that they’re going back into the weapon’s market. That would be a bold move, but that would be easy to solve. This is they’re creating a new market, in which the governments of the world are not allowed access to the weapons, only a specialty army chosen by the UN. The weapons were to be stored by Stark Industries as they are private property and will not be patented, but they also cannot be sold or discussed outside of the company, and for the scientists to still get credit for new science, they have to be able to discuss the new findings.

Pepper groans as she crosses out another line on her notebook paper with red ink. “This is actually hell. There are so many loopholes to consider, and there’s no living way that if we get someone who's trying to be a spy, they won’t end up with at least a little bit of information to leak before we can lock them down.”

Tony leans his head back to the chair. He wants to scream, but that won’t save them. “Friday, can you ask Natasha to come down here and help us? And if Loki is somewhere where you can reach him, him too?”

“Natasha says that she’s on the way, and unfortunately, Mr. Loki is not within the range of any of my speakers.”

Tony wasn’t really excepting Loki to be within range, but the mage’s help would be large. He knew galactic law enough to make sure that they didn’t leave themselves wide open to attacks once they enter the defense treaty to save the known universe. And gods damn everything for making him say that they’re saving the known universe and not just the planet. He might enjoy the ego boost, but he doesn't need the added stress of literally every living creature on his hands.

Goosebumps on the back of his neck pop up, and he gets confused. Natasha could sneak up on him, but if she intended to do that, she wouldn’t have sent a message with Friday. He spins around to see Loki standing behind him.

Loki stares at the way that both Tony and Pepper are currently sprawled across the table with so many different papers and red marks and yet neither of them seem to be in any way truly upset, just frustrated. “I heard that you were wanting to speak to me.”

“How?”

“My name is tied to magic so that I may hear when people are trying to contact me. I ignore most of them, however, I am trying to make an active effort to ensure that I do not miss any of your calls, or that of your family.” He straightens his back to stand up tall. “What can I do for you?”

“Any chance you know the laws that govern the galaxy so that we don’t get ourselves screwed over with our offer to arm people?” Tony asks.

“Or enough about human laws to ensure that allowing Asgard’s army to be armed by Stark Industries won’t fuck us over when we don’t arm most other national armies?” Pepper adds.

Loki blinks. He can’t remember the last time that someone bothered to trust him not to screw them over when it came to legal documents. However, that used to be his specialty. “Obviously, I will be more help with the galactic laws, but I would be happy to assist.” He glances around the room.

Tony grins over at him. “Thank you.”

Loki waves him off. This is nothing compared to all of the things that Tony has done for him over the last few weeks, and what he’s done for Bruce, which Loki is inclined to reward. “Apologies, but I don’t see a pillow to kneel on or anything. Would you mind terribly if I requested one for this meeting in case it runs longer than I can kneel on the concrete for?”

Pepper stares at Loki. “I mean if you’d prefer me to go grab one, I will. But we have these fancy chairs here, who you are welcome to use.”

“I’m a submissive in a public meeting for help, I’m supposed to be lowered in some fashion.”

Pepper freezes halfway to standing up. Because she would have gone to get the cushion, but the way he said that didn’t sit well with her at all. “Pardon?”

Loki furrows his brow. “I’m a submissive, and I do truly appreciate being called when you need assistance, it is a good deal for the benefit of my people, but I also understand the rules. I can assist you on this stage, but I must be lowered in rank for doing that. A cushion is the easiest way to symbolize this in these conditions. I suppose you could also collar and leash me, but I’d much rather the cushion.”

Pepper’s entire face goes stone cold. She’s out of the room, before Tony can even push back from the table.

Tony curses in his head. She was going to go on a war path, and he was going to have to stop her or risk everything blowing up. “Loki, I need you to know that nothing that’s about to happen is your fault. This is Pepper attempting to defend you. I need verbal confirmation that you understand.”

“I don’t.”

“Fuck,” Tony mutters. He really can’t stay for another five minutes to explain. The only reason that Pepper won’t make it there before him is the lack of training at this point. “Friday, tell Natasha that there’s a change of plan, and that you need to play her a video of what just happened so Loki understands. Then, tell everyone to take the day, because the likelihood of me getting Pepper back before things need to be done is none, so we’re putting it off.”

“Yes, boss. Messages relayed.”

“Good, now send a Rescue suit to Pepper’s location and put it on her. Then, send me one of mine. And ask Rhodey to brief the public that Rescue and Iron Man are doing a practical training session today.”

“Boss?”

“Yeah, I know how insane this sounds. Do it anyway.”

The suit closes around him in seconds, and he shoots out of the building towards Pepper’s location. Perhaps giving her a suit full of deadly weapons when she was on a war path wasn’t his smartest decision, but it was the one that he could make and be reasonably guaranteed that he’d have the strengths to stop her without being in a suit when she wasn’t.

Pepper wasn’t flying at his speed, but she was aiming directly for where Thor had taken to holding court every day. She has a bone to pick with the king if this is how he treats someone that he often refers to as his own flesh and blood. That’s ridiculous, and she won’t stand for it. Not where she has any power to stop it.

Tony knocks them both off course when he flies into her. Decreasing both of their speeds in the process to ensure that hopefully no one will come home from this fight in with broken ribs or a concussion. He’s suffered far too many of those over the years to want to do it again when this fight isn’t even one against their enemies.

Pepper’s anger is clear as she twists the suits trying to get free from his grasp. “You can’t stop me, Tony.” Her words come out heavy as if it’s taking her significant effort to force the logical part of her brain to take charge enough to form an argument.

“I have to,” he replies. “Because trust me, I understand your anger. There are a few problems though. One, we need Thor to be king of these bigoted fuckers because they won’t accept Loki, and we need their army for the big bad evil guy coming towards us. Two, as much as I agree that Thor not stopping this for his brother is shit, it’s not quite damning when we consider what else we know about the culture. Thor is damn near progressive for their time, and Bruce swears up and down that Thor wants to change thing. Three, asking Thor to push change right now, will not work. They’ve just lost their planet, their king, and what they’ve got left is a mess. Thor’s going to need time to push change, time and people to help him.”

“And that makes it okay for Loki to be abused in the meantime.”

Tony knows by the way that she’s no longer fighting to go towards Thor, that he might have just successfully redirected her anger towards himself. That wasn’t quite his plan. In fact, this was the opposite of his plan, but it does at least manage one of the subgoals of the day. “No, of course not.”

“Well, that’s what it sounds like.”

“Loki’s not being abused right now. He’s in a bad place, but he knows what will happen if he allows anyone in Asgard to dom him, so he doesn’t. He’ll have triggers when we ask him for help or to do something, because he’s used to the Asgardian way, and sometimes that will make us think that it is happening right now, but we forget that he’s had 1000s of years to deal with this bullshit and he’s found coping mechanisms.”

“You think he was asking because that’s something simple he can give to them without allowing them the abuse.”

The suit shrugs as Tony asks it to, as he releases her from the grasp that he’s held. “Probably. Especially, since that would mean his advice could still be listened to without causing mayhem, so he could help his brother while not starting a war. That seems reasonable to me.”

“I still want to go on a war path.”

“No shit. What happens to people is terrible and being the bigger person takes everything out of us sometimes. So, how about we go train in the suits until we both feel a lot less murderous and a lot more problem solving?”
Pepper gives him a nod in the suit, and they’re off to a clearing. Where Tony can show her how to aim the repulsors and fly as fast as him in a situation where she’s the one charging into battle too. Same as Rhodey, she learns how to move quickly, picking up on the trends that she had seen in his behavior for years.

Meanwhile, back in the lab, Loki stands in the room. His arms are shaking. He has no idea what led to such unbridled anger. As far as he’s aware, he didn’t break any social convictions, and even if he had, Lady Pepper should have been willing to take that out on him. He wouldn’t have fought her on it. He might have pleaded for some amount of mercy since he still can’t say he knows what problem he overstepped, but he wouldn’t have offered objection.

Natasha slips into the lab and immediately raises her hands in a sign of peace. “Loki, what’s wrong?”

It’s not until she asks that he realizes that his whole body is still vibrating, and there’s magic leaking around the room. He pulls it back into him immediately. He has enough control that it wouldn’t have harmed anyone, but he doesn’t want any of them being reminded of their witch that had hurt Bruce so badly. He remembered what Bruce had said about that witch. “Sorry.”

Her eyes dart around the room before landing back on him. “You’re fine. Everything is alright, except for whatever has you panicking.” She takes another step closer. “I could send Bruce to go get your brother, if that would help.”

He shakes his head, eyes wide. If he didn’t know what he did wrong, Thor would have no choice but to punish him to the full extent of possibly messing with the relationships with the Avengers. That would be a terrible punishment, because Thor is already on thin ice, and if he breaks whatever trust he has too, then they can only rely on Bruce, and no one would trust that easily.

Natasha seems to realize that she made a misstep. “Okay. Can you tell me more?”

“Ms. Romanoff, boss asked me to play you the video of what happened.”

Natasha whips out her phone as fast as possible. The scene from before unfolds on her tiny little screen.

Loki backs away from it. What if what he had done was super bad? Would she attack him in order to detain him until the doms got back? Was the reason they left because they had to go collect his legal guardian for the amount of misstep? Dammit, he couldn’t come up with what went wrong.

“Oh, no, Loki, you’re safe,” Natasha whispers, inching closer to him once the video finished. “When Tony said that you weren’t the one she was angry at, he meant that you weren’t going to be punished either. You aren’t at fault.”

“Obviously, I’m the reason that she went on a rage. I’m the only thing that was new.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean that you are at fault. She’s upset because in our world, submissives are allowed to say their piece on issues without having to be lowered. Here, you could have sat at a chair, and no one would have ever raised an eyebrow. Pepper got really angry at the fact that you thought you needed to kneel at her feet in order to help her when it was requested.”

Loki wants to rip out his hair. That doesn’t make any sense either. Sure, Migard seemed to treat submissives differently, but when a dominant got upset after something they did, it’s on them. That’s the way the world works.

Natasha grabs hold of his hands before he can get them into his hair, and she pulls him into a tight embrace. “Hush. It’ll be alright. They’ll be back before you know it, and they’ll tell you themselves that nothing is wrong. That there’s nothing that you did wrong.”

She waits, praying that he’s going to snap out of it. Because she’s never seen someone drop like this, with all their thoughts still together, but she can’t think of what else this could be. Suddenly, she’s dragging them both to their feet and towards the elevator. Because there are still two dominants in this building, and one of them is going to help her or she’s going to fail at helping a submissive in her own home when they’re falling on their face at what’s happening.

Loki follows her meekly. His brain isn’t in any order to try to object with what the person being nice to him wanted. If she wanted him to move, then he would move. He just needs to figure out what any of this means.
Natasha pulls them out onto the main floor. The children all pause in their games with Clint to stare in shock as they see the god in her arms being pulled along. A sharp clatter from the kitchen tells her that Bruce has noticed what’s happening too, and she doesn’t make a move to assure him of anything. “Rhodey or Laura. I need one of them, and I need them now.”

There’s a noise as a door creaks open, and Rhodey steps out. A phone sliding into his pocket, before his eyes raise, and he sees the whole situation standing in front of him. “Okay, someone want to tell me what the hell is happening?”

Natasha laughs and the sound that comes out is the bitter laugh that she used to use in the red room when she had beaten one of their impossible tasks. Because holy hell, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was in over her head.

Loki breaks from Natasha’s hold to crumble down to his knees. There was a dominant here, from the Avengers, and he could take care of the situation that he’s found himself in. He’ll tell him whether he’s in need of correction or whatever, and he’ll probably be nice enough to explain what went wrong. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what I did or anything, I just know that I made them angry.”

Rhodey pauses. He takes a few steps forward until his hand can land in Loki’s hair and stroke through it. The first thought in his head is reassuring the submissive in front of him that he doesn’t have to submit just like that, especially when they have no contract or anything in place. Yet, family is family as Tony likes to say, and Loki is clearly flailing about in his panic. “Friday, give me the rundown on what happened.”

“Sure thing, Colonel. Tony and Pepper were working on the legal matters for the international army and how to keep the human governments from being able to take advantages of the clauses that need to be there for said international governments. They called in Natasha and Loki to try to help them muddle through the issues. Prince Loki seemed more than happy to assist, but before he started he asked Pepper for a cushion to kneel on. She was confused and asked why he wanted one as she went to go get one, but then Loki explained that he needed to be at a lower status for his advice to be heeded. Pepper got extremely angry and left the room. Tony was going to try to explain, but the longer that he waited, the more damage that Pepper might have caused, so he ended up asking me to have Natasha explain things to Loki. Only her explanation led to him getting more agitated, so she came to look for a dominant.”

Rhodey raises his free hand up to his face to massage at his nose. This explains so much, like why Pepper and Tony were having an impromptu training session without him and why Loki is halfway to a panic. That doesn’t however give him a lot with what would be the best way to deal with this. Which means that he’s doing this his way and hoping for the best. “Thank you, Friday.”

Loki breathes in even more evenly after the AI’s description of events. She had labeled everything fairly and had summarized the whole situation. He wasn’t going to have to provide any details that weren’t given by the creation at any point. “Again, I’m sorry, sir. I..”

Rhodey gets Loki to trail off when he tightens his grip in his hair ever-so slightly. Just enough to make it clear that he didn’t want Loki to continue that sentence, and he follows that command beautifully. He so can’t do this in front of kids. He makes a gesture towards Clint, and he starts herding the kids away from the room.

Loki falls silent and waits. He hadn’t thought about the fact that if their cultures were significantly different that Rhodey may not want to educate him in front of the children in order to avoid confusing them. That was extremely nice of him. He should remember to thank him for that later.

Rhodey double-checks that the kids are gone, before wishing that his knees weren’t in braces where he could slide down to Loki’s level. Alas, that’s not something he has thanks to the events of the civil war. “Loki, I need your consent for a couple things before we keep going, and I definitely need a safe word alright?”

“I’ll endeavor to answer all your questions honestly, and I will of course cede to your judgement on what needs to happen today in order to make up for my misstep. My sfae word is Jotun. May I assume that if I use it, that it will not be looked at as a failure?” No one ever asks for a safe word if they plan on saying that you can’t use it. At least that’s been mostly true in Loki’s experience, and he’s willing to follow that for the time being.”

Rhodey’s eye twitches, but he pushes his anger down. They already have two doms going on a war path over the shitty aspects that Loki drops on a dime, probably not even aware that he’s pushing them towards a murderous rage over what’s been done to them. “Always. If you use your safe word, it means that something went wrong and you need me to adjust, there’s no failure there. Okay, a few things. Are you okay with me messing with your hair like this, even if I do more than the gentle tug from earlier? Are you okay with me possibly moving you during this conversation, either to a new location or into an embrace or something like that? And finally, are you okay with me stopping you from speaking if I need you to?”

Loki blinks. He can’t remember a time when someone that he’s gotten on his knees for bothers to check with him before taking what he wants in a situation like this. New territory, but it's nice. “All of that’s fine, sir.”

Rhodey considers asking for something ridiculous given the supposed crime that Loki’s worried about having committed, just to see whether Loki would deny him, but given that he has no living clue what would actually be far enough out of Loki’s comfort zone to be a test, he holds off. He’ll have to trust that Loki isn’t going to let him go so far that it would hurt him in the long run.

Rhodey starts threading his hands through the hair in clear and concise motions. “So, would you like to. hear what I think?"

“Of course, sir.” Loki’s deliriously happy right now. There’s a dom in front of him, and he’s not just skipping to the punishment, he’s getting the full story, and he’s providing comfort while doing that, so that Loki doesn’t spiral any further. Loki’s pretty sure that there’s very little that Rhodey could ask him for during this or after that Loki would not give him for being such a good person to him.

“I think that Asgard is a shitty place for a submissive to live.”

Loki laughs in shock. Because lord was that true. Half the rest of the realms had better rights for submissives, and while they followed Asgard’s lead on the legal side, in private, it was so much better to be a submissive somewhere else. He darts a quick glance up to see whether Rhodey seemed to still be happy which it was, so he offers a quick sly grin. “I agree, sir.”

“Oh, that’s fantastic. I love it when myself and my submissive are on the same page about something.” Rhodey tugs gently to get Loki to shuffle closer to him. “Question, have you ever felt the need to lash out when you realized that somewhere out there was worse than Asgard?”

Loki’s eyes fill with tears. The shaking increases immediately. He prays to his own dead father that he’s not going to have to be punished for both today’s transgression and his own past ones. “Yes, sir.”

Rhodey takes in the panic, and drags Loki all the way into him, where his body is protecting him. “Let me tell you a secret, I don’t care what the hell you did in the past to others in your youth. I say that the shit you’ve been through has been more than enough punishment for the crime. If you don’t, I promise that someone here will help you, but never when you aren’t prepared for it.”

Loki hesitates for a second, then buries his head in Rhodey’s leg. Only to feel metal underneath him. He chooses not to ask a question about that. There are too many little pieces of that, that he wouldn’t understand in the slightest. “Thank you.”

“Anytime you need that assurance, you’re welcome to seek me out,” Rhodey offers. He goes back to the gentle stroking. “But, my point in asking was, do you think that here is better for submissives than Asgard?”

“Yes.” Loki’s dropping the sir, because these aren’t about his situation. These are questions about what's happening in this world compared to others.

“Good. Then, perhaps you can understand why Pepper might have felt an undefinable rage when she found out that you were treated so poorly, that the only thing she could think of to do was go confront the issue head on, because how dare they be worse?”

Loki freezes. Then, the pieces start clicking together. Tony had told him that the anger wasn’t directed at him. Natasha had tried to tell him the same. “She’s not angry at me, she’s angry for me.”

“Yes,” Rhodey confirms, “And Tony went after her to stop her from burning down the entirety of what’s left of your world in her anger, because he knows that won’t actually fix what happened.”

“Oh,” Loki whispers. “So, I made everyone change their plans for nothing.”

“No, you made us change our plans because you’ve got a lot of trauma, and you didn’t understand what was happening. Very valid.”

“Is it?”

“Oh yes, the first few weeks when I got these braces because of the fight, I would have moments where I needed to scream at the world for hours. Do you know what my family did when I had moments like that?”

Loki shakes his head.

“They sat down next to me, and they screamed with me. However long I needed them to. Some days that was only a few minutes, sometimes several hours. They stayed the whole time that I needed them to, and to them it wasn’t wasted time, it was time dedicated to making sure that I got through.”

Loki grows bold, and he trails his hands up the metal parts of Rhodey’s legs. “What’s wrong with them?”

Rhodey flinches. “Not exactly something that you ask a cripple.”

“Please humor me, sir.”

“I fell in a metal suit several hundred feet, and my legs are what shattered. They managed to reconstruct the bones, but they aren't strong enough to hold my weight alone anymore.”

Loki doesn’t say what he wants to say. He doesn’t want to give him false hope, if he’s wrong. But, he has his mother’s magic, and the healers that survived would have the instructions on the magic to heal such an injury, and he should be able to fix a pair of legs from a mortal human. If one of the Asgardians had broken bones ot the point that they couldn’t stand on their own weight, this would be a different story indeed. Instead, he leans forward and presses a kiss to each of the junctions of his knees. “I am sorry.”

Rhodey could probably call him out on that not being why he wanted the answer so badly. But, he’s sick and tired of having a hope that doesn't exist. Tony got him back in the air and ensured that he won’t be kicked from the military because he can’t perform his duties. That’s enough.

Loki leans back on his heels to look up at Rhodey. “When they get back, will they have to go back to working on those documents?”

“Probably. Neither one of them will feel good about the fact that they left them alone for this long.”

“You said that your laws are different than mine when it comes to the rights of submissives, so I’m going to ask that way we don’t run into anymore issues like this. Am I allowed to work on them without a dom present?”

“Yes.”

“Fantastic.” Loki pushes off the floor into a standing position. It’ll take him some time, but maybe he’ll even if he doesn’t know all about Migardian laws, but it’ll decrease the amount that the others will have to work in the morning or late evening. That’s something he can do for them, since they are willing to get angry for him. A fair trade.

Natasha lands at his side. She shrugs at his expression. “They asked for my help too, and its not like I can be showed up by the new guy at helping family members, can I?”

Loki forces his lips not to curl into a genuine smile. With her there, they might actually make a sizable dent in the piles across the table. “Very well, Lady Natasha. Lead the way, I’m afraid I wasn’t in my best condition when you led me out of that room.”

Bruce comes out of the kitchen with a huge tray with several bowls of soup. “Rhodey, could you pass along the message that everyone can come get food?”

“Sure, but where will you be?”

“I’m no genius with laws, but I’m not going to make them struggle alone. They'll struggle with food, and a friendly ear to bounce ideas off of.”

Loki lets out a pleasant little laugh as he hooks arms with Natasha. He nods his head to get her moving, as Bruce trails behind them. “Ms. Friday, could you please enlighten us on what needs to be done?”

“Sure. So, the main things that need to get done are as followed: ensuring that all members of the to-be formed army will have the weapons and technology that Stark Industries provides, ensuring that none of the language used in that can be used by governments on our planet to steal designs for said weapons and use them against each other in a power bid, and that intergalactic powers will be satisfied by the wording to sign themselves and also use them as needed.”

Natasha glances towards Loki. “Okay, we’ve got to figure out the first one before we can deal with the other two, otherwise those are worthless.”

Loki grabs one of the bowls from Bruce as he sits on a chair and tries not to feel shocked that he’s allowed to do so. “Right.”

Natasha searches through all the papers on the desk until she finds the draft of the wording and pushes it in between them, where they can both read it. The phrasing is on point for human realms that’s for sure. Pepper being a lawyer once upon a time, did them well for making sure that this was up to the standard.

Loki on the other hand, reaches for a red pen. He circles a couple of words such as armed forces and contingent on placement to the army. He glances towards Natasha. “Problem areas.”

Natasha lets out a breath of air. “Okay, so the whole armed forces. What’s the problem with it?”

“Armed forces in galactic terms could range from a militia group to pirates to a formalized army. If you offer this contract, not only will several governments refuse on principle, you might end up with extremely unsavory types showing up on the planet to help as well. And they would make my people look like saints when it comes to following laws.”

“Well, that means we got to change it.”

Loki nods. “What about authorized soldiers of an organization?”

“Would count terrorist cells here on Earth.”

Bruce takes a couple spoonfuls of his soup as he thinks about what they’re talking about. He doesn't know much about armies or about what happens in the galactic universe, but he does know about the issues that Valkyrie mentioned while he was the Hulk. “What if you didn’t say either? Something like those contractually obligated to fight against Thanos either by their governments or by moral obligation or direction from a higher power. That way you can have the good pirates, you can allow volunteers, and you can have soldiers.”

Loki purses his lips. “Yes, that would work. But we’d have to write the contract.”

“Second mission, and with a contract we can fix things for the second issue without making some weird new thing up, they’ll be under an NDA with the contract, and with you helping, we can write it to no longer be offensive,” Natasha says, perking up. That would be so much easier to accomplish with the way the world currently sets up.

Loki writes the new wording up above the old word with the scratchy red pen with thoughtful consideration. He taps it against the second thing that he had circled which could cause issues. “Contingent on placement to what army. It has to have a name if you want galactic support. And it can’t be too biased towards your planet, nor can it be too broad that they won’t understand that they listen to the authority of your Accords council and Avenger’s team.”

“Okay, so we need a name.”

Bruce coughs and then fails to cover his laughter. “What about the extended protectors of the galaxy known as the Avengers?”

Natasha shakes her head. That wouldn’t sound good to anyone. “It’s a decent idea to put the Avengers in there somewhere, but it shouldn’t be where it's an afterthought.”

“Ah,” Bruce says softly.

Loki tilts his head to the side. “How about the United Forces of the Avengers and Allies?”

“Too close to an actual army here on Earth, they might take offense.” She grabs her own bowl of soup as she attempts to come up with another idea. “Idea: Galactic Avengers.”

Bruce shakes his head. “They won’t tolerate being named as part of our group, under the assumption that they might get dragged into a future battle.” He sighs, “What about the Thanos Destroyers?”

“Too vague.”

All of them groan. They take several minutes to just eat in peaceful silence in each other’s company while thinking about what to do with the name.

Natasha’s the one who sets down her spoon first with a delightful grin on her face. “I’ve got it. Avengers, Defenders, and Protectors Against Thanos.”

Loki hums. “It’s stupid, which in this case is a plus. It references you guys first, which is smart. It says what you’re doing, so we’re on the right track.”

“Bruce?” she asks.

“Hmm, slight tweak. Avengers, Fighters, Protectors Against Thanos, for those who aren’t necessarily defender like entities.”

“Good enough for me,” Natasha says.

They all watch as Loki carefully in looping handwriting adds that into the document. He pauses slightly and turns towards Natasha. “There’s a chance your government will use this to bring back the captain that all of you hold grudges against.”

“They always were. We’re buying time until it happens, but we all agree he’ll be useful in the upcoming fight.”

He pauses for a moment. “Have you all agreed, or have you all resigned to it?”

Bruce purses his lips. “I think they’re all agreed, mostly because Pepper and Natasha have sworn that he won’t make it off the battlefield.”

Loki inclines his head. “If you need help.”

Natasha nods. “I’ll ask.” Then, she tosses entire stacks of the paper into a trashcan. She reaches for a new sheet of paper.

Slowly, they all start messing with the idea of a contract. First, a point by point of list of everything that has to be included in the damn thing. That list was not short. They needed the option of pardons for crimes. They needed the option to volunteer and thus age requirements that had to be adjusted for every alien species that Loki knew the age of majority for. Then, they needed the NDA and basic ideas for weapons that would be provided. They also needed provisions for other technologically advanced planets.

By the time the list was done, the sun was down and the dinner was completely set to the side.

Bruce was working on the draft parts for the scientific patents and how to not share those. Loki was working on the intergalactic components, while Natasha worked on the Earth portion.

They keep sliding pieces of the paper back and forth as they needed someone to double check them. Only about thirty minutes later, they were back to bickering over wordings.

Tony and Pepper step out of the elevator drenched in sweat. And stop to stare as the submissives fall silent for the second.

Bruce looks at them and grabs the last two bowls of soup. “Dinner, you need to eat. Especially, if you spent close to six hours beating up each other in giant metal suits.” Then, he turns right back to Loki and Natasha. “And seriously, we’re not going to say that the aliens can go further than a planet’s width away from Earth with our specialty weapons.”

“What if Thanos parks his spaceships further back?” Loki counters automatically. He gets the concern about having weapons being used in ways that weren’t intended and the guilt that all those deaths would then be on you, but that wasn’t a feasible thing to worry about when the battle for the millennium is upon them.

“Okay, okay, how about at the end of the battle, the weapons have to be returned to Earth soil within 24 hours?” Natasha suggests.

Bruce furrows his brow. “That would work. Loki?”

“Yes, yes, write that down.”

Natasha stares at the sheet again. There’s only one real problem left. “How do we phrase the pardon part?”

“Criminals that have been deemed dangerous by their own leaders or the galactic committee may apply to become a part of a branch of this army in return for a partial or full pardon, in the understanding that they may die during battle. Should they survive the battle, if a partial pardon is all that is offered, they are welcome to stay on Earth for no more than six months without getting citizenship on Earth in return for services rendered.” Pepper watches as all of them turn to stare at her.

Natasha writes that down on the paper before shoving it over to Loki. “Fix it.”

Loki grabs the red pen again, and he starts changing a few of the words here and there. By this point, he understands the basics of what he’s got to do to balance the intergalactically patterns compared to the midguardian patterns. He finishes the last red mark and leans back into his chair.

Bruce sighs in relief. “Congratulations. The two of you can go to sleep after you finish your soup. The army has its draft to create the army. Loki will bring it to his people to sign in the morning, and one of us will go get Rhodey to do the same for ours.”

Tony glances between them. “Not that I’m not grateful, but you do know that I gave you all a pass on not dealing with this today, right?”

Loki shrugs. “You were going to deal with it, so we chose to make sure that you didn’t have to.”

Bruce grins at Tony. “Consider it a science bro moment. You had your experiment still on when you had to run, so I made sure that I took care of it for you.”

“Consider it a normal black widow move. After all, not having this done, is a risk to us all,” Natasha adds.

“Consider it a return for daring to get angry on my behalf for the first time in my entire life.” Loki stands and gives a half bow to Tony and Pepper. “I am however going to take my leave to go discuss this with my brother.”
“Sleep over tonight,” Bruce calls at his back as he turns. “You deserve a soft bed for all your hard work.”

“I shouldn't take advantage.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “Friday, please inform Prince Loki of where his bedroom is.”

“It’s on the fourth floor with most of the bedrooms outside of the penthouse. It is directly across from Dr. Banner’s bedroom and adjacent to James’ bedroom. It has been stocked with the basic supplies with a request for you to fill out what you’d like in there at your earliest convivence.”

A moment passes in silence. “I believe that it has been decided that you are family, Prince Loki. You are welcome in our compound anytime you wish. We will always welcome you with wide arms,” Friday adds.

Loki nods his head slowly. “I will return to take care of this soon. Just let me finish up my business with Asgard tonight. And Tony, if you could find time to listen to my long list of crimes in the past sometime soon, I would be grateful.”

“Bruce just gave me the day off tomorrow, so count it as yours.”

Chapter Text

There are a few things that Tony knows for sure. One, when he woke up this morning, that he had one too many things sitting in his email account and to-do list to accomplish alone. Two, that part of the absolute joy of having a family that was this large and this interconnected like he had always dreamed of, was that he manages to get help on days like this. Three, that break days are non-existent until Thanos shows up, and they kick his ass. Because he’s determined that they are going to beat his ass. he’s not going to win the battle. He’s not going to make some play that no one sees coming, because they are strong enough to beat him.

He takes a deep breath. “Hey, Friday, can you see if Rhodey bear is willing to take a call from me in a different room of this compound?”

“Sure thing, boss.”

“Hey, Tones, what’s going on?” Rhodey asks a few seconds later, likely shortly after Friday had told him that he wanted to talk.

“Got a few things to do today, and not all of them are going to get done if I’m the only one working on them, so I was hoping that if I sweet-talked you, you might just handle one of them for me.”

Rhodey’s laugh comes through loud and clear. “Depends, if you need me to talk to Congress again, I will tell you to shut the hell up and hang up the phone.”

“Luckily, I am no longer in need of people to stand in front of Congress this week. I’m sure they’ll call me in at some point once the weapons actually start making the news as I equip the Avengers and the Asgardians who willingly sign the accords with them, but that shouldn’t be for at least another month. God, I hope we last longer than a month before they call me in for that.”

“Thank goodness. They’re probably going to try to call me in to be the voice of reason when it comes to giving the US military the weapons.”

“Of course, they will. You’re in the military, and a damn good member of it. Congress just keeps making the mistake of assuming that its leaders in the military don’t acknowledge their corruption.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ve gone on that rant a hundred times before, and I’m so not in the mood for it today. So, what do you need me to do?”

“Go to the Stark Industries testing grounds out in rural Virginia to pick up James’ flying car and then preferably gift it to him with the message that I’ll be sure to come see him in the second that I get more than an hour of free time that is not devoted to new family submissives begging for a confessional.”

Rhodey snorts. “See this is what you get for continuously trying to expand the family.”

“Don’t pretend I didn’t see you sneaking into Banner’s room last night,” Tony teases.

“No, no. I know for a fact that you were asleep by time I did that.”

“Ah, but I have eyes and ears in this compound, and I use them randomly when I need leverage.”

Rhodey growls. “I swear I will find a way to hide this from you one of these days.”

“Good luck.”

“On a more serious note, yeah I’ll go pick up James’ car. I know how much he’s been looking forward to getting it, and you do need to deal with Loki as soon as possible, mostly because his nerves drive me up the wall with making me want to tell him to just kneel in front of me, and I’ll protect him from whatever evil lies in his past.”

“God, I know right. Seriously, Rhodey, the dude gives off low-key drop vibes like all the time. I’m going crazy just thinking about today. Because if he’s wound up even tighter because he knows that he’s going to confess to something at some point today, I’m going to end up doing something insane to get him to relax.”

“I can’t believe I’m the one about to say this, but if you think it will actually get him to come up from whatever low he’s gotten himself stuck in, do it.”

“It’s not going to be something that is advised.”

“Of course not. It never is with you. But, I repeat, if it will help, I don’t care, do it anyway.”

Tony smiles despite himself. This is how they ended up in all their heaps of trouble over the years. On days when Rhodey told Tony to go with whatever crazy idea implants itself into his head if it helps something that is bothering them both. That’s how AI was born, that’s how iron man ended up being public knowledge even if Rhodey will deny that until his dying day. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem.”

The line clicks dead on both their ends at the same time. A process that Friday has gotten a lot better at, telling when phone calls are over without one of the participants telling her to end the call. Then, he knows that he needs to know how quickly Loki is likely to show up. “Hey, Friday, did Loki head back to Asgard’s camp last night?”

“No, boss. He actually went to the room you had me show you and stayed there. I believe he mentioned something about how if you were willing to hear his story, then he should probably go ahead and stay the night. I should also mention that he seemed extremely upset last night and pacing around, so I might have told him about the privacy mode where he could be sure that no one except you in cases where you believed it to be an emergency could see what he did last night. He took use of that and still hasn’t come out.”

Tony runs that through his head. “I’m inclined to say leave him be. He’ll come find me when he’s ready, and if that takes him a while, well that’s alright. We all have issues with something, and from what he’s said, he plans on confessing something big.”

“Big enough that you won’t forgive him?”

“No, Friday, there are very few things that if someone is genuinely remorseful for, that I won’t forgive. Abuse towards me and my family, is one of them, which is why Thor is on such thin ice, and why Rogers will never have a place in my family, but Loki has never hurt one of us willingly, and the time that he did it unwillingly, he still tried his best to protect Clint’s extended family.”

She’s silent for a long time. “Do you think he believes that?”

“Hell no. I’m confident that he’s under the impression that whatever he tells me will destroy whatever fondness I have for him permanently.”

“Maybe, you should stop him from thinking that before you allow him to tell you his story.”

Tony pauses at his AI’s words. It hadn’t occurred to him that Loki’s stress is going to be worse when he doesn’t realize or acknowledge that Tony’s not going to leave him. “Baby girl, you are a genius.” And Tony has just the way to prove it too.

After that, Tony sets up to play a waiting game in his bedroom. He doesn’t want to push Loki to show up, but he doesn’t really want to start anything that he might get his head wrapped up into. That wouldn’t be nice for either of them. So, instead he focuses on what he does know about Loki. The truth is not a lot.

He knows the myths that his world has on Loki, but he doesn’t think those are all that accurate to the truth. Since, according to everyone Odin raised the real Loki from his world, but the myths definitely don’t include the two of them being brothers of any sort. Plus, there’s the whole Loki having kids thing from the myth. Yeah, he trusts that if Loki had kids something would have been said by now, so throwing those myths out of the window seems like a good bet.

Let’s stick to the facts that he does know. Loki has a history of being mind controlled into evil acts. Loki has a history of potentially harming his brother based on Clint’s assessment of the first time Thor came to this world. Loki does protect children at all costs. Loki is adopted. None of these things seem like anything that would cause somebody to lose sleep over it.

Before, he can get much further into his musings on what could be about to come out of Loki’s mouth, the man himself comes walking into the room. At first glance, it looks like he’s walking in as a prince would, as if he is the highest ranking person in the room. Once, he looked further though, Tony could tell how wrong that was.
Loki’s body is filled with tension. His back is frozen into a perfect posture, and his legs are practically locked in the knees in order to keep himself from falling over.
Tony’s plans to allow Loki to speak his side first gets thrown out of the window. He’s understanding why Friday had bothered to tell him to try to reassure Loki before everything else, and he’s in agreement. “Hey, Lokes.”

Loki’s eyes meet his, and they’re wild. There’s a certain type of panic in those eyes. As if the mention of a familiar name is enough to practically send him over the edge in worrying. His feet are tapping against the ground in nervousness. “Tony.”

Yeah, Tony’s going to do something dumb. He’s going to proposition someone before they give a confession. But, honestly, the fact that Loki doesn’t realize that he’s a stable part of this family that can’t just be thrown away on a whim, is way more problematic towards the mentality of the day in Tony’s opinion.

He could ask what’s worrying Loki, that would be the smarter action in this situation. That’s not his option though, since that might lead to Loki thinking that he needs to do his confession right away, and that’s what Tony is trying to avoid happening until he’s significantly calmer than current signs point to. “Can you come here?” He settles on that question to start with.

Loki pauses for a moment, before crossing the room effortlessly to stand before Tony. The nervous gestures still apparent every second that goes on, but he’s still trying to put on a brave face. “Would you mind telling me the etiquette of how to do this on Migard? I don’t really want to have to doubt myself every five seconds today.”

Tony nods. “I will tell you, but first I want to offer you something else. I would like to know whether you want me to help you relax right now. We could do that without scening if you’d like more physical contact and proof of my desire to hold you, to love you. We could do a light scene or a heavy scene, just about anything you’d like. Whatever would help you relax.”

Loki flinches. “I can’t do that to you. I can’t ask you to comfort me when you don’t even know what I’ve done. That would be cruel, and if you didn’t want me afterwards, you’d be well in your rights to ask my familiar dom to ensure that I face punishment for what I did.”

“No,” Tony replies. “There is nothing you could say that I would not forgive. There is a small chance that something you say is something that I agree that you need punishment for, in which case, the two of us will discuss limits and shit until we come up with a plan, you’ll take the punishment, and you’ll be forgiven. End of the story. You can’t lose me today.”

Loki jerks backwards away from him. He creates enough distance that he’s safely reassured that Tony can’t touch him as he shakes his head. “There are so many things that you might not even think of as possible for someone to confess that I will have to.”

“Fine, then tell me how to make this promise in a way that you will believe me, because Loki, I don’t give a fuck about what skeletons are hiding in our past.”

Loki averts his eyes. “I mean an oath to the Norns means that you’ll damn the soul if you fail to keep your word. And I would be willing to believe that you wouldn't damn your soul over maintaining anger over me.”

Tony steps forward until he manages to reach Loki and cup his face. “I swear that after everything you say today, I will hold you close to me. I will offer you whatever forgiveness I can, and I will allow a conversation over punishment if you need it. I swear that under no circumstances will I kick you out of this family after everything that you say. And I swear all of this by the Norns.”

Loki stares at him. His arms start shaking, then he flat out throws himself at Tony.

Tony wraps his arms around the god before they both topple the ground. He surges up to crash their lips together. No need for a scene, he’ll drag comfort out of the man in the old-fashioned way. Pleasure with no rules governing it

Loki responds back. Their lips moving in harmony, and Loki, while not willing to cede all control at a time like this, allows Tony to dictate the pace.

Tony kisses like neither one of them need to breath. Fuck human anatomy, he much prefers kissing a beautiful man that’s thrown himself at him than breath. Unfortunately, his chest has different opinions on the matter. So, when he has to break the kiss to suck in some air, he uses his legs to flip them over, where Loki is pinned below him as Tony grinds against him.

A smirk travels over Tony’s face as Loki groans. “You never did answer my question.”

“Hmm?” Loki manages to make the appropriate noises. He has no clue what question the man had asked him that he hadn’t answered.

“Yeah, see, I asked how I could relax you. You never answered. I’ll have to guess.” Tony slinks his hand lower where its settled over the center of Loki’s stomach. “I could grip your hair and pull your head down to give me pleasure.”

Loki gapes at the man, which quickly turns into gasping as Tony slips his hand under the leather pants and runs a hand over Loki’s bulge over the underwear that are barely concealing anything with how hard he is. Honestly, he isn’t sure whether there’s a correct answer when it comes to Tony in this moment.

“Or, maybe I could jerk you off in your tight little pants and let you come all over me, ignoring me entirely.” Tony palms the dick a bit more harshly on those words. Nowhere near edging towards pain, but definitely getting a louder exclamation from the man underneath him, which had been a part of his plan.

Loki can’t shake his head fast enough. He doesn't want to just come, when his partner isn’t getting anything in return. He might die from the embarrassment of that. He would hate himself and everything if that happened.

Tony marks in his head that Loki didn’t like the idea of singular pleasure. Interesting, given he loves worshipping people like that, especially when they’re stressed out, and Tony's been given the absolute pleasure of dragging them back out of the darkness. “I think this one might be my favorite. I trust you to keep your hands up above your head, I swallow you down my throat until your dick is aching and throbbing and wet, then I push myself back up and ride you into both of our orgasms.”

As he says that last bit, he slips his hand under the waistband of the underwear to wrap his hand around Loki’s cock for the first time with a deep stroke.

“My favorite too,” Loki gasps in between moans. “Show me where to put my hands?”

Tony’s the one breaking out in a moan as Loki asks him to move his hands for him. Seriously, being asked to be more dominant is a huge turn on for him, and he loves that somehow Loki has figured this out anyway. He reaches up to grab Loki’s left wrist with his left hand and follows the process for the right hand, then he crosses them up above Loki’s head, arching the man slightly. “Just like this, Lokes. Good?”

“So good,” Loki promises.

“Then, let’s get you out of these pesky clothes. It’d be a little hard for me to get my mouth around you with all these clothes blocking my pathway, wouldn’t you agree?” Not that he waits for an answer before he’s shimming clothes off the both of them. He’s a great multi-tasker so his shirt goes, while he’s working on Loki’s pants. Then Loki’s shirt get ripped off, because without moving his hands that was his only true option. Then, both sets of underpants.

Gloriously, that’s the only thing that still needs to be done. Now, he gets to do the fun part. He gets lower on the floor, and he places his mouth right at the tip of Loki’s cock. He decides to tease the man for a few seconds with cat licks, just to see whether Loki would stay.

Loki jerks at the first tiny lick, but he doesn’t dare move his hands. Everything about this family sends his brain into overdrive, and he’s not about to mess with anything that might result in that stopping. Not when things feel so glorious. So, he closes his eyes and promises not to react to any of the teasing that he’s sure will happen throughout the night at the rate that they’re going.

Tony grins as he watches Loki fight his instincts to reach down. He loves when it doesn’t take any ropes or ties to convince someone to go ahead and stay where he put them. Where his displeasure is enough of a threat, instead of needing an actual punishment in place. Loki deserves a reward for that. So, Tony wraps his lips around the head of Loki’s cock and sucks.

Loki shouts at the pleasure that wrecks him at that. He’s not sure that Tony’s plan to get him wet enough to ride is going to work with how high strung he is, and how turned on he is.

Tony doesn’t do that for long though. He has different sets of goals for the day, since Loki didn’t seem to like the idea of only one of them getting pleasure, no matter how well he could get that done at the current moment. He moves his head to start deepthroating Loki. He’s using his tongue to produce enough spit that his cock comes away dripping each time he moves back to the tip. Pre-come sticking to his lips as he moves backwards.

Loki stares at him. The dominant looks just as wrecked as he feels, but that’s not how things work on Asgard. Nothing has relaxed him more than the realization that things in this family will not be the same as the place that he managed to get himself out of.

Tony can’t help but lick his lips as he watches the last of the tension in Loki’s body come unglued. He trails his lips up Loki’s chest and stomach. A line from his dick to his mouth to start another make out session. He debates with himself on whether he can do this with nothing but spit. He’s done this when he was younger, but he is not that young anymore.

Loki breaks the kiss this time. Panting not for air, but to keep himself from destroying the plan that Tony had given him. He notices the calculating look on Tony’s face as he tries to picture what might be causing that. “If you need prep but do not wish to break from me for long enough to do it, I have a spell that manages the same. I would need permission to move my hand, but I swear I would not break the rules and touch you, I would just cast the spell and put it back where you would prefer it.”
No dominant on Asgard would be caught dead allowing this. In fact, he’d be punished for even suggesting such a thing. But this is not Asgard, and Tony is not the type of person to punish him for an honest suggestion.

“If you can form words that well, I haven’t done my job that well,” Tony teases. He waves his hand though. “Permission granted, thank you for that solution.”

Loki’s eyes widen. He had told himself that this was likely, but he still hadn’t thought that he’d get permission. He just thought that he’d be told that might come in useful for future plans. Still, permission gotten, he moves his hand upwards to do the small movements necessary to stretch Tony for him. Only for a second does he wonder whether any of this would be different if he was in his frost giant form.

Tony feels the stretch to his bones, and he decides that he absolutely needs to top from the bottom anytime him and Loki are scening, because holy fuck this is too good not to use whenever possible. He’ll run the possibility of a three-way if Loki really wants to be fucked. He’s versatile, but this is a new level of saintly.

Loki tucks his arm back under the other one into the position that Tony had given him. He makes no move to do anything else, just waiting patiently.

Tony decides right then that he’s going to fall for this one too. He doesn’t care about how bad of an idea this is. He doesn’t care that at least one more person is going to panic when he tells them that this is the new plan. He cares about rewarding Loki for being his good boy today even when he had started so nervous. He pushes himself up and over Loki.

He tilts his head to the side. “You can grab hold of my thighs if you think you can hold yourself back from trying to make me move.”

Loki’s mouth falls open, and he moves his hands up to the hips starting a slow inch down over his cock. He puts no pressure downwards and instead clings onto the bones, as if they could make this day last even longer than what it already has.

Tony can feel the fingers digging into his skin. Tight and hard enough that he’s confident that he will have bruises by the morning, but rather than the usual way that ends with the submissive trying to urge him onward despite the rules, that grip never turns towards forceful. Pride surges through him, and how anyone could ever think that Loki was anything other than the best escapes him entirely.

Tony pushes the rest of the way down in a fast motion as a reward. He’s not quite expecting the shout of pleasure from the man under him, but he’s also not surprised. Over-stimulation is a hell of a feeling, and he’s certainly pushing towards the lines of that one rather constantly during this scene.

Loki groans as Tony starts up a slow rocking pace that drives his cock up against Tony’s prostate each time he goes forward. His hands still have a tight grip on Tony, but he’s being extremely careful not to move him arms in any direction other than the ones that Tony sets in motion. That seems to him like the best way to follow the instructions he was given.

Tony closes his eyes as the pleasure starts building up in his body. He reaches down to cover Loki’s hands with his own, a gesture so that both of them are aware that they both know exactly who is next to them on this day. Then, he starts moving faster, until both of them are chasing their pleasure truly, and he sends them both over the edge after a few minutes.

He collapses once he’s come, pulling himself off Loki. This might be one of his worst ideas ever. His back is screaming at him. He’s not a super solider, and he can’t go around sleeping with people on the floor. Especially, when the bed is less than a few feet away from where they currently are.

Loki can tell that Tony has some thoughts bouncing around in his head. The same look that has been on his face since last night when he chose to try to tell Tony about his past. His brain has suitably shut up since Tony has taken care of his issues. He’d like to give the same soothing if he’s able to. “What’s wrong?”

“Old enough that this hurt my back.”

“Will you be okay with me using more magic on you?” The question falls from his lips from habit. If the later conversation between them goes well, he’s not going to ask anymore, he’ll just cast the spells on those he calls family as he thinks that it would help. He would probably even take it a step further than what happens most frequently with his previous family, he would use magic without question, and he would not hide it. There would be no reason for him to hide it.

“Friday, send out a question to everyone so Loki knows who he can use his magic on without asking and who needs to be asked each time. Bonus points if they give what reason they need to be asked for, so Loki knows how to phrase the questions that doesn’t lead to a game of 20 questions as they go round in circles trying to figure out what is happening between them, please.”

Tony turns his head to look at Loki. “Yes. Use your magic as you wish on me. Just be prepared for me to respond if you decide to be a brat about it.”

Loki’s hand freezes as he raises it to heal Tony. No one had ever given him blanket permission before, and no one had ever asked someone else on his behalf either. This would probably allow him freedoms that he had only dreamed of in passing. And, there’s a chance he’ll lose it all in about an hour. Unless he stalls for time, which he could. He could ask for a rest after what they just did and soak in the comfort for as long as the tension didn’t start creeping back into him.

Tony watches as Loki moves his hands through the air and all of his aches slowly disappear. First in his back, then his legs, even his hands. Some of those aches were decades old from engineering and others from constant superhero fights. He taps on Loki’s leg gently. “Thank you.”

“May I ask another favor?” Loki asks.

“Anytime.”

“Can we lay down for a while with you holding me close and me believing your word that you won’t change anything before I tell you all my sins?”

“For as long as you want,” Tony offers. He’s the one who makes the move to the bed first, though. He’s the one that folds down the blanket so that Loki can crawl in the bed. The major thing he wasn’t expecting was Loki curling up right next to him and placing his head over his heart with a few tears falling from eyes as he tucks in. Tony squeezes him tightly against him and lets him hold on.

While the two of them are gaining their nerves, Rhodey arrives outside the compound in the flying car. Honestly, he’s a little freaked out by flying in the thing, but he’s also got a suit that's even worse than the car. He steps out without questioning and goes straight to the common area.

It has to say something about the type of life he now lives, that it does not surprise him to see both James and Natasha teaching the younger kids ballet after having pushed all of the furniture out of the way in the living room. Nor that the man hanging from the ceiling with ambient lighting causes any amount of shock. The only single person in that room that doesn’t want to make him scream is Pepper who has so many screens in front of her, he’d be worried about early onset sight loss if he didn’t know Tony fixed the issues most eyes have with screens for his devices rather early on.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got a present for James,” he calls out into the room.

Several heads shoot up. The kids stop trying to mimic the actions of Natasha and James to turn and stare at him, and James turns towards him with a smile on his face. “From you or from Tony?”

“Well Tony got you the gift, but since I’m the one giving it to you, I’m claiming at least partial credit.”

“Argue for more than 15%,” Pepper adds, not really looking up.

James saunters over to him and places his head on Rhodey’s shoulder. “I say its 50/50 and I’ll treat it like that.”

“Don’t go making promises you aren’t planning on keeping anytime soon.”

“I don’t have any plans today.”

“You will in about five seconds.” Rhodey dangles the key from the hand of the arm that doesn’t have a super solider draped over it like he owns it. They jingle in the air, as he gets to watch the understanding dawn on James’ face.

James’ eyes go bright as his hand leaps up to grab at the keys. His feet bouncing slightly on the ground. “He got it done. And I can have this one. No tricks.”

“Only fly it on the compound for now. There are still some debates on what license is needed, what laws need to be made, and so forth for public airspace, but on private property, there are no tricks. Flying car is yours,” Pepper answers.

Rhodey pauses to frown at her. “When did he have time to make sure you were on the right page for the plan for today?”

“He didn’t. Whatever he’s up to, I have no part in. However, since I am his CEO, and I am the one dealing with the legal monstrosity that he has created marketing a flying car with renewable energy, I do know the regulations that currently have to be followed. And the fact that the first prototype that can be used outside of the laboratory setting was finished yesterday. These are just things that a CEO of Stark Industries must be prepared for on a day-to-day basis.”

Natasha furrows her brow. “Are you doing alright?”

“I would love for someone to make sure no aliens, no new inventions, and no accords drama pops up in the next month.”

Rhodey offers her a grim smile. “I’m sure that Tony’s a bit busy for any other new inventions. Unless, he decides that the weapons industry re-entrance needs to occur on an exceedingly tiny window. Otherwise, I don’t have any hope for you on this one.”

Pepper groans. “Go show James, his new lovely car. I’ve got to go into the office.”

Rhodey shakes his head. The two dumbasses of Stark Industries were always working too hard. The world would not crumble in a day if they did not make sure that everything was going smoothly. The world would still wake up in the morning happy and bright as usual. Still, he starts leading James outside.

“Now, she said I couldn’t fly the thing off of private property, but say I could drive down the roads to pick up the spider punk kid, and then take off into the air the second we hit private property to watch him die of joy.”

Rhodey laughs. “Yes, and if you get into any trouble, I will come rescue you. Pepper might scream at us, but it will be worth it.”

James winks at Rhodey. “You sure I can’t interest you in that reward before you show me my pretty car, and I get all distracted for the remainder of the future.”

Rhodey crosses his eyes. He should say no, but he wants to say yes. Finally, he decides to say screw it and choosing to push James up against the wall. “If you wish,” he offers.

James grins up at Rhodey as he slides down to his knees. “It’s like Tony told Clint, I’m a brat.” He noses forward until his mouth can cover Rhodey’s bulge around the fabric and starts a light sucking.

Rhodey moves his hands automatically to grab James’ hair. He’s starting to think that waking up the lingering personalities of both the winter solider and James Barnes would be what causes his death in the end, but he also can’t bring himself to regret a single moment of it. He rocks forward gently, just to push James a little further back into the wall. “No teasing,” he commands, his voice low and hard but without the harshness that might send him into his memories. Plus, in Rhodey’s mind, even if he chose to push and keep teasing, there likely wouldn’t be a consequence. His response to bratting is generally to just let the submissive do whatever they want and never worry about it again.

James takes the order as a compliment though as he immediately moves to rip the pants down below Rhodey’s thighs. He’s careful not to mess with the braces though, his movements making it seem like he doesn’t need to spend anytime thinking about it, but Rhodey knows that he has to in order to avoid them so quickly. James has so much practice though with his own metal arm, that this is nothing to him. Once the clothing is no longer in his way, he swallows down Rhodey’s cock.

James doesn’t play around. He wraps his tongue around the head of Rhodey’s cock and makes sure to apply pressure every time that he moves further up. His main goal is to make Rhodey come and nothing else.

Rhodey is just holding on for the ride. He can’t find the words to say to encourage any of the actions. And most of his energy is being expended on ensuring that he doesn’t fall over as James sucks his brain out from his cock. Before long, he’s cresting over in his pleasure, and his come is being swallowed by James, whose is making lewd eye contact.

James loves giving his dominant’s rewards after they do something sweet for him. He probably should make sure they know that he knows this isn’t a give and take type of situation, but honestly, he’d much rather do it this way. He smiles up at Rhodey as he pulls back. He’s about to hold his hand out, palm up to ask for the keys before Rhodey’s grip in his hair drags him back up to his feet.

Rhodey doesn’t give him time to say whatever words were about to come out of his mouth. He knows James well enough by now to know that they do not have a day or time where those words won’t make him want to yell brat at the top of his lungs. Instead, he crashes their lips together, pinning James to the nearest wall.

James hadn’t seen this coming. The way that lips are against his in a harsh kiss that never manages to do anything other than gentle. Even as it pushes a tongue into his mouth and convinces him to relinquish control.

Rhodey’s hand slips into James’ pants. He wraps a fist around James’ cock and presses his lips against his temple. “So, only problem with me recuperating right now is that I will destroy these pants of yours.”

James pants as he fights to come up with a coherent response. Honestly, he’s not sure whether he has the ability to be coherent when there’s someone else’s hand on his cock. “No offense, sir, but I can change.”

“Yeah, without feeling bad about losing time with your car.”

“Rule number one that Tony has taught me, hide clothes in various rooms of the house, because they will get destroyed. Gotta say this is the first time it’ll be because of sex, but I’m prepared.”

Rhodey has to pause, leaning his forehead on James as he dies from laughter. His fist moving up in down in time with his laughs. Holy shit, James is the perfect combination of his and Tony’s type. He’s got to tell Pepper that at some point, just because she had once told them that they weren’t ever going to find a submissive who fit them so well.

But, that’s not his number one priority. His number one priority is making sure that James gets to come in his pants after choosing to reward him for something he really didn’t do all that much of the plan for. He starts moving his fist up and down across James’ cock.

James grasps at Rhodey’s shoulder as the man pushes and prods him over the edge towards his orgasm. Once, there’s semen in his pants, his breath coming in labored little pants, and an annoying voice in the back of his head, saying even with a change of clothes, he should have asked for his pants to be pushed down at least, then Rhodey smiles like he’s accomplished something. One of these days, he’s going to convince a dominant to just allow him to worship them and stop with the whole always returning the favor. That’s honestly one of his biggest complaints about the future.

James pushes himself up and places a kiss on Rhodey’s cheek as he steals the keys from his pocket. “Thank you.” His clothes are changed, and he’s out in his new fancy flying car within minutes. He doesn’t think that it’s possible to be happier.

He takes a few laps around the compound grounds to figure out all the tricks to getting the car to fly. He loves the voice in his car to tell him what needs to happen. It reminds him of a younger Friday, who is an absolute godsend herself.

Once he’s done getting his practice in, he lands the car and zooms off down the road. He’s got a punk ass teenager to go find and take back to the compound to shock the hell out of. He also heard a rumor from Natasha that the kid got bullied for claiming connections to Avengers, so he feels extremely happy with the idea of showing up there and absolutely wrecking what everyone believed was going to happen by grabbing the kid at the end of the day instead of letting him get on a bus.

Sure enough, he arrives with about five minutes until the end of the school, and he catches sight of Peter shortly afterwards. Literally all of the students are staring at him in awe, not that he’s surprised. He’s a recently pardoned war hero who also happened to be a prisoner of war, super solider, and previously hired assassin. He’d have been staring at their age too, and Stevie would have been fighting them all. Now he probably would just sit there and rake it all in. That’s the problem with the new Rogers, he doesn’t have any of the morals of the younger self that James remembers. No mind control on him though, otherwise it would have died with the witch too. That’s just the way he grew.

He grins at all the kids with a flash of teeth. “Hey, kid, get in. I’m driving today.”

Peter stares at him for a long moment. “Really, this is your first stop being let out of the compound?”

“I needed a mission. Sue me,” James teases right back.

Peter throws his bag into the back before hopping in the car. Both of them ignoring the gaping stares from the other students acting as though this is a perfectly normal decision to make. He waves to his friends as James peels out of the lane. “So why did you really come get me?”

“Tony made me this car, and I want to show you.”

Peter lets out a laugh. “Did you wait to leave the compound until your present was ready?”

“Not intentionally, but with the whole Asgard thing, I didn’t want to cause Tony to have to deal with any other press, so until I got these keys I was assuming he was still in a crisis mood.”

James gives Peter a grin, because getting back on Compound ground took no time. Not with how fast Tony’s car’s drive, and how James can drive like a man from the 40s. Second, they hit the grounds, he flips the switch to get them up into the air and the starting to get familiar voice fills the car. “Welcome back, James. Do you remember how to fly?”

“I do,” James yells over the wind in the car. His grin spreading as wild as possible.

Peter turns to him, his eyes wide. “Mr. Stark made you a flying car?”

“He did, and they’ll hit the market shortly.” James leans back in the car as he flies them around.

Peter shoots him a smile. “Thanks for showing me.”

“Anytime, kid. Plus, it had the added bonus of proving that you know some of the Avengers and aren’t just a liar.”

“It’s not that bad,” Peter complains. Still, both of them grin for the remainder of the amount of safe time they can spend up in the air. Happy as can be at what’s happening.

Later on, Loki starts coming to from his nap, and he knows that he’s going to have to bare his soul to Tony now. He can’t keep going the way that they have been. He has to know that the people who are giving him these chances, know exactly how he got to this point. “Tony?” he whispers.

“Hey, Lokes, nice to see you back awake.” The arms do not move from around Loki’s body. Tony makes no indication that he has any intention of moving them either. He will continue providing emotional comfort in the form of cuddles for as long as Loki will allow him.

“I’m still scared to confess everything I’ve done.”

Tony nods. “You cannot say anything that will change my opinion of you, and if you have a lot of guilt associated with something, then we’ll deal with it. But, we can’t do anything until you tell me what we’re working with.”

Loki’s eyes fall down. “Can I tell you the full story or do you just want the highlights?”

“Tell me the whole story, so you don’t feel as though you aren’t be listened to.”

Loki nods. He’s selfish for it, but he allows Tony to draw him in closer where he can’t just leave the embrace. He can speak into Tony’s chest. The dominant doesn’t appear to have any issue with him willingly leaning on him for all of this time.

“Umm, I’m going to start at the beginning for me, even if that’s not what most people are going to look at as the beginning. I was the younger child, and Odin never truly thought of me as equal. He allowed mother to teach me, and then when I started using the magic, he allowed his soldiers and oldest son to belittle me for my choices. He always forgave Thor for his missteps, while mine were highlighted as awful things that could never be forgiven. For a long time, I didn’t believe there was any reason for that.”

Tony stops him from continuing with a brief press of a kiss to the top of his head. “I’m sorry. I know what it is like to have a parent who is never pleased with anything you do, no matter how hard you try.”

Loki should keep up with the story. He shouldn’t allow any distractions. “How did you cope?”

“I didn’t. By the time that I was old enough to rebel at all, they were murdered.”

Loki drops his mouth open into an o-shape. He had never considered what his life would have been like if his father had never been alive once he got to an age to do anything of his own free will. It would be drastically different. Him and Thor would likely be closer than they are. There mother would possibly be alive. He may never have fallen from the bridge. Never tortured. That world might become his new fantasy. A world without him having to deal with that pain.

Tony smiles towards him. “That’s not nearly as fun as it sounds.”

“I think that would have changed my life.”

Tony shrugs. That much is evident. But whether those changes were going to be positive. He has way more doubts. His life didn’t get better after they died. It just continued going in the way that it was always going to go. Now, he was dealing with aliens on a semi-regular basis. Would that change if his parents were alive? Who the hell knows, but he’s pretty sure it wouldn’t be for the better.

Loki breathes in and out for a few minutes. “That changed after I followed Thor into Jotunheim. For clarification, Jotunheim is the home of Frost Giants. In Asgardian culture, they are monsters. They will never be anything but monsters. They were born evil. They can never be redeemed.”

“Well that’s racist,” Tony quips.

Loki lets out a short barking laughter. “I believed it though. I mean I was raised with these things as the potential monster under my bed for all the centuries I grew up. I believed these people were monsters, and when I followed Thor into their world, I found out I was one of them. And my parents had to know.”

Tony blinks. “I’m sorry, your father had the nerve to teach you that an entire species were monsters, all the while knowing that you were one of those species the entire time,” he rants.

“He put a permanent glamour on me to keep me as something else. It wasn’t until one of my own kind touched me that I found out that I wouldn’t freeze like they wouldn’t freeze and the glamour fell. I was one of the monsters.”

“No,” Tony denies immediately. He reaches up to drag Loki’s eyes up to his. “They aren’t monsters. You aren’t a monster.”

Loki wipes a tear from his eyes. “I don’t know if the other frost giants would agree with you after what I did. Because I thought I was a monster, and I was determined to prove to my father that I wasn’t one. Thor got himself kicked down to Earth to learn a lesson for going after Jotuns. And Odin fell into his deep sleep and I was left on the throne. I wanted to destroy Jotunheim. I thought it would prove that I wasn’t actually evil like them. That I could be redeemed because I was willing to kill them all. I was willing to do that, so I couldn’t a monster anymore.”

“You tried to kill them?”

“I tried to kill them, and I tried to kill my brother so he couldn’t stop me. And when it was all done, I tried to kill myself, and I fell. Thanos caught me. That was hell.”

Tony groans softly. “You tried to kill an entire population to deal with the fact you were a monster in your own mind, and your father and mother and everyone just let you.”

Loki nods. “Odin only tried to stop me once he realized that Thor had realized why he was wrong to attack them. And he seemed happy that I fell. He could have found me, he never chose to look.”

Tony holds Loki closer than he had before. “I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have been abused to that point.”

“I guess as I grew up I realized my response made me more of a monster than anything else ever had.”

“No,” Tony objects softly. “That doesn’t make you a monster. It makes you a person who made a mistake when they had way too many things piled against them, and far too much power for a child who may have found this out. Your parents could have prevented this. Your people could have tried. And I can’t believe I’m defending Thor, but he was also just a child. It was never on the two of you to deal with what was done. It was done to you.”

Loki stares at him. “I still tried to kill them all.”

Tony sighs. He had a feeling that it would come to this. He had a feeling that Loki was going to beg him for a punishment of some kind because of this shitty trauma. And at the end of the day, he would do what his submissives need. He’ll always do what they need. “Okay, give me a little bit of time to figure out how to punish you, and I’ll take care of it.”

Chapter Text

Tony ends up sitting next to Natasha a few days later with his head buried in his hands, about to lose his mind. “How do I punish someone who I inherently believes doesn’t need any punishment?”

Natasha stares at him for a moment. “Is this worse than when it was Clint?”

“Clint at least had some foundation to rely on through the mind control to suggest that he went too far a few times. Not enough for me to go further than a mostly simple punishment, but enough for me to figure something out.”

“And this time?”

“Everyone who should have been next to him to help him, abandoned him. And they handed him weapons of mass destruction and expected the results not to be catastrophic, and he takes it as proof that they were right to call him a monster this whole time. Somehow, I’ve got to fight the inherent panic in him so he doesn’t suffer needlessly in his own guilt. And if that wasn’t enough, when it was over, he tried to die and instead fell into the grip of the madman coming for infinity stones to be tortured and sent to hurt even more innocents.”

Natasha stares at him for a second. “Then ask him what he wants his punishment to be. His guilt should have created a hundred different paths. Then, do that. It’ll definitely cross his limits, he definitely won’t safeword, and you won’t be able to that far into the scene. So ask another dominant to be there. One who will not gloss over the lines.”

“That’s risky,” Tony points out almost helplessly. He knows that she’s mostly right. This is one of the only ways that he could do a scene like this, and he did promise Loki that he’d help with the guilt. And even with therapy the years it would take to come close to understanding how not at fault he was would be crushing on his spirit. This was the best way.

“Not doing anything has its own risks. Can you really tell me with a straight face that you can live with the other risks?”

“You know I can’t.”

“Get some more dominants in that room. Tell him that the only way you’ll feel comfortable is if he chooses two other dominants to be there and witness what needs to be done. And whoever the hell he calls for, you get them. It doesn’t matter who he wants. If it’s his fucking brother, you put your shit with Thor to the side for him.”

Tony glances over at her. Even he can see the way that she’s getting more and more upset. “You okay?”

“No one ever offered me this. They had me since I was four years old. I have almost no memories from before the red room had me. I grew up believing their propaganda, I was raised on their propaganda. No one ever said that it was okay. No one ever said that I could be forgiven because that was all I ever knew. That I was a child. A child solider, who got all the way to adulthood before anyone ever saved them.”

Tears fill her eyes, although they go unshed. “He got out so far after me that it is a miracle that he’s still trying. And you are offering to help him. Punish him for his own guilt, and you’re even bothering to be concerned that he’ll push over his own limits. And you’re such a glorious person for this. You are the best person for this, but you’ve got to make sure this doesn’t hurt him further. Because if it does, I’m not sure what will happen. This might actually shatter whatever little pieces of his sanity still exist in this world.”

Tony reaches over and wraps his arms around her. He holds her closer. “What I would give for the adults of the world to have actually protected us when we were younger.”
Natasha leans into his comforting embrace. “Promise that you won’t make him suffer like I did. Promise that you won’t let people like Fury try to guilt him for the rest of his life until he meets someone decent. Please, be the someone decent for him too.”

“I promise.” That promise comes at a price though. He has no idea what that will look like for the rest of him to keep that promise, because if he has to exist within a private room with Thor, he might lose whatever progress he’s been making on making sure that he doesn’t get more hurt by everyone around him. But, she’s right, he has to put Loki first.

He stays with her for a few minutes more. Allowing her to suck the comfort from him in whatever way that she can manage, and giving him a few more minutes before he needs to go talk to his submissive again about a punishment that he really wishes didn’t need to happen. That’s the problem with crimes committed as children when you have shitty parents. There’s no telling what things will haunt you, what things should haunt you, and what consequences those actions actually had.

He hates the blankness surrounding his mind as he makes his way to Loki’s room, where the god has taken up staying in for most of the time since Tony had promised him love anyway. He knocks on the door, then leans on the wall across from the room to wait. He’s a firm believer in getting permission before entering someone else’s private space in his compound. At least, when they aren’t committing crimes or trying to curse him.

Loki opens his door within a few minutes. “Tony, I wasn’t expecting you today.”

“Hey, Lokes. I was hoping to ask you for some things with the punishment before everything can start, and I kind of had the thought that you would prefer me to not put that off for really any time if I could manage to swing it.”

Loki stares at him before stepping back to allow Tony into his room. He paces back and forth for a couple seconds before plopping down on the couch to stare up towards Tony. “You’d be right. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be on questions, but I’ll do my best.”

Tony nods. “Okay, the first question I have is a really personal one. If you could choose your punishment, what would it be?”

Loki freezes. All of his motions that were signs of his nervousness are completely paused. “Is that a punishment?”

“No, it’s an admitting that I don’t know how best to help you. I don’t know what would bring you the most closure, and I do not know what kind of punishments are used to deal with this on Asgard, and I’m of the opinion that this is more of a question of your cultural norms than mine. So, I’m asking what you would like to see done?”

Loki averts his eyes. “A crime of this proportion would generally result in a public whipping. A lash for each life that you could have killed. That would be close to a million, which is why it’s probably good that there is a limit that 200 is the max sentence.”

Tony controls himself before he lets it be shown that he wants to wince at that. He knows how bad the whip feels. He knows that some of his submissives find the pain soothing, but even still, he’d hesitate to push the number of strikes into double digits, let alone triple digits. But, like Natasha had said, this is not about him. This is not about what he would find most enjoyable or even reasonable.

He stands instead, he walks over to the room’s edge. He beckons with his fingers for Loki to follow him. He needs to know whether mortal whips will even remotely work on the god or whether he’s going to ask for one that would rip a mortal to shreds to be used. Because he needs the demonstration. He has to know what kind of pain that he’s about to subject his submissive to. He just has to.

Loki follows silently as well. His footsteps are not silent on the floor as he had gotten mostly used to doing when going through the hallways of the compound.
Tony pushes open a door to one of his playrooms. The one that holds the most of his actual impact play tools, and the one that he goes in the least. Pepper likes distributing pain way more than he does. But, that’s not to say that he has a limit with it, although there are some occasions where he does. This isn’t one of them though. “I need to see what level of pain the whips will bring you before I agree to anything.”

“The mortal whips aren’t going to do enough damage.”

Tony ignores the statement. Not because he isn’t confident that its true, but because that is mostly unimportant to his decisions for what’s going to happen. Instead, he digs out the three whips that have the largest pain distribution that he has seen in any of his submissives. “You’re going to humor me, trying these three whips on you to see whether any of them will work for our purposes. In return, I will humor you by giving you a single lash towards your count with the whip of your choosing from Asgard.”

Loki’s jaw drop. “But that implies that you’re going to choose the whip I want,” he whispers.

“I’m pretty confident I will. You are not built like I am, nor like most of my family is, but at the same time, I cannot handle choosing the whip of your choice without at least swinging these whips as well. So, I will swing them, you will accurately tell me on what pain scale they land on. Only then will I make a decision, even if I believe I already know where we’re going to fall.”

Loki nods, slowly. He holds out his hand, and the whip that is typically used for punishments on Asgard appears on his palm. He gulps around him as he shakes slightly. “Is it okay to be scared?”

Tony takes the whip and sets it on the table behind him. He steps forward where he can actually wrap his arms around Loki’s waist and lean his head on Loki’s chest. “Yes, you are asking for a major punishment, one that you know is meant to hurt you. Full stop, no possible enjoyment. You are asking me to hurt you, and I will. Because that’s what you need, and that’s what I will do.”

Loki starts having tears dripping from his face. They land on the top of Tony’s head. “What if I’m wrong?”

“Hmm?”

“About what I need.”

Tony sighs. “Let’s get through this part first, then we can talk about all the precautions we are going to be using in order for this not to cross either of our lines, and what happens if we encounter a new line that we were not aware existed until this very moment.”

Loki nods. He steps back away from the comfort that the dominant is offering him, away from being allowed to steal that comfort. He does not deserve to be allowed to seek that comfort when it is his fault that he has to suffer this. “How would you like me?”

Tony points over to the cross. For the full punishment, Tony will actually bother strapping him down. Likely even having another person there to help hold him up, because this was going to go way over the level that would normally be defined as reasonable. This was going to border on abuse charges, if he didn’t have such clear verbal records of the fact that Loki is asking for this.

Loki touches the wood softly at first before pressing himself up against it.

“Shirt on or off?” Tony offers. The shirt being on would mean that it would get destroyed. The shirt being off means that he has no barrier between him and the razor edge of the whip.

Loki’s nervous tapping of his foot starts up again. He gently lays his head against the cross as his shirt kind of fades from his body. “Sorry, I meant to take that off already.”

“No problems. You’re nervous, understandably so. Anything that gets overlooked for a few minutes because of the fact that we are in fact in a situation that is not the most comfortable for either of us, will be fine. We will not get upset at each other for those small things, when we’re dealing with something this large.”

Loki sucks in a breath. He reaches back and squeezes Tony’s hands. “Thank you, Tony.”

Tony squeezes back. They’d probably need to have a talk about what protocols Loki wants him to have set up for the actual punishment, itself, but this was not the time. That time would come after they’ve established what needs to happen. That time would be for after they’ve chosen other dominants to come and witness what will occur, that way all parties can have full consent on what needs to happen during the scene. No surprises.

Tony steps back after a careful moment. He picks up the heaviest single tail whip that he has. He swishes it through the air to give Loki plenty of time to know that the blow is coming, before laying it on his back.

Loki throws his head back. That kind of pain could make him delirious in pleasure really quickly. Honestly, terrifyingly quickly. There’s a fire there, and a pain, but it verges that line perfectly. Everything is felt, and it makes him soar high.

Tony chuckles from behind him. There’s a gentle stroke to his shoulder. “I’m going to go off a limb there, reindeer games, and say that might be fun for a play session, but it won’t do anything for a punishment.”

He shakes his head. The high feeling still floating him nicely above the clouds from that first blow. It wouldn’t work for a punishment, but if that’s what the dominant wanted to give him, he wasn’t going to say a word against it. Not in this lifetime. That would be the height of his stupidity if he did.

Tony sets that whip back down carefully to pick up another mortal whip. This one wasn’t going for a single line across the back. This one had the same intense angle that only spreads out at the tips. Intending to bring the fire of the initial stroke and then spread the pain across all of the rest of the back where the tips end up. A casual down stroke would spread the pain across his shoulders. He could do an upstroke though and catch him off guard.

Loki hears the whip before he feels the weight land. This time, he grunts out a surprised blow. The pain isn’t really anything worse than the first one, and he can’t say that it would work for a punishment, but the pleasure doesn’t stick around this time. There are too many sensations. His brain is jumping around trying to figure out what has the stinging feeling towards the base of his spine, almost at his ass. A regular whip wouldn’t spread like that.

Tony’s hand brushes over his ass. Gentle, soothing motions. “Hey, breathe for me. No need to panic over why you don’t understand how this works. It’s just a whip with the edges ready to spread upon impact. Here, look at it.”

Loki’s eyes shoot down and sure enough there’s a whip sitting there in the palm of Tony’s hands. The ends are indeed split, in a way that makes him very nervous. He would never know where that lands. It would land differently each blow even if a pattern was established. The pain would change with every blow. His normal behaviors kick on before he thinks about why he hasn’t been using them recently. “Sir, please don’t use that one with me. Ever.”

Tony moves to put that one into the closet automatically. He keeps his movements clear and concise. And he doesn’t react to the way the honorific falls from Loki’s lips. Another conversation for a different time. A conversation for when both of them know exactly what is happening and why its happening. “Never, easy.”

Loki swallows. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think,” he trails off because Tony’s finger falls over his lips.

“Hush. You do not have to justify a limit to me. You just need to let me be aware that it now exists. You had never played with that before, so you didn’t know that you were going to have that reaction to it. Once you did, you drew the line. There’s no apology necessary. I understand what happened.”

Loki relaxes minutely. “Thank you, Tony.”

Tony smiles at the empty air, knowing that Loki can’t see him in the position that he’s in. He runs a hand down Loki’s spine, careful to avoid the two lash lines that are already on his body. “Anytime.”

Tony grabs the final whip on his table that is from his realm. A nine-tails whip designed to bring maximum pain as each tail falls on you at different moments after the initial blow hits. Given the reaction from the last one, he shows this one to Loki beforehand. “Color?”

Loki furrows his brow. “I don’t understand.”

He curses the fact they come from two different cultures on separate planets that prevents him from being able to make normal assumptions that anyone who has played before will know the stop light system at least well enough to use if asked. “It’s a system of checking in here. Green means that you’re good, yellow means that you’re unsure about something, and red means that whatever is about to happen isn’t okay with you.”

“Oh, I don’t think yellow has ever been something that Asgardians would consider, and some of them would say that red means that you’re chickening out of what you said. They’ll listen, but they’ll grumble about it, and they’ll probably be generally upset that the mood got changed because of it.”

Tony wrestles down his urge to commit war crimes, which if he was being honest with himself just keeps getting larger with each time Loki tells him about being a submissive in his own world had been like. Instead, he jumps up his comfort by stroking the center of Loki’s spine in gentle circles. Still just waiting to hear what color Loki’s feeling at this moment.

Loki breathes in and accepts the comfort. He needs to ask another question, and he’s hoping that it won’t actually anger his dominant this time. He’s not used to a dominant who is willing to listen no matter what, and even less confident on what that meant for scenes like this that weren’t a full punishment scene, but they also weren’t meant to be a fun scene. “What happens if I say yellow?”

“We talk about what’s making you uncomfortable, and then we decide what the best way forward with that is.” At this point, he’s likely to call Loki out on his bullshit if he says green. He’s clearly at either a yellow or red, and they both better damn well know that at this point.

“Yellow,” Loki whispers. He sends a word of thought to the Norns that this wasn’t a mistake.

Tony steps away from him and taps Loki’s arms until they lower down from the cross where he’s not holding himself up tot hat impossible standard for longer than he needs to. He helps Loki fall into the embrace, as the whip gets placed back on the table. “Good, so very good for me.”

Loki would be confused, if he didn’t have Tony’s arms holding him close. He’s not sure whether he’s capable of asking well-defined questions when there’s someone clearly willing to take care of decisions for a while right there. He nuzzles into Tony’s chest as the praise fills him.

“So good,” Tony continues softly until the way that Loki seeks out more comfort. The conversation can wait. He would put off this conversation for however long Loki needed him to. Screw his timeframe, screw everyone’s timeframe. The only person who might even be considered to be able to get him to hurry is if Thanos invaded the planet right now, and even that might not force him away.

Loki tilts his head up. “I think your mortal kind really like torture.”

Tony laughs. “Yeah, can’t argue with that one. We’re really good at deciding to torture each other even when that doesn’t make any sense at all for our continued survival. Can you explain to me why you freaked out?”

“The pain still wasn’t really hard enough that it would do any real damage until you hit me like hundreds upon hundreds of times. But, the lack of being able to know where that pain would land. Even the idea of it freaks me out after the first one.”

Tony nods once. He tosses the whip over towards the chest of toys in the room. He won’t even bother arguing that one. Some people can’t deal with that level of surprise. “Alright.”

Loki pauses as he hears something thud in the background. A compromise on the forefront of his mind. “Tony, I would take a hit of that if it meant I could still get a strike from the Asgardian whip to make an argument for it.”

Tony bites down on his tongue for a second then places a hand on Loki’s head. Right in the back, where he could stroke through his hair for a second. “Honey, you can safeword out of anything like that, at any time, and I will still continue the rest of the scene if you’re in the right head space.”

Loki twists until he can see Tony’s face. “But that wasn’t the deal I made.”

Tony sucks in a breath. He leans forward to press their foreheads together. “You honored the deal. You had to safeword to be safe, and that’s not breaking your side of the deal. That’s exactly what I want you to do always.”

Loki takes in the face next to his, and he leans back down onto the cross. “Thank you.”

“Don’t. Don’t thank me for doing the right thing, for being a decent person.”

“I’ve met far too many people who are not decent to not give thanks to the ones that are,” Loki drawls.

Tony can’t find an argument to that one. For someone who feels as though the rest of the world might kill him on the drop of a dime, he would want to thank people who don’t want to do that. Instead, he runs a hand all the way down Loki’s spine before stepping back and grabbing hold of the Asgardian whip. “Can you give me some guidance as a mortal holding a brand new weapon? Should I swing the same way I did for our whips, is there a different way to swing?”

“Magically enchanted. Will adjust to give the same pain based on your whipping style automatically. I made the enchantment when the man I once thought was my father asked me to, didn’t know that he’d use it on me. Didn’t expect it to become the major punishment for every submissive on the planet. I don’t know whether I would have changed my mind had I known, but it wasn’t fair to ask without telling me everything that it was meant for.”

That murderous rage that he had talked Pepper out of less than a week ago starts filling him too. How dare someone make a submissive make a weapon that would be used to subjugate themselves and others? How dare someone ask their own child make a weapon that will later be used on them?

That rage fades quickly though. Because he has a submissive trusting him to be in control and be clam and a place of peace. He can’t do that if he gets too deep into his anger at injustice. He’s here now, and he’ll make sure that if anyone even tries to hurt Loki like that again, they’ll be dead before the pain begins. He steps backwards where he has a good line for the strike of the whip. Then, he lets the whip fly through the air with a whoosh loud enough to have caused him to flinch in every other scenario but the one that they find themselves in.

Loki feels the fire spread across his back, and he lets out the deep scream that has been building in him. The punishment would be harsh, but it would be justified. He could be at peace afterwards.

Tony surges forward without thinking to take Loki into his arms. That scream might haunt him, and he’s going to do it again. And again. He’s going to cause that much pain. Why must he get into these situations? Why couldn’t this one be easier, where it wasn’t mass murder committed because of a parent’s abuse?

Loki curls into Tony’s arms. He tries to make himself as tiny as he physically can. He knows that he’s asked for this. He knows that this is the only punishment even closely on scale with his crimes. Yet, he hates that he’s asking for it to this point.

Tony shushes him softly as he pets Loki’s hair. He sucks in a breath of air. He has to ask for this now. He has to beg for it if needed, because neither of them were going to get through this if they were relying on either of them to get through it. Because he was going to be too soft, and practically throw the whip away from them at every turn. No good, because the guilt would haunt Loki for the rest of his life, and that wouldn’t accomplish anything good for either of them. And if they relied on Loki, they were going to push way past all regular limits for a punishment even to this degree because they were going to be satisfying his need to get approval from people who will never support anything that he’s ever done in his life.

“Loki, we can’t do this with just the two of us. I can’t do this with just the two of us. I don’t care who you pick. I can’t stress enough how okay with literally anyone I will be for this, but I need you to choose two other dominants who I can have in that room with us, watching both of us for when we start breaking down.”

“Anyone?” he questions. He can manage to get two other dominants he trusts if he can ask for anyone. Not Thor, his brother is too much like Odin to be safe for something like this. He’ll argue for an even harsher punishment on the basis that he was a prince and meant to be a beacon of hope for all and not a screwup like he proved he was.

“Yes.”

Loki smiles. If he can have anyone in the world, he wants the one person who both hates him and loves him that isn’t family. “Lady Sif.”

Tony’s about to tell FRIDAY to ask around New Asgard until they found a Lady Sif, when Loki shoots up from his position in his arms to start vomiting over the floor.

Loki heaves the second that he remembers. He can’t request Sif, no one can ever request her again. She’s a dead body on Asgard, because she wouldn’t allow Hela to hurt those people while she was still alive, and him and Thor had gotten themselves rightly banished by the terrible sister that they never knew. And oh shit, one of the only people that he’s ever trusted is dead. She’s dead.

“Lokes, what is happening?”

Loki throws himself at Tony. Craving beyond words that Tony can give him the comfort for a dead friend. Someone that he would have trusted with the deepest parts of himself. He’s pretty confident that even when he was a prisoner if he had needed a scene, she would have assisted him without demanding that it be the massive punishment scene looming over his sentence.

Tony catches Loki without pause. He lowers them down to the floor, while internally cursing that he still hadn’t thought to buy those cushions that he had thought necessary after Natasha had her breakdown. “Loki, I’m going to need a few words from you.”

“Lady Pepper,” Loki chokes out. Because at least that’s something that he can do that Tony had asked him for. He can give him someone that he’ll trust. And Lady Pepper had been nice to him when she had no reason to be. She had even been willing to fly to New Asgard to fight for him, that earned her his trust. That’s a decent reason to trust someone, he thinks.

Tony doesn’t have to tell Friday to send for Pepper. That command was a long-standing one. If one of the submissives in the compound called out for a dominant in clear distress, she was to contact that dominant immediately without hesitation. So, instead he just starts stroking down Loki’s back. “Okay, okay. She’ll be here shortly, I promise. Do you want me to have Friday search for the other lady you mentioned too?”

Loki sobs harder as Tony asks him that. Because how is he supposed to tell Tony with a straight face that he had forgot about his dead friend. He hadn’t even given her a proper pyre going. Only the generic one that everyone that had been lost got. That didn’t seem enough for her, and he’s surprised that Thor hasn’t brought it up either.

Pepper slips into the room, her soft slippers falling on the ground as she comes by and pulls Loki out of Tony’s arms and into her own. She offers Tony a small smile. “Hi, honey, is the idea of the scene getting too much for you?”

Loki shakes his head. That’s not the problem. Not even close to his problem.

“Okay, okay. No worries that isn’t the problem. Can you give me a direction?”

“He asked for me to choose dominants that I trusted enough to witness it.”

Pepper’s brow furrows. That’s a reasonable request to make. That’s even one that she could probably see Loki agreeing to under any normal circumstance. That doesn’t bode well for what’s happening. “Do you not feel comfortable around enough dominants to do that?”

That’s the only thing that she could think of that would lead to that exact reaction. If he only feels comfortable with her and Tony, she’d figure something out. Two dominants would be better for Tony’s mental state, but he feels comfortable with Bruce and Nat, maybe she could make a compromise for a few more submissives present in return for a dominant that he wouldn’t be comfortable with.

Loki frowns. He’s not conveying the problem well at all.

“He asked for a Lady Sif before you, and moments after he had a breakdown,” Tony offers softly still on the floor where he had gotten for Loki. Unwilling to move until Loki either asked him for something or said flat out that he wanted nothing to do with him at the moment.

Pepper runs her fingers through his hair softly. “I am sorry for your loss,” she whispers to him.

Loki twists in her arms to bury his face in her stomach. “I don’t deserve it. I didn’t remember that she was dead. I haven’t given her any form of a ceremony to honor her life. I don’t deserve to mourn now, it is selfish.”

“No, no, honey, that’s not how this works. You had to save your people first, you had to figure out where you stood in this world first. There were priorities, and you didn’t have time to mourn, or even time to try to figure out who you managed to save compared to who you didn’t. You realized the first time you thought of her after the fight. That’s enough.”

Loki lifts his head, eyes bloodshot. “I don’t want to mourn her alone.”

“That’s fine.” Pepper thinks for a moment over what the best way to offer this would be. “How about we go through with the punishment tonight, and in the morning, I round up anyone I can find to come with us to do that ceremony that you were talking about to honor her life?”

“You would do that for me?”

“Yes,” Tony answers for her. He’s relatively positive that after this many years of friendship, and this many years as business partners, he has every right to be able to say this when he feels like it is necessary.

Loki glances down. “Would you be willing to witness the punishment, Lady Pepper?”

“Just Pepper, honey. You have every right to informality with me, and yes, I will be there if you want me to be.” She cuts her eyes over to Tony to let him know that she understands why he needs her to be there, and why she’ll be there too. Then, she remembers what this will mean. “Friday, will you let everyone know that I will also be unavailable tonight and clear my schedule tomorrow?”

“Yes, boss lady. Should I also forward the invitation to the funeral?”

Pepper shakes her head. “No, I think that’s better done in person.”

Loki turns his head back towards Tony. “If you wouldn’t mind asking Dr. Strange whether he’d come?”

“Dr. Strange. Weird mage guy, didn’t seem to like you in the slightest, not the nicest person I’ve ever met. That one?”

Loki nods. “I know that he’ll be fair and reasonable when it comes to a punishment like this. He won’t let any emotions call him into giving me a lighter sentence which will make me feel significantly better about the situation.”

Tony pushes himself up. “I’ll give him a call and ask.” In all honesty, he’s pretty sure that Dr. Strange is going to laugh at him for having the audacity of asking for this. Still, this is something that he can do for Loki, and Pepper is the one who he’s accepting comfort from at this moment. He’s trying to convince himself that it doesn’t hurt him that Loki trusts her to give that more than him.

He walks to the nearest office room. He hesitates on whether he should call with a video streamed from Friday or by phone. In the end, he picks up the phone to try the call.

Dr. Strange picks up on the second ring. “I haven’t heard of any avengers level threat from the council, I would hope that’s why you’re calling?”

“Of a sort. Loki has asked to be punished as a submissive for the actions and crimes that he committed against Jotunheim before the battle of New York and all of that.”

Dr. Strange inclines his head. “And you were hoping that as the person who seemed to understand his crimes, that I would be able to help you confirm a decent punishment, I understand. Allow me to ponder this for a few moments.”

Tony waves off the concern automatically. “Not precisely. He feels guilt, and he gave what he thought would be a fair punishment, and one, I trust him to have known that, and two, it’s honestly an insane punishment.”

“What the hell did he ask for?”

“200 strikes with an Asgardian whip.”

Dr. Strange hisses. “That’s certainly a reasonable punishment for the crime. Like that’s the maximum sentence possible on Asgard for crimes, and while I’m not sure with his story, that would be what the courts would give him, I would certainly not question that it is a decent punishment. If its not that, why call?”

“I don’t believe that punishment is going to actually have the desired effect. I’m reasonably confident we are going to pass his limit at some point during that number of strikes. And I will not do that. There’s a reason I believe sentencing of a punishment in courts should still have limits, and why I happen to believe that courts shouldn’t be the one that declare those. There’s a reason that’s a platform I heavily support.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Sorry, I’m not being clear. I told Loki I would only do this, if two other dominants of his choosing were also present, so that if either of his hit a limit that we aren’t willing to call for whatever reason that we have. Such as, wanting to complete a punishment that is way too extreme for someone actually remorseful or falling into a headspace of a punisher rather than a dominant.”

Dr. Strange makes a weird face. “I mean that’s a good compromise, but I still don’t get why you called me.”

“He asked me to. He asked me to ask you to come witness this and be one of the people that can pull us back.”

Dr. Strange’s eyes widen. “I barely know him, and I’m not exactly the most practiced dominant anymore. I haven’t played since my accident and certainly not since I gained magic. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Tony shrugs. He’s confident that all of those words were the complete truth, but he’s also relatively positive that this was a better idea than half of the other options. “He believes that you will be fair and impartial. He believes that you’d be a good choice for him because he can trust you to do that. I’m inclined to listen to his wishes during this without constantly questioning him. I would be willing to tell him you said no, but I will not encourage you to say that.”

A frown forms on Dr. Strange’s face. There’s a portal behind him as the phone call ends and Dr. Strange is right there behind him. A sigh flows into the room. “I’m still confident this is a terrible idea. Not the least of which is because I do not believe even I can be impartial when that barbaric weapon is used on someone right in front of me.”

“But?”

“But, if he asked for me, is trying to make amends, and hasn’t given in yet, then I will be here to see it through for him.” He bites down on his lip for a second. “I suppose if we’re about to do a scene together, I would far rather that you call me Stephen than Dr. Strange.”

“Stephen, I can do that. I’m Tony.”

A laugh bubbles up from Stephen. “I am well aware.”

Tony glares at him. “Well, let’s go see about our willing god in the other room. See whether he’s no longer in the thralls of grief.”

Stephen’s face falls. “Did he finally recall who died during the Asgard attack?”

Tony nods to him.

Stephen closes his eyes for a long moment. “I suppose it would not be useful to tell him that she would have hated being alive when others were dead when she had the ability to do something.”

“Probably not. I’ve learned that those arguments are very good a few years later, when you’re talking about the glory of who she was and why she was the best, and why while you miss her it was all for the best. Not now, when the grief is raw and still gushing out emotions.”

Stephen pauses. “Umm, about the whole not having done a scene in a long minute?”

“Yeah,” Tony says. He’s more than happy to discuss that before the scene if Stephen has anything else that he wants to say. All people should have a chance to discuss possible issues in a scene, he’s very firm on that line.

“I was wondering how the relations work here, and how me participating would work and relate to that?”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Explain.”

Stephen spreads his hands out wide in front of him. They shake slightly regardless of his new control found in magic, the damage done to his hands still persists. “There’s a reason I haven’t done any scenes recently.”

“Kind of figured, Houdini.”

“You’re willing to allow me to scene with you even though my control is not perfect because of my injuries?”

“Yes. And if you can’t use toys with precision, that’s not an issue. You can always just add one of us who can have that to those scenes, or adapt for it using your magic, or I could try to come up with some technology that could do it. Why?”

Stephen wrings his hands together. This is an awkward request, and if he hadn’t seen several futures with Tony Stark, he wouldn’t dare to even try this, however he has seen them, so he’ll give this a shot. “I don’t want to get a single scene and then be kicked back out where the rest of the world doesn’t trust magic.”

Tony huffs out half of a laugh. “Alright, alright. Tell you what, most of the avengers are a family, you start showing up when you like for the family to talk to people, and I’m not going to kick you out. You want to try to become a member of the family, knock yourself out. You’ve got to convince most of it of the fact you’re sincere and you’d like to be with us. You want to scene with someone, you get their consent, other than that, I have no rules.” He sticks out his hand.

Stephen grabs it and squeezes. “Thank you.”

Tony shrugs. “Family is going to win way more often than a group of enhanced people trying to be an army.”

Stephen shoots him a wink at that. “As someone who can see the future, I can confirm that wins more often than it doesn’t.”

“Come on, Houdini. We’ve got a submissive whose either going to be very keen on getting on with his punishment, or in need of some more comfort.”

Tony leads the way, and Stephen follows behind him. He’s pretty confident with all that time jazz that he talks about, that he could lead himself, but it is nice that he allows Tony the allusion of being able to lead in his own home.

Loki’s eyes track them once they re-enter the room. He bites down on his lip. “Time?”

Pepper shakes her head automatically. “Nope, I told you, you could have a full half hour of just cuddles. Tony coming back with the other dominant changes nothing.”

Loki relaxes back into her, and she glares at Stephen as if daring him to say a word.

Stephen glances around the room. This was a play room, that was clear to see. However, probably not the best place for a scene like they are setting up. He whispers such to Tony in a voice that he’s reasonably confident even a god couldn’t overhear, just in case that freaks out the submissive seeking comfort.

Tony walks over to Pepper and Loki. He drops down into a cross-legged position and pulls Loki’s legs up and over his lap. He starts massaging the muscles there. “Do you have a preference on where we do the punishment, Loki?”

Loki shakes his head automatically. “No, wherever would be easier for your plans would be fine by me.”

Stephen snorts. “Since when are you agreeable, mage?”

Loki closes his eyes. “I’m agreeable to plenty of folks. Just not dicks that call themselves sorcerers when all they do are pretty party tricks and trap me in a time loop falling for 30 minutes while talking to the dominant.”

“Last time I checked you asked for me here,” Stephen teases as he sits down next to the other dominants.

“I don’t think you talked to Thor because he was a dominant.”

“Nah, mostly because I was relatively positive that you were going to cause problems.”

Loki peeks one of his eyes open to glare. “I had no intention of causing problems. I wanted to show Thor our father, albeit that plan would have failed, and then I wanted to go home and continue ruling our people in a way that would help them rather than whatever Odin was doing.”

“I knew Odin was dead, and most futures in which you found that out, and I did not intervene, you chose to create various annoyances that the remaining avengers had to spend months dealing with.” Stephen reaches a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. “I am sorry though; I didn’t quite realize that you’d be falling the whole time. I thought you’d be able to find your feet. Wong corrected my assumptions shortly after you left.”

Loki turns to Pepper. “I told you he wasn’t a proper sorcerer. He still doesn’t know how to understand the magic he uses.”

Pepper hums. “Hmm, seems to me, he needs a better teacher, since according to his organization, he’s one of the highest-ranking sorcerers out there.”

Loki sighs. “That’s me, isn’t it?”

“I suppose I could ask Thor.” Pepper makes to move for her phone, but Loki playfully slaps her hand.

“I’ll help. No need to insult everyone by calling him for magical help.”

“He’s gained some major control since Hela,” Stephen points out.

Loki opens both eyes, so he can narrow them at Stephen. “Sometimes, I think you enjoy provoking things that can kill you, just to see what they will do.”

“Maybe. I also like the fact that you’re actually a better person than most people give you credit for. If you managed to never kill Thor’s childhood friends or the dwarves, I think that I’m safe.”

Loki throws his head back with a deep laugh. “Okay, Stephen Strange, I think I like you after all.”

Tony chuckles too. He runs a hand up and down the leg in his lap. “Good, because he asked to try to convince the family to join, and he’d have a shit time if he failed to even convince you.”

“I get a vote?”

“Everybody gets a vote,” Pepper clarifies. Her eyes running up and down Stephen. “If he wants to join, I have no objections. He fought Thor for you partially earlier.”

Tony inclines his head. “I’m more concerned about how Clint’s going to do with a magic user that he’s not already in the habit of trusting after Maximoff.”

“Did someone check him to make sure her death got rid of all the magic in his head?” The question pops out of Loki’s mouth before he can think about the reasons that he might have preferred to keep quiet.

Stephen reaches out to tap his hand. “I checked from the past. He’s fine. Her magic was running off of her rage, so her death destroyed it.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Pep?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s joining the family. I can already see it. We’re just going to be a huge relationship anarchy in a battle-ready army. Damn, I should prep PR for when someone asks how we deal with scenes.”

“They’re going to kill us.”

“Eat you alive,” Stephen warns.

Loki groans as Friday sets off a small alarm, but he starts trying to extract himself from Pepper’s arms.

Both Pepper and Tony, almost immediately move to keep him right where he is.

Tony holds up a hand to stall movement. “A final conversation with everyone here, that way we’re all on the same page. Anyone safe words, and I do mean anyone, we stop. You’re forgiven for what happened by all of our standards. Because we’re dealing with a scene with this many people. You need a break, or someone thinks you need a break, they call yellow. You need to stop, or someone thinks you need to stop, they call red. Questions there?”

Pepper glances down at Loki. “Are you going to be okay with either of us being able to call that for you?”

Loki nods. “I feel better that way actually. In scenes on Asgard, there’s no pause option like I told Tony earlier. And during a punishment like this, we aren’t allowed a stop either unless a healer believes that continuing will kill us. Umm, so I trust you and the fake sorcerer to make sure that I’m okay.”

“Stephen.”

Loki spins around to stare at Stephen with a wild look. “Pardon?”

“You can call me by my name. Asking me to come here for this, and then allowing me to stay with everything, means that you are more than welcome to have permission to refer to me with my name.”

“Oh, thank you. I trust you, Pepper, and you, Stephen to keep me safe.”

Pepper strokes through his hair. “Thank you for that trust.”

“Alright, safe words out of the way. Practicality points that we should address. I don’t think that Loki will be able to keep himself upright with how many strokes of the whip he’s requested. If we stay in a playroom, we can easily tie him up to a saint Andrews cross. However, as Stephen pointed out to me earlier, there’s not a whole lot of great places for you guys to be able to witness me whipping him and being able to tell when things hit a certain point since the crosses are bolted to the wall which means I would be partially obscuring him.”

Stephen shakes his head. “I do not like that at all.”

“Agreed,” Pepper says.

Tony gives them both a wry smile. “There’s another option. We could go up to the suite. You guys can get comfy on a couch where you can easily see us both. And to support him when he needs it, we could use a suit.”

Pepper glares at him. “You really shouldn’t rely on the suits that much.”

“Friday would be holding it up, so it wouldn’t be just a suit, and again, I cannot stress this enough, the suits aren’t dangerous unless the AI or I go evil.”

Stephen giggles despite himself. They’re so much better than the universes where they kept fighting over the suit's existence, but even still Pepper doesn’t like when he uses them for things other than the fight. “I think this is a good plan.”

“I concur. I trust his suits, Lady Pepper.”

Tony tilts his head towards Pepper. “Overruled.”

She mock slaps his shoulder. “Fine, the suit is used in yet another scene. Because all of you are insane, and you clearly need my level head.”

That sets everyone off with another bout of laughter. As Tony helps Loki up off the floor. Stephen and Pepper trails after them as they get onto the elevator. They move together into the suite, with Tony laying the whip down on the table.

“Do you want the suit to have a hold of you? Like use its hands to ensure that you don’t fall, or would you prefer if I tied you to the suit? There are no wrong answers here.”

“Umm, do you have light ties? I won’t be trying to get out, but it would be nice to not have something that’s like handcuffs around me just because of my time in a prison.”

“Scarves? Or ties, do you think Pepper?”

Stephen steps closer and calls to his cape. The cape wraps around Loki’s wrists with a word from him. The word was please, and that word works wonders. “How about something a little more sentient, just in case?”

Tony nods. Respect for the fellow dominant grows drastically with the way that he’s handling this scene right now. This could be a fun development.

Loki closes his eyes. “Levi, is that fine?”

The cloak squeezes around his wrist in a comfortable gesture.

The tension leaves Loki’s body. “This would be delightful, thank you, Stephen.”

Tony snaps, as he gives the command for Friday to bring a suit up to the suite. He couldn’t very well use the suit he has on him when that’s nanotechnology and tied to his skin. He couldn’t both be the whipping post and the man whipping. That was a stretch too much. The snap however was for something that he hadn’t thought of before this moment. “Oh, yeah. Just a small thing, I prefer only being called Tony when I’m in the middle of a scene.”

Pepper offers a smile. “I don’t mind any title that you would like to use during this scene. That might change in the future, but today, I’d prefer to give just basic comfort if you don’t mind.”

Loki pauses. “Tony and Lady Pepper. That I can manage.” He turns slowly. “What would you prefer? The only title that I would be allowed to use on Asgard would be sir or possibly dominant Strange, neither feel quite right.”

“Stephen. For today, just call me Stephen. I’m not meant to be your punisher. I’m here to be a help.”

Loki furrows his brow. “I thought you were supposed to witness my punishment. Isn’t that partially a punisher role?”

“Normally, yes. But, we left normal a while ago.”

Loki looks down. “It’ll be a normal punishment, though, right?”

“Explain that for me, please,” Tony asks.

“In Asgard, a punishment is going to continue to completion, will that be guaranteed?”

“No,” Pepper says in a harsh tone. “We are here to determine that. We will stop it when we feel that the limit has been reached as it should for the crime, not based on a number. A number is cold, and a punishment should never be cold. You shouldn’t be placed under such horrible conditions.”

“I don’t understand how that will work.”

Stephen steps forward. “Do you remember how you learned that Jotunheim did punishments?”

“Yes, there dominants were always in charge of punishments even those declared by the court. The dominant would be told what the punishment must contain, but the duration and limits were chosen by the dominant who knew their submissive. That was told to us as part of their barbaric culture, and the reason that they were more violent.”

“We’re doing that. If you need to consider a reason for it, consider it part of a way to encourage you to think about the lies you were told and why those things weren’t necessarily bad.”

Loki inclines his head. “Alright. One day, I would like you to tell me how much was true and where those lies laid.”

“One day, I will. Not today, though. And likely not for a while yet.”

Pepper takes hold of Stephen’s arm and leads them over to the couch. She tucks her legs up under her as she curls up on the couch with a nice view. She tilts her head as Stephen struggles to choose how close to her he wants to be to give an air of connectivity and agreement with her, but also give her plenty of room since they’ve barely met
.
Stephen finally gives in and drops his head on her shoulder, his legs dangling off the edge of the couch. That way he could see the same way she could, and also, he could have some compassion from another during this. He knows the damage this whip inflicts.

Tony glances towards them, tracking where their eyes are pointing. He leads Loki into a better position where they can see his back pretty clearly. The lines from the mortal whips are already gone, but the one from the Asgardian whip still has a harsh welt across his back.

The suit arrives seconds later. The cloak, Levi, moves to tie him together almost as soon as the suit stops moving.

Loki presses his face against the cool metal as he sucks in his breaths of air. This was going to be intense, and he needs to breathe before the whip starts falling because after that his breath is going to be more difficult.

Tony picks up the whip in his hand as he steels his mind. He’s not going to be the compassionate person in this scene. This scene he is the executioner of sorts. He’s got to be the one to give a harsh line with no care until someone calls him out and safewords the scene. Otherwise, all of them are going to drop, and then Rhodey would kill them all.

Pepper gives him a nod to begin.

Tony starts with a light flick of the whip. He saw the damage a full blow could do, now he wants to experiment just slightly.

Loki lets out a grunt. The blow wasn’t like what Tony had used earlier, but the line still feels like it's on fire. He can almost feel the way that his skin rises under it to form a welt. He sucks in another breath before the next hit lands. The same intensity as before, layered closer to his shoulder.

Tony matches that same level for another six strikes, before raising his arm further back and giving one at the strength that he had done in the playroom. He knows better than to make a submissive get used to only one intensity for long. He might intend to do lighter blows for a while yet, with the count being 200, but he won’t let him get used to that at any point.

Loki screams as the larger blow lands across the others. The welt is immediate. He rolls his head back as he struggles to regain his breath. His brain doesn’t have anything but the pain after that blow. He can’t even get his eyes to focus enough to see what the look on Pepper or Stephen’s face would be.

Pepper lowers a hand to grab onto Stephen’s thigh and grip it in a death hold. She sucks in a breath through her teeth. None of them are at a limit, and they need to see this through, but this is a level of pain that she’s never had to witness before. She can’t imagine what this would do to a human, if this is what it would do to a demigod or whatever they want to call the Asgardians.

Tony lays another one in the opposite diagonal at the same intensity. He watches as Loki lets out another inhuman scream as he flinches against the suit. This time, water can be seen on the suit, suggesting that tears are flowing from his eyes.

This goes on for another two strikes, before he goes back to the wrist flicks, only when he starts that again, he still gets the screams. Or what counts for screams as his lungs start going quieter, and quieter. The pain is building. That much is clear not only from the noises that were going to follow them all for the rest of the time.

The next blow he does at an even harder level than what he did in the playroom. He thinks this is blow 25, so he wants it to be slightly more memorable. Blood falls from the whip this time when he pulls back.

Loki squeezes his own hand, wishing that he had thought to beg for someone to help him stand up rather than a suit. He craved someone to tell him that he’s doing good. He can’t scream any louder, but he can feel the sticky liquid on his back. That means that blood has finally been drawn. That’s good, other Asgardians would argue that this should count as the first blow because of that. He at least got them to agree to that on Asgard, that blood didn’t count as the first blow because otherwise dominants like Thor would have to get like 20 strikes in before the count would begin, so at least for official punishments, this was fine.

Pepper notices something up with Loki’s hands. He was carving into them with his nails, and she didn’t have a single clue as to why. Like she knows that it isn’t for the pain. God only knows how he’s reacting to that amount of pain in a reasonable way. “Yellow.”

Tony stops immediately, the whip hanging idly at his thigh. He stares at Pepper, waiting for her to explain what was happening. She wouldn’t call an end to the scene without some kind of plan. Or rather she would, but only if she had a damn good reason, and right now she appears to be stalled out of reasons.

Pepper pulls herself away from the couch. Her legs carry her right to in front of Loki, and while she’s confident that he can see her, there’s no recognition in his eyes. Exactly what she had been afraid of, he’s no longer present with them, he’s escaping somewhere the pain can’t touch him, which while completely fair, also means that they have several problems.

Her hands curl around his, and his eyes snap up to hers. Loki pants in shock. He hadn’t even realized that the pain had dimmed down, and he had no clue where the count was. Maybe this was actually an act cruelty to pull himself out of the headspace where all there was pain.

“Hey, you’re doing so well. I’m going to have Tony call back the suit, alright? I’ll take its place. I think we can both agree that I can hold you when you fade out that far, and that way I can tell you that you’re doing well the whole time.”

Loki puzzles through the way that she’s speaking to him. Her voice is kind, but he’s reasonably sure that the punishment isn’t over yet. That could be a trap, and he’d likely believe it was one, if it was anyone but them. “Yes.”

Pepper raises her eyes to stare at Tony. She had no doubts that he would follow her requests, but better to make eye contact to let him know how serious she was.

Tony looks towards the cape that has already started unwinding from the suit and latching onto Pepper. He snaps his fingers to send the suit back. He almost opens his mouth to warn her that the sound is going to be so much worse this up close and personal. Yet, all the same she knows, and he shouldn’t terrify Loki unnecessarily.

Instead, he waits until Pepper and Loki get adjusted to this new position. Then, he starts flicking the whip back against Loki. Some of his grunts and screams were covered by Pepper’s soft praise and count. She says the number first, and then whatever soft praise she can come up with.

Over and over again. The blood starts pooling on the ground every time that Tony strikes a bit harder than what he had been doing before. Loki’s body rippling under each and every blow. Until Tony’s brain stops even noticing the fact that every blow has blood splashing on his face.

“Red.” The word cuts through the haze that Tony has over his brain. He drops the whip from his hand, and as he looks down, he barely stops the scream from escaping him as he sees the blood around him.

“99,” Pepper whispers to Loki. “99, and we’re done.”

Only after she gets a soft nod in recognition from Loki does she turn to Stephen. He’s the one who had called a stop to the proceedings, and she wasn’t sure what he saw. She had been focused on Loki, and ever since she started standing with him, he had been much better with the punishment, so she’s relatively sure that he didn’t call it for that.

Stephen ignores Pepper’s stare. He’s more concerned about Tony. Tony who appears to only have just realized that he has blood all over him. “Tony, can you tell me where we are?”

Tony’s eyes don’t focus on him. They kind of flit over the room not settling on anything. “We’re in the suite of the Avengers compound.”

“Good, what was just happening?”

Tony lets out a startled laughter that slowly carries over until he’s bent over on the floor in full on belly laughter, smearing blood further over himself. “I have no fucking clue. I’m covered in blood, there’s a whip I would never dream of touching in a position that suggests that I’m the only one who could have dropped it, and I don’t know how the fuck I got myself into this mess.”

Stephen turns to Pepper. “That’s why it was red.”

Loki blinks once. His head has cleared as the blows stop coming. The pain is still taking most of his attention, but he understands enough to know that the dominants are talking over him. That's fine given his headspace, at least it is until he hears the word red again. That was the safeword for the scene. It must have been said.

He had been doing good. He’s sure that he was doing good. Pepper had been reassuring him of that the whole time. Something would have changed before she had called red for him. He would know if that had changed. He’s pretty sure he would know if that had changed anyway. So, Tony.

Loki’s body spins around before the cloak or Pepper could tell what he was planning. He sees Tony having a hysterical attack on the floor with blood all over him and tears streaming down his face. Words were still being said, and he can’t understand them. He can’t force his brain to work enough to understand what is being said.

He can still do something though. He closes his eyes and breathes in for several minutes. The whip prevents magic from being used to heal the wounds. That doesn’t mean that he’s cut off from his magic, just that what it wants to be doing, can’t be done. Won’t be done. He waves his hand, and the blood cleans itself off from the floor.

Tony stares at him. “Okay, I’m relatively sure you’re the person I was torturing seconds ago.”

“Punishing,” Stephen corrects.

Loki catches more of that, but he’s so tired. He can barely keep his head up. “Lady Pepper, what's happening?”

“Tony disassociated at some point during the scene. Stephen called the scene as soon as he noticed because this could be very dangerous for Tony.”

Loki meets Tony’s eyes. “I am a mage of the highest caliber. I was trained by the elves of Vanaheim, my mother’s people. I could help you, if you were willing. I do not enter minds without permission.”

“Go ahead.”

Loki dives into Tony’s head. He fights back his own disgust at the way that Tony was pushing himself through the pain of his screams in order to try to help him. He really should have made sure that by asking this of the dominant that he wasn’t completely ignoring limits. A soft limit, since he’s pretty sure that if it had been a hard one, even his pushiness wouldn’t have done a damn bit of good. He pulls out those memories to put them in the forefront instead of the lapse of thought during the punishment once blood was more constant.

Tony feels his mind come back to himself, and he knows that he has Loki to thank for that. “Thanks, reindeer games.”

Loki snorts. The exhaustion taking control of the functions that would normally keep him formal and proper to a dominant this close to a punishment. “Lady Pepper, can we lay down now?”

Pepper takes his weight onto her shoulders with the cloak helping her keep him upright. “That’s a brilliant idea, Loki.” She leads him over to the bed. She lowers him onto his stomach before joining him.

Stephen sticks behind. “You couldn’t remember much of anything, but you still trusted him with your mind.”

Tony shrugs. “Trusted him to mess with my mind, trusted you to stop him if he was going to commit any crimes that needed to be fixed again. Same difference in the end, I was trusting someone to keep me safe.”

Stephen wraps an arm around Tony to provide support as the move towards the bed. “Well, if that’s the case, I appreciate the trust.”

Tony doesn’t really remember if anything else was said before he was tucked underneath Loki where he could reassure himself that his submissive was fine. That yes, he had gone far further than would ever be accepted on a human, and that would be okay because that’s what he wanted, what he needed.

Chapter Text

Loki sneaks out before any of the dominants wake up. He leaves a brief message with Friday in case they wake up before he can make it back, but he needs to go tell Thor that he’s planning this funeral for Sif. He deserves to be there too.

At the same time, he knows that his dominants here do not trust Thor. He can’t say that he knows what happened, nor can he think that Thor could have managed to do worse than what he has done, so one of these days, he’ll have to ask for the story of last time Thor was with the mortals so he could understand. Not today though. Today, there was mourning to do.

He pauses at the edge of the steps. He’s not sure where to go from here. He could just teleport out, but that seems cruel when the dominants wouldn’t know where he was. Also, he’s pretty sure leaving a message with the AI wouldn’t be personal enough.

Rhodey pushes himself on his wheelchair to block Loki’s path. “Hey, man, what’s up?”

Loki shakes his head in shock. “I was trying to figure out the best way to leave Stephen, Tony, and the Lady Pepper a message that was more personal than the technology that Tony creates.”

“Why do you need to leave them a message?

Loki looks down. “They promised me that they would help me hold a funeral pyre for one of my friends, who died during the attack on Asgard, that I haven’t been able to mourn before now.”

Rhodey reaches out to touch Loki’s arm. “I am sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” Loki averts his eyes. “I need to tell my brother. She was his friend first, and to mourn without him would be a wrong against him that I am unwilling to commit, but I can’t ask any of them to go with me. Not when none of them like Thor. That would be cruel to them. It feels a bit like a trap where there are bad options in every direction.”

“Oh, no. You just did an intense session of a punishment, and now you feel like you’re trapped. That’s never a good recipe.”

Loki droops against the counter next to him. “Yeah, but I need to mourn.”

“You misunderstand. I am not about to tell you not to go get your brother. And I am certainly going to ensure that all of them are helpful to you to make it better. However, you shouldn’t go alone to New Asgard.”

“I won’t ask Lady Pepper or Tony. I suppose I could ask Stephen to give up more of his time towards this goal. Although that feels rude as well.”

Rhodey shakes his head. “If you are willing, I’d be more than happy to come with you. I’m a dominant in this family too.”

“Do you not have issues with my brother?”

Rhodey sighs. “I was really hoping to try to make sure that we could avoid you having to be in the middle of that situation with your brother. It doesn’t quite seem right that you have to deal with our issues surrounding him when he is your brother, and you love him unconditionally. However, if you’re going to be the level of family that everyone seems to suggest you are, then I should probably explain some stuff.”

Loki smiles. This plan is even better than his other one. Thor’s version of the story would inevitably be filled with mistruths that he’s taken as facts over the years, but he’s confident that Rhodey and Tony and Lady Pepper would not only explain their side but allow him to see facts as much as they have possible.

Rhodey rolls over towards the couch. “Would you have a moment to spend listening to a story before deciding how you want to do this?” Meanwhile, he’s already sent a message to Pepper to let her know that he has the god, and that while he’s not in a sub drop, he’s looking for a way to get himself there, so Rhodey’s going to play the interferer for a little while. The rest of them can handle the funeral stuff that Loki’s talking about while he’s busy making sure that Loki himself is okay.

Loki sits on the couch that Rhodey has moved himself towards. He considers the man. He knows that the injury must be significant if the mortal healers could not do more for him than what has been done, and he’s seen the man walking with the braces that Tony has made. He wishes that magic would be able to heal him without needing components that were missing. Once Asgardian crops began to grow, he could heal the man. But, not yet, and he refuses to give the man a hope that he cannot act on yet.

Rhodey forces himself to breathe normally to start this conversation. It wasn’t going to be a pretty tale. “Are you aware of how your brother got involved in this group?”

“I was the intended target of your group, thus my brother chose to align himself with you as you had a similar goal at the time.”

“Precisely. No one really knew whose side of any of this he was on at any given point. Not to say that anyone ever thought that he was going to be like evil or anything like that, just that none of us could say with a straight face that they thought he would be the ally of the century either. But, he swore that if we needed him, that he’d be there.”

“That sounds like something that Thor would swear.”

Rhodey shoots a grin towards Loki. “Right. Well, when we found out the scepter had been stolen, we asked for your brother’s help. You know what with it being alien technology and possibly even Asgard’s property.”

Loki furrows his brow. “I assume that things did not go well with the staff. It holds something that often corrupts those around it, that is one of the consequences of using such power.”

“Correct. Before Tony started looking at the scepter and running tests, he got things cleared with Thor and Steve. While he hadn’t told them literally every plan that he had that might be benefited from the information that he was looking for because no one else has any scientific background, other than Bruce, who by the way knew about all of the plans. Anyway, scepter corrupted a file that literally wasn’t even close to off the ground running yet, and what ended up happening was a murder robot who thought that Bruce and Tony were its creators.”

“That sounds like something that could happen with the scepter, although usually not without a push.”

“Like a hydra witch planting the worst memories into every member of the team’s head.”

Loki grimaces. “Yeah, that would be the push they needed. So far, I’m not sure why you’re angry at Thor. If it is because he didn’t warn you about what would happen, I can assure you that he wouldn’t know. He didn’t pay much attention when it came to the mystic, preferring more of a battlefield mindset.”

“We’d all have forgiven that,” Rhodey says. It doesn’t make the next words any easier to say, because he doesn’t like the idea of Loki being upset at them or at him choosing to be pissed off at Thor himself. Neither would really make any of the situations less than what they already are, and honestly, probably would just end with more people being hurt in the long run.

“When Thor found out, he blamed Tony. He damn near killed Tony while the rest of the team stood by and did nothing in his rage.”

“Pardon?”

“What?”

“He tried to kill a teammate, who was influenced under magic.”

Rhodey nods. “That’s the bare bones of it.”

Loki buries his face in his hands and groans. What he did not need was his brother committing crimes against the people that were saving them. “Does Tony know Asgardian law? He could take justice for that very easily, with a bare minimum of effort. My brother being king does not exempt him from the law, or at least it shouldn’t.”

Rhodey reaches out to lean a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “Yeah, well Tony wasn’t planning on ever actually seeing him punished for it. He believes that Thor was also under duress and that while what he did was awful, that Tony blames everyone else for not intervening more. And also that at the end of the day, part of it was Tony’s fault.”

Loki shakes his head. “No, my brother will face punishment for this. That I will ensure, although if Tony is willing, I may attempt to keep it a private matter.”

“Tony would have no issue with that,” Rhodey reassures immediately. “And if you want no part in this, that’s okay too. Like seriously, we all know that you love your brother, and wishing to keep these things separate, where you don’t have to deal with them is valid. The only reason I’m telling you the story, is so you understand why a lot of us have issues with him, and why all of us would be able to put it aside to help you.”

Loki laughs. Never in his life would he have believed someone when they said that they would put aside a grievance of this size for him, and yet he has no doubts that what Rhodey is saying is true. If he asked them to put it aside to help him, they would all shuffle it to the right and make room for him. Ridiculous. And, even more insane, he’s going to ask for that boon for the funeral. “Does that mean everyone would be willing to be polite for the funeral, even if he attends?”

“Yes.”

Pepper sets her mug down on the coffee table as she sits down next to them. “Of course. While you and Rhodey are attending to get that guest here for that, would you mind telling me what you would like here for the funeral?”

“Lady Pepper, you don’t need to do anything more.”

“I don’t care. I am fully aware that my obligations are long since fulfilled. However, you are my friend, and after last night at least at times, my submissive, so if I can gather supplies so you can mourn in peace, I would do so.”

Loki takes that at face value. She’s not trying to be a goddess among mortals, she just is. Same with Tony, and probably with the other family members once he starts trying to get to know them at the rate that they're going. “A pine tree, a torch, and if you could possibly find some bitter fruits, that would be nice.”

Pepper shoots him a smile. “That is something that I am most equipped to do. Tony and Stephen wanted you to know that they’ll be there as well.”

Loki doesn’t object. He has a gut feeling that he’d be mostly ignored anyway, since they’d claim he was lying if he said he didn’t want them there, and that he has no real reason for them not to come if they want to. Instead, he stands from his seat on the couch. “Rhodey, are you willing to allow me to teleport us or would you prefer to go the long way?”

“Can you teleport me with the chair? I don’t have my braces on, and I don’t really want to put them on right now.”

“Yes.” Loki walks around Rhodey. “It might be better if I have contact with both you and the chair though. Do you mind if I wrap one arm around your chest and the other has it’s grip on the handle?”

“That’s fine.”

Loki moves to be embracing the other man before he shoots them off towards Thor’s campsite. He allows both of them to get orientated, before sighing. There’s a pile of papers that have clear marks from their people on what needs to be done, and yet some of them appear to be unread.

Rhodey takes in the sights as well. “I assume that your brother has a plan for your people, perhaps one that some of the survivors disagree with.”

“I believe that my brother mostly plans on allowing them to do as they wish with the supplies we have, and not regulate much of anything at this time. I am expressing my concerns to him.” Loki pushes back a flap on the tent to reveal his brother sleeping on the ground.

He contains himself from making a dagger to make a point. “Thor, we have things to do today.”

“If you’re talking about rebuilding our kingdom, I think we can manage another hour of sleep before they must see the king and talk about how prioritization. As if the upcoming war is not our primary concern.”

“That’s for the soldiers to prioritize, yes. But what of the farmers, healers, and teachers? Should they just wait for the war to be done, before they deal with anything else?”

Thor grumbles as he raises from his sleep. “You know that I have no clue about what would best assist them. If you wish for them to do other things, feel free to act as the crown prince and advise me on what to do.”

Loki closes his eyes and wishes that he hadn’t accepted someone coming with them.

Rhodey shoots him a glance. “If you’re willing to hear ideas, I have some.”

Thor pops his head out. “Oh, man of iron the second, I would be grateful for any of your thoughts.”

“First, your teachers, perhaps they should attempt to integrate with the world, you find yourself in, so they may share customs with your people and they might be able to leave this land and mingle without incident. Second, your farmers should have first access to goods, so they might get the people ready for what comes next.”

Loki inclines his head.

“These are suggestions that mirror my brother’s greatly,” Thor mentions.

“They are wise council.” Rhodey offers Loki a nod. “After all, I am also a military man, but I also know that if the soldiers have no food to eat, they are not the best.”

Thor glances between them. “Very well, I’ll make sure that is known today. What business brings you here?”

“None of yours, I am merely here for Loki.”

Loki flashes a quick prayer that his brother doesn’t take any of the next few things the wrong way. “I recently recalled that Sif has not yet been given funeral rights. Lady Pepper has offered to gather supplies, so that I may give a ceremony this afternoon. I know that you were arguably closer to her, and may be upset that I took the liberty of arranging this, but it has been months.”

Thor narrows his eyes. That’s an understatement, but Loki’s the one who has been on his case about making sure that they didn’t take personal time when their people needed them. “And whose fault is it that I have an entire people without a home that I need to take care of rather than dealing with the mess that is who lived and who died?”

“Hela’s,” Loki quips just as quickly. He glances down at the mess around. “Tomorrow, I will try to go around and collect the names of the dead. We can hold a mass pyre in the center of town where everyone can have an evening to mourn. It will do the people well.”

Thor freezes where he stands. “How? How in the fucking hell do you just adapt to realizing things like this? It would take me weeks to do the same, and even then I can’t say that I’d be any real use. I’d just be super upset the whole time about what I missed.”

Loki contains his flinch. “I ruled as king for a time too, Thor. I ruled twice, and neither time did any of our people suffer. I won’t claim that no one suffered in my first attempt at wearing a crown, but none of them were the people I was sworn to protect and cherish and grow. You would do well to remember that while you were often in the ring training to be a solider, I was always training to be a king, advisor, and prince.”

Rhodey has to cover his mouth to stop himself from laughing. Because from everything that he’s seen, Loki has all the makings of a great king, and Thor has all the makings of a typical spoiled brat. The kind that the media loves to make Tony out to be. Instead, he rolls forward. “How’s everything with New Asgard going anyway?”

“Well, thank you and your leaders for your help,” Thor answers formally.

“Like hell,” Loki contradicts. “We’ve got to put out fires like every single day, because most of them have no recollection of a time even close to this. I mean our father took over thousands of years ago and ruled in relative abundance for its people the whole time. None of them know what to do without excess, and all of them are looking to us to have some magical solution that doesn’t exist.”

“Brother, he’s not one of us.”

“No, you’re not one of us.” Loki steps back where Rhodey can rest a hand across his hip. He smiles gently. “The ceremony will be in a couple hours if you can be spared.”

Thor glances between them for a solid moment. “Since when do you lean on anyone?”

“Since I met people who were worth leaning on and wouldn’t hurt me. And before you ask, no you weren’t worthy of that, not for a long time now. And no most of your friends weren’t either. Sif was, but only for certain things. And certainly she was one of the people I was closest to.”

With that Loki walks back out of the tent. He waits a few moments for Rhodey to come out as well. “I’d like to talk to some of my people in the interim, I might be able to fix some of the issues that are here from the last two days that I spent at the Tower.”

Rhodey nods. “Of course. If you do need anything for them, Tony might not budge a lot for your brother, but if you asked, he’d probably go around moving mountains.”

Loki offers a smile. “I know, and I might use that if I could use some manual help, but I’m not robbing you guys, because of the mistakes made by my father and brother, and possibly even me.”

Rhodey wants to counter that none of this could have been foreseen, and how that means it isn’t his fault. At the same time, back up plans probably should have existed. Ones that were better than flee to Earth because most of the universe was being attacked by a mad titan.

“I can teleport you back to the Tower. Probably can’t manage the living room, because I don’t know that room as well, but I could easily do my room or Tony’s.”

Rhodey could probably terrify them all if he told Loki to go ahead and send him to Tony’s. The likelihood that there wasn’t at least one person currently asking for comfort there was zero. He’d be surprised, if some of the submissives have found themselves comforting the dominants from last night, minus Pepper who is a force of nature, who chooses not to need anything. “Yours.”

Loki taps his shoulder and watches as his magic wraps him up and sends him away. A handy power to have that works far better on Migard than it did on Asgard. One thing that he’s choosing to look as a positive of this whole mess.

He walks down the path until he comes by one of the elder healers who has been setting up a temporary hut for those who get injured working. “Lady Olena, you see many people come through here day and night.”

“What of it, Prince Loki?”

“Would you mind trying to ask and keep a list of the names of the dead back home? I am hoping to host a mourning ceremony sometime soon for all the lives that were lost both in Hela’s reign and also when Ragnarök was started to save what remained of our people.”

The healer looks him up and down, searching for a motive. “As you wish, but you won’t get all of the names this way.”

“I’ll get more in a quicker time frame than if I attempted to go camp site to camp site and hut to hut.”

She inclines her head. “Usually, it is a king’s duty to mourn for those that were lost on their duty.”

“There is nothing left that is usual about our situation.” He closes his eyes and knows that if he asks this next question, he’s slightly damning his brother, and normally he tries to avoid that to the best of his ability, but some days, that just isn’t an option. “Do you know what issues are the most pressing?”

Olena sighs at him. “You are not the king.”

“No, I’m not. I was never the first born, and as all of us now know, I was never one of the children in the first place. So, no, I’m not the king.”

She clucks her tongue against her teeth as she leads him into her hut and gestures to the empty cot. “They are not your responsibility today, boy. You may be a prince, and you may be a member of the royal family and feel accountable for fixing everything, but that’s not your job today.”

“No?”

She places a single hand on his back, and he leaps up. The shout of pain escapes him before he can even try to tamp down on the response. The pain rushing through him like a fresh line of fire has been placed on him.
Olena stares him down as she pushes him back down onto the cot. “I know what someone looks like after they’ve taken a proper whipping for state crimes. I’m glad you chose to finally own up to those crimes, and I’m glad that it didn’t kill you. So, today, you will sit, you will be witnessed, and in the morning, half of Asgard will walk up to you willingly to answer that question, especially since everyone knows where the King’s priority lies.”

“You should not critique your king,” Loki cautions.

“Perhaps not, but I am old, and probably shouldn’t have lived.” She bustles around the tent for a few minutes before turning back to him. “Everyone in the tents, the ones that Thor doesn’t have living better to train, we all know why we lived. King Thor had no way to get us to safety. King Thor could not win alone. You, my prince, arrived with a ship, and you threw yourself in front of her time and time again to buy our people time to get to the ship.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“Yes, it was.”

His morning was weird to say the least. He didn’t fight the lady Olena from shoving a potion down his throat that she still had in stashes along with watching her use what herbs she did still have to replenish stocks. Nor, did he fight her when she stripped him of his shirt so that all those who came in could see. After that, the drugs kicked in, and he was docile.

He put up no fight as the people who survived stopped by. He slowly stood next to Olena to provide the basics. His magic was not equipped for healing, better suited to the harsh nature of frost giants, but even he could help with small cases of cuts and bruises.

Parents stopped sheltering their kids from him at some point too. He keeps watch of the sun to make sure that he doesn’t miss the correct time to leave, but for these minutes he feels at peace.

Until a soldier walks into Olena’s hut. He snorts at Loki’s presence. “Taking in the disgraced now?”

“There are no disgraced present here,” Olena counters. “What do you need?”

“The king has requested that you send any remaining pain potions to the forming barracks, so that we may use them to ensure the best training regimen.”

She swallows hard and turns her back to the shoulder. “I am not sure I believe that the king sent this message, and even if I did, I would like a word before doing as requested. If I give you all of them, every other citizen will go without for at least a full year, and that does not seem right. Not when there are preventative measures trainers can take to minimize the need.”

“You would question the king?”

“I would offer an opinion to him. Last I checked, he was never trained in the healing arts. Nor was King Odin, may he have found peace, which is why I was often consulted when such disasters effected crops on how much could be spared and where. This is an entirely different scenario, and I would like to believe the king would support the decision of those with experience with such choices rather than making demands.”

The soldier stares at her in shock, before pressing forward.

That’s when the drugs fade just enough for his instincts to have a better means of control. And he steps between them, towering over the soldier with just a hint of magic. “Unless, my brother comes here, Lady Olena is well in her rights to not believe you, and as someone trained in the healing arts, I would gladly give the advice to my brother should he request it that supports her decision.”

The man snarls rough and loud. “You are not worthy of being an advisor. You are a submissive, and to make things worse a traitor, deserter, and quite frankly, have been disgraced regardless of what a healer says.”

“Nobles can take whippings privately,” Loki snaps. “Of which, I have taken as is my right to become non-disgraced, since the king never declared me a traitor, and I have never been a deserter when my people were in need. Not when the dark elves were wreaking havoc and not when Hela came to kill all of our people. You have no right to judge me, I am your prince.”

“No person in the army would ever call you that, monster.”

Gasps come from the other patients in Lady Olena’s tent, and Lady Olena herself was glaring daggers at the soldier, to the point that Loki was rather sure that he’d be dead if it wasn’t for the fact that Loki was still in between the two of them, stopping her from having clear access to be able to attack him.

“Leave. That is an order, if the King has questions about your treatment here, he can be directed either to me or the Lady Olena.”

“I will be back.” He stomps out of the room.

Loki holds out an arm to try to stabilize himself and topples slightly until a younger man catches him and throws his arm around his own shoulder to take some of Loki’s weight. “Lady Olena, where should I take him?”

“Take him to the Avengers place, apparently that’s where he stays most nights. He is trying to win us desperately needed allies.”

A small child darts forward to embrace his legs. “Thank you, Prince Loki. You’ll save us again, won’t you?”

Loki can’t quite keep the tears from his eyes. “I’m going to do my best to save us all, but I don’t know what kind of world, we’ve found ourselves in.”

The man drags them both forward. He gets them a few feet before glancing back at Loki. “You’re really weak.”

“Took the whipping yesterday,” he offers up in explanation. Almost every citizen would accept that reason.

“Carr, my prince. Did you mean what you said to the child?”

“About saving us, definitely. Your king is going to do his best as well.”

“Yes, but he’ll save us to send us back into war and win battle after battle, and that’s not quite the life that we’re all looking for in the end. Most of us want to be in an empire, like the one that you were building when you were king. A time of peace, and allies, and a progressive movement.”

Loki twists his lips into a smile as he sees the tower in the distance. Nice to see that Asgardians haven’t gotten slow in their temporary displacement. “Well, Carr, you can spread the word to others that you see fit. I wouldn’t see us as saved, if I didn’t manage to implement at least some of that into our general life.”

Carr bows low as there’s a sound of engines roaring ahead of them. He covers his face with his hands to block out what he’s sure to be an attack.

James hops out of the car in lightning speed. He’s got Loki in his own grip within seconds. “Shit, sorry, I could get here the fastest, and I have super strength without a suit, so they were pretty confident that I could carry your weight. Shit, are you good? Your friend? Anything that we need to call like in an army for?”

Carr backs up further. “I’d never dare to claim a prince as my friend. I will be going. My prince.” He ends that with a low bow before taking off at a run.

Loki chuckles. “Think they might be a little fearful of you.”

“I did threaten to rip out more than a couple of soldier’s tongues if they continued to be stubborn on what laws in our world looked like.”

“Good, soldiers have never responded well when submissives give orders. I’m likely going to get my ass chewed out by Thor when he arrives for the funeral after what happened today. I didn’t handle things the way Thor likely would have preferred me to handle them.”

James shrugs. “Then I will get to punch someone that is called a god, and Pepper will get to kick his ass out of the tower and that will make her delightfully happy. No harm done, and he certainly won’t get to say a damn word to you. I’ll fucking kill him.”

Loki should probably say something about how this is way more his fault than most other things, but as he thinks about it, he realizes how little it matters. He had done the right thing, and it did not matter if that wasn’t the accepted thing, not to Tony or Pepper or even apparently James.

James sets him gently on the seat of the car and takes off to the tower in the distance. Neither of them buckled in, but James driving carefully to not set anything off. He does continuously look towards Loki’s bare back.
Loki wonders whether it’s out of confusion, fear, or something else entirely. Far be it from him to push though, the marks look deadly, and to be fair, there. have been deaths from them before. There's a certain form of self-care in making sure that you aren’t traumatizing yourself.

“You asked for them, right?”

“What?”

James taps on the wheel to stop himself from panicking. “Those lashes, they’re deep. Way deeper than what would be acceptable if someone didn’t ask for them, so I’m going to ask you. If you say you didn’t, I’ll find who gave them to you, and I’ll remind them not all submissives stay off the battlefield. If you say you did, I’ll tuck you into Laura’s arms once we’re inside and she’ll talk you down from whatever pit of self-loathing you’ve fallen into where you think you deserved this.”

“Anyone ever tell you, that you’re sweet.”

James throws his head back laughing. “I was tortured into compliance over several decades into becoming an assassin for an ideology that I don’t believe in. I don’t think sweet has been something I’ve been called.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to remedy that over the next few decades, because asking that is one of the sweetest things that anyone has ever said to me.” Loki smiles over at the fellow submissive. “I asked for them, Tony gave them to me, and Pepper was there to make sure neither of us went too far.”

“Didn’t you?”

“I willingly attempted a genocide.” Loki stares out of the window. “I deserved this.”

“Laura it is,” James declares. “I don’t give a fuck about war crimes. Well, I do, but even people who commit them can be forgiven if they’re you know rehabilitated and stuff. Asking for punishment, is a great start. Getting this level of punishment, is bordering on me thinking you were mentally ill when you made the decision and shouldn’t be held responsible anyway.”

“This punishment is typical on my planet for crimes like this.”

James arches an eyebrow. “I’ve seen your people. They aren’t the brightest. Maybe don’t trust them with all of it. They may get some things wrong, like fucking punishments, apparently.”

James parks the car. “Do you want to walk or would you like me to bridal style carry you inside?”

“I’m a bit heavy.”

James shrugs, taking that answer at face value. He would like to be carried, but he’d hate to be a burden, and he hasn’t quite figured out that it is pretty impossible to be a burden today. He reaches into the seat to drag Loki into his arms. He kicks the door closed and stalks inside.

Natasha meets them at the door. “Do I need to go get some daggers?”

“I’d be up for some sparring tomorrow, widow. Perhaps today might be expecting too much,” Loki drawls.

“Yeah, yeah. Let me know how you feel tomorrow. You look like hell.” She tilts her head up towards James.

“No daggers today, apparently Tony gave him the lashes.”

Natasha blinks a couple times. “Like our Tony.”

“Don’t think that Tony is a popular name in Nordic customs, so yeah.”

Tony steps out of the elevator and looks straight at Loki. “You good?”

“Fine. James is concerned that I’m drowning in self-loathing.”

Tony chuckles. “Thought so myself for a couple of minutes there.” He reaches out. “Pepper says she’ll have everything ready in about 30 minutes.”

James keeps walking. “I’m taking him to Laura. She’s the best with unsolved guilt.” Then, he does just that. He walks over to Laura whose sitting on the couch watching the kids as they play with all of the toys that Tony bought them. He tucks Loki into her side.

Laura immediately starts running her hand through Loki’s hair. She sets up a lovely little hum.

Loki lets his eyes fall closed for a couple of minutes. This feels a lot like the compassion that Olena had given him earlier, and the gentle acceptance of others in the New Asgard people. He rolls his head into her. “It worked.”

“Hmm.”

“Letting Tony whip my back all bloody and unnerved, it worked.”

“Did it now?”

Loki smiles. “Yeah, I’ve got a family that I trust won’t throw me under the bus when they learn what they’ve done. I’ve got the voices in my head to quiet down about the fact that I might be something other than monster that my father told me I was. And by allowing this to occur as is custom for my people, I’ve regained the ability to hold trust of my people for my actions without them possibly being declared a traitor.”

Laura smiles down at him. “So, no more wanting to be whipped in order to feel like you’ve been redeemed for whatever the hell happened?”

“Nope.”

Laura snorts. She wraps her arm just a little tighter around him. “If you do feel that way, you can come to me. I’ll try to make it better or at least come up with a punishment that isn’t barbaric by our standards.”

Loki spares a glance to the children before pushing himself up to kiss her cheek. “I understand, and I will come to either you or Tony with those issues. I promise that I won’t request this again, as I have no intentions of planning another genocide of my own people. That’s not a healthy response to anything.”

Laura stares at him. “I’m starting to understand why you chose a drastic punishment.”

Loki hops down from the couch, his feet a little more stable under him again, hopefully he won’t have to act like someone who has no issues for a little while longer this time. “My lady, I hardly ever commit to dramatics without any reason at all.”

Pepper steps up behind him and taps his shoulder. “Your brother is outside looking particularly concerned. Would you like me with you?”

“I told him that he’d have us both,” James answers for him as he steps out of the shadows. He clinches his metal fist. “Think punching a god will help with the whole every deity left me to suffer at the hands of Hydra for years?”

“Only if he provokes it. And probably,” Loki says drily.

The three of them walk out to the front with Loki at the lead. He inclines his head to his brother. “Funeral is going to occur in a few minutes. Glad you could come.”

Thor shakes his head. “Of course. But there’s been a worrying development that I could use your help on.”

If Pepper hadn’t been standing right there, he would have slid to his knees a proper gesture in Asgard, but he’s not just an Asgardian now. He’s a fucking prince, and he has the right to stand on his feet while giving advice, especially to his brother who he’s been cleaning up messes for, for literal years. “What has happened?”

“Lady Olena chose to provoke a soldier this morning, refusing to listen to my request. According to Bjorn, when he called her out on that, she had someone pretend to be you in order to get him out of her hut. She’s the leading healer that we have left living, but such a crime cannot be tolerated. I’m unsure what actions to take.”

“Have you asked for her accounting? Or any of the witnesses since she is the only healer in the general area?”

“What?”

Loki lifts his shoulder in a half shrug. “Well, if you want to make sure not to do anything rash, I would first suggest getting testimony from others. Especially since, his claim that someone impersonated me is extremely wrong.”

“How would you know?”

“Because no one impersonated me. I was there, and I intervened when he threatened a healer in her own tent in regards to her own specialty.”

Thor blinks and then laughs. “Oh, well that averts at least one problem. She hasn’t actually broken a law, so we should be good with a lecture on respect.”

“Respect towards whom? She had a soldier that she did not trust come in with supposed requests from a king that made absolutely no sense, and then she decided not to believe in his word alone. She told him that if he was telling the truth, he should ask you to come discuss as the lead healer of our nation before you choose what would actually be the best for the people of the nation.”

“A soldier is a person who should be trusted in high regards, they are my elite members who see me most often,” Thor exclaims.

Loki sighs. “If that is what you believe, I cannot stop you, but it will drive a wedge between everyone other than your soldiers, and I can guarantee you that will make life extremely hard on you.”

“Why? They’re not going to be of help during the Thanos invasion, and they won’t be able to help us conquer a planet to set up realm or do a military occupation on in order to rebuild after the Thanos invasion.”

James leans forward, and Loki’s arm shoots out to stop him on reflex. “If you do either of those things, you will not have me as an advisor or a brother. I will not condone actions again. I will not go down that road. And you will not ask it of me.”

Thor furrows his brow. “That is the way father would handle the situation.”

“Our father was not a good man. Or did you miss the part where he raised Hela? Or the fact that this is legit what she was talking about in her crusade for Asgard? Have you learned nothing?” Loki shouts.

“Loki... It isn’t as black and white as that.”

“Like hell it's not. You’ve committed crimes against your fellow soldiers here on Earth, and now you think is okay. Odin above, Thor, figure out your shit.”

Thor pauses. “You know why Dr. Stark won’t talk to me.”

“Yeah,” Loki says defeated from this whole conversation. “Yeah, I know, and he has a damn good reason. I was willing to try to help you, I was willing to stand by your side anyway, but you’re not trying to be better than father. You’re just trying to use him to help you cope with the situation we’ve landed in. Don’t look to me for your answers either until you sort out what you’re going to be, because I swear to the Norns if you fucking choose to go after healers and farmers, and the other people of lesser stature than your precious soldiers, when your soldiers are the ones aggravating the humans, the ones fighting against basic precautions, and making unreasonable demands, I will undermine you ever step of the way.”

Loki puts on a bitter smile as his brother looks stunned for the first time in his life. “Now, we have a funeral rite to hold are you coming or are you planning on hiding out?”

Thor moves to say something. Then, he aborts it suddenly. “When did you decide to be the brother I remember before the invasion of Jotunheim?”

Loki leans into Pepper and waits. He waits until she moves her body to have a decent hold on him. “Right before that invasion, I believed that I had people who loved me. After that invasion, I didn’t think I had that. I thought you’d kill me if you knew, and mother and father both lied. I got a little lost when I didn’t think I had anyone. Yesterday, I found out that I can’t get my family back. They’re long gone, but I can make a new one, and they deserve the best parts of me, and so do our people.”

Thor shakes his head. “You always did like to blame others.”

Pepper glares at him with the full force of someone who could ruin his entire existence with little more than a phone call. “What part of that sounded like an excuse? You asked when he became the person who you remembered so fondly, and he gave you an answer. Just because you don’t like his version of the truth, doesn’t make it any less his truth.”

Thor raises his hands up in frustration, then drops them. He won’t win that fight, not against every single Avenger on the grounds, which is far more than the last time. “Lady Pepper, I understand that my brother is charismatic, but you can’t just accept what he says. Because there are times, he’s just like the boy I knew, the one that he’s acting like right now, but there are also going to be times when he lies and tricks you into doing terrible things. That’s how it goes, he’s the best help you could ask for one minute, and the worst possible curse on you next. I’m trying to learn how to decipher them.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Tony exclaims walking out of the Compound and gesturing for everyone to follow him. “If you betray him, he’s going to make you suffer. If he loves you, and you prove worthy, he’ll support you until eternity.”

Loki chuckles. “Sounds like a pot calling a kettle black.”

Tony winks. “It is very easy to understand when you do things the exact same way.” He claps. “Pep, light of all our lives, have you gotten everything prepared?”

“Yep, Loki’s just got to tell us the steps.”

Thor shakes his head. “There aren’t any steps to one like this. We don’t have a body that we can sail off and light onto fire. We’ll have to settle for a pyre and prayer for the lost one that we love.”

Loki notices the change in his brother immediately. He’s no longer the man trying to push for control in a situation where he has none, he’s not the boy chasing after the warped image of the perfect father, he’s the barely adult person who has lost a friend in a horrific tragedy that also cost them most of their people. He steps forward to wrap a hand around Thor’s wrist and pulled him forward. “But we can do it with pine wood, since she would have been your general, and you were the rightful king when she died. And we can light the bitter fruits to symbolize the fact that she died with honor and that she might rise again when the final war is upon us.”

Thor’s head falls on his shoulder as tears start streaming down his face. “She shouldn’t have been alone.”

“She wasn’t. She had most of Asgard next to her, just not us because Hela threw us to a whole other planet where we were stuck for a time. We did the best we could,” Loki reassures softly. Grateful beyond words for Tony and Pepper not being upset at Thor enough to deny his presence.

Thor stares out to the sky. “It would be easy to blame you.”

“Perhaps, it would be easy. It wouldn’t be true though. I did not know being on the mortal realm would kill him, although he deserved to suffer for what he did to me. I did not know that with his death Hela, a daughter neither of us ever knew about, would be freed. And because none of us knew of Hela, none of us could have seen her homicidal tendencies coming.”

Thor stops as they see the pyre. “Tradition says that you were the one to think of the funeral for a dear friend, so you should be the one to light the fire.”

“Traditions can be made different,” Loki mumbles. He holds out a hand, and Pepper gently places it in his out-stretched palm. He closes his fingers around it before turning to Thor, urging him to hold it as well. Then, he allows his magic to light the end of the torch in a blaze of magical flames. He steps back away from the torch. “My fire, your hands. Both of us lit the fire.”

Thor smiles as he steps forward to light the wood up in flames. A true grace as they both stood to watch as the smoke pillar into the sky.

Loki steps back to whisper into Pepper’s ear. “Both of us our nobles, so we aren’t allowed to throw the bitter fruit in, would you mind?”

“Not at all.” She steps forward to pick up the basket that she had gathered of the bitter fruits. A shock to the grocery store clerk as she walked in after being on TV several times in the last few weeks. Still, he hadn’t said a word as she had filled up her basket. She tosses them in slowly one after another, semi-unsurprised as Thor went to his knees in front of the fire as she worked.

“Sif, I wish you were here. Leading an entire nation is not nearly as easy as father and Loki always made it look. The people are constantly trying to get my attention for the smallest of details. I would love to have you at my side, as we always said it would. You and me against the world. There’s no world for us to be against now, and you’re not here to help me. The day hasn’t been the greatest given all of that, but I’m still trying to be the king that you would want me to be. I hope that in whatever afterlife exists, that you are happy and alright and safe.”

Loki takes much longer to get down to his knees, grunting as he goes down. This is important to him, make no mistake, but perhaps waiting one more day to give his body more time to heal would have been a smarter plan of action. He takes a moment once on his knees to find the right words to say.

“Lady Sif, me and you did not get along the greatest after what you saw as my betrayal. But, even in death, I need you to know that it was never a problem with you that led to any of the situations that we found ourselves in. Many things would have been the exact same if we had never met. I am sorry though, that my actions hurt you, and I want you to know that when I finally did realize the wrongs in what I had done enough so that I was willing to take the punishment for them, I wanted you there. You always treated me kindly. You never took advantage when I begged for a scene to keep my mind from shattering. You deserved so much better than to die at the hands of the daughter of Odin that none of us even knew, but the Norns took you then, and much as we might wish to, we have no power to fight fate. May death find you a comfortable place to rest and a happy ending before the end.”

Silence reigns over the little camp site until the flames started dimming, and only then did Tony kneel down next to Loki to help him up. “Come home with me for the night. I know that you will need to return to your people and deal with whatever struggles they are facing, but tonight, come home with me. Let me assure myself that you’re alright.”

Loki nods.

Before they can get too far, Thor stops them. He doesn’t touch either of them he just steps in front of them. He swallows hard. “I don’t know how you wish me to address you anymore, man of iron. And I am sorry for whatever happened that caused us issue. You offered once if I asked nicely to explain, and to allow me a chance to make amends however best they can be made. Somehow, I’ve disappointed my brother with my actions, which I wasn’t aware possible, so I would like to at least hear what I’ve done, so that I can try to make amends. If you’re willing?”

Tony glances back towards Pepper. “When am I actually free to meet with a king about personal issues?”

The first answer that came to mind was right then. But, he was right that Loki would need him tonight after everything that had happened during the day after an intense session at the business end of a whip. “Three days from now. Tomorrow, you’re doing the meeting with the UN to figure out whether they’re going to try to claim we’re in breach for everything. The day after that the press conference over the re-opening of a weapon’s branch and trust me that’s going to be a hell of a time. The final one is you’ve been called to testify to Congress.”

“You heard my lady. Three days from now in the evening, work for you?”

Thor nods. “Thank you, man of iron.”

Chapter Text

Tony turns to Pepper almost as soon as they’re back in the compound. “Are we seriously doing that much in three days?”

“Honestly, it is a miracle that I managed to push them off for this long.” Pepper pulls out her phone. “Do all of this, and then that weekend, I will find a way to get everyone home to give you a decent day off.”

“Promise?”

“Mmm, T’Challa already agreed to come around should everything go according to the plan.”

Tony smiles as he tugs Loki a bit closer to him. “I think she’s trying to encourage me to be on my best behavior.”

Loki presses back into him. His eyes fluttering closed. “Yeah, you should do what she says.”

James darts forward before Loki sways too far from where he’s standing. He glances between the dominants. “While I’m sure there are many things that need to be done, but right now, he needs a bed and cuddles.”

Loki pouts as James has to hold him up with those words. “But?”

“No buts,” James corrects. “Natasha is getting the big bed ready for all of the people you want with you as we provide all the comfort that today should have held, if you weren’t a prince.”

“Oh, will Natasha stay?” It would be nice to have other submissives in the room. As he learns that Migard does not treat submissives as the way that he’s used to, he gets more and more off balanced. Having other subs there to keep him on page and able to understand easier.

“Anyone you want will stay.”

“What if I asked for everyone home right now?” That would be painfully bold, but being told that he can have anything, he wants to push for the most out of context thing. It could also make them think that he’s being needy, in which case, he’ll find out what happens if he disappoints them.

Pepper steps forward to brush a hand against his cheek. She directs James towards the elevator. “Friday, could you send a message to everyone telling them that Loki would like them to meet us in the suite as he could use a mega-cuddle pile with him tonight?”

“Already done, boss lady.”

Loki blinks. Even if he had thought there was a chance, they’d give in to pleading, he was expecting to have to fight for it. Not to just have his dominant call for others on the spot. That was ludicrous.

James just starts moving them towards the elevator and in a hushed whisper as he leans down. “They don’t take kindly to the idea that anyone suffer. So tonight, you get all of the love and affection that arguably you should have gotten this whole time.”

Loki could put up any number of arguments on why this was a ridiculous claim. First, his mother had loved him. Perhaps not in the way that he wished where she had actually fought Odin on some of the things he did, and not enough to ever tell him the truth, but she loved him. Second, his brother definitely loves him. Of all of the things that he is confident on, his brother’s love is certainly one of them.

James sighs as he realizes the bite that Loki is close to tearing out of him. “Not like that. Of course you were loved, but that love had conditions. And our dominants hate the idea of anyone having the audacity to charge for love.”

That makes more sense to Loki. Enough sense that he stops putting up a fight as Tony grabs hold of his hand and refuses to let go. Enough sense that he doesn’t argue with the way that James curls his arms tighter where Loki is less likely to fall or for him to get out. And enough that when the doors open, and Natasha, Clint, Laura, and the kids are all sprawled out into the bed, he doesn’t actually gasp in shock.

James places Loki down in the middle of that pile as the rest of them slowly get ready for bed. For a second, Loki thinks that there are going to be words that need to be said, and that he’s going to have to come up with what those words should be, not that it would be difficult for him, but it would require effort. Instead, Laura just uncurls herself enough that he can lean his head against her chest and feel the steady heartrate underneath him.

He’s out before another word could be said.

Laura turns towards Tony. “Will he be alright?”

Tony nods. “Yeah, I think between the scene that we accomplished, the funeral, and whatever happened at the healer’s hut in New Asgard, Loki will learn that what he’s done isn’t the end all, be all of his existence. That won’t be the only action ever judged.”

Laura smiles. “Good, because he deserves at least some good in this world for the magic of saving my babies from the Mad Titan.”

Tony wakes several hours later to Pepper pushing her heel in his spine. And he groans, because there’s so much work to be done, and not nearly enough time to get it done, even with his saint of Lady Pepper right next to him. “What’s the first thing on the agenda?”

“We’re flying in the jet to the UN, while we’re flying you’re going to pull up all of the blueprints that you have designed for the weapon’s industry portion that we’re re-opening and we’re ensuring that the people that we’ve placed on this detail are definitely not going to try to commit crimes and rob us, and thus break several intergalactic treaties.”

Tony squeezes his eyes shut. “Do we have enough time to stop for coffee?”

“I’ve had the jet fully stocked for your need of coffee.”

Tony grudgingly accepts that answer. He’d prefer some before they got to the jet and Happy had carefully driven them away from any of the dangers that crazy people who do not like his new plan tend to get. But, he’ll accept the other without too much complaint.

He drags out one of his business suits. One that is equipped for being called upon to speak in front of the largest organization in the world made up of enough governments that it should be an honor to be chosen. Yet, one that also says, I’m busy and you’re interrupting. A delicate balance, but given that’s the line he’s been walking since before he was born, he doesn’t think that it will be too hard for him to manage to figure a new balance out.

Pepper gives him a once over glance before giving a sharp nod. “I’ll be at your side during this meeting, as they aren’t just talking to you as Iron Man but also as the head of Stark Industries. Anytime they bring up anything that doesn’t have to do with research and development, defer to my lead. I’m planning on making a rather large statement about the tendency of the program to look to you for answers, when you are no longer the CEO of the company.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “I thought that part of the reason that I had been answering those questions was so that you wouldn’t have to deal with superheroes.”

“I live with so many at this point, I think that even pretending that I’m not involved is stupid at this point. And if I’m involved, then they ought to treat me as my status deserves and not as a lowly criminal.”

Tony shrugs. Her choice, he’s never once going to stop her from taking on a more vocal role as CEO should she want it. He gave it to her for many reasons and one of them was so he wasn’t always constantly juggling every single thing that he’s ever done all at once.

The two of them slip out of the room quickly. Luckily their voices weren’t enough to wake the kids, but loud closing doors almost certainly would. Eventually, Tony trusts that Clint and Laura will teach them to wake up at the slightest hint of noise, but that wasn’t for today.

Before they make it out the door, James has a coffee mug to push into Tony’s waiting hands, and a cup of tea for Pepper. He has a pleased little smile on his face as he gives it to them. “Be safe.”

Pepper kisses his cheek as she walks out of the door. “Of course, dear. It would take a lot more than this to keep me and Tony from coming back home.”

Tony doesn’t fight her on that claim, although he’s confident that she’s not nearly as correct as she thinks she is. The UN could probably hold them unless Tony was willing to blast the whole lot of them out of the sky, and blasting them all out of the sky would probably be seen as an overreaction no matter how their press team tried to spin it. However, they weren’t going to give the UN a single reason to doubt them. The United States would offer the most push back since they desperately want to change Tony’s mind about not giving weapons to governments, and more importantly theirs.

The car ride was quite, just loud sips from both Pepper and Tony as they tried to wake up enough that all the work that needs to get done on the plane, can get done all the plane.

Happy glances between them a few times. Especially the way that Pepper has started leaning into Tony more and more again. Her body allowing him to take some of the weight that she carries around without asking for permission. “So when did the two of you decide to start back the romantic flame?”

Tony hadn’t really even thought about the fact that they had. Or rather he had thought about how much better they were now that they had a whole family network backing them up, and the way that he could now trust that even when the two of them were heavy into dominant mode, they weren’t going to end up trying to push each other for submittance, but rather go to another family member and get it at the same time, like they had for Natasha. A much better system, and one that they had always wanted when they first talked about where they saw themselves in the future.

Pepper digs out her phone and types a few messages out. “When Natasha called while he was in the hospital, probably. Either that or when Natasha safeworded during a punishment, and I was the comfort for both of them. Which would you say better suits?”

“The second. Natasha was still convinced you hated her before that moment. Like full on asked whether there was ever a chance she’d be my first choice when you were still around because you hated her, and she didn’t want to feel like a second choice.”

Pepper nods once and updates something in her phone. “I’m going to count anniversaries from that one, if you don’t mind. Our other relationship wasn’t all that healthy, and I don’t want to continue rewarding it.”

Tony shrugs. It wouldn’t hurt him one bit if she wanted to use a different date every single year for when they got together, because his track record with dates is terrible. That’s why he’s got his AIs to remind him of the important bits when they come up.

Happy takes a turn to get them out of most of the traffic on the way to the airport in one of the busiest areas of the country. He has a slight frown on his face. “How’s that going to work with Tony having all those submissives living in the house? Not saying that you aren’t a good man and can’t separate sex from scenes. But, it has got to be a temptation to sleep with them every now and then.”

“I have slept with them,” Tony answers.

“So have I,” Pepper confirms. “We weren’t made for a two person relationship. Not the way this universe has been throwing us at each other, so what’s the point in trying to deal with everything like it will just be the two of us. We’re all together. Everyone in that house, minus of course the children.”

Happy blinks a few times. “Sometimes the two of you terrify me more than any of the villains that we’ve ever encountered.” He pulls into the spot near the private jet.

Tony opens the car door for the both of them as he grins at Happy. “Good, that means you’ll be prepared when we inevitably do something that is even crazier than before.”

“Like re-opening an arms department of one of the biggest companies in the world.”

“Or choosing to arm only alien and superheroes with those weapons because of the threat from space hurdling towards us.”

“Or saying yes to a clearly traumatized wizard when he asks to join the family with absolutely no check on whether he’s a good person or not.”

Tony gives Pepper a large thumbs up. “That one was a great choice though.”

She rolls her eyes at him, as the three of them board the jet. More often than not his impulsive behavior led to fantastic choices because the fates rewarded the bold. Or at least they sure seemed to reward the bold when it comes to Tony and whatever half-brained scheme he cooks up in that head of his.

Tony settles down on the jet with a full pot of coffee next to him to continuously pour into his mug and pulls up the files for weapons. Pepper has a point that before he does the press conference tomorrow, he has to have some sort of plan about what they’re opening up.

The first file is a simple one. With Shuri’s help in Wakanda, he thinks he has an idea for a personalized energy field shield that as long as you have the bracelet on would allow for a temporary shield to from around you at the time of an attack. It isn’t a perfect solution, because it can only absorb so much energy before it blow back on both the wearer and the attacker, but that’s still better than the constant ramming that the soldiers have been getting.

The second file contains the blue prints for a series of laser like bombs, that he had been hesitant to show even before he closed down the weapons branch of Stark Industries. They’d work great, and he has them incorporated in his suit, and by the same logic Pepper’s and Rhodey’s too, but the idea of a gun having access to this or heaven forbid more suits in the world is something that he’s been trying to avoid. He moves this file into the rejected bin as well.

The next file is one that causes him to set his head down for a moment. This would be an AI driven rifle, where the computer could help pinpoint the target using all the data that they could see rather than just what could be seen by a human. Killing machine, check. Likely to be useful with aliens that may or may not be flying or otherwise disrupting general human advantages, check. Needed, likely. So he moves that to the accepted file.
There’s a slight tremor in his hand as he does this. Since this will be the first time that he’s allowed a weapon to go into the accepted bin since Afghanistan happened. Since he found out in a rather brutal way that the United States doesn’t care about civilian casualties any more than the Middle East did. All any of them care about is who comes out on top.

Pepper places a hand over his once she notices. “We’re doing the right thing.”

“Can the right thing ever being creating more instruments that can be used to kill?”

“Yeah, boss. When you’ve got dictator type aliens coming to knock on the door with a desire to wipe out half of the known life in the universe, it’s a pretty good time to start making weapons of mass destruction, because if you don’t win the fight, the other guy will, and he’s got no qualms about murder at all.”

Pepper covers her mouth with her hand to contain her laughter. Because that’s both the simplest way to explain the situation and the most hilarious. “Plus, we’re not giving them to dumb humans.”

“No, I’m giving them to a culture of idiots who still believe that submissives should have no rights. Pepper, if they use these weapons to hurt their own people, I’m going to lose my mind.”

“Loki won’t let that come to happen.”

“Loki might not have any choice either.”

Pepper recalls the way that Thor’s hand closed around Tony’s neck, then she remembers the horrified expression when Loki stood up to him and called him out. There was more to the story of Thor than just a brute who through his power around like it was a weapon. Best guess is that Thor being told that he was a good man had caused him to stop worrying about the parts around him that weren’t so good, and that once someone actually slapped the final book across his head, he would be doing everything in his power to make sure that all of Asgard was better prepared. “Thor won’t let it happen either.”

Tony turned to stare at her in shock. Of the two of them, she had been the harder sell to even give Thor a chance to apologize. Why on Earth would she be claiming that Tony didn’t have to worry?

“The thing with Thor is that he’s truly trying to be a good man. He’s doing a shit job at it, and honestly I think the world would be better served if anything else happened other than him being a king. But, he’s trying, and once he realizes how much harm what he’s currently doing is causing, he’s going to try to fix it. Maybe that will be enough. Maybe it won’t be enough. I don’t think it honestly matters because if he’s trying, and Loki’s on his side, I’d like to see the person who tries to do something else.”

Happy drums his fingers along the edge of his seat. “Plus, can’t you make one of those self-destruct buttons, where if you think the threat is gone and the wrong hands still have them, that you can just destroy them all and say no more weapons for you, you’ve had your turn.”

Tony tilts his head to the side. He hadn’t considered making those for these weapons. All of the suits had them though, so he definitely already had enough blue prints that they could be easily added. The only issue is that it increases the likelihood that sabotage could hurt them if the mad titan managed to convince anyone to switch sides. A double-edged blade.

“Only do the weapons that are super heavy hitters, like the lasers. Weapons that could be created at some point by the others are fine to be continued.”

Tony nods and updates the files into a separate couple inside the accepted list. Those with safe guards and those without safe guards. Although the world should look out if he ever has to use those panic buttons, because he’s done taking kindly to people fucking with his technology to hurt people, and he’s even more done with betrayal.

Pepper glances at her phone. “The UN session has begun with the topics ahead of our arrival.”

“What’s happening?”

“Apparently, there’s new revival of the conversation for pardons, as if Tony Stark is willing to admit that the world needs weapons again after how vehemently he denied them before, then surely we need every hero the world has even come close to knowing.”

Tony sighs. Every single time, they start squashing those pesky bugs about pardons, someone higher up comes up with another good reason to grant them. And by good reason, he means easily defendable to the public, and not an actual agreement that it would be best to have those criminals running around again.

“Plus, Hammer tech has offered the United States some kind of deal on weapons that Hammer believes holds the strength to defeat aliens, which the US is graciously offering other nations of the United Nations in return for support on crushing regimes of dictatorships.”

“Aka, all the socialists,” Tony says. He rubs at his forehead. “Well, the first one, we’re going to have to address, again. The second one, we’re just going to treat as a non-issue. If the United States wishes to trust Hammer technology once more, that is their own downfall, and I will not be playing into their hands anymore. If the United Nations wishes to be abundantly stupid and follow suit. Once more I welcome them to their own demise.”
Pepper tilts her head. “Likely they’ll ask us what we plan on doing with the profits from the weapons.”

“I wasn’t aware we were planning on selling them.”

“They’ll then ask how we’re making money from the standards of business as we open this branch, how we anticipate feeding families, and all the normal jazz.”

“So dazzle them with our profit margins and how much we can afford to lose. And drop on them that in the next few months that there will be flying cars on the market that are going to boost are profits so much, I’m pretty sure I could end world hunger on those profits alone.”

“You mean you could, if the government wasn’t going to stop you.”

Tony inclines his head. “Yeah, well, no one should have ever been under the false allusion that the United States cares about people any further than it could use them.”

The rest of the trip passes in silence. With Pepper drafting take after take on notes for what questions she anticipates being shout at Iron Man and the CEO of Stark Industries. Unfortunately for them, T’Challa is not at today’s session because of the fact that Steve is pushing once more for release since the world is in grave danger. And Tony placing different drafts of weapons into folders for distribution or destruction. There are bow and arrows, daggers, swords, guns, bombs, and more. He’s not planning on letting anyone go into this battle without a minimum of three weapons. Preferably a decent defense arsenal as well.

Unloading from the plane, where several diplomats meet them is a sight that none of them have gotten used to yet. One of the diplomats steps forward. “We’ve been sent to escort you straight into the open session without allowing for you to say anything to the press.”

Tony waves off the concern with a practiced hand. “No worries, last time was a bit of a one-time thing for us. We were mostly just responding as things went with how early after everything this was.”

The better Ross stops them before they can enter the chamber, he jerks his head to get the diplomats to back off. “You may want to drop the act of being better than everyone before you step in there. There’s a lot of angry people.”

“Angry people are my bread and butter,” Tony replies. He’s used to people being angry at something that he’s doing. He’s used to them blaming him for all of those problems as if he’s not the one trying to fix them, as if he’s some kind of god or miracle worker that can snap his fingers and make the problems of today go away.

“They’re saying either you know more than you want to let on, and don’t believe that there’s a true threat to the planet, or that you’ve gotten so upset at Captain America that you’re willing to let personal grudges hurt the world.”

Tony tilts his head back to stare up into the bright light. “Yeah, well, unless you have a solution that doesn’t involve me walking in there and dealing with it head on, I think you’ll find that I’m still going to walk into that room.”

“Let Ms. Potts do it. Don’t walk in there at all, let her answer every question, and for once save yourself from being the focal point for every ounce of anger that the world has been building up.”

Tony shakes his head and pushes passed Ross. Yeah, the man has a point about him being the focal point, but what he still hasn’t understood is that Tony’s been taking heat like that since the time he could walk. If he mentioned at a school science fair that he thought that science should be more equitable between men and women, then he was at fault for not making his company change to that standard. He was six at the time.

Pepper walks behind him, head up straight. “Don’t forget.”

“I’ve got it.” He steps into the center of the room, and all eyes turn towards him, and they stop bickering amongst each other. “Hi, leaders of the world, I heard that you wanted to talk to me.”

“We wish to know how you can justify not bringing every hero into this now that you know what is at stake?”

“I have no intentions of leaving anyone who might be of assistance in this fight out. I believe the X-men as they are called have recently chosen to sign the accords and wish to be a separate force on the field, similar to Asgard’s army in the final battle. Last I checked, once you guys gave the seal of approval, they would be on the list for funding and providing weapons from my company.”

Glares intensify across the room. They know that he knows that they were talking about a single person. An ideal that far too many countries held up under the limelight and acted like he was the savior in a new skin the second that he woke up from the ice. Part of the reason why Tony is always extremely grateful to not be dealing with that anytime in the near future.

Tony faces the silence eerily. He could stand here all day waiting for another question. They could not. Of them, he has the better free time, only because he could draft and move files in his head and then just dictate what be done to an AI later, but that’s the point of creation is to give advantages that aren’t usually sung.

“Fine,” the German Ambassador snaps. “I’ll ask the more pointed question for my colleagues. As everyone here knows, Germany has not forgiven Captain Rogers for his attack in Germany, however, Germany also believes that in a fight against aliens for the planet’s defense he is one of the greatest assets present. What do you say to a pardon?”

“Depends on what for. I suppose the German government could if they were willing lift all charges of terrorism that were heaped upon him, and I will support them if they choose to do so. I would also welcome the United States, and South Africa to drop charges as well, if they believe this is the best option moving forward. The problem lies in where we would put him in terms of the fight. He can’t fight with the Avengers, there are charges lining up on offenses that he’s committed against many members of the team that would make him unable to be a good fit for the fight, unless you want a disorganized mess of distrustful individuals defending you. Perhaps, he could fight with Asgard’s troops since he does have enhanced performance similar to most of their soldiers. I would suggest reaching out to King Thor before making such a decision though. I wouldn’t want to insult someone who was once believed to be a god by our very own people.”

Pepper’s lips twist into a smile at the way that Tony isn’t denying a thing they said, while pointing out every concern that this plan could have on their supposed list of important things to consider. They couldn’t nail them to the wall with anything that was said, which meant that they were either going to have to change positions.

“You’re saying that you won’t put the lives of the world against what ever grudges you hold against Captain America.”

Tony shakes his head. “No, I will never put anything personal above the safety of all the people on this planet, however my issues with Steve Rogers would make me less effective in the field. You can’t fight two battles at once. Steve Rogers has come close to killing me one too many times for me to believe that I can fight beside him and not be wondering whether this will be the last time that I open my eyes. And while I can certainly emphasize and understand where the rest of you are coming from, it is not in your best interest to put us together. As I said, he is a valuable tool, use him as you can, but do not expect me to be the one to guide his way or be his shelter. Those years have long since passed.”

A few delegates look back and forth. “And if this body asked you to drop the individual charges that you’ve pressed in order to ease the way for whatever solution we find,” a delegate from Thailand asks softly.

“As long as I maintain my right to charge him again later once the battle is over, where he does not get away with what he did to me scot-free, I would be happy to oblige the request.”

Pepper hides her wince with that one. They might be pushing a little far to be asking for allowance to charge Rogers afterwards. He was still a hero after all, and if they did save the world, he would be one of the people who assisted in saving it. Somehow, no one ever likes punishing people right after they’ve done good.

“Or, you could make the requirement of all pardons on his service towards the world,” Tony adds. “I believe it was mentioned by Dr. Strange and Prince Loki that other galactic empires have a process by which volunteering for a fight like this is believed to cleanse the soul from what crimes it has done before. I would not stand in the way of such a proclamation.”

The council nods. The primary speaker for the entire UN panel for the Accords stands once that set of information has been translated. “Just for complete transparency, you will abide by our ruling in this case on what is to be done with Steve Rogers, whatever that ruling is.”

Tony doesn’t like being backed into that corner. At the same time, if he gives ultimatum after ultimatum, he’s less likely to get anything at all done, and he’d much rather have some sort of say in what’s going on than just have a piece of paper saying that he didn’t let the person who covered up his father’s murder go unpunished. “Yes.”

Normally, that would be the last of his meeting. He’d be free to leave the room and jump on a plane and deal with any number of the other problems that could have surfaced in the time that this meeting has been ongoing, however that’s not his luck today.

Instead, the United States ambassador stands with all the arrogance that he had once shown in a desert. Fully believing that whatever words were about to come out of his mouth were the most important words that would ever be said in this area. “Mr. Stark, we have a few concerns about your plans regarding the weapons.”

“Of course, you have full rights to ask. I would beg that you give me a rough estimate of the number of heroes you wish me to equip for the fight by the end of the month at the latest. I would like to start development as soon as possible.”

“That’s part of our concern, do you only plan on stocking heroes, and if so whose money will be paying for them?”

“Yes, only heroes at least only heroes for the humans. I also plan on gearing up Asgard’s soldiers. From what I understand, I am already owed much by their people and when they find a suitable place to rebuild an empire, I will be paid back in good faith. I am presuming that the weapons are a part of that bargain as well, since we negotiated all of that.”

“And how will your company benefit?”

Tony quiets. That is not a question for him to answer. Once it would have been, and he could probably even still give a decent answer, but this was the reason that Pepper tagged along, and part of the reason that she’s been so angry lately. They shouldn’t immediately turn to him for these answers. He’s not the one in charge of this portion of the equation.

Pepper steps neatly in front of him. “Stark Industries has cancelled all weapon’s contracts. The only one that we are considering opening is one to aliens, given that we know full well that humans will kill other humans with the weapons and we do not support war. Any war amongst our own people. However, given that we were unfortunately provided an abundance of proof that aliens might design to kill the whole of our species, we have to adapt. We will get money from Asgard. The superhero regimen is one that Stark Industries does out of our belief in world peace, and we should not charge for peace on Earth.”

An African ambassador. Tony’s confident that it isn’t South Africa, Egypt, or Wakanda’s. But those are the only three that he’s had close contact with in recent years. He should see about opening more branches in Africa. It would be interesting to see what all would come from that. “We want to know about the non-western world.”

“In what aspect?” Tony asks the clarifying question. Mostly because he’s not sure if the question is for him or Pepper, or whether this was going to be another one of those lovely questions where both of them have a significant amount to answer, and they have no idea what the best answer to these questions should be or is.

“Your heroes have almost all come from western countries. Your Asgardian army is in the United States. What about Africa, Asia, the middle east? Who protects us? What defense will we have against the armies of aliens?”

Tony squeezes his eyes shut. That’s why he wanted the Ultron program. That’s why he wanted a suit around the world, so that no one thought about the fact that there weren’t enough of them and they didn’t have the right skill set to have someone on every planet that deserved one. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, that heroes and the United Nations haven’t done enough to assure you that we are not planning on leaving you to die alone in the areas without us. I’m sorry that heroes were created during the imperialist era and that most of them are Western because of it. I’m sorry that even now, you don’t have a reason to trust most of us because wars are still ongoing. And the wars will likely continue being ongoing for centuries more even though we have more reason than ever to stop them.”

He takes a deep breath. “But, that’s not how the Avengers work. We will go where the threat is. If they land in your backyard, we have response teams that can land from where we are stationed in less than a half hour. There is a base close enough to get to the site within ten minutes. You will not fight alone.”

“But Stark Industries will not consider giving armies guns to do something about the situation in advance?”

Pepper shakes her head. “No, we will not. Everyone would be on their best behavior until the alien threat was gone, but the second that it was gone, people would start attacking each other again, and we refuse to be used like that again.”

The US ambassador stands. “You may have the right to deny us a contract with your company, but you cannot stop anyone from seeking out other weapons.”

“Be our guest,” Pepper says. “I believe there are many companies out there who have tremendous weapon’s abilities. And not a single one of them has someone on staff who has fought aliens. Allow them to fund your armies. Allow them to feed the fuel which spikes war in our planet. Do not be surprised when it does nothing against aliens. Do not be surprised when the weight in your heart doubles as you watch soldiers fall because we were proven right. And when you stand upon hallowed ground and realize that the world is no better than when you were born. Do not look to me for pity. I have none.”

“Don’t turn to me either,” Tony warns. “We know all too well what humans are willing to do to each other. I was tortured in a desert cave because I had weapons that could possibly kill other people better. There are lines. I believe in humans, in our future, but I will no longer be party to watching you kill each other while using me as your goldmine.”

The speaker has to spend several minutes getting everyone back under control. At least three middle eastern ambassadors were screaming threats towards them, European ambassadors trying to claim that’s why they should be given the weapons to eliminate those people. None of them seemed to understand the point was that if they were asking for weapons, they were part of the problem.

No mercy became the news slogan for them as they walked out of the UN. Pepper on his arm like she had been when they were publicly dating. Something that might come up in the press conference that doesn’t have to do with their choice to burn bridges where it concerned weapons. Extremely valid to attempt given that there will likely be some anger involved with what’s going on.

The plane ride home is quiet and peaceful. Pepper sleeps across the couch with her head in Tony’s lap. Tony idly pets her hair, while still sorting through files and blueprints already saved up. Happy crashes in one of the chairs. With time differences what they are. They’ll only get to be home for a few hours before they need to be at the press conference, and at least half of an hour of that would be in the car driving back to the city proper where the press conference is being held.

Tony’s phone buzzes almost as soon as they land with a text from Laura asking whether they want another person on press duty with them because either her or Natasha would meet them there if they did. He passes the phone over to Pepper. Whatever the witch of coming up with ways to keep them out of trouble wanted, was whatever was going to be done.

Pepper shakes her head. “If Natasha is there, people are going to bring up the pardons because she got one. And Laura is mostly unknown, and the kids need someone to stay with when all the shit goes down, which means I don’t want Laura becoming too popular of a figure.”

Tony nods in simple agreement. He doesn’t care all that much between whether or not anyone else is there. He’s been at press conferences for his whole life, and he’ll likely be in press conferences for the rest of his life as well. That’s the consequence of being a rich man with a company and a superhero.

Happy drives them without complaint. He does pull over at a burger stand though to order them all some food, so they can scarf something before they have to talk to more people, who are going to ask even more ridiculous questions. Tony tips outrageously when he gives them the card to run through the machine, and the worker gushes at being able to say that she had served the amazing Tony Stark.

Pepper types away on her phone. She glances up once they arrive at the front of Stark Industries where several news agencies have already set up the equipment. “Head of PR believes that someone in the audience is planning on trying to go offensive and ask whether you’d consider arming private citizens that aren’t associated with the government or superheroes.”

“Delightful.”

“We’re still planning on claiming that we offer no mercy to any of them. Not a single person who condones using weapons after everything.”

“Oh yeah, we’re doubling down on that stance. In fact, we’re going to even say that the only regret I have over the Ultron fiasco is the fact that I thought that allowing the public to have weapons in the form of suits would do anything other than damage.”

Pepper raises an eyebrow. “Are we now?”

Tony nods. That’s half of the fun of doing press conferences is throwing such a wild thing at them that even if they were planning on potentially throwing a curve ball of their own, they won’t have any time to write articles on what they planned since they were too busy putting out the fire that Tony gives them.

Happy glances towards the crowd. “We’ve got plenty of non-reporters in the area too.” He points towards some of the ones that are holding megaphones with a gesture.

Pepper shrugs. “There’s police activity in the area every time we do a press conference at the headquarters. We should be fine.”

Tony leads them both up stage and sets them down on foldable chairs to make the appearance of the idea that they weren’t going for gaudy today. He leans back in the chair, slips his sunglasses on, and starts dozing off.
Pepper would antagonize him for trying to fall asleep in front of the press, but his strategy was highly effective. Everyone always underestimated him when he starts the day out by dozing. And being underestimated is how you win a game where everyone is trying to trick everyone.

She waits for 7pm on the dot before standing up for the podium. “Hi, everybody. Lots of familiar faces here. I know that articles have been flying since we announced the return of our weapons’ division and with the UN calling us in just yesterday, I’m sure even more questions have been generated in your fields. We’re here to give answers to the best of our ability on Stark Industries and its role in the upcoming battle. Please try not to ask about politics or superhero actions, lord knows that those questions are important, but we are here as Stark Industries, not heroes.”

“What would you say to people who say that you can’t turn one off like that?” A reporter calls out immediately. Flat out ignoring the guidelines that she had just set. She has to tamp down on her urge to just refuse to answer. Part of the reason they set this up was to be a place where many answers could be shed.

“I suppose I would say as someone who doesn’t even have a remotely plausible way to claim that I am both all of the time, I think that the statement is easily false. I am not Rescue while I am the CEO, and I am not the CEO of stark industries when I’m off using my Rescue suit to well rescue people. There’s not an either or situation that needs to be created.”

“Speaking of Stark Industries, there have been concerns raised about how a non-profit section of the company will pay its employees. Do you have any comments to alleviate those concerns?”

Tony smiles at that reporter. At least they got the memo that they were here to talk about the company, not about the invasion on Earth. Not that he disagrees that both are important, but event hey need a partial break from all of the things that happen on the day to day basis. “Stark Industries is home to many charities and the employees that work for those charities still receive fair wages. We are planning on paying the full amount to all the employees that we plan on transferring into the weapons’ department.”

Cristine sticks her hand up in the air with a frown on her face. “Your profit margins are not good enough to open a branch this size without cooperate losses. Where is the money going to be transferred? And why do I feel as though neither your or Pepper’s salaries will be impacted by this new allocation of budgets?”

“Cristine,” Pepper says with warning clear in her voice. “I do not recall sharing a decorated budget for this year’s finances with you, so I struggle to see how you believe with such conviction that we do not have the money to do exactly what we say we have the money for.”

“Indeed. We have always left around a quarter million to a full million for other expenses in unallocated. Usually this ends up going towards bonuses at the end of the year, but in the case that we need it, it is there and we do not have to worry about lay-offs or anything else. This year that money will be funneled into creating three new departments. The weapons one as everyone here is now confident of, will not be a for profit agency. No weapons will be sold by Stark Industries, although I have heard from Pepper that we plan on making trades for them with at the very least Asgard, as they feel to indebted to us to not return the favor in some fashion. The second branch will have some profits attached, although we plan on charging as minimal as possible for any goods within that. We are entering the medical field. Prosthetics are something now near and dear to my heart as my best friend needs them in order to walk. Since then, I have been working diligently on creating prototypes for all different limbs. We hope to be able to open that branch with the intention of taking veterans or other survivors of atrocities as volunteers as soon as possible.”

“That doesn’t answer my question of where you’re pulling money to fund both of these operations.”

“No, Ms. Everheart, I doubt it would. The third division is the one where most of our new profit is hoping to come from, and where I am most excited to draw people’s attention. We are finally fulfilling one of my father’s oldest promises to the American people. We have created market worthy flying cars.”

Cheers explode from the audience. And Tony can’t help but hide his chuckle. He forgets how easily people are made happy by the introduction of something new and shiny. Something that they can actually talk about to their friends and be happy about. No fear, just excitement. He’s missed being able to hold an announcement and get that response.

Pepper rolls her eyes. “We were supposed to wait until the end of the conference to announce that.”

Tony grins at her. “But we had the perfect opportunity with Ms. Everheart’s question. Was I meant to pass up such a glorious moment to share with the world something wholesome?”

“Pre-orders for the first mass market sell will be on the Stark Industries website by the end of the day, however I will warn you that Stark Industries legal team is currently in a battle of wills with the airlines and government to come up with the safest way to implement these in public, so we can’t offer you a specific date on when your car will become available to you.”

Cristine stands there gaping at them for a few minutes more, shock clear in her eyes. “You’ve invented the flying car?”

“And passed all safety tests and have a prototype out and about running on private property.” Tony winks at her. “Being a genius is fun.”

“How soon do you think that the general public will have access to such amazing gear?” someone screams.

“That’s an excellent question. Right now, they are rather limited and expensive to make, so at the moment the prices for them are rather high. I am certain that either my company or another will find a way to steam roll that process at some point though, and that improvements to models will occur that shall allow older models to be sold for cheaper. My guess would be a few years, but not long now that we’ve punched through on the progress in the first place.”

When silence lands over the conference, Pepper calls an end to it. She handles the more precise ways of ending broadcasts and giving each reporter another chance for a final question. Rather than allowing Tony to just walk off stage like he normally does.

Pepper leans in close to him. “Now, do you want to meet with the president before you have to testify to Congress over whatever their newest concern is or do you want to curl up in our own comfy beds for at least ten hours of sleep before we have to get onto the plane to arrive fashionably late to Congress?

“You intend for us to be fashionably late to see a government body?”

Pepper shrugs. “The only right they have to call you in is as a private citizen. They can no longer claim that Stark Industries is an American company, they can’t claim iron man is an American hero, so all they have is that you are a citizen of the United States and when pushed you have other countries of citizenship, and I’m rather tired of the government pushing.”

Tony stares at her. “Who are you and what have you done to Pepper Potts?”

She throws her head back laughing. “I hung out with Loki one time too many. I know full well that the government doesn’t have nearly what they’d like to have on us, and I’m tired of them pretending that they have any wiggle room. We have them by the neck dangling over the edge of a building, not the other way around.”

Tony blinks, before he joins the laughter. “Oh, Pepper, you’re completely right. Have legal on standby just in case they try to arrest me?”

“Better, I’ll call Dr. Strange and have him portal you out before they can get the handcuffs on you, and we can talk to lawyers when you’re safe within our house.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Sleep it is.”

And by sleep, he really doesn’t mean sleep. He will probably catch at most seven hours on the couch down in his lab, but he wants to run over the blue-prints that they do need to leave accessible to the public to pre-order cars as it goes up. And he’d like to actually send out the forms he meant to VA across the nation to allow for veterans who wanted to be a part of ground-breaking research to sign up before going to a more widespread database. That would help with his guilt over the fact that at least some of the weapons he made were used to help people.

Pepper probably knew that too. Or if Pepper didn’t, Natasha did. That’s evident by the way that she slips down with snacks every few hours while glancing towards his computer. She finally does stop by after a few more minutes to speak. “What you’re doing are the actions of a good man.”

“Working myself to death?”

“Trying to make sure that people have hope during a time when that isn’t all that likely. Giving them something that can stand for a better future.”

Tony nods. “It probably won’t be enough, Natasha. They’re going to remember in a week, that there’s a mad alien coming to destroy half of all life. They’re going to remember what comes after a victorious battle, the way that the government bends over backwards to accommodate us, like we aren’t fully a part of society anymore, and they’re going to be angrier.”

Natasha settles her head on his shoulder. “They won’t do that this time.”

Tony shakes his head. He knows, even if none of them want to say it, that by the time the battle is done, Steve Rogers will walk free in the United States at a minimum. He may not be able to intrude upon their family, he may not be able to hurt them the way that he once was, but he’ll be here. He’ll be in their presence again, and none of them were going to get a single ounce of joy from that.

Natasha leans over to whisper in his ear. “Even if they pardon him for battle, we will only deal with him until the threat is in the past. I was once an assassin, and I can be again. He does not get to constantly hurt us and get away with it. I will not allow that. I refuse to allow that.”

The tension that had been steadily growing in, dies down. Of course she isn’t going to allow Steve Rogers to come in the way of the family’s happiness. This one isn’t a problem that he has to fix on his own. He’s got help when he needs it.

“Thanks, Nat.”

She shrugs her shoulders. “Don’t know if you should be thanking me for hitting a stage where I’m willing to kill someone.”

Tony narrows his eyes at her. “If you want to play the guilt card over that, I can go get a paddle.”

Natasha giggles. “You’ve only got five hours before you flight to DC.”

“I can take the suit,” he counters. He’s daring her more than a little. But, he doesn’t want that guilt to take hold of her. He doesn’t want her to be close to dropping when he gets back because of something that he could have avoided while he was home.

“Get some sleep,” she commands. Her voice steady and calm. “If I need the paddle, I’ll go to Rhodes or Laura. Depends which one of them is likely to be less upset at being woken up.”

Tony calls that bluff. She’d go to one of them if she dropped but not a second before then. “Friday, can you get Rhodey?”

Natasha tilts her head to the side. Whatever she sees on his face tells her to not push this, or he’ll ensure that he ends up late to Congress in a manner that is pretty far from being acceptable as fashionable. She chooses instead to sit down on the couch down there with her legs tucked under her.

Rhodey wheels into the lab, rubbing his eyes. “Tony, we’re not doing mad science today. I need sleep way more than I want to know what crazy scheme you’re concocting.”

“Not mad science.”

Rhodey opens his eyes all the way and takes in Natasha on the couch. “Yeah, spider, want to tell me about it.”

“Tony believes that my decision to kill Steve Rogers at the end of the battle has an associated guilt that potentially requires some correction.” She smiles. “I am not as confident, however, you know as well as I do, that matters very little to me.”

Tony is about to start asking questions, when Rhodey wheels all the way in front of her and places a gentle hand on her face to guide her eyes back up to his. “What did you say to make him believe that there’s any guilt for that action?”

“He said thank you, Nat, after my proclamation. I replied that I didn’t think he should be at the thanking someone for being willing to commit a murder stage.”

“And what did you mean, if you were going to try to explain it again?”

Natasha furrows her brow. “Killing him is not something that I would like to be thanked for. I acknowledge it as the best option, and I offer no qualms for doing so, but at the same time, these are not skills I would see praised if I were to have an option regarding it.”

“She’s not feeling guilty,” Rhodey confirms to Tony, mostly only for Tony’s benefit.

Tony glances between them. “You’ve done this before.”

Rhodey shrugs. “Rogers used to say thanks or other praises to her a lot after a mission. A lot of the things that he praised her for were the things that are expected of honey pot assassins, the very things that she wishes that she hadn’t been taught. I told her back then, that I couldn’t stop Rogers but that I would stop doing that myself, then she asked whether if she had trouble explaining that someday again, whether I could act as a translator, since I knew. I said yes.”

Tony purses his lips. He’s still pretty confident that Natasha is on the verge of some kind of breakdown, but she also does hold a lot of trust, and if both her and Rhodey say its fine, than he should take them at their word. “Congress is going to be hell. And when I get home, rather than doing my normal purge, I’m dealing with the god of thunder with fucking issues engrained from a culture of shit.”

Natasha gazes towards the computer screen to not take in either of their eyes. “His issues are normal though. We’ve seen it in people raised like this here too. He believes that he’s being progressive, because he wouldn’t see his brother collared and paraded down the street. He believes that he’s doing wonders by allowing Loki a voice on his council not just in a familiar setting. And the problem is, he’s not entirely wrong. For his people, all of that is progressive. It’s still a problem because it still makes him as lesser than someone else, but it is progress. For all the terrible things that he has done, he’s not a bad man. He’s just unable to see correctly.”

“Like you,” Rhodey confirms softly.

“Yes, like me once.”

Tony regards her for a second time. Perhaps he had been putting stalk in the wrong guilt. This wasn’t that she felt guilty for what she might do to Rogers one day, but that she was forgiven while someone that she thought had similar circumstances still laid unforgiven. That makes so much more sense. “Would you ask me to forgive him?” His curiosity might kill the cat one day.

“No, he hurt you. And I don’t really want him forgiven for that.” She squeezes her eyes shut and tightens her grip on the soft cushion below him. “At the same time, I don’t think he should be punished for trying. And he has tried. At every turn when one of us corrects him, when one of us explains to him, when someone takes a leap and tries to help him see, he advances.”

Tony smiles at her. “I think that’s what Bruce sees in him too.”

Natasha ducks her head. “I think Bruce sees a lot in him.”

“Just saying Natasha, just because he’s not in the family right now doesn’t mean that you can’t go to him and Bruce if you want to.”

“Not yet. Tell me how your conversation goes later this evening, and we’ll see whether my answer changes. But, I don’t think I could do anything with someone I’m not sure won’t betray you. Not after what happened in Siberia.” She stands from the couch. “I’m going to go find Laura. Thank you for coming Rhodey.”

Tony takes her place after a few moments. He lays down to at least get those few peaceful hours of sleep. He gets kicked in the thigh b Rhodey after a moment.

“Hey, let me onto your couch.”

Tony sits up to help him get himself down onto the couch without issue. He leans his head on top of Rhodey’s chest. “Friday, don’t let us sleep past when Pepper tells us that we need to be up.”

“Of course, boss.”

That’s the last thing he remembers before there are sirens blaring in his ears. It takes him a minute to orientate himself on the couch and on Rhodey. He’s less surprised to see James in the room with them.
James grins as he cuts off the sirens. “Sorry, Pepper told me to come down instead of Friday because and I’m quoting here ‘you’re less corruptible’.”

“Is she aware that I’m like 90% confident that I could ask you anything and you’d give it?”

James shrugs. “Probably not. I’m very sneaky.”

Rhodey cracks an eye open. “You staying down here and keeping me company while Tony goes to save the world from the US Congress?”

“I can,” he answers.

Rhodey’s answering nod is enough for James to cross the lab floor and curl straight into him. He overtakes Tony’s spot in a matter of seconds and does it with a lot more grace and agility. Clearly happy to be within someone’s arms.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Tony teases as he makes his way up to the penthouse. This meeting he’ll need a proper suit on. And quite possibly a miracle to not do anything stupid when senators try to tell him that he’s a traitor to his country. He wonders whether they’re going to have soldiers there to plead cases with him again. Those are the worst because he’s looking the people who he wants to save in the face, and he’s saying no to what they believe will save them, because they’ve been lied to for so long that they’ve forgotten that more weapons won’t stop the killing. It’ll just bring more killing. They never retain control over every weapon that he gives them.

A lightbulb shoots up in his head, and he jerks his head into the edge of his closet door in his haste. “Friday, connect me to Pepper now.”

“Tony, you’re not nearly late enough for this.”

“Yeah, no, I’ve got an idea that might cause Congress to stop sweating.”

“Oh, one that doesn’t also break our personal rules on what to allow.”

“What if we made weapons with a miniature AI that self-destructs if they aim the weapon at a human?”

“And those are the ones we allow to the public or the army,” Pepper muses.

Tony starts one of his fancier ties. “That way we can clearly say that we’ve added a protection to ensure that humans aren’t attacked by our weapons, but that no one can claim that we are leaving a portion of the public without any defenses.”

“I like it. Let me check with PR to make sure that I can make an announcement on that. Also, will we be selling them? We should probably announce that with the PR release if we are, and that might kill some of the talk of putting heroes above our employees among other things.”

“Selling them seems reasonable, and then when they inevitably screw up, they’ll have to pay to replace them as well.”

“I presume that these weapons can also be bought by heroes although heroes have the specialty ones that you make for the UN?”

Tony grins. He knows that she can’t see him, but this time, he’s got enough ammunition that Congress won’t even be able to play into the whole, we’ll go to another dealer statement that they had last time.

The flight was rather busy between Pepper having to call every head of Public resources that they had to discuss the best way to announce this information and then also deal with the havoc of the system that this would put on the company. On the bright side, almost all of economists that they have in the company agree that this is going to result in them making back all of the money for bonuses and then some for a net growth into the new year, which is always a good time. And then, Tony himself, was working on making the weapons plans that they wanted to have released to the public with the safety feature in tune. He decided against a miniature AI in each weapon, since that would allow far greater ability of someone to hack the weapons and rather go with a new AI that would oversee all the weapons by being installed within them and run back information to be tracked by Stark Industries.

His name for the system amuses him almost as much as the rest of the names do. This one stands for A Brief Reminder Avoid Harm at Masses. Or Abraham. Probably won’t make sense to people outside of his company or his home, but the rest of them don’t need to know why Abraham is there in their weapons at all times, they just have to accept this as the cost of Stark Weaponry, which almost everyone will.

Tony Stark walks into Congress with the same confidence of the last time that he was forced to participate in these trying meetings where he’ll inevitably be yelled at. Only this time, the confidence is a lot less based on the fact that he’s dying and couldn’t care less and more about the fact that he has his ducks in a row and Congress won’t be able to do a thing about it.

The speaker of the House nods to him as he takes his seat on the panel. This time, they didn’t bring Rhodey in to testify over him either. They had several leaders in the aired forces and army present, but none of them with a direct connection to him. That at least they did smarter than last time.

Tony inclines his head back. “Speaker of the House.”

“Mr. Stark, we appreciate you taking the time to attend these summons.”

He shrugs. “I’m a busy man as of late, but I like to think that I’ve never done anything that would harm the United States, including ignoring the calls from the House or Senate. Is this to be a joint council?”

“It is,” the speaker confirms.

Tony feigns shock at that. Of course it would be a joint council. If the United States is going to declare war on aliens both the House and the Senate have to agree. If the United States wants to try to force the issue of raising him to Secretary of Defense again, that will also require both of them to approve, although more so the Senate. And if they plan on running a smear campaign against his name, they’ll need every member that they can scrounge up to ensure that this isn’t going to backfire. “Also, Mr. Speaker, my title is doctor.”

The speaker blinks. “Of course, Dr. Stark, I do not recall the last time that you stood by that being your primary title.”

Tony sends a smile towards all of the members of congress staring at him. “Well, to be fair, once I stopped developing weapons and had yet to transition the company into something that was truly making leap and strides for the United States, I didn’t think it fair to force the issue. I always noted who gave me the respect that my doctorates gave me, but I did not require them at any point. Now, though, I’ve just announced several new branches of Stark Industries, all of which should better the lives of Americans and the rest of the world, and I feel demanding the respect for that, is well-earned.”

“And if the congress men and women here do not agree with you?”

“Well, then they don’t agree. However, since I am the average citizen, and you are the body of the government, you are supposed to be the ones reaching out for diplomatic situations such as this.”

One senator clears his throat. “As amusing as it would be to allow you to bicker with the Speaker of the House on titles, may we please present our concerns to you, so that you may lay them to rest?”

“You are welcome to do as you please. I am here because you called me to be here, not the other way around.”

The senator closes his eyes and appears to focus on remaining calm rather than screaming. Probably remembering the connotations that could be drawn if he did start screaming, given the last senator to do that turned out to be a Hydra member that had snuck into the United States. “Dr. Stark, are you aware of a threat that faces this nation?”

“Yes, I have briefed on this threat to the United Nations as it is a threat that doesn’t just face this nation, but the whole world, so I felt it best to contact an organization who will have the power to talk to more than just a single army.”

“And yet, have you done anything to bolster are own nation in preparations?”

“I have gathered the Avengers under one house, armed and fed them. I’ve also been in contact with several other organizations of enhanced and have been in constant vigilance on what best should be done to prepare for the outcome that will someday be facing us. Do you have reason to believe that I have not done what I should be doing?”

“General Greller, can you please read aloud the memo that you and your men sent into us?”

The general nods once. “At this given time, it is believed that Dr. Stark’s words were correct. No armed forces in our nation nor likely any other have any weapons of strength that could be used against aliens short of nuclear, which would have devastating effects on our own planet not theirs given the location of the battle. We are of the full opinion that without the assistance of Dr. Stark, we will be unable to come up with weapons that deal enough suitable damage to be worthwhile in the training of soldiers to prepare for battle against aliens. It is my personal belief that our efforts would be of more use delegating removal of civilians, and rescue efforts.”
Tony smiles at the man. Lord knows they’re going to need people on the relief efforts and the insured cooperation of citizens to move out of the way and not further towards the robots. That one he had learned in Sokovia. Some people will not leave their homes just because danger is present, some of them would rather go down with their own ship, which would be fine, if it wasn’t also connected to the Avengers failing to successfully evacuate.

A house member stands up rather than allowing the rather polite-mouthed senator to continue. “Would you not call this an inadequate assistance of your country?”

“One, I don’t believe it has ever been a civilian’s duty to deal with the handling of enemy combatants, but even if it had been, I have given you every report that the Avengers have on aliens. Including the ones we did post the battle of New York. I do not have more information to give you. Two, while I am sure the general is right, I could likely arm the government with weapons that could damage aliens, that is also not on me. I am no longer the CEO of the company who could make those executive decisions, and can only speak to what is known from a research and development position as that is the only one, I occupy.”

Another senator stands up, a woman who is looking at him with anger. “So, you will do nothing?”

“I am quite literally doing many things. I am arming the United Nations chosen forces to go against the aliens, I am personally funding those weapons. I am doing the same for Asgards forces as well. That’s not nothing. Now if you are referring to the private armies of the world, which all of you know, I do not trust further than I can throw on a good day, let alone a bad one, no I did not plan on arming any.”

Someone raises a hand, a much more polite way of demanding attention. “You said did not, has your mind been changed?”

“Yes, a valid argument was brought up by the press the other day that I would be allowing citizens to potentially be facing aliens alone while heroes were minutes away. While I can assure people that the response times are rather miniscule, they do exist. That means that we should create a way for citizens to be safer. Stark Industries has we believe created a weapon that would be capable of harming aliens, but that would not harm any humans.”

“Pardon?”

“We have weapons that will be on sale both to the public and governments, unless of course this esteem body chooses to ban them from public use, although my lawyers would be happy to debate the second amendment with you should that become an issue. These weapons will be designed to do damage to aliens based on the technology I have developed for the Avengers and Asgard, however, they will have a safeguard to ensure that they can never be used against humans. Obviously Stark Industries has a very vocal anti-war perspective, and we wish to have no part in arming armies to attack other humans, but since I truly believe we need defensive aid based on what the rest of the universe has to offer us, I strongly stand by the decision to create weapons to fight back.”

Jaws drop open in the senate. I haven’t done something that insane in front of them in a long time. Even when I hacked into them, I was still at least following a pattern they had seen before. But this. This they had no warning for. Nothing that could tell them anything.

The House Speaker shakes their head after a minute. “You plan on selling weapons again?”

“Yes, that information isn’t yet available to the public, although my PR team has been drafting a statement about it. Of course, our decision between the higher-ups in the company weren’t confirmed until yesterday, but we’d been playing with ideas for a while. You were after all correct when you asked whether I knew of a threat coming. Of course, I knew of the threat and was trying to find the best way to handle those threats.”

“And you don’t think the press will rip you apart?”

“You’ll find, speaker, that the press have long tried to mess with me, and I rarely care. Is this a change in policy from our other stances in the past? Yes, it is. Is this change going against the fundamental principles on why we made those stances? No. Will people be angry about the change? They always are. Will that anger boil into something that outweighs the other? I have my doubts.”

The general turns towards Tony. “On behalf of the army, I am glad that you have changed your mind.”

“On behalf of the public, I hope that you never abuse it. Senators, members of the house: the warning manuals will explain this is much more detail, but if these weapons are ever used against humans, there will be a small danger to the user. I would heavily suggest emphasizing that when you tell people about this advancement.”

Tony sits up straighter, puts on his best I’m done smile, and tilts his head. “Will that be all? As I mentioned before, I am a busy man, and I’ve got several things that still need to be done today.”

He waits for the dismissal before leaping at the chance to leave. He’s a bit tired of dealing with people who don’t even remotely know who he is as a person or why he’s doing any of this. He’s sick and tired of them going around and saying things about him as a person.

The plane is waiting on him shortly after him and Happy arrive at the airport. He makes it to the seat before remembering that there was a good chance that Thor would be waiting for him at the Compound when he arrives. He makes a beeline for the sofa on the plane to crash. Best to have a bit more sleep in his system before he gets confronted with that apology combined with a plea for understanding.

Happy shakes him awake when they land. “Pepper sent a message to let you know that Thor is waiting for you in your office when you get in, in case you want to change first.”

Tony forces himself to sit up straight and blink his eyes to clear his head. “Thanks, Happy.” He takes the shortest route into the compound, bypassing the hallway to his office to instead slip into James’ room.

James raises an eyebrow as Tony walks straight into his room, while he lays across his bed with another fantasy book, a new one, since he had completed the Tolkien series finally. There were some good things about the future, mostly that the genre that only really had a single story written in it in his time, now had an entire section dedicated to it in every bookstore.

“Can I steal a t-shirt? One that will hang over me as you’re significantly taller than me, where I don’t have to wear pants or some other stupid shit now that I’m finally home.”

James jerks a thumb towards the dresser that sits next to his closet, before returning to his book. After a few more pages, he jerks his head up as Tony starts stripping out of a suit right in front of him. He hums. “That all you wanted?”

“Pretty much. I didn’t want to have to go all the way up to the suite, when Thor is apparently patiently waiting for me in another room, but I also refuse to have personal conversations while still in a suit and tie that I wore before Congress. It gives the worst possible imagery.”

James eyes him up and down. “Suit yourself.”

Tony pauses halfway through preparing to yank on the t-shirt. “Why? Do you have a better idea?”

“I don’t know. I did tell Rhodey that I owed you a blow job, and you did just walk into my room and start stripping. I guess I thought that there might be an ulterior motive behind all that.”

Tony closes his eyes. He knows that he should say no, because there was someone waiting for him in the other room, and they really do deserve to have the conversation waiting for them. However, the last few days have been one fake conversation after another, and he does want to be relaxed walking into the meeting with Thor. “James,” he says softly.

James closes his book and moves it to the side. He crawls over to the side of his bed before walking over to Tony where his hands have paused barely through the sleeve holes of the t-shirt that he’s stealing. He drops down to his knees with a grin on his face. “I like being able to do this for people. I know that you have the meeting with Thor, and I really don’t need you to reciprocate or anything of the like. I’m more than happy to go out of my room and drape myself over Pepper since she’s home and tell her that she’s the only one I haven’t pleased recently, and I’m pretty sure that she has far more free time tonight. So, yes or no?”

“Friday, is he still patient?”

“He is not aware that your plane has landed and that you are anywhere near ready for the meeting. I figured that there was no need to tell him that when you might need some extra time to relax today.”

Tony wonders whether his largest mistake will go down in history as being willing to allow his AIs to have personalities. They would get him into so much more trouble than anything else ever could. “Yes, James.”

James wastes no time, hooking his fingers over the elastic to Tony’s underwear and yanking it down. Then, he has his mouth around Tony’s cock and is urging his hips forward in a jerking motion.

Tony realizes within a few minutes that James is encouraging him to go ahead and chase the pleasure being offered. He keeps the way he fucks into James’ mouth shallow, not wanting to choke the man or even come close. But, the warmth and the connection to another person are way to enticing to not end with his orgasming after barely a few minutes have passed.

James licks his lips as he pulls back to get the last of the semen with a satisfied smirk on his face. “Thank you.”

Tony laughs as he finally tugs that T-shirt over his head and pulls back up the underwear. “Pretty sure that was my line.”

“Incorrect. That was a thank you blow job for a fancy flying car.”

Tony almost falls over in his laugher. Because first the man had demanded a flying car as his father had once promised him, then he had decided that they all needed thank you oral sex for following the demand. That was just too funny to be true. It had to be at least a little untrue. He leans down and places several kisses over James’ face. “Sweetheart, you never have to thank me like that, although I appreciate it greatly.”

James grins back. He gets up off his comfy floor and flops onto his comfy bed instead.

“Thought you were going to go find Pepper.”

“Quite possible, in about ten to fifteen minutes when I’m no longer on my very peaceful and comfy bed.”

Tony doesn’t argue with that logic. Instead, he waves bye as he leaves the room and heads towards the office where Thor is waiting for their conversation. He pushes open the door to see Thor carefully perched in one of the chairs surrounding the desk instead of any of the more comfortable options.

Thor turns when the door opens and puts on a wide smile. “You’ve made it back. All go well with your kings and queens?”

“Governments, Thor, but yeah, I think everything went as well as it could for the time being.”

Thor inclines his head. “Loki has been working with me on your different ways of politics. They seem complicated to me, but to him apparently there’s a good deal to learn.”

“Good, good. It’ll cause less tensions between you and other humans if you can understand some of these terms better.”

They both lapse into silence. Tony can’t say that he really prepared for how to have a conversation like this with Thor. Because to a human all of this would be apparent and obvious and no one could claim ignorance, but Thor is an alien prince of a world of super soldiers, and nothing that would normally be obvious is ever obvious.

“Thor, do you really not know why I got upset at all?”

Thor racks his brain for several minutes. “Umm, you might have been upset that I blamed you for the Ultron creation after I had already given permission for you to study the scepter that my brother was using. That was rather rude of me, although at the time, it did seem like you had completely lost your mind.”

“Mental manipulation will do that to you.” Tony taps his fingers across the table. “You’re right, it is that conversation. In your mind, the worst that was is rude.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t being fair.” He looks down, partially ashamed. “I wasn’t really ready to acknowledge that everyone got hit by her curse, or that her magic would cause all of us to respond in different ways. For you it was to try to protect the world best as you knew how, and by the end of the battle, I could see that the monster wasn’t really yours. Your machine also created something to purify the stone that had been used for evil for so long. All of your creations are neutral, and they choose how to act the same as humans. In some ways, you’re just a father.”

Tony takes a deep breath because the things that he’s saying are nice. They’re appreciated, and they show an insight that he hadn’t had in most of the previous times that he’d been to Earth. The only issue is that’s not why he’s upset. “Thor, I really appreciate you saying that. It shows a lot of growth.”

Thor nods. About ready to smile and ask whether they can move forward from that when he sees the frown still present on his old friend’s face. Not sure what was about to come, but confident that the best plan of action was to remain silent, he waits.

“But, I’m not angry that you jumped to conclusions. Lord knows we were all stressed out and jumping to the first and quite possibly most feasible response is not something that I blame you for. I blame you for nearly killing me as a result.”

Thor freezes. “I did what?”

Tony reaches up to place a hand around his own throat. “You grabbed me by my neck and pinned me up against a wall, Thor. You were using the Asgardian strength, and I didn’t have my suit on. You were crushing my windpipes; I wasn’t even able to try to defend myself well because most of my air was cut off so I could barely speak. You were killing me. And Natasha and Clint were no match for a god especially not right after the fight we came back from, so they stood by and did nothing. And Rogers agreed with you, so what’s the harm in a light casual almost murder in his eyes. And I won’t blame Clint and Natasha for keeping themselves safe, and I can and will blame you and Rogers. Both of you should have had better control of the situation. Neither of you should have let me be in that position.”

Thor has no right to ask for a moment, but he holds up a hand in the universal sign for give me a second anyway. Because he doesn’t know how to respond to those accusations. Rather, he knows that Tony wouldn’t lie about something like this, which means that he did these actions, but he didn’t know. He hadn’t known. If this conversation hadn’t occurred, he never would have known that he put the life of his friend and shield brother on the line.

Tony watches the range of emotions passing over Thor’s face closely. Most of it was grief, there was a hint of anger, but nothing that seemed directed towards him. There’s more than a little confusion. Perhaps over humans in general, perhaps over the requirements to be an Avenger. He’s not sure where all of them are coming from, but he content to sit back and watch Thor until he can find the words he wants to say.

“Tony,” Thor begins in a voice uncharacteristically soft, begging for a change to be heard, “I did not know. If I had, I would have thrown myself at your mercy before leaving. If I had found out while I was away, I would have begged for that mercy the second that we landed in your land. I do not know of the words to even try to make an adequate apology. I am not sure one exists.”

Tony shrugs at that. He’s not sure that any action ever really has an adequate apology. He thinks that it all depends on people. The sincerity of the person apologizing, the compassion of the one listening. Perhaps even the pain of the both plays an important factor. He’s not going to give ground on this. He can’t give ground this time, or the next time he might actually be dead, and he rather likes being not dead.

Thor takes that in stride. “By my own laws, if you requested the max sentence, you would be able to kill me where I stand, and in order to have any honor in the afterlife, I would have to let you.” His eyes drag over Tony. “But, I know that you wouldn’t ask that of me. Despite my crimes against you, you have been kind. You have allowed my people to stay, you have allowed me onto your property to grieve a friend, and you’ve allowed me to have this conversation. None of these are things that you were obligated to do, and honestly, in your position, I’m not sure I would have.”

Tony narrows his eyes. He has no idea where Thor is going with this, because no he wouldn’t kill Thor for this. He needs the god for the upcoming fight, not to mention that killing someone for an honest mistake is a bit drastic. At the same time, he isn’t about to forgive the man with nothing more than whatever apology this is.

Thor pushes back from the chair at the desk. He lowers himself down where he’s lower than Tony, then drops to his knees. “I don’t know what else to do other than this. I…” he trails off for a second as if trying to find the correct string of words for what he’s trying to say. He swallows hard. “I submit myself to whatever punishment you see fit, and I will submit for as long as it takes.”

Tony is the one frozen this time. Out of all of the times that he’s known Thor, he’s never suspected that the man was anything close to a switch. As he’s taking in Thor’s posture, he realizes that he’s not. This is a desperate attempt to right a wrong, not a genuine act of submission. Thor would submit, but he would have no real connection to it. The submission itself would be a part of the punishment. Tony has never scened with someone without explicit consent and some amount of enthusiasm, and he won’t start like this. Instead, he needs a different way to handle this. “Thor, can I touch you?”

Thor seems confused momentarily. He blinks up at Tony. “I have submitted, you may do whatever you believe best.”

Tony curses. He can’t stop himself, and he doesn’t even remotely try to censure himself or be quiet. Asgard’s broken system back at it again. He’s not a rapist, much as apparently everyone from Asgard expects after submission. He still stands up to wrap Thor into his arms in a tight embrace. Not a single piece of it anything that wouldn’t be allowed between two dominants.

Thor’s confusion is evident, but he leans into the embrace. He’s never met someone quite like Tony, and he’s more than willing to take comfort after the conversation that has led up to this point. Finding out that you nearly killed a friend is a heavy thing. Finding out that same friend is still willing to befriend you. Still willing to try is even heavier.

Tony maintains the tight grip on Thor. “Thor, I’m not going to scene with you. You don’t want to submit to me, and that’s okay.”

Thor can’t stop the tears from running down his eyes. “But, I’m willing. Tony, please, I’m willing to submit, that way we can be friends again, and no one can claim that I’m abusing you. And this is the way that most dominants appease one another on Asgard after a grievous fault has been offered. Please.”

“Hush,” Tony soothes. “I said you couldn’t submit to me. I think I have a way to ensure that you are slightly punished without you having to scene with me, and that you can learn a few lessons along the way.”

“And if I do that, we’ll be good.”

“Yes, if you do this, then I’ll forgive you and all will be good.”

Thor nods immediately. “Tell me what I must do.”

Tony takes in the earnest expression in Thor’s eyes and smiles. That’s the god that he had offered a place in his home to, that’s just not the version of himself that always shows up. “I want you to be silent.”

Thor furrows his brow in confusion. He clamps his mouth shut and tilts his head. This would make leading difficult, but his brother has a good many tricks up his sleeves and could work something out for a time if needs be to ensure that Thor didn’t fail this punishment. Both Loki and Bruce really wanted him to do whatever it took to make sure this conversation went well.

“Not as in you can’t talk, Thor. As in during meetings about the Avengers. I want you to be silent, and I want to agree with what the rest of us vote for, regardless of your opinion in it.”

Thor nods. That makes more sense. In Asgard it would still be seen as a sign of submission, but not one that any reasonable person would count as a scene. It would be degrading but not to the level of a scene, which made it perfect. “Is there a time duration or would you just like to continue it until you believe you can trust me again, or be indefinite?”

“There’s always a clear end with any punishment like this I choose to give,” Tony replies. “In this case, you can stop being silent the moment that your brother says that your punishment has taught you something.”

Thor blinks. He recalls the fact that Loki is always silent at meetings in Asgard. He has to kneel in front of Thor to say anything, and he’s starting to realize that Tony might only be upset with him for one thing that he’s done to the man personally, but he’s probably unhappy with how he’s treated Loki as well. Because one thing that he learned from Jane is that humans are not the same in any sense as Asgard when it comes to submissives and dominants. “I will do this.” He pauses. “Would you mind correcting me if I slip up or ask my brother to do one of his selective spells that will stop me from screwing up on the orders? I’m reasonably sure that for some things, I understand what you want well, but there may be small things in meetings that I don’t realize are part of what you mean, and I would like to have a chance to not fail.”

Tony smiles. “I will always give grace. If it is the first time something comes up, and you screw up, I will simply shake my head or possibly shush you. I won’t immediately say you’ve failed.”

Thor smiles. “Thank you, Tony. When are we first meeting to discuss everything?”

“End of next week, we’ve got to deal with a few points.”

Chapter Text

Unfortunately for Tony, the end of the week is also when Pepper actually made sure that everyone was in town for a movie night after they sit down and iron out all of the Avengers nonsense. Which means that he has about three days before he can do anything other than blueprint his own plans, anticipate what’s coming, and make sure the meeting has some general briefings to send out to encourage everyone to think about.

That’s where he chooses to start. He really needs to have some form of plan for the meeting. And it needs to be in the form of a list that he can easily send out to the rest of the members in attendance, even the ones who don’t plan on speaking, so that everyone is on the same page where that is concerned.

• Objective one: what is Steve Rogers doing
• Objective two: new members of a team, secondary team, or any other ways to boost the numbers of who is fighting with enhanced abilities
• Objective three: if pardons go through, who has the strength and ability to take Rogers without it becoming a warzone
• Objective four: Asgardian needs for war supplies
• Objective five: Avengers weapon’s upgrades and requests
• Objective six: rough drafts of letters to foreign planets and universes requesting aid

“Well, that’s a hell of a lot to go through in a single meeting,” Rhodey announces as he comes into the lab.

“Yeah, but rather important to deal with as soon as possible.”

Rhodey inclines his head. “Yeah, well, send this off to the people then, and come upstairs. The rest of everyone is eating a meal that Vision cooked. He tried to get Friday to get you, but she said something about how she wasn’t responsible for communicating between the two of you.”

Tony winces slightly. There’s a bit of tension between the two, since Vision is technically the only one of his children to have a corporal body, and since he was the original AI that Tony used for everything. He really can’t be the one to intervene though, the two of them had to have a conversation, and he was not about to step into that mess without good cause.

He hits the send button on the email towards all of the current avengers with email addresses before turning towards Rhodey. “Is Loki eating with us this evening or should I send a messenger down to New Asgard?”

“Who would you send?”

“Dum-e”

Rhodey starts laughing. “They might destroy your pressure creation, Tony, so it’s probably good that Loki’s here for the evening.”

Tony and Rhodey make their way up to a table being chaotically laid out by three very hyper children.

Loki points at Tony the second he hits eyeline. “You should have warned me about being part of your plan to teach my brother manners. I was so not prepared for the oaf to show up in our tent blabbering about how he’d make me proud to earn your forgiveness. It took me half an hour to even come close to understanding what in the norns he was talking about.”

Tony shrugs. That’s mostly a fair point except for the part where he had literally no time to brief Loki on what he was planning and just had to wing the whole thing to have it come out even remotely reasonable at this point. “Sorry.”

Loki narrows his eyes in a glare for a brief second before the smile crosses his face. “But since it is a genius punishment and one that might actually teach him to think before he acts, I’ve deigned to be forgiving.”

“My hero,” Tony mocks. He takes the seat that the children are holding out for him.

Loki gracefully plops down next to him. He leans his head on Tony’s shoulder. “There’s a bit of a power struggle in New Asgard right now. I plan on not being around for most of it, as my presence is going to make things worse on several counts.”

“Because half the people would prefer you being king to Thor, and the other half believe you should still be in chains.”

Loki nods. “And Thor needs to come up with a way to balance both sides of this that isn’t just telling people what they need to do, but I can’t be the one to tell him how to do that, because if I do, then it feeds the fire that says that I should be king.”

Tony glances around the room. “Natasha, you’ve handled both of them several times now. If this weren’t a monarchy with rather strict passages on who becomes king after one dies, who would be the better king?”

Natasha takes the other seat beside him with a sigh. “You already know the answer.”

“Yes, but I’m biased, so we’re going to allow you to say the words everyone else already knows out loud.”

“Loki is the better politician, he’s the better leader of anything but an army, and he’s the more open-minded. He’s the better king.”

Rhodey claps his hand down on Loki’s shoulder. “So, if you ever do choose to feed the fires, you’ll have backup.”

“And I’ll lose my brother.” Loki closes his eyes. “I’d rather not destroy that bridge unless I have to. Trust me if the good of my people starts being at risk because I am not willing to overthrow my brother, I’ll get over my issues to go help them. But until then, let’s pretend as though Asgard’s situation isn’t my problem.”

Vision glides out with the food. “A delightful plan for a meal.”

Tony takes one look at the gumbo in the pot and has to contain some laughter. Being connected to the internet has its perks and its downsides. Luckily no one currently in the house is from Louisiana or the deep South, otherwise hands would be being thrown over what Vision is trying to call a gumbo.

Vision starts pouring everyone a good helping into a bowl. There’s a smile on his face as though the idea of having this many people willing to try his food is something that will make everything better.

Laura’s face turns a bit flushed as she tries to hide her own giggles. As she knows how gumbo is supposed to be made and how its supposed to turn out, and this is not gumbo. Well it is gumbo, but not the kind that most people in the South would consider acceptable. Or appetizing.

Loki smiles at the Vision. “I’m afraid I know drastically little of the food on the planet, what am I eating tonight?”

“A northern style gumbo.”

Clint coughs. “Vision, maybe never say those words anywhere outside of the family.”

“Why?”

“Because most southerners, even those who have moved, might take offense,” Tony explains.

Vision nods. “Of course, but you’ll try it.”

“Anything you make,” Pepper promises.

With that everyone tucks down to eat. The children beg to leave the table almost as soon as their bowls are empty. They want to continue their game of snakes and ladders.

Tony’s the first one to wave them off, followed quickly by Laura. Both of them laughing at how quickly they’re willing to encourage any amount of relationship with all the kids together.

Natasha waits until she’s confident that all the kids are out of earshot, before spinning towards Tony. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Terrifying words from a spy that I have on good conclusive evidence does not like asking for favors, but sure.”

“You’re not even going to ask the super terrifying spy what they want first?” James teases from across the table.

Tony looks up to shoot a glare down the table. “Of course not, that might end with my head on a pike, and I quite like my head being exactly where it is for the time-being.”

Natasha swats his arm. “Lies. Anyway, I was wondering whether you could shoot a quick checklist to everyone coming to movie night to ask whether they’re chill with scene type things happening at the family event, because I was kind of looking forward to initiating a scene."

Tony blinks. “I’ve got you.” He turns to Pepper and makes grabby hands at her. He prays that she understands what the hell he’s trying to convey, because he’s got to have a few more pieces before saying the next bit.

Pepper slides two phones across the table. “Loki’s has literally everyone in the family already encoded in. Thor’s has your number, Loki’s and Bruce’s. He’s got to earn the rest on his own merit, or via successfully convincing one of those three to give them out.”

Tony throws Loki’s phone straight to him. Then slides the other towards him with significantly less emphasis. “That way we can contact you even in Asgard, and it doesn’t take sending robots in or begging Bruce to find a prince or king without eyebrows raising.”

Loki opens his phone and thumbs through some of the options. He opens the email that Pepper had forwarded to him about the plans for the meeting on Friday. “My brother is not going to do well being silent in this meeting.”

“Kind of the point.”

Loki shakes his head. “You misunderstand. I mean yes, he will struggle with the punishment aspect of it. But some of these I won’t even have the answer to on his behalf, and he is still attending as a king. How would you like me to handle that? Would you like me to get the information from him earlier, would you like for him to have to do what I would at a traditional Asgardian meeting and turn towards me and get direct permission to speak only in the shortest and most polite acceptable passage of words? What protocol would you like to use?”

Tony turns towards Pepper with a shrug. “I admit that I may not have thought this through perfectly.”

Pepper groans. “Which would you prefer, Loki?”

He furrows his brow. “I’d prefer for him to be the king that mother raised him to be, and not the dictator that father raised him to be. I’d prefer to not be dealing with a war and training my brother to be king. But, for this situation, I’d prefer getting briefed ahead of time and speaking for him.”

“Why?” Bruce stares at Loki as if this is out of the norm. As if this is somehow shocking. “You don’t like war plans. You don’t prefer strategies that only include soldiers, why would you want to deal with it now?”

Loki meets Bruce’s eyes, and they lock onto each other for a minute that seems to stretch into eternity in silence for the rest of them. “You know.”

Bruce nods. He stands up and touches Loki’s shoulder. “Maybe not a good man, but definitely a decent brother.”

“I have stabbed him on several occasions.”

“Seem to recall him pummeling you into the ground for those. Sounds to me like normal brother interactions for crazy people anyway.” Bruce nods to the others. “Send me that checklist. I’m going to head out for the night.”

The dinner doesn’t stretch too much longer than that. Laura wants to make sure that the kids get a decent amount of sleep, Natasha and James have some sort of dance battle planned out in the training rooms, Loki wants to get ahead on these discussions before the end of the week, and Pepper has to fly out to California if she wants to make it back on Friday to make sure both segments of the company are well equipped for the next phase of Stark Industries.

Tony makes his way over to the couch with his tablet. He needs a break from the lab for a little while. He’s not too surprised when Rhodey convinces him to lift his legs and sits on the other end of the couch with his own tablet. He’s even less surprised by Clint kneeling somewhat in the middle of the two of them where either could reach him.

Tony lets one hand play with Clint’s hair, while his other hand is trying to make some sort of checklist for Natasha. He’s just going to do yes and no. If the answer is yes, then no worries. If anyone’s answer is no, Friday isn’t the day to start pushing things. Not for these people, not after everything that has happened in the last few days.

• Question one: are you okay with scene elements occurring around you?
• Question two: are you okay with sexual elements occurring around you?
• Question three: are you okay if sounds of impact items occur around you?
• Question four: Do you want to participate in a scene?
• Question five: Are you okay if that scene gets sexual in nature?

He clicks the send button and watches. Rhodey’s the first one to open the text, only because he’s already on his tablet. His knowing look tells Tony that he wasn’t he only one who thought that it was a bit redundant to send out the questions to some of them. Some of them have had this conversation a good solid 80 times. Heck, Tony is even reasonably positive that he knows James’ answers even though he doesn’t even have a full checklist from the super soldier just based on previous inclination towards scenes with multiple dominants.

Clint twists his head up to glance at Tony once he gets his phone out of his pocket. “Are we intending for the night to get a bit crazy, like do we need a sitter for the kids?”

Tony quirks his lips up into a smile. “I was planning on inviting Peter and Harley and telling them that as long as they keep the kids in the sleepover/game room area, they can stay up as late as they want and teach the kids how to play video games. Unless, you have any concerns about that, or if Laura does?”

“No, that sounds amazing. The kids are going to freaking love it, and your teens seem to have good heads on their shoulders, so I trust that nothing too insane will happen.”

Tony has to correct that thought, but he really doesn’t want to. Luckily for him, he’s not the only one who knows that his children might be closely related to the devil based on the way that Rhodey starts laughing. He swats at Rhodey’s shoulder but allows Rhodey to say what should probably be said.

“Those kids will tear the house down just to find out whether they can rebuild it. Harley helped Tony build his suit out of home depot supplies, and Peter has designed most of his suit with minor improvements by Tony. They’re mad scientists, Clint. Like father like son.”

Tony can’t help but chuckle at that assessment. They’re not wrong. “Like uncle, like nephew.”

Rhodey fist bumps him. “That being said, the kids would never endanger yours. And both of them have superhero personas, that we are not allowing to do much other than neighborhood protection. Technically, we’d prefer to stop that too, but we do have to know our battles.”

Clint throws his head back into Tony’s leg. “Gremlin scientists. How long are the kids staying? Are you going to have them in your labs for some time?”

“Not during the school year, once summer hits assuming everything is still peaceful, I’ve told their parental guardians that them and the teens are welcome to come home and settle in.”

“Think they’re going to agree?”

Tony lifts his shoulders. “Harley’s mom seems to be considering it rather heavily. She wants to get out of the city with so many terrible memories for her, and she knows that I’ll put her up for as long as she needs to get a job and then some. Aunt May doesn’t like the idea of moving in with this large of a family, although she wants Peter to move in, so might be that she has a house somewhere on the property rather than being in here with us, but yeah. I think they’re going to let the kids be here. If the kids are here, they can be trained as Avengers way easier than if they’re constantly having to travel to Avengers with everyone’s busy schedule.”
Rhodey nods. “Let me know if you need me to do anything to help out.”

“Or me, or Laura,” Clint adds.

With that they lapse back into mostly silence. Clint’s answers come back all yes as well, with a small note indicating that if the kids need him, he’ll probably back out of what he’s doing, but almost everyone already knew that. The rest of the answers come in slower, but there aren’t any negatives. But there are two comments that deserve his attention.

One comes in from James, which pretty much says about what he anticipated. I know that I don’t have any issues with the sound of impacts from video, so as long as it isn’t happening to me and I don’t hear like shouts of pain, I should be correct in my yes. However, I’ve never actually tested it before, so don’t be surprised if I end up having to safeword.

That Tony appreciates on several levels, including the way that he’s acknowledging limits. He also believes that James is right when he says that it will be okay. Thus, he sends back a brief reassurance that no one will ever be upset if he safewords because they misjudged something. That’s equally liable to happen with anyone.

The second comment comes from Thor’s phone. Which is a surprise for several reasons. Tony hadn’t anticipated Thor replying quickly or with any ease. Nor did he expect Thor to have any real questions for him. He kind of anticipated Loki filling him in on the blanks of this case. Which makes the words in the text even more confusing.

Man of iron, I responded to the questions as you’ve asked them, but I wanted to confirm that I was the intended recipient. I know that I’m still working on proving that I’m worthy of your forgiveness, so I do not want to presume I am welcome at events such as this one.

Tony takes several minutes to work through his emotions towards that message, because on one hand he understands the hesitation and on the other hand, don’t look gift horses in the mouth. Except its also a good step towards communicating rather than assuming it would follow whatever protocol he’s used to for this. Good lord, when did life get so complicated. So, he’s forced to text back something that is both coherent and useful.
Thor, I meant to send it. And no need to be so formal now that we’ve had a discussion. You’re still welcome to call me Tony outside of like formal meetings with governments and then follow suit with whatever makes the most sense for Asgard to call me. As for the questions, I sent them to who I meant to. Bruce would want you at the family event as his dominant, Natasha would probably love to see you, Loki would appreciate having a familiar face, and honestly, I miss the huge family that we almost were before everything crumbled. So, come by and hang with the family. Participate in a scene if you want to, do something bold to show the family that you trust them. I trust you not to abuse the chance, and you can work on forgiveness at the meeting beforehand.

Thank you for the kind offer, Tony. I also miss what could have been, several of them. Sometimes I think the gift of foresight would be just as much of a curse as a blessing when we try our best and still end up screwing up and knowing that ahead of time would be terrible. I don’t know if I would survive it. I can earn forgiveness even after one meeting?

Okay, that question makes sense. Tony doesn’t even have a decent answer for it, because he kind of put most of the finalization of the punishment onto Loki instead of himself. Which as the god had pointed out, might have been a bit cruel and unfair of him, but Loki’s the one who would know best when the point had gotten across.

Punishment ends when your brother says it does. Forgiveness comes whenever the hell people actually want to forgive you. It’s a weird little paradox.

There’s no response to that text, so he chalks that up to either Thor being fed up with the phone or not knowing how to respond to that kind of gentle style of forgiveness. Something tells hm that when it came to screwing up, his father expected perfection, and perfection better be what he got was a more accurate representation of the truth.

The week drags on for Tony. He makes sure that Harley has a flight for the weekend and that Happy can drive him in while he’s in Avenger level meetings. He has his suspicions that the kids are planning on getting into trouble within seconds of the meeting, but he’s willing to put up with that for a weekend with his kids plus all of his family in the same place.

He’s the first one into the meeting room, which would have been unheard of in the old way of the Avengers where they did not listen to his schedule, or anyone’s other than the ones who were home. That was no longer the case as he had cleared the schedule with every member ahead of time. He takes his seat.

Rhodey enters a few minutes later with both James and Natasha following him. They takes seats throughout the room.

James glances up when he realizes that the room is mostly empty still. “Tony, can you send me a blank copy of a checklist? Rhodey tells me that there is one, and that I should probably consider filling one out sometime soon.”

Tony nods. “Yeah, let me get through the meeting and the fun weekend, and I’ll send you one on Monday. No questions asked.”

“Thanks.”

Pepper and Clint get there next. Pepper looks slightly run down and tired. Her flight had gotten in only half an hour before this meeting, but now that she’s planning on flying in with them, she wanted to be there for the meetings. Clint looks like he was just out of a fight, which is possible given that Laura probably wasn’t thrilled by the fact that her husband might die. She understands the fight, but that’s still a hell of a thing to have to deal with every fight that comes up.

Vision arrives by phasing through the walls. He hovers over one of the chairs. He shoots a smile over towards Tony and Rhodey. “I’m meant to be here, correct?”

“Yep,” Tony confirms. He’d be worried about Vision asking those questions if he ever thought it was more than just trying to advance what was known about politeness and human interaction.

Strange’s orange portal was a bit of a shock, but he steps through moments later. His cloak gives a wave towards each and every one of them as Strange takes a seat.

T’Challa walks into the building and the room shortly after with a bit of a haze over his eyes. “Just so you know, the dora Milaje are relatively unhappy with the fact that they are leaving me alone in a room with several people who have the ability to kill me some of whom they don’t know.”

“They could join.”

Pepper nods at his point. “We would trust that your royal guard would know not to speak about potential risks, if them being at this meeting would put them or your people at ease.”

T’Challa shakes his head. “No, they need to get used to the fact that I’ve chosen to call you my family. They’ll need to prepare themselves for the fact that I plan on staying near you guys for the foreseeable future.”

Loki touches T’Challa’s shoulder as him and Thor arrive. “I feel you there. It might be easier for your guards to comprehend your choice when it comes to a movie night in with the family compared to the meeting between superheroes and kings of alien planets.”

T’Challa furrows his brow. “But it is the same people?”

“Ah, but one is more business, and one is more personal. They would allow you your personal endeavors, but they may not want to allow you private business.”

T’Challa turns his gaze to Tony, and for once, Tony has no answer. He’s never been a politician. He’s certainly interacted with them on several occasions, but they’re necessities for safety and public control are a bit beyond him. “Do whatever you believe that you need to do, the rest of us will support you.”

T’Challa reaches up to touch his ear piece. “Okay, fine. You can sit in on the meeting.”

Three guards slip into the room, including Okoye. She stands next to her king while the other two just stand in the corners.

Tony gives her a smile. He glances down to the folder that he had bothered to print out. He can’t really believe that him and Rhodey were meant to be the leaders of the Avengers where he was the one leading these meetings. Well, he could have probably begged Rhodey to cover it, but it seemed important that he give the allusion of this being different from the attitude that he gives off for most people. “Are we ready to begin?”

T’Challa quickly grabs a seat as everyone nods. There’s a decent amount to cover in today’s meeting, and they need to get ahold of all of this, so they know what they’re in for.

“Okay, T’Challa, the first objective is kind of you giving all of us your impressions, and we prepare for what that will mean for us going forward. We all know that the governments are pushing for pardons towards anyone that might be of assistance in the final battle against Thanos. What is Roger’s current position and activity like?”

T’Challa sighs. “As of right now, he understands the importance of keeping his head down in case the pardons do come through, however he has announced loudly to literally anyone still willing to listen that the second that the threat gets any larger, he’ll break out of the country to save the world.”

“Could be worse,” Rhodey says.

“It is,” James replies, keeping his eyes firmly on the corner of the wall in the room. “There’s only one way that I’ve ever known to get him to stop and listen to reason, and I was only ever willing to do it the once. I’m going to go off on a whim and say that Wilson is the one currently doing it.”

“He swears its consensual.”

“Steve doesn’t do consensual,” Clint snaps. “He doesn’t believe in safewords. Christ on a stick, Tony?”

Tony holds up a hand, he had not planned on dealing with the Sam crisis today. “T’Challa, is there ever a time where Sam is alone without Steve somewhere in earshot?”

“Not really.”

“Could you orchestrate one?”

T’Challa nods.

“Good, tell Wilson that if he ever does decide to break free from all of the shit that Rogers is doing to him, that he still has my number and Rogers is the only person I’ve ever actually blocked.”

“You didn’t block the witch?” Natasha asks, her jaw dropping open.

“I never gave her the number, so I never had to block her.”

T’Challa glances around the room. “If we believe that he’s being abused, shouldn’t we you know intervene?”

“You can’t force someone to realize how unhealthy their relationship is, and all that happens when you try is burning bridges you know that they’ll need later,” Pepper answers in a tone too soft. “That being said Tony, I might end up making him up a safe room with a shit load of comfort items for when he crashes moments after he arrives when he does.”

“Spend whatever needs to be spent.” Tony glances down at his list to go over the next topic, since the, what is Rogers up to conversation has hit a dead end and a desire to be ignored for the rest of eternity to avoid dealing with it at the best of times. “Alright on to the next order of business, are there any other enhanced people that we might be able to convince to join the fight to save the world, since we quite literally need to save the world?”

Natasha glances down at her phone. “The other black widows might be ordered to show up, but I wouldn’t count on them to not be doing their own thing during it.”

“Do you need to deal with the red room today?”

“No, I’ll wait until after we deal with the alien invasion, then I’ll kill my abusers and set the people who never deserved to suffer like that free.”

Rhodey slides some files over. “The hell’s kitchen folks have agreed to show up the day of the battle as long as they can continue to work only in the shadows, as they would rather face jail time than have to sign their own names on the Accords.”

“Legal can work on making sure that’s a chill clause for the Accords committee to pass on the upcoming battle specifically.”

“Similarly, Deadpool says he’ll be there and that if we have any questions to direct them to spidery. Whom I’m assuming is Peter.”

“He’s mentioned running into Deadpool on missions recently, since that seems to be helping his self-preservation skills, I’ve been letting it slide. One of these days, I’ll have to have a conversation with Deadpool about what he’s doing, but I’m not doing it today.”

“Everyone knows about the x-men’s position, but Magneto’s people also agreed to show up for the battle. They wanted it to be said that they don’t like any of us, fully believe we will destroy the world with our own hubris, but will attempt to ensure that no one who is fighting on the right side dies to the aliens.”

Tony grins. “That’s a much better list than we had before this.”

Loki taps his foot against the floor. “Umm, speaking from Asgard’s perspective, obviously we’ve all talked about the fact that the army will be in attendance. However, there are a few mages on Asgard outside of me who have chosen to agree to be present on the battlefield, and our primary healer is willing to stand with whatever aid forces that humans pull together to help both Asgard and human people who fall during battle.”

Pepper reaches over to place a hand over his thigh and calm him down considerably. “Of course.”

“Oh,” Strange blinks as he looks up, “all of the earthen sorcerers will be present at the fight.”

Tony takes a minute to look around the table. Somehow the only person who looks mostly relaxed and not completely panicked is Thor. The rest of them are completely still in a state of slight concern. He shakes his head. “Alright moving on, when the pardons go through, where can Rogers go that is not my home?”

“Much as I don’t want to offer my people to him given that he is in fact the worst kind of asshole alive today, I have looked at every other option, and we’re the only one that won’t possibly get people assaulted and hurt,” Loki offers.

Everyone in the room watches as Thor clenches his fist before releasing the tension that gathers in his body. He doesn’t say a word though, and he appears to faintly blush when all the attention gets turned towards him.
Bruce nods towards Loki. “That’s the same conclusion that I came too, when Loki asked me to double-check the information that he had looked through.”

Tony almost breaks his own rules to double-check with Thor, but that’s kind of the whole point. Even when the topic is something that will clearly affect him and have the most impacts on him that he has no right to speak up and offer any communication at all. Instead, he nods. “That’s probably the best fit. I doubt that he’d do well with Professor X or Magneto as he’s not a mutant, and I’m reasonably positive from what I understand of Hell’s kitchen, he’d probably be dead within a few days.”

“Professor X mentioned that some of the mutants may have some unfavorable positions regarding Rogers in the first place, as he signed up to be a “not mutant”” Natasha taps on her phone. “The same does not apply for James or I, since we were forced to either as prisoners of war or as children, but Steve was an adult who went in with his own free will.”

Tony tilts his head to the side. “How bad is that exactly?”

“A lot of them blame him for the reason why people act like they’re blessed to be mutants. One of them kills what she touches, and she hates that people call her a blessing when she can’t even hold touch. The rest aren’t necessarily better. There’s a chance that if they see him and he does his normal preaching bullshit, they’re going to tear him limb from limb.”

“Okay, so Rogers needs to be kept away from the Avengers team to ensure that he can’t harm any of the people who have been traumatized by him in the past. He has to be kept away from Hell’s kitchen superheroes as much as possible because otherwise they’re going to take it into their hands to punish the abuser as per their norms. And he can’t be in contact with many of the mutants, because they all blame him for the reason why people are willing to call their trauma a blessing in disguise. Is there any reason at all that the government thinks he’s going to be helpful to us?” Rhodey summarizes.

Tony meets Rhodey’s eyes across the table. “It’s because he’s a public hero and one that even now several portions of the population flock to, so if he’s here, they’re going to be calmer and more likely to listen when we tell them to move.”

“Any chance we can actually just put him on the bench where he’s only a show horse?”

“If you want to ensure that he goes off the rails and does something that will potentially lose us the battle, sure.” James turns to face the table, although still unable to look anyone in the eyes. “The last time they did that, he snuck off with Howard and Peggy to rescue my unit. At the time it was lauded as the greatest thing ever, because he saved so many men, and I would have fought people for it, because for a few more days, I thought that I had been saved from the torture, from the chair and all that it entailed. I learned better. And now that I can look at with clear eyes, he risked the biggest weapon’s provider the allies had, a top clearance general, and losing even more ground for a unit with all likelihood was dead. We should have been dead, if they weren’t running experiments we would have been dead.”

Tony shakes his head. “Alright, so moral of the story, Rogers has always been a shitty person, and we’re all screwed 7 ways to Sunday if we put him on showcasing instead of action.”

T’Challa doesn’t quite glance at James, but it’s a close call as he makes a different point. “What if we just arranged for another little accident?”

“Can’t. Won’t. Whatever you have it. There’s a chance that Rogers is necessary to the fight, he’s dealt with the stones before, and as much as I hate him as a man, he’s good under crisis. Thus, he lives until the battle.”

“And after?” Stephen is the one to ask the question this time. Not that he doesn’t also have many reasons upon reasons for wanting Rogers dead, millions of futures will do that to him, but he should be prepared for how that will go in this timeline.

“That’s for governments to decide.” Tony doesn’t even look towards Pepper or Natasha. He knows that they plan on making it look like an accident, something that will cause Rogers to truly go down as a legend instead of a nightmare, and none of them will complain about it, because for once, it will mean he’s in a six foot hole that he won’t climb out of.

Pepper nudges him with her foot. “All family here, no need to play the press answer we’ll give. We kill him.”

Tony shrugs his shoulders. “Alright, some members of the family plan on making sure he stays six feet under this time. I’d prefer that outside the compound where I’m confident that no spyware exists that can crack through Friday’s systems that you don’t go advertising that information.”

“On to brighter topics, at least I hope,” Tony continues with an air of humor trying to infuse his levity into the general public of this meeting. “What kind of weapons and supplies does Asgard need for being prepped for war?”

Loki raises his hand to start rubbing at his temple as Thor tosses him a sympathetic look. Both of them wincing as Tony’s question was directed at Loki rather than Thor. Loki slumps down in his chair. “That depends.”

“Okay,” Pepper says drawing it out. “What exactly does it depend on?”

“Are you intending to give us the weapons that they need to be barely functional or do you want to go higher? If you want to go higher what safe guards outside of neither King nor prince wanting to attack you to keep your people safe should ours decide to try to take this planet? And on top of that, what levels are reasonable to request?”

Tony blinks.

T’Challa huffs out laugher. “You’re not attending the meeting as a king.”

“Huh?”

“This is just an informal meeting to discuss needs and the like. Tony will defend whatever to Earth’s leaders, never you. You’re literally never going to have to justify this to any leaders or such. Just tell us what you would like, and we’ll deal with the rest.”

Tony grins over to T’Challa. “Thank the gods that at least one of us knew what the issue was there.”

Loki moves his eyes in between all of them. “You’re all bloody insane. Alright, we have remaining around 300 soldiers. I think it would be reasonable to request at least one melee weapon for each of them, a shield, and perhaps one of a ranged weapon for half of them. That would ensure pretty good results in a battle.”

Thor grimaces on the floor, but he makes no move to interject. He just remains silent.

Tony makes a clear move of his eyes from Thor back to Loki. Almost insistent that Loki explain whatever reaction that was, because he needs to know what kind of issues might come up for each of them should they follow plans. And as much as he is firm on his belief that Thor should remain silent at a minimum for this meeting to learn a rather important lesson, he also doesn’t believe that doesn’t mean his concerns shouldn’t be addressed via his brother.

Loki levels a glare at Tony. “There are some concerns that providing Asgardian soldiers with this amount of weaponry might result in some unsavory developments after the battle against Thanos is done.”

“Why do you not share them?”

“Soldiers listen to King Thor implicitly. He believes in you, and your aid. I do not believe any of them so foolhardy as to actually make you angry after their king has told them not to.”

Tony bites down on his lip, because this feels like a thing that trusting Thor would be the smarter choice. However, the way that Loki is glaring says that testing him on this wouldn’t be good either. He doesn’t like being placed in a spot where he’s got to either trust the king who likely has a better idea of the army, or where he’s got to trust the family member who logic dictates is the one that he trusts. Damn his instincts for this one.

Pepper has no such qualms it appears as she kind of leans back with a smirk on her face. “Because they’ll either listen to their king or their prince will drag them up on charges of treason?”

“Because someone needs to remind them that there is leadership that they will follow, and it is not just their king. There has always been a council, and there will always be one. They will either kneel or they will suffer.”

That makes much more sense to Tony, especially with what he knew went down the day of the funeral. Tony had given him the ammunition that he needed to start this war, and now he’s planning on running with it to the point that he needs it without any stopping. “Right, so we’re good on this level then. Next up who needs upgrades within the Avengers?”

Clint’s hand shoots up into the air. When everyone turns to him, he gets slightly sheepish. “No offense, but I kind of want arrows designed for aliens if we’re going to be fighting aliens.”

“Yeah, I got you, birdbrain.”

TChalla raises a hand. “Not that I need Stark technology, because if I implied that my sister would kill me, but would you potentially be able to get me on the comm system that you guys use so that I can both respond to the battle as the king of my people, but also as an Avenger with you.”

Pepper furrows her brow. “Have we not already accomplished that? You know when you came to aid us when Asgard got here.”

TChalla shakes his head. “We just linked pre-existing networks, but I’d rather not have any open networks for enemies to hack.”

“Agreed, king kitty. Communication units for you will probably arrive shortly. Like the second I can fabricate another set because Pepper’s right, we should have taken care of that a while ago.”

Pepper offers him a wide grin. “Speaking of things that need to be done, can you show me exactly what tricks you put in my suit? I know that Rhodey’s is different than yours, and I know that mine is as well, and I don’t yet know all the fun little attacks you put in.”

Tony ducks his head in a nod. “Yeah, training day’s will be a thing that starts up soon. I want all the legalities done up front, just because I’m confident that if a battle took place today, we could at least fight, even if the world tried to mess with us.”

Everyone nods along with that announcement. Once upon a time, training was a once a week type thing under Roger’s command. However, those were quickly abandoned when missions for the Shield members came up, not so much when Tony had business endeavors they were never cancelled.

James doesn’t look away from the corner of the room, but he does flick his wrist up in a raised position. He waits for Tony to nod to him. “I don’t actually have a weapon. I’ve been mostly borrowing whatever extras that Natasha or Clint have, or leftovers from when you did weapons.”

Tony gapes for a second. “You’re aware I equipped you with a state of the art prosthetic arm that 100% can withstand all of the tests of a super soldier, right?”

“You’re aware that I wasn’t trained as a super soldier, right? I was and am a sniper and assassin first and foremost. So, I could use a distance weapon, one that plays to my strengths, not the ones that were forced upon me.”

“That is fair,” Tony says. He had kind of forgotten that James might prefer to fight the way that he had been trained originally, not the one that he had been forced to have. “I’ll get you a weapon that plays to the previous training you’ve had.”

Tony waits several moments to see whether anyone else has anything that they want done. When no one says anything, he lets out a breath of relief. Between the massive projects for several mass market weapons for two different species, plus the individual upgrades, he’s going to be working until he drops dead after this relaxing weekend. “So the final order of business, we need official letters to intergalactic possible allies now that Earth has agreed to tolerate and support them.”

Loki slides several pieces of paper over. “These are the best allies that I could think of sending letters to, fully written out based on the blueprint ones that we created several weeks ago. I’ve had them prepped for around a week waiting for your government’s agreement. I’ve also had other Asgardian’s go over the list to ensure that I did not miss anyone that would be beneficial for our fight.”

Pepper reaches out to start thumbing through the letters. “Can you walk us through who you’re calling on?”

Loki nods. “Vanaheim is the people of our mother, and a realm of Asgard who should come to our aid when we call upon them. The same is true of Alfheim although they are not as closely related to myself and Thor. I have also drafted a letter to Jotunheim. Despite the tensions among our people, I do not think they would turn away from a fight such as this as long as the call for aid does not come with a requirement to yield to our rule again, and I am of the opinion that would be a terrible idea.”

“Three extra armies is a considerable thing,” TChalla says. “Even if only one arrives, there’s a good chance that will increase our victory margins.”

Loki tilts his head. “There’s more. There are three other armies that I have reached out to, two of which are at war with one another, but likely to stop for an invasion of this magnitude only because they must fight because of Thanos. Those are the Kree and Skrulls. The skrulls are currently being led by a human turned super power, no one really understands it, but that should ease tensions considerably between the people. The Kree are a bunch of assholes, but they’re mostly intelligent assholes, who hate Thanos. I also believe sending a letter to the Nova empire to see whether they will send the Nova Corp is a good idea. They won’t be real, but they’ll be real enough to cause massive arterial support.”

“What?” Tony asks, feeling as though what was just said might be the most complicated answer possible.

“The Nova Corp has perfected a method by which their soldiers never actually touch the battle field. Rather they are in a form of simulation that has suits similar to yours which fight in their place, fly in their place, and can be destroyed in their place, without harm ever coming to any citizen. It is a widely popular plan. It also means that if their corp ever fails, the whole planet will fall like sheep to the slaughter, but that is often the price of such things,” Stephen explains from his position. “For what it’s worth, I agree with Loki this is a beneficial move.”

Loki offers a grim smile in return. “They won’t be permanent allies, and they won’t want you to know of their people’s true identities or locations, but they might send ships equipped with heavy weaponry and that may be extremely beneficial. I also drafted letters to a group of not quite mercenaries who happen to have a personal grudge against Thanos and who have some experience with infinity stones, called the Guardians of the Galaxy. And yes, I know how stupid that sounds. They’re almost destined to show up.”

Stephen inclines his head. “There’s no universe where Thanos arrives here and Gamora does not follow to try to prevent him where she is alive when it happens.”

Tony looks up at that comment. “Is she in danger?”

“Always,” Loki whispers. “She’s been in danger for as long as she’s been alive practically. She is his daughter, of sorts.”

“Adopted,” Stephen explains. “From a planet which he massacred the rest of the people of. One where he stole the princess and the rest could suffer, wither, and die. She was raised as his perfect monster.”

“She broke free,” Loki continues. “Only, he loves her still. And to be loved by such an evil is to never know peace. He will do anything to have her by his side once more.”

“Except keep her alive.” Stephen has his eyes squeezed shut. “He’d kill her for his plans for the universe, and often he does.”

Tony jerks his eyes between them. Both of them lost in the story. Loki in the association he’s drawn with her. The person who was raised to be a monster but never wanted to one. And Stephen lost in memories. Likely ones that haven’t yet happened but easily could. Ones that he’s not sure he has the ability to stop. Ones that he’s not sure whether he wants to be able to stop. “Pepper, does that letter?”

“Contain an offer for aid should she need it? Yes, and one that I will add to. Asgard is not the only place she could go. She could find her way here, and I would stand in front of a titan himself and deny him rights to her.”

Loki turns towards Pepper. “That would be dangerous. Possibly even foolhardy.”

“I do not care. I would stand in front of Odin and deny him you. I would stand in front of Howard and deny him Tony. And I will stand of Thanos and deny him her. That is the way of this world.”

Pepper blows out a breath of air. She places the stack neatly down in front of her. “It needs several signatures. Loki has left blanks. The monarch of Asgard has already signed all of them. Tony, you’re listed as the leader of the Avengers. I am listed as the liaison of civilians, and Stephen you’re listed as magical liaison. The three of us must sign.”

As she finishes speaking, she picks up one of her pens and starts signing her name. Each page she finishes gets slid over to Tony, where he too can dig a pen out of one of his many pockets. His signature glowing on the forms that he never thought that he’d write. He’s calling for the aid of aliens to fight off other aliens in the middle of a war that Earth has become the battle ground for. He passes them to Stephen’s whose signature is inscribed with a wave of his hand imprinting it in magic.

“How soon can you get them out, Loki?”

Loki holds out his hands, and the papers come flying back to land on his hand. “As soon as they’re all done, I’ll send them.”

Tony doesn’t ask how that works. Much as his curiosity is dying, this isn’t the time to geek out over magic. There’s a million things that need to be done before he can safely beg his family members to allow him to run science tests on magic to find out what allows magic to work the way that it does.

When the last paper lands in Loki’s outstretched hands, they vanish. Loki’s eyes fall closed and his fingers trace patterns in the air, one after another. His eyes open and his hands fall still. “It is done.”

Tony claps. “Well that concludes the official business for the day. Who wants to watch movies with popcorn, blankets, and all the love that I can smother into a single room?”

Cheers occur among the whole family. Tony’s own grin matching the ones all around the room.

Chapter Text

Loki’s hand shoots out to hold onto Tony’s before he can leave the meeting room. His eyes searching Tony’s. “This is the last time, my brother stays silent at a meeting. Whatever mess of a reason you had, ends now.”

Tony furrows his brow. “I mean yeah, sure. I said that it would be up to you to determine whether he’s learned the lesson of staying silent while someone else dictates over him regardless of whether they had a reasonable standard to direct the message.”

Loki shakes his head with a sigh. He snorts finally. “A valid punishment. One that showed Thor my life in a blatant manner. One that pushed him into seeing what he did to you.”

“Yep, that’s why I used it.”

“Only it also forced me to have to take up the crown again. That’s the third time, that I’ve acted as king. And I am not their king. A lot of things would be different if I was their king, and I cannot be that. I cannot keep picking up the crown when Thor fumbles, when Odin fails, or when the people call on me, or one of these days, I won’t be able to put the crown down, not when I can make a difference.”

Tony pauses. He takes a breath of air. “And why would that be a bad thing? Loki, you’d make the better king. Thor is a good man, he’s a good brother, hell he’s even trying to be a good partner to Bruce. But none of that makes a good king. He doesn’t have the type of strengths that make a good king. So, why would it be so terrible to never put down the crown again?”

Loki shakes his head. “I won’t take it. I just won’t. Not after how many times I thought taking the crown would fix the issues. I’ve made mistakes too. If it is offered to me, I will pick it up in order to help our people. I will not turn them away if they ask for aid, but I also cannot try to take it from him. And I would drastically prefer if you weren’t helping me do it and testing whether or not. I have the strength to turn away from the crown.”

Stephen slips up behind Loki. One of his hands coming to rest on the center of his neck, the other trailing down to his waist. Neither have a strong grip. “You will not falter.”

“There are infinite number of universes, Stephen. Even if in all the universes you’ve seen, I do not stumble, that does not mean you have seen them all, and all it takes is one wrong step.”

“Stubborn.” Stephen raises his eyes to Tony’s to see the hint of concern behind them. Both dominants know how hard Loki has worked to be treated as anything other than a second class citizen in Asgard his whole life, and while they’re now finding the hidden reasons for that, it does not make anything easier on Loki or the rest of them. “We will not let you falter, Loki. You don’t have to worry about withstanding temptation alone. If you need the reminder that we’re here, we will always welcome you. If you ever step over a line you’ve created for yourself and you need to be punished, we can do that for you.”

Loki leans into the touches. “Thor’s punishment is done. What he will do, what he should do, and what has already been done are on him again. I will advise, but I refuse to clean up his messes or speak as his voice again. There’s too much that can go horribly wrong.”

Tony nods. “It was always going to be up to you. Not quite the reason that I had hoped for, but that’s alright.”

Stephen guides Loki out of the meeting room, with Tony trailing behind them to shut some doors. Once the door shuts, all of them push business and war out of their minds. They had promised each other a weekend of true family bonding, none of the chaotic war stuff to be dealt with. Valkyrie had been put on duty of maintaining Asgard. Friday was in charge of ensuring that no one could break through to talk either about Stark Industries or the government without dire situations occurring. That’s all they needed for a well-earned break.

Pushing through to the family area, results in pure chaos. There’s food all across tables, and Pepper is corralling the children into not bringing any more out into the coffee tables. Tables plural, although Tony is reasonably positive only one of them had been there before.

Laura slides up next to him before he can venture to form words for his tirade of questions building within him can escape. “The kids wanted to do something for you as a thank you for all the toys, and books, and well all the rest of it too. And since I said they were going to be allowed to stay up late enough to watch one movie with us, they thought it might be nice to cook something. But, then each kid wanted to cook something different, so they did. And then, they couldn’t serve dinner without desserts, and here we are.”

Tony chuckles under his breath. “Trust children to never let you have a dull moment in your life.”

“Trust children to be a wonder,” Loki corrects. He opens one of his hands and little magic birds fly over in front of each child distracting them.

Pepper turns around to shoot a grateful smile at Loki. “Okay, everyone. Looks like rather than ordering pizza, we’re going to be eating in.”

Soon enough everyone found a place to squeeze into and start dishing up plates. Thor and Bruce ended up off on a loveseat a respectable distance away from the table, because Thor looked overwhelmed at the sheer number of people present. Loki ends up draped over the edge of the largest sofa with Pepper hand feeding him behind her. James kneels in front of her as well, also being hand fed, but he’s the one reaching out for more food whenever Pepper requests it be handed up. The three kids are curled up in beanbags closer to the television. Tony’s sitting pretty close to Natasha and T’Challa who are flirting as if there is no tomorrow, and he can’t quite help the amusement that builds up each time one of them tries to speak with the other. Stephen has settled himself into floating on the other side of the table and being able to reach the desserts when someone wants them and keep the kids from gorging on too much of the sugar. Rhodey has the armchair because the braces need enough room to breathe and he’d rather not end up in a cuddle pile that will end with him not coming up with a way to move later on. And finally, Clint and Laura have a nice area going on the floor with a blanket spread out underneath them, laughing along with their kids the whole time.

The movie passes in a blur for most of them. They’re pretty sure the only ones actually paying attention to it are the kids, Natasha, and James. The former two only because their training makes it practically impossible for them to manage to be in the room with something that has noise and not at least be partially attune towards it. Anytime a question is raised, James will briefly lift his head to give an answer before dropping back down.
As the movie finishes, most of the kids have started yawning. Past their bedtime for sure given that the meeting had run well into the evening. Laura picks up the youngest while Clint hoists up both of the other two. She gives Tony a smile. “Mind waiting a few more minutes before starting the next film so we can get the so-called trouble makers up to their beds?”

“Not at all.”

Loki chuckles where he’s lying on the couch once he’s sure they’re out of the room. “I didn’t think there was going to be much watching of movies.”

“Oh, not even slightly,” Natasha confirms. “But something on in the background, especially given how many people are here and willing, is always a decent strategy in case someone gets overwhelmed for a few minutes.”

Tony slugs her in the shoulder. “Laura asking us to keep on being relaxed and not do anything to change that before she gets back.”

Thor glances towards the door. “On Asgard the children seeing even this level of submission would be considered taboo, since they may get the impression that submissives are on equal footing.”

Loki raises his middle finger and was quickly joined by every single submissive in the room, including Bruce who twists on Thor’s lap to show him more readily. “Fuck you, brother.”

“Not an insult, just pointing out the differences,” he says sullenly.

“You could change that,” Bruce suggests. “After all, I don’t relish the idea of raising my children to believe that I am any lesser than their father, or that they should ever treat a submissives as less than a dominant.”

Thor looks down to the ground. “There will be hatred of me if I force that change, and I do not like being hated. I don’t want to end up like father, I want to be someone mother will be proud of. Someone that doesn’t rule by fear.”

Loki scoffs. He reaches over to nudge at Pepper. She pushes back to make room for him to fall forward into the couch cushion instead of up above it. “Solution then, stop blocking my efforts. The crown prince has decided to take special interest in the rehabilitation of our separation of the second genders. The king has elected to not concern himself with such matters and leave it to the crown prince because he has far more important matters to attend to. The upcoming war for starters, and the finding of a new planet to live on being second. Not a single one of them could fault you for that.”

Pepper nods. “Plus, the people who might hate you are going to be people that you didn’t really want the love of in the first place.”

“Machiavelli’s would you rather be loved or feared is outdated. It is far better to be loved by the people that are good and feared by the people that are bad than to be either for everyone.” Tony hears the footsteps on the stairs. “Besides, we’d all be happy to help if you ever told us that you needed a bit more help from us.”

Laura pauses as she steps out into the room then shrugs as she plops down on the now empty bean bags and lets her eyes start dropping into a closer to closed position. “If we’re talking about reforming Asgard, I’ve got an abundance of free time and a life mission to help everyone that I can.”

Clint ends up on the floor, his head on top of Laura’s stomach. His eyes wide open staring at Tony. “No business. Only pleasure. House rules.”

Tony finger guns at Clint, just to watch the laughter behind his eyes. “What he said. Now, quick, someone give me a movie before I accidentally put on something that will make everyone groan.”

James chortles as he turns his head to place a kiss on Pepper’s inner thigh. “I’ve heard that they turned the Hobbit into a movie. That would be a nice choice.”

Rhodey buries his head in his hands. “It’s actually three movies, and the extended editions would take us well into the morning to watch all of them. And you’d probably get so caught up in the screens that the rest of us would be having scenes, and you’d be staring at the tv for the whole time.”

Natasha pats James on the arm. “It’s alright. I’ll watch them with you tomorrow. A better suggestion for what to put on in the background, Russian spy films.”

Tony closes his eyes. “Jurassic park, it is.”

Pepper groans. “No one could just give him a reasonable option that wasn’t going to make me want to launch myself out of the air, could you?”

James pouts. “I tried.”

As Friday queues up the next movie, Tony pats James’ cheek. “And we all appreciate the effort, but Rhodey’s right. If the goal is to have something on in the background that isn’t something that anyone is going to want to watch in its entirety, that is a terrible choice.”

The blissful ability to just relax and lean into the atmosphere returns once the movie comes on. Not as much noise as what had been before, but the comfortable way that they just peacefully took in each other’s presence is a nice one. Tony melts into he couch before turning his gaze around the room to see who is doing what.

Bruce is nuzzling into Thor’s neck. His body slightly twisted, it takes several moments before Tony’s brain catches onto the fact that both of us hands are pinned behind his back with only one of Thor’s hands, holding him in place. Bruce arches himself further, pushing into the hand that holds him to get enough leverage to be able to get a kiss anywhere close to Thor’s lips.

Thor amuses himself with the way that Bruce is struggling for just an ounce of affection. He’s got plenty of room to try to make a more sexual move, but that’s not what he really wants. Bruce strives for the love that he’s forgotten he’s allowed to ask for and crave since he became two people in a single body. Thor likes making him struggle until he remembers himself and bothers to ask the question for his attention. Until Bruce recalls that all his actions are not the same as words, his eyes will remain on the TV even if he’s paying more of his attention on Bruce.

A few more minutes of Bruce struggling to try to gain any leverage for either an actual proper kiss or to be able to cuddle with Thor, and Thor realizes that he’s being watched. That takes longer than it reasonably should have for him to notice given everything that has been going on. When he glances away from the TV still careful to not turn that attention to Bruce, he finds Tony’s eyes lingering on them.

Perhaps, Thor ponders, Tony has no intentions of really choosing a singular scene to play with, just kind of gliding from one to another. A connection with all of them, since the family is of his choosing. Thor tilts his head, a clear invitation to come as he will.

Bruce whimpers. A sound breaking through from the silent straining that he’s been doing this whole time. His body is on fire from the muscles that he’s been pulling, and he still hasn’t managed to get any of the things that he wanted enough to try to break free for.

The sound draws Thor’s attention, where he’s now looking down at Bruce. That’s usually a sign that Bruce has hit one of his lines to break free and start begging. And Thor has never failed to be right there when Bruce finally gives in and allows him to hear those nice words.

“Please, Thor, may I have a kiss?” Bruce fumbles through the words, forgetting at least a third of them through the time it takes him to actually form the sentence. This is one of his better efforts on a first try, from what he recalls usually the first thing he manages to say is just a repeated plea without ever managing to say what it is that he’s pleading for, which never gets him what he wants.

Tony stands from the couch to make his way over to where Thor has Bruce all arched up and finally saying something. He can’t hear from this far away, but once he’s close enough, Thor reaches out to guide his hand towards the back of Bruce’s head with a wink that Bruce doesn’t catch. Tony catches on and twines his hands through Bruce’s hair to pull back his neck as well.

Thor chuckles as Bruce realizes that Thor’s not the only one whose attention is on him and starts panting. He has always enjoyed sharing on days like this. Especially when he knows what Bruce wants is for him to kiss him. Not for Tony to do so. “Tony, Bruce asked so prettily for a kiss. Do you think he deserves one?”

Tony hums. That could be one of those trick questions where the answer is no, even though he begged nicely for it because those aren’t the rules. However, he’s never known Bruce to deliberately break a single rule. If Thor had said no begging, it would have taken a lot longer, and a lot more time to result in Bruce being reduced to a mess that was willing to break rules. “Yes.”

“I agree. Would you mind? You have better control of his head.”

Tony understands seconds later as Bruce’s face falls. Bruce wants attention, he wants love and affection, and he wants it to come from Thor. This is a beautiful way to torture someone. A truly beautiful scene creation. Tony tilts Bruce’s head and presses his lips towards him. Gentle and soft, nothing that tells him that he’s owned, which is also something that he would want.

Bruce whines and shakes in the holds that he has. His eyes turn towards Thor with light tears in his eyes. “Thor, please, I wanted your kiss. Please.”

Less polite than the last request, more specific than the last request. He figured out part of the game at least. Amusing for him to keep playing. Thor just readjusts Bruce slightly more so that his legs are holding him directly over Thor’s lap and not letting him go down for that gentle touch. “I don’t know, that didn’t sound very nice to me.”

Tony shakes his head. “Indeed, it sounded more like a tease to me than anything. Maybe even a complaint. Very rude since I gave him what he asked for.”

Thor doesn’t even bother keeping up pretenses as he grins at Tony. “Hmm, he should have to make it up to us before he’s allowed to try again.”

Tony nods, lost in thought for a moment. He wants to move around, while also making sure that Bruce and Thor know that he’s with them and loves them which takes a lot of effort. Actually, it will take a lot of effort for everyone as he goes around the room, but all in all, half of his goal of this night. He reaches over to grab Thor’s free hand, giving plenty of time for Thor to back away if he doesn’t like being told what to do in a scene. He knows that Rhodey’s usually good with it, and that Pepper adores when they work together like this, but some of the other dominants that are newer to the family unit that he’s created, he needs to be cautious with.

Thor cocks an eyebrow but allows his friend Stark to pull his hand forward. He’s more than happy to allow Tony to take control of them both for a few minutes as long as he’s not placed into a super submissive posture. And Tony being willing to participate in a scene with him after everything is a huge honor. He’s more than happy to make a few adjustments.

Tony brings Thor’s hands up to Bruce’s mouth, curling down several of his fingers before staring at Bruce. “Open.”

Bruce’s mouth falls open, as he waits for the next command. He hadn’t meant his last words to come out so demanding, it’s just that he had actually properly begged, only to have his reward twisted in on itself. He’s willing to make amends. That’s a good thing to do, and they’re willing to allow him to do it.

Tony settles Thor’s fingers on the tip of Bruce’s tongue. He winks at Thor. “Don’t suck until he tells you to, Bruce.” Then, he takes a step back from them to head back towards his position on the couch before another couple catches his eye.

Thor takes a moment to relish the way that Bruce is trying so hard not to buck his hips or strain in order to ensure that he doesn’t upset him again. “You can suck, sweetheart.”

Bruce takes that as permission to immediately start working his tongue over the fingers. Pleading for something more. If he’s allowed to get on his knees and take Thor’s cock into his mouth that would be amazing. He’ll also take anything else.

Thor allows Bruce to get quite desperate around his fingers before pulling them out. “Two questions, if you answer them honestly, you’ll get a reward.”

Bruce nods his head frantically.

“Okay, the first question is, what is it that you wanted earlier?”

“I wanted you to kiss me, sir.” This time his brain manages to say the words without any hint of defiance, or a loophole worked into them. Much better.

“Good,” Thor praises. “The second question is, does your other half want to play tonight too? Because even in a room full of people, I can hold him down and fuck him over the loveseat if that’s what you both would like.”

Bruce’s eyes blow open wide. He twists his head back and forth. “Ask permission to turn into the hulk here. I know you can handle him, but what if it makes the others feel unsafe? What if they get their night ruined because I wanted to have both halves fulfilled.”

The panic in his eyes causes Thor to tuck him firmly into his body. Not even complaining about the fact that wasn’t actually an answer. Friend Stark was already busy again, but Lady Pepper, while receiving quite a bit of attention is mostly still able to speak. “Lady Pepper, Bruce wants to know whether or not it will be alright to have the Hulk in the room?”

Pepper blinks up towards Thor. Her hand tightening in James’ hair to stop him from peppering kisses on her legs. She counts to three in her head. “Will he or you be in control the whole time where there’s not going to be a broken hole through the walls or something that endangers the kids?”

“Yes, of course.”

Pepper shrugs. “Then do as you like. If someone has a problem, they’ll safe word and I’ll take care of it.”

Thor places his hand under Bruce’s head to tip his chin up. “Did you hear that, sweetheart?”

“I can let go,” he whispers.

Thor smiles at him. “Yes.” Then he raises Bruce’s head the rest of the way where he claims his mouth in a burning kiss. He keeps on plundering for several minutes before pulling back to stare at Bruce dead in the eyes. “Is there anything else you want tonight?”

Bruce points towards himself and then Thor’s crotch.

“You want to prep me for taking the other half?”

Bruce nods eagerly.

“Alright.”

True to his word, Bruce slips down on the ground and slowly peels away the layers stopping him from being able to touch Thor. The second all of the skin was bared, he leans forward and wraps his lips around Thor’s cock. He makes sure to be slow and methodical. This isn’t him trying to make his dominant come yet, this is just him trying to make sure that he gets some pleasure and wetness before the Hulk comes out.

Thor relaxes into the cushions of the couch, well aware of the eyes that are now staring at them. He doesn’t open his own to find out who is staring at them in fascination. He figures if anyone else wants to join in tonight, they’d make their way over to him at some point.

Once, Thor realizes that Bruce has gone completely into subspace, he knows that it’s time for the switch. Bruce often prefers coming as the Hulk when they’re doing a scene with both of them. He has no problems humoring this preference. Especially since the Hulk loves to be pushed over the edge time and time again. He taps Bruce’s cheek lightly with one finger to get the glazed over stare on him. “Let go of my cock, sweetheart, and let the green man out.”

Bruce lets Thor’s cock drop out of his mouth, as he sits back on his heels. Then, he lets the haze in his mind drift further and further back, until rather than Bruce Banner sitting on his heels, there’s the Hulk, still on his knees, now towering over the loveseat with a grin on his face. Not nearly as down as Bruce had been, but clearly not 100% in control of his facilities either.

Thor grins back at Hulk. The two of them don’t usually use words once Hulk comes out, because Bruce being able to translate usually goes better for them both. He stands up where his hands can reach Hulk’s face and drags him into another searing kiss. There’s a burning curiosity on what will happen tonight. Will Hulk fight him, will Hulk give in, will the rest of the room turn their eyes and watch him fuck the Hulk right into the soft cushions of this loveseat?

Hulk for his part stays on his knees as Thor dominates the kiss. Today is a good kind of day. That should probably mean it is a do good kind of day since he’s in the mood to be rewarded and not punished. He likes punishment, but not so much when everyone in the room is waiting on him. Like some of them might be frightened if he pushes at Thor’s buttons, and there’s a linger panicking from Bruce about the possibility of that happening, and he doesn’t like to be the cause of the terror within Bruce.

Thor pulls back with a pant. “Oh, you’re being so good today, aren’t you?”

Hulk nods slowly. That’s the plan. Be good, have nice things happen, and in general enjoy the company of the other avengers now that he’s not locked away all of the time. It’s nice to not be automatically angry when he comes out enough so that he can enjoy their presence more than just being upset.

Thor moves so that his body is more behind the Hulk than anything else. “Does that mean you’re willing to bend yourself over this lovely couch, or do you still want me to force you?”

That’s a good question. Thor’s hands pushing and prodding him in place would be nice. They always leave delightful tiny burns on his skin, and he doesn’t have to work as much. But if he does bend himself over willingly maybe he can ask for a reward. He raises a hand and shakes it back and forth in a so-so kind of manner.

Thor hums. “You’re willing to be good for me and do it yourself, but you’re not sure. Hmm, what should I offer you to convince you then?”

Hulk tilts his head to the side. Most of the time, Thor would take his so-so to mean that he should make the decision, not offer more choices to see if he could get the answer to change. But, then today isn’t precisely a normal day, so he’ll wait and see what happens next.

“Tell you what, if you choose to move for me instead of me forcing you today, next time we play, you can request anything you like, no conditions on it.”

Hulk rolls forward to get most of his body over the couch. He kind of jerks his hips and lower body to get a more comfortable angle for Thor to be able to reach before going mostly limp. That kind of deal he’ll take any day of the week.

“Good boy,” Thor says. Thor knows that his cock is still dripping both with Bruce’s saliva and his own pre-come, but he’s not willing to risk Hulk’s safety on that alone. He slips one finger into Thor immediately and starts pumping it in and out, testing how ready Hulk is.

Hulk fights not to jerk as the finger enters and exits him. Or to make a whole lot of noise when more fingers join the first. He knows how loud he is when he roars, and the children will almost definitely wake up if he doesn’t manage to control himself. And the children seeing half of what was going on in this room would be a little more traumatizing than the first portion of the evening that they were allowed to witness.

“Hulk, just letting you know that you can be as loud as you want. Friday has a soundproofing up around the children’s rooms to ensure they don’t hear anything that we don’t want them to.” Rhodey tosses a water bottle over to land next to them with a shit eating grin on his face.

After being told that, Hulk doesn’t manage to contain any of his noises. Not when Thor starts targeting his prostate with every thrust, and he’s screaming in ecstasy. The pleasure washes over him.

Thor waits until he’s sure that the teasing amount of pleasure without either permission to let go and come or Thor’s cock all the way in him, promising him some hint of comfort, that Hulk was firmly in subspace. Then, he lifts himself off the ground with the magic that he’s slowly getting more of the hang of to be able to fuck into Hulk easily.

He sets up a brutal pace. Rocking into Hulk and pulling back at the last second. Hulk roars are no longer the normal full breath, instead they come out panting. His large hands struggle to find some purchase in the furniture to keep himself from wanting to reach around towards his dick. He comes at Thor’s command or not at all.

Thor reaches his own hand around once he’s getting close. Full control spreads across as he brushes over Hulk’s cock without providing any actual release. “With me?”

Hulk arches his head back as he tries to convey a nod. He’s not sure whether he does well or not, but Thor’s pace speeds up somewhat, and he figures that’s the acknowledgement that he was getting. He chases his own orgasm even as he tries to twist his hips back to encourage Thor to do the same, and in the end, they come at the same time.

In the end, Thor manages to succeed in his goals of getting them both to come at the same time. And afterwards, he’s able to lean Hulk down across the floor and parts of the couch to rest on his lap. And for the first time since he can remember of his youth, he knows that this is what family ought to feel like. Love in every corner and no judgement anywhere around.

Laura’s plans for the evening are simple. Bask in the way that everyone here is happy, that everyone here wants to be exactly where they are, and relax. For five minutes, just relax. Hopefully no children to wake her up from a peaceful dream, no insane plots of people trying to take advantage of one or more of her family, or aliens arriving to start a war.

Clint enjoys the nostalgia of the way that Laura is keeping him pinned in place against the beanbags on the floor with her names running against his scalp. She hadn’t asked him for a single thing, and he doesn’t really need anything more than this. He’s at peace with everything and everyone.

Laura turns her head when she hears Bruce whimper. She watches as Thor teases him even further. She tugs Clint’s head up so that he can see what’s happening as well, after all they are putting on quite a show. “Hmm, now doesn’t that look fun, darling?”

Clint giggles despite himself. The amusement from all of these things bubbling up in him until he’s unable to do anything other than laugh in sheer thrill. “Being teased or the super human strength to hold someone completely above you with only a single hand?”

Laura grins herself. “If I had that kind of super strength, I don’t think we’d have just the three kids.”

Clint twists in her grasp to press kisses to the insides of her wrists. “Pretty sure the only reason we’ve got three is because we never saw the point in protection when we only saw each other so rarely, and then somehow like 3 out of the 8 times we managed to get enough time to do anything, you got pregnant. Those odds just aren’t scientific.”

Laura hears someone behind them choke on their breath. She can’t blame them, there’s always the chance, but that’s the thing they don’t know about Clint and Laura. They don’t much mind the risk. More children is a merry thing, and until they biologically can’t have anymore, she sees no reason to test anything other than the fates. “Do you think today will make four out of nine? Or do you think those scientific odds will win out?”

Clint pauses as he considers that question. “Hmm, no clue. Only one way to find out.”

This time there’s true laughter behind them. Laura almost turns around to check it out when the noise gets cut off abruptly. Someone else must have realized that she could hear them or more accurately, she was paying attention enough so to hear them.

Laura shakes her head to clear it. “What would you like tonight?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” he teases her gently. He leans into the hand that she has on his head though. “Touch, reminders that I’m forgiven. That’s all.”

That Laura thinks should have been obvious to her. Ever since he’s gotten back, he’s been far more touch starved than before. He would hold her hand when she walked by until she was too far away for him to hold. And he often asked her whether or not all was truly forgiven. Not just the things that happened under the mind control but mistakes from their past. Something tells her that he had half expected her to hand him divorce papers when Tony called to tell her that he was home.

Speaking of Tony, he’s now behind Clint’s view and right in hers. He pops up a tiny little wave to her and goes nowhere near Clint. He’s not sure whether this will be a him watching Laura take him apart kind of night or whether she’ll give him some amount of play time too. He’s not too picky either, just wanting to see everyone get taken care of.

Laura gets a slightly devilish look in her eyes. “You’re always forgiven, darling, but would you like a reminder of that?”

Clint hums in response, his mind already blanking out. All he really needs is the reminder every now and then because he still remembers the way that Steve had shouted at him that no one was ever going to forgive him for leaving when he did, and true to form even as he came when Wanda’s call got to be too much, Steve never offered him a kind word.

Laura beckons for Tony to come stand real close to Clint. “Is this a night where you’re willing to let someone fuck you, darling?”

“Thought we were trying for a baby,” he slurs out. “But yeah, I’m good to be fucked tonight. Just a warning before you touch my back, yeah?”

“Of course, bird brain,” Tony answers catching onto Laura’s plan at the last second. He runs his fingers down the column of Clint’s back. “I think she’s hoping that I’ll give you a grand time while you fuck into her that way you’re guaranteed to recall how loved you are.”

“See, I knew that there was a reason all those news sources kept calling you a genius.” Laura reaches out to tug on Clint’s head to line closer up to her mouth so she could press sweet kisses against his lips, and his cheeks, and really anywhere else that she wanted to.

Clint shimmies closer to her without removing himself from Tony’s touches. Similar to the time right after his punishment when he had craved being reminded how loved he was, he was unwilling to go without any touch that was being offered to him, no matter the reason that it might be that way. He reaches with his hands that are free towards Laura’s shirt, just barely bunching it up.

Laura nods her head giving him the permission he seeks to start getting her naked. Then, she turns her mind back to Tony who is grinning like a wolf at her, his hands doing lazy designs over Clint’s back the whole time. She notices that he’s not really chasing his own pleasure. Probably a bit older than the rest of them for a full orgy night, yet still determined to be with all of them. She tilts her head down to Clint, silently asking Tony to remove some of his layers.

Tony sets to work as gentle as possible. He moves Clint back and forth to get the shirt off without ever requiring that he truly leave the embrace that he had going on with Laura. No matter how much easier that would have made the undressing process. Nor did he ask her for anything more as he realizes that both her and Clint are mostly naked. Although he makes a note to himself that when they’re done, he should bring them a blanket to curl up under. He didn’t sense any of the desire to move in either of them, so he’d make them comfortable enough on the floor. Seems like a best case kind of plan in his mind.

Laura sets to placing kisses along Clint’s neck, soft and gentle. Tonight isn’t the time for pain in her opinion. At least not for her husband, and not for anyone outside of a pleasure giving situation.

Tony waits until Clint’s gotten used to the ministrations that Laura’s giving him before leaning down and starting to press those same gentle kisses that Laura’s been using around the center of his back and down his legs, and occasionally a brief ghost of one around the globes of his ass.

Laura reaches below the three of them to play with herself. Not in any means to get herself to come, but to make sure that she was wet. Wet and ready for Clint to enter her without needing to do any prep work himself, since tonight was going to be about him getting the pleasure that comes from being loved, and she’s determined to allow him to not have to deal with a single thing.

Tony takes note of this and the fact that Clint’s completely dazed out, he keeps his trail of kisses consistent, but he reaches around Clint’s body bypassing his cock to lay his hand over Laura’s.

Laura meets his gaze and realizes that he’s asking for consent. Offering to help her get ready for Clint with no real expectation of getting anything in return. Just an offer to make it to where she’s not just playing with herself when she’s got so many family members right here next to her, and she can’t stop herself from letting her knees fall apart where Tony can easily reach where he wishes.

Tony has had a lot of sex. The media much as it pains him to admit, didn’t have to do much in the way of exaggeration to the stories to make the headlines. He’d been known for having orgies like this in his youth, only with a whole lot less love and whole lot more alcohol. Still, he knows how to make a woman come. Which he sets out to do. If Laura can have multiple orgasms, than she deserves them for being a saint at all bloody times. Actually she probably deserves more if he’s being honest.

Laura arches her back up and ends up digging her nails more firmly into Clint’s back causing him to hiss and jerk wondering what was happening. Tony’s fingers circling her clit without ever pressing into her felt so good. Especially when he rocked them forward giving her that familiar pressure. When she toppled over into her first orgasm, he seems pleased.

He lets her recover her breath before asking the question on his mind, because he wouldn’t have a single question if she wanted him to keep going to send her over the edge until she’s good and ready for Clint. But, he’s also not sure how much energy she has when she’s the one keeping most of the housekeeping matters solved while the rest of them worked out the issues with aliens or governments. “Are you ready for your husband or would you like me to keep going?”

Laura’s eyes go wide. She hadn’t thought that this had been anything other than a gentle offering to help out, not a genuine offer. “Tony?”

“Hmm.”

“I didn’t know that you were willing to…” she trails off, not really sure how to finish that thought. She hadn’t been aware that Tony was firmly willing to sleep with people of the same designation as him. She doesn’t have a problem with it, in fact based on this alone, she’s inclined to tell him to do it more often, but even still she should check.

“Yeah, Laura, I’ll fuck anyone. Designation be damned, gender be damned. I won’t let you dom me, but that’s about the only thing that you aren’t allowed to do.”

Clint nods with an intense look in his eyes. “He’s really good at it too.”

Laura can’t contain her laughter at that. Of course, her husband would tell her that their sugar daddy of sorts was good in bed. Because that’s a normal thing in the life that they’ve somehow found themselves. “Hmm, I think I’d like my husband now.”

Clint beams up at her with that pleased smile.

Tony gets a glint in his eyes that spells trouble for all of them not that Laura plans on complaining about much of anything that he’s done so far. “Do you want me to direct him for the first little bit before I start making sure he’s losing his mind too?”

Laura hisses at the thought. Her mind carrying her away to a world where Tony’s hands are on Clint’s hips, telling him when to thrust up or down. Tony in control of her pleasure again, only through her husband. As if Clint was nothing but a toy. Maybe somedays that what he’d like to be.

Clint leans into Tony’s touch. “I think my wife my like that idea.”

“Well, your pretty wife deserves everything that she might possibly want. Are you good with the plan?”

Clint offers Tony one of his blinding smiles. “Hell yes, Tony.”

Tony snorts in amusement. He can hear the unspoken sir in the undertone, and he can’t bring himself to care about the fact that all too many of his submissives in this tower have started doing tiny acts of bratting every other day. There’s too much joy in having everyone around to give him that much sass on a regular.

He inches forward until he can easily wrap his arms entirely around Clint’s waist, where moving without his say-so would take a damn good bit of energy and probably wouldn’t result in anything happy happening either. He moves forward where he can lightly bite Clint’s ear before lowering his voice into more hushed tones. “Tell me if anything starts pulling,” he orders.

Clint nods. Then, using the way that Tony’s got a hold on him to inch towards his wife. He lines himself up and waits. Either Laura will get impatient and give him a command or Tony will use all that leverage he’s given himself to fuck Clint into his wife himself. He’s a winner no matter who decides to give him his next command. All he’s got to do is wait.

Waiting isn’t a large strong point of any of their family. Laura’s hand creeps over Clint’s body right as Tony pushes him forward. Clint lets out an undignified shout at the feelings that causes. Not only is Laura’s heat now completely incasing him, but there’s a strength in the hold on him that says that he’s not the one resulting in his own pleasure, and that drives him insane almost as much as all of the rest of it does.

Laura moans as Clint’s cock enters her. She had been about to tell Tony to get on with it, but now she understands what he meant by using Clint as the toy to fuck her with. He’s the one that’s rocking Clint in and out of her. He’s the one who’s making sure to drag the cock against her clit to get more of that high ended pleasure.

She almost breaks off her moans to ask Tony what the rest of the plan is, when she notices him shaking his head. He’s got whatever his plan is, and honestly, she can’t really say that she cares all that much what he does as long as she gets another orgasm out of it and Clint gets to come inside of her, since this is partially his reward for being so good and forgiven. She’d have no choice but to fight Tony if he messed with either of those two things.

Tony keeps his grip tight as he encourages Clint to chase his wife’s pleasure only. Oh, he’s sure that there’s the general pleasure of fucking into someone, but he’s not setting the pace anywhere near fast enough for Clint to be in danger of going under that same edge himself. That’s his design. Laura comes first and then while he’s still doing these small jerky motions to try to come in her, he’s going to release his grip and rim the ever living shit out of Clint until he forgets any words that aren’t please.

Clint rolls his head back to be able to see Tony’s eyes. There’s clear evidence in his mind that he’s not coming anytime soon. Tony controls that tonight. His wife said that he would, and Tony has the control over when that is.

Tony chuckles at the way that Clint’s eyes meet his without any hint of question or pleading in them. Just blanket acceptance over the situation that he’s gotten himself into by this point. “Make her come for me.”

Clint barely recognizes that Tony’s hands are no longer on his waist in his haste to follow orders. It’s rather easy to get his wife to come with the tools at his disposal. He leans forward to catch her lips in a searing kiss as he trails a hand down to tease her clit while he’s still pumping in and out of her.

Despite what Laura thought would happen the second that Tony let go of Clint’s hips and let him set his own pace that he’d speed up chasing his pleasure, she’s bombarded with sensations as Clint goes after her with more dedication than he has in quite a while. She lets her eyes roll back into her head as she comes for the second time this evening, with her husband making sure to touch her in all the ways that he’s learned she loves.

Tony for his part has started peppering kisses all down Clint’s spine. It is a testament to how relaxed Clint has gotten with the family that he’s no longer jerking whenever someone’s behind him as long as they’ve warned him beforehand that they’re planning on being there. He presses a kiss against Clint’s hole and watches as the whole of his body freezes in shock.

Laura weaves her hand through Clint’s hair to keep him against her lips instead of responding to whatever Tony had just done to get that response. She’ll let Tony have his fun while she takes care of her husband.

Clint starts panting into the kiss that Laura has him trapped in, the second that the warm tongue starts licking around the outside of his ass. It hasn’t penetrated him yet, but he knows Tony. Tony will wait until he’s started to get used to the way that this feels before he starts actively making Clint chase his pleasure. Tony might even be waiting until he loses his control and starts pleading for someone to give him exactly what he wants.

Tony waits, tracing his tongue around Clint’s hole until the man in front of him finally starts to relax for real. The body dropping mostly limp on top of Laura except for the pathetic tiny humps of his hips that are still sending his cock inside her. That’s when he pushes through the ring of muscles to get his tongue inside Clint.

Clint shouts when the tongue enters him. He couldn’t have said how long the teasing had gone on for, but he had been confident that it was long enough for him to have lost his mind with only teasing touches against his skin. He’s blabbering about something, he’s not sure that any of his words are coming out correctly with how Laura has a gentle smile on her face and is nodding.

Laura has to fight to keep the laughter out of her mouth as Clint’s shouts turn into some gibberish. She’s relatively positive that some of them are prayers to a higher power for the delight that this night is, some of them are pleas to be given permission to come right here and now with Tony’s mouth against him, and the rest are declarations of love. Honestly, she’s not sure who the declarations are for, and she’s not too concerned with it. He could pledge his love to anyone in this room, and she’d take it in stride. After tonight, she might join him in pledging love for Tony Stark.

Tony sneaks a hand around to try to write a message on Laura’s thigh. He doesn’t want to move from his position to give Clint permission himself, so he’s hoping that Laura has recovered enough that she’s able to read the words that he carefully tracing against her skin, telling her to tell him to come.

Laura feels Tony’s fingers against her thigh. For a few seconds she thinks that is just him making sure to be connected to both members in the scene, before she starts to realize that his fingers are moving deliberately. She focuses on the patterns for a moment or two before she finally recognizes the letters and words in his tracing.

She pets Clint’s hair a few times through before tugging him off her shoulder where he’s been mumbling incoherently for a while now. “Darling, you’re welcome to come now if you like.”

That’s all Clint needed to send himself spiraling over the edge. He’d been holding himself back for several minutes at that point, and the permission was all it took. Once he’d emptied his sperm into Laura, he manages to move his hips enough to get out of her where he could collapse on top of her instead.

Tony continues to laugh in merriment as he stands up from the couple who are now pressed against each other on the floor, unwilling to move even an inch out of each other’s space. He walks away from them softly to go grab the blanket from the closet in the nearest hallway. The two of them look like they would enjoy some cuddles and everyone else not bothering them for a few more minutes.

Laura watches as Tony leaves them. She’s not surprised, she’d pegged it from the beginning that he planned on proving to himself that this was a real family by going around to each and every scene to just be a part of it, and feel the love that this family is willing to offer to each other. She is surprised when he makes his way back over to him with one of the fluffiest blankets that she’d ever seen.

Tony lays it down on top of them, careful to tuck in the edges and everything. “You can doze off Laura. I promise to wake you if anything important happens.”

“Define important.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Something that only you can handle. You deserve the same break all of the rest of us have for the night. Just rest, I’ll take care of the rest.”

Laura looks to be ready to start a fight when Clint’s hand shifts slightly to draw her further under the cover. That’s when she just gives in and lays her head back down on the floor. “Wake me before the kids make it all the way up.”

“Or I’ll put on a suit and carry you to your bedroom where the kids can wake up,” Tony promises. He stands near them for another few moments just to make sure that Laura is good and asleep before moving away from them entirely.

Loki’s leg starts jittering almost the second the movie starts. He can’t remember ever being allowed to be this confident in his skin that he could stand here and not be required to do anything else with it being primarily a scene night. The easy way that Thor falls into this isn’t available for him. He doesn’t have any of the ease of domming to help him through.

There’s a hand on the back of his neck that squeezes tight. For just a minute Loki’s mind goes blank. All of his worries are gone, and there’s nothing to be done about anything. He’s here, and so is his family, and that will be enough. Then, the hand on his neck starts shaking uncontrollably before dropping completely.

Stephen curses at himself the moment that his hand fails. He could see the way that grip actually relaxes Loki into a position that isn’t losing his mind over what might happen today. “Dammit.”

Loki spins around to stare at Stephen. He had known of course about the damage in the man’s hands, but he hadn’t realized how little magic he knew to make up for that. He wonders distantly whether that punishment scene with him had been one of his first since the accident or whether that was biases playing into his own opinions. Instead, he makes sure that Strange’s eyes are on him as he makes desperate little hand motions until he can feel Stephen’s throat under his palms without them actually being against his neck. He cancels the spell seconds later, unwilling to tempt fate more than he had by showing it. There are certainly many people that he’s known over the years that would have taken that as an insult had he done them to them.

Stephen is entranced by the way that Loki’s hands move when he’s doing magic. He’s always graceful and methodical. Somehow despite the years and multitude of spells that he must know, he rarely falters for even a brief second away from whatever task he’s dedicated himself to. He wonders for a moment what spell Loki could want at a time like this, until the pressure on his neck appears, almost as if someone’s palm is resting over it, despite the fact that no one is near them, and Loki’s hands are still in the spell work. Then, that pressure is gone.

Stephen stares up at Loki. The first thought that had gone into his head had been that Loki was planning on teaching him a way to do what both of them wanted to do. However, his thoughts seem to be losing out by the guilty expression on Loki’s face. “Do you want to explain?”

Loki averts his gaze. He had known this was a terrible idea. This was truly a stupid plan. Even if he had liked the pressure there, it wasn’t for him to decide what he got in a day, and he shouldn’t have shown the spell on the dominant present even if that had been the correct action. And he probably took the curses as something they weren’t. Maybe Stephen wasn’t upset.

Stephen wishes in that moment that his hands would cooperate with a grip on Loki’s throat to convince him to answer the question at a minimum, to get that blasted sheepish guilt off his face would be a good maximum. Although as he thinks about that, he remembers that there is a very good way to accomplish that as well. He goes through the motions that he had seen Loki do much slower and more hesitant than he had.

The end goal is much the same though. Loki jerks his head up as the grip on his throat tightens further even than it had been before. He gasps as he turns his eyes back towards Stephen.

“That’s better,” Stephen praises lightly. He knows just how much kind words matter to Loki, and while he does still want answers to his questions, there’s no need for him to be cruel in the process. That kind of defeats the purpose of using a power play like this. “Now, do you want to explain?”

“What would you like an explanation for?” If he asks about the spell, Loki will at least have a clear answer. If he asks about something else, Loki isn’t sure what his answer will be, but that’s better than hazarding a guess and getting it wrong. He hopes.

“For looking like you just put your brother’s pet in the microwave to blow it up for shits and giggles and got caught.” That’s the best way that he knows of to stress that he’s talking about the guilt and not the action. He can’t say that he really cares about why Loki did it, when it is giving him exactly what he would have asked for if he had the confidence to ask for such things.

Loki furrows his brow. The translation of those words seemed to be awfully specific, but unless it was regarding his guilt, he couldn’t think of a way for it to be related to the current situation. Which implies that Stephen is asking for the cause of his guilt, but surely if he wanted the explanation behind the spell, he would have asked that instead of about guilt. “Umm, because I kind of just choked you.”

“You did? Could have fooled me,” Stephen replies. “You stopped the spell before it could do much more than be noticed. Not sure that I count that as choking me.”

“You wouldn’t?” Loki can’t help but asking. If that’s true, then he’s not in any trouble. He had done the right thing, he hadn’t miscalculated.

Stephen shakes his head and watches as the remaining tension drops from Loki’s body. Interesting that Loki has such a visceral reaction to anyone believing that he had done wrong. He had honestly anticipated Loki being a brat.

Loki closes his eyes to at least prevent him from seeing the blush that is going to rise across his cheeks when he asks for this next part. “Umm, could you do it harder?”

Stephen blinks. He twitches his fingers and watches as the phantom grip that he has on Loki’s neck tightens. Not enough to choke him, he would like a much longer conversation before he dares to actually cut off breath the whole way, but enough that Loki is straining up on his tiptoes to relieve just a hint of the pressure and Stephen can feel the way that he takes in each breath. “Like that?”

Loki nods. Every nod bringing the tightness up another notch. If this was anyone else, if this was anywhere else, he wouldn’t dare do that. Losing an inch of ground would potentially be another moment that he doesn’t survive the encounter, but he wants desperately for this to be good and only good.

Stephen can’t help a shaky laugh leaving him as he notices how happy Loki is at that pressure. “How much concentration do I need to have on this spell, Loki?”

Loki blinks a couple times before he realizes that he’s talking about the spell that is allowing him this grip. Loki had almost forgotten that this wasn’t his real hand cutting off his general ease with words. “Not much,” he croaks out.”

Stephen smirks at him at that, before twisting him on the couch to face him in a crouch around them. This one he can do with a little help from Levi without having to break the spell that he has going with his hands. “Good,” he comments. Then, he’s pressing up to force his lips on Loki’s. There’s not an ounce of grace given that he’s keeping his hands busy with something else entirely.

Loki accepts this assault on his mouth with a certain amount of happiness. He can’t remember the last time that he had allowed himself this amount of delirious joy. This would be better if one of them was able to move their hands and change alignments. That would be bold, and well he is a prince, and once before it had ben beaten out of him, he thinks he would have liked to do just that anytime a scene took a turn like this.

He’s hesitant as he reaches his hands up. The movement noticeable to Stephen, but there’s no motion for him to stop, no tightening around his throat to cut off his breath to get him to give in. So finally, he lets his palms cup Stephen’s cheeks and his fingers run up and down as he rearranges them to the better position to make out.

He makes a small whine when Stephen moves his tongue into his mouth. He’s always enjoyed things being in his mouth. That might be partially the breath play talking.

Stephen thinks that he’s found his new favorite thing in the way that Loki’s moving up and down right in front of him on the couch. Especially when the man’s hands have got to be even more magical than his with the way that they’re brushing over his face and convincing him to move in whichever fashion would be best. The kisses are nice, but he would very much like Loki’s movements to be on top of his lap and not directly in front of him.

He’s about to break from the kiss to ask Loki to move since he can’t easily accomplish that himself, when he finds Rhodey standing there pushing Loki the rest of the way into his lap. Then, without even a single word, he plops down next to them with a bowl of fruit.

He catches the looks from both Stephen and Loki within a few seconds. He jerks his head over to the side where Pepper and James were doing something. “I have snacks for them when they recall that breaks are nice and important if you’re going for the stamina level shit that they’re currently angling for.”

Loki has to pull back minutely to let out a giggle at that. “You’re sweet, Rhodey.”

“Don’t you know it.”

Stephen allows that moment to catch his breath before flicking his fingers to give Loki just a brief squeeze cutting off his breath to remind him that he’s supposed to be focused on him. As fun as it is to watch Rhodey wait with a bowl of fruit. “You’re welcome to join us if you’d like rather than waiting with a bowl of fruit.”

Loki’s eyes light up. More people, almost always means more fun in his mind. Especially since he now has the power to drive Stephen insane by grinding against him as they make out.

“Nah, I’d rather be ready for the two of them, but thanks for the offer. And I might intervene again if I notice you’ve got some kind of magic spell going that’s taking up your hands.”

Stephen almost opens his mouth to correct him. To say that he’s broken even without the magic holding his hands together. That the magic only makes it to where he has a chance to do something else, something tangible. But, the look in Rhodey’s eyes stops him. It’s a look that screams, he knows. He knows and it doesn’t matter to him that the reason Stephen can’t do it alone is because of the accident.

“Kiss me,” Loki pleads. Partially because he wants to feel the power of someone’s lips against his again, but mostly just because he can see the wheels turning in Stephen’s brain. The way that he wants to give in to the trauma and stop whatever he’s doing to mope about the uselessness he feels. That’s not how he wants tonight to end. That’s not even what he wants morning to be. He wants Stephen to look back on this day and remember that this is still possible even with all of the damage done to his hands. That the damage that has been done isn’t the only thing.

Stephen surges upwards at the demand to catch him by surprise with the kiss. Somewhere he knows that it wasn’t a demand, that it was a request. But, he’s never been all that concerned with what is and what isn’t in this context. If there was bratting to be done, then let it be done. He can take the sass that he’s known for being thrown back at him, or at least he usually can.

Loki closes his eyes. Their tongues are raging for dominance. His hands are keeping Stephen’s head at a good angle, and Stephen’s hands are still holding a constant pressure at his throat. There’s so many feelings occurring all across his body, and he doesn’t know whether it’s instinct or just good fun to start moving his hips too.

Stephen comes close to death when Loki starts actively rolling his hips down where their erections can brush against each other through fabric. If he wasn’t already doing magic, he’d have vanished their clothes already. Good for him, he’s not the only mage in this arrangement. He pulls out of the kiss to place a wet kiss on Loki’s cheek, realizing how much he’d love to mark the god in just a second. “Can you vanish our clothes?”

The words go in his brain and then freeze there. He has never known any dominant who was willing to allow him to use magic to make things easier on them. In fact the last time that he can recall even being allowed to use magic was only ever to enhance the dominant’s experience and not his. Every ounce of his experience is telling him that this is a trap. Every ounce of his instincts is telling him to reach out with truth this time.

Trust wins out. Maybe because he’s finally ready to try again to find something worth fighting for, and maybe because most of them have a way to break him free if Stephen turns on him, and he trusts several people in this room to do that at a minimum if something goes horribly wrong. He lets go of one side of Stephen’s hands to cast the spell and their clothes are gone. Probably forever, he doesn’t have enough brain power to locate where he banished them even if he tried.

Stephen smiles as their erections brush again this time skin against skin, and he watches the shiver crawl up Loki’s back. Before Loki has much of a change to recover from that new sensation, he chooses to start up another one. He drops his head lower on the side that doesn’t have Loki’s hand anymore to run his lips up and down Loki’s neck until he finds a good place to put his mark. He bites down and then starts sucking around the skin that his mouth as a grip on.

Loki jerks forward when there’s a bite right underneath the pressure. He’s never had someone do both at once where his mind was at war with what was the dominant experience that he was feeling at just this moment. He might lose his mind if this is how the whole day is going to go. He has his mouth though, so he starts using it. “Please, please. Fuck, more, please.”

This time, Stephen can clearly tell that this is begging. That being said he’s not confident in what he wants. The bruise is certainly sticking to him, which is a huge bonus given that he’s a god that has healing powers, and he’s not using any advancements to make sure that his bruises stick. “Hmm, tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.”

Another moment where Loki could follow his distrust of people. Say something that won’t matter nearly as much as what he really wants to have happen, just in case. That way he won’t be disappointed or be punished with something that actually matter to him.

Stephen pulls back as he feels the threads of tension being placed again. He tightens his grip to keep Loki in this moment and not falling through towards his memories. “Hey, what’s happening in that head of yours?”

“Don’t want to be tricked.” The words fall from his lips before he can stop them. And Loki feels automatic regret. If Stephen hadn’t been planning on punishing him before, he definitely would now at this assumption of the worst in him.

“No tricks. I swear,” Stephen reassures softly. A glance over tells him that Rhodey’s watching them with deep interest to see what will happen from this conversation. “Tell me what will help,” he orders in the softest voice that he can manage while still being commanding just in case this is closer to a drop than he would like.

Loki shakes where he’s perched now. There’s just enough confidence left that he’s able to lean himself forward to bury his face into Stephen’s shoulder.

Stephen blinks before immediately moving his arms where they can hold him in place. His hands might be shit, but he can do a hug. Hugs he’s still great at. He cancels the spell automatically to make sure that he can have his submissive safe first and foremost.

Loki whimpers as the spell ends as he proceeds to desire the urge to hit himself over the head. Of course, this would lose him one of the things that he wanted. That’s always what happens.

Stephen curses as Loki starts shaking even more against him. He moves his hands away from Loki to recast the spell. The first ten seconds, he lets the full pressure build before receding it back again. “Loki, I’m going to need you to try words for me. I’m a little bit concerned with where you are.”

“It’s always been a trick. If I let my guard down, something bad will happen. And I’ve already broken rules.”

Stephen dissects that sentence in his head for a few moments. There are parts of it that he understands to an extent. There’s a lot of things to go over in his brain, but the big one leaps out at him with neon letters. “What rules do you think you’ve broken?”

Loki knows this part of the game. This part is the easy part, he says what he did wrong that way they can judge him fully. “I used my magic on you, I failed to trust you or your word, and I took liberties with touching you.”

Stephen sucks in a breath of air. “Loki, none of those are rules.”

“What?”

“As. far as I'm aware, no one here has ever asked you to not commit acts of magic.”

“They haven’t,” Rhodey confirms from off to the side.

Stephen nods. “The other two: I have no issues with someone with trust issues having problems during a scene with trust; I could have stopped you from touching me at any point that you went over the lines that I had.”

Loki pulls back to stare into Stephen’s eyes. “I’ve never had a scene that hasn’t ended in pain on my end.”

“Fuck that. Tonight, the only thing that this is going to end in is a couple of orgasms. Preferably yours and mine, but I’ll take what I can get.”

Loki swallows hard. “Even if I mess up?”

“Hell,” Stephen swore. “If you cross a line, I’ll tighten my grip on your throat so that you know that you’ve crossed a line. You do it again, and I’ll take it as a light boundary tonight that you’d like me to move for a while. This is about building trust; we can worry about anything else.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Stephen lies his head on top of Loki’s. “Can you tell me something that you’d like? It can be literally anything, and it won’t come back against you, I swear.”

“I like people topping from the bottom.”

“Okay.” That’s easy enough to accomplish. Their clothes are off, with his grip on Loki’s neck he can probably control speed. “I squeeze your neck harder, you slow down. I release some of the tension on your neck, you slow down.”

Loki nods. Those are easy enough rules to remember, except he doesn’t quite understand what that means. Is he just supposed to rock their hips together? That would be fun, except he’s not sure how that would classify as topping from the bottom, and today is not the day for him to be confused. In fact confusion could only hurt the current equilibrium they have set up, and he’s afraid to ask still.

Stephen apparently has him covered though. By asking a follow up question, “do you have a spell that will lube you up enough that you could glide down a cock?”

Loki blinks. Does he have a spell that? He obviously has a spell for that. There are so many sex spells that he could probably fill a library with that alone, except he’s never known a dominant who would allow that spell to be used during a scene. Then again, he hadn’t know a single dominant who would do half of the things that have been allowed today, and he’s running out of reasons to be this panicked about these things. “Yes, sir. Would you like me to use it?”

“If you would be so kind as to oblige me, yes please.”

Loki flicks his hands up to start the spell. He knows that he doesn’t necessarily have to show Stephen how to do this one. There’s no need at this exact moment for him to know how to carry the spell on his own. And yet, this seems like a small way to show trust. To show someone else the bits of magic that you have picked up across the universe.

The second the spell takes effect, Loki squeezes his eyes shut. He forgets the open and gaping feeling that the spell leaves. Oh, it ensures that no matter what happens, you won’t be injured in the coming actions, but it is meant to occur with something already inside you that you took too dry, because it aches to not have something in you when you’re this stretched out. He doesn’t think he’d last more than a minute before he’d break down and start babbling pleas out in a variety of languages that he might be able to imagine at a time like this.

Stephen has to bite down on his own lips to keep himself from laughing. The way that Loki’s clenching around nothing, while trying hard not actually open his eyes or start begging for anything. “Rhodey, my hands are still a bit busy in case you couldn’t tell that on your own. Would you mind lifting him up and placing him down on my lap?”

Rhodey stares between them and just starts laughing like a maniac. “Sure, magic man. Loki, the next thing you need to teach his ass is how to cast multiple things.”

Loki’s eyes jerk open as he turns to stare at the other dominant. “Umm, he can’t.”

“But you can? I’ve legit watched you do it on several occasions. One of which was while my best friend was trying to fight you in order to save the world. I think I would remember if something like that happened to be a part of the mind control.”

Loki clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth. This time is one of the few that he wishes that Thor was paying better attention too. However, he can manage this, he swears he can. He can answer questions so that maybe Rhodey will be willing to help like Stephen has asked.

Stephen leans over and swats Rhodey’s arm. “Help him first and then quiz him on magic. Good god man, be a little nice to the poor guy.”

Rhodey huffs out a laugh before standing up and reaching over. He lifts Loki up, surprised that Loki can weight that little, then figures that it might be that magic thing that he’s got questions about. He settles him down on top of Stephen’s erect cock, ignoring the slight strain in his braces. He’ll go back to sitting in just a minute, and he’d love to have like at least a small moment of time where he’s not completely screwed with his legs after the fall.

Loki moans as he slides down and is filled to the correct amount.

Stephen rolls his eyes towards Rhodey. “Loki, will you answer some questions for Rhodey, before I let you fuck us both good? Just so that he can assuage his curiosity.”

Loki recalls that the question has already been asked, so his best bet was answering that one to answer the second. Unless Stephen wants him to not answer, but if he didn’t want that he had a huge number of options on how to address that without having to by any means. “Well, yes, I was born to one of the many species in the universe that has access to the crafts of magic. Humans can use magic using sorcery, which is what Stephen does. There are a good many things that sorcerers can do, including just about any spell that they learn, but the drawback is that they must actually channel a deep amount of thought into, which makes doing multiple spells near impossible. The only way to do more than one is complete mastery of the mind, and one cannot teach that.”

“You can’t?”

Loki groans. “Stephen, you weren’t born with magic, were you?”

“No, I was born with the ability to learn and harness it, but I was not born with active magic.”

Loki points to him. “See. Meanwhile, I was born with magic. I was born, and I made things happen with magic with thoughts alone, no spells required. Far more dangerous, and why children born with the gift often have to be watched carefully to ensure that nothing bad is going to happen around them. That’s why I can do things with thoughts and spells alike. Why I can cast spells with more than just my hands, while Stephen can’t.”

Rhodey groans. “How many types of magic are there? I really thought there was just a unified one.”

Loki considers that question for a moment. “I think that depends on how you define magic. The kind that Stephen and I use, only the two forms. If you include things like shapeshifting in magic, a butt ton more. If you start adding in the healing arts, more.”

Rhodey slouches into the couch. “That’s literally insane.”

Stephen grins up at Loki and tightens his grip. He’s curious whether Loki will have remembered the rules when they were given an entire conversation ago. He’s quickly reminded that Loki has survived centuries of life in a completely abusive family as he starts rising and lowering himself on the cock in front of him in a leisurely pattern.

Rhodey turns away from them with a fond shake of his head. He’s happy to assist in a scene while Tony’s busy, but he’s making a bee line over to them, and he has no desire to do something that he’s done a thousand times before on a night that could be full of something new.

Loki keeps up the pace that he’s started up. He loves the way that the angle Rhodey had set him down on results in him being able to rub the dick inside him against his prostate each time, he bounces up and down. He gasps as the hand around his neck tightens again.

Stephen starts messing with the strength of his magical pull on Loki’s neck. He loves the way that Loki gasps whenever he’s forced to slow down and the way that he comes close to begging whenever he starts moving at a faster rate. He loves messing with the god of magic like this. “Don’t actually form words up there,” he says.

Loki rolls his eyes to the back of his head. Of all of the orders that he had anticipated coming from Stephen, he hadn’t expected being ordered to remain silent. Silence is not easy for him. The next time that he starts to move faster, he almost breaks. He knows that the next time, he’s likely to start screaming with real words. Possibly Asgardian.

Tony takes note of the desperation in Loki’s eyes the next time that throat constricts. “You can nod to answer me, would you like some help staying quiet?”

Loki frantically nods, while Stephen laughs underneath him. He thinks that is rather rude, but he wouldn’t dare say that out loud. Or deny any assistance in keeping with an order as cruel as the last one.

Tony reaches over and stuffs a couple of his fingers into Loki’s mouth. “Suck,” he orders before turning his attention towards Stephen. “Enjoying yourself, doctor?”

“Greatly. Loki’s theory that I could use magic to make up for the fact that my hands don’t hold as well works wonders.”

Tony notices that Loki gets a smile around his fingers when he says that. He presses further down on Loki’s tongue, and a moan travels up from his fingers. “How long do you plan on keeping him like this?”

Stephen shrugs. “I haven’t told him to stop this time, perhaps I plan on ending it now.”

Tony scoffs. He can see in Stephen’s eyes that his primary goal is to cause Loki to come up with another way to beg that doesn’t involve using words. More than likely expecting eventually for Loki to use his own magic to try to make Stephen willing to change. Which is why he’s prepared to wipe tears away when Stephen loosens his grip, and Loki forces himself to slow back down.

Loki can’t stop the tears. He’s done orgasm control before, hell he’s been edged for longer periods of time than this. But never without permission to try to plea for more. Never with another person holding his tongue at bay to keep him from getting himself into more trouble.

Stephen realizes that Tony knows his full plan, so he leans back into the couch. He encourages Loki to keep up a constant roll even when he’s not going towards trying to come by raising his own hips to cause Loki to whimper delightfully.

Loki wraps his tongue around Tony’s fingers. He starts sucking harder at different intervals. If he can’t use his voice, maybe Tony will be willing to speak on his behalf. Beg for him. He doesn’t know what Tony might want in return for helping him beg in this fashion, but he’s more than happy to pay that price.

Tony has to give Loki credit for ingenious new methods of trying to beg. “Stephen, I believe your submissive would like permission to fuck both you and him to completion.”

“Do you now?”

Tony hums. He does so love playing games like this. “I admit, I’m not sure on that. I certainly know that he wants something, but I suppose he could be asking to go again and be pulled back from the edge.”

Loki groans. His message didn’t work, the pressure on his neck tightens again, and he’s back to edging himself and Stephen along with him. He can’t quite think of a reason why someone would edge himself just to mess with their submissive, however he’s gotten rather used to the fact that his norms are getting broken every turn.

When he’s told to stop again, he slows himself immediately. He starts trying to think clearly. Tony’s willing to send messages for him, but he’s not willing to directly speak for him. Stephen clearly wants a clear plea that says in clear definitions exactly what he wants. He’s not allowed words, and he’s even got Tony’s hand in his mouth to keep him from trying to skirt that order.

Tony finds it funny as he watches the thoughts fly through Loki’s head. It reminds him of himself when he’s trying to figure out something that doesn’t have a clear answer. Only this one has a simple answer. “I’m starting to lose faith that he’s nearly as bright as he claims.”

Stephen snorts. “Nah, he’s just as bright as he thinks he is. The problem is that every time he fails to get me an answer before I get bored again, he gets a little more flustered as I bring him to the edge again. Although he is being very good not breaking any rules.”

Loki’s grateful for the extra time as the two of them bicker. He can still hear the fondness in Tony’s voice, so the insult washes over him. Thus, whatever he chooses isn’t likely to upset either of them. He reaches out with his magic until his mind brushes against Stephen’s. “Will you let me make us both come, please sir?”

Stephen grins up at Tony. “Now, he’s getting a damn bit brighter. He’s being polite too. Only issue is he’s not giving me a very good reason to give him what he wants.”

Tony cracks his own smile. “Well, well, well now, that doesn’t sound like our Loki.”

Loki furrows his brow. Polite isn’t what he wanted. He wants reasons. He pushes his thoughts out again. “Trusted you earlier, followed all the rules, keep sucking on Tony’s fingers. If there’s something else you want, all you need to do is tell me.”

Stephen tightens his grip to let Loki start moving again. At first, he’s not sure whether to stop him again to make a point about everything not being as simple as that, but at the same time, he’s also confident that Loki had gotten the best thing he’d done to earn an orgasm correct.

Loki has to spit out Tony’s fingers when Stephen doesn’t stop him from coming. His screams fill the room, and the Hulk turns amused that there was someone louder than him in the room.

Stephen comes shortly after. He remains mostly silent. He’s pretty sure if not for the fact that the ejaculation gives a clear indication of his orgasm people wouldn’t have been able to tell at all. He’s always been quiet, and it has been a long time since he’s gotten any action. Makes him a rather patient man.

Tony wipes his fingers on Loki’s thigh. He leans over to press a kiss against Loki’s cheek and then another to Stephen’s cheek as well. “Good job figuring out the trick to getting out of his game.”

Stephen smiles. “Thank you.”

Tony pushes away from them both, ready to give them some space until Loki pulls him in for a hug. He lets Loki bury his head into Tony’s chest. His head twists to the side to see his closest friends together, and he doesn’t bother interrupting them. They know his plans. When they’re ready for him, they’ll let him know.

Natasha sits super close to TChalla. Her gaze dropping to his hands every few moments. “Do you know what one of the first things I said when Tony told me that you were going to join the family?”

“Hope I get the chance to apologize for tasering him while he was my ally to let an absolutely unhinged idiot go.”

Natasha glances the other way and bites down on her lip. “I am apologetic about that, although I maintain that I made the right choice given who you were going off.”

“You did.”

Natasha smiles. He had been teasing her in her own language. That’s better than almost anyone else in this family. The only other person who teases her like that is Tony. “Try again.”

“Hmm, well since you keep looking at my hands. I’ll say that it has something to do with them.”

She nods. “I wanted to know how they felt slapping against my ass.”

“Isn’t that a punishment?”

Natasha shrugs to him. That’s a common misconception, and Tony had told her that he hadn’t done many scenes. “For a lot of people, yes. For me, not so much. Most types of spankings for me just send pleasure up my spine.”

T’Challa grins. “So, you’re not asking me for a punishment, instead you’re asking me to bring you pleasure.”

She walked herself right into that comment, especially with the tease from earlier. Still, this is fun. Especially since his attention is only on her. Like there are other people in this room. There are even potentially many other people in this room, but his eyes are on her. He’s not moving towards Tony or Pepper, nope, he’s just waiting on her to come up with another banter to keep the exchange going, yet he doesn’t seem worried that she takes breaks. “Hmm, I can make it worth your while.”

That causes him to laugh hard enough to shake the couch. He reaches over to place his hand directly on her thigh. “Alright, you’ll make it worth my while, and I’ll spank you until you come.”

Natasha’s eyes nearly bulge out of her head. Sure, she had anticipated him saying yes, in fact she had been goading him into doing just that, since she’s imagined this for forever. But she had expected something closer to Tony and Pepper’s game where she’s in charge of some aspect of the scene to give her a bit of work for her pleasure, not this where she’s being told that whatever she wants, she can have. This is a blessing in disguise, especially since he’s asking for her talents first, and she’s got a hell of amount of talent in most sexual acts.

She slides over to press herself against his chest as she starts placing small kisses up and down his neck. “Give me a hint on how you want me to make you feel good, king.”

“Ah, but you’ve promised that you could make it worth my while with no hints or help. Are you going back on your word so soon?”

Damn he’s good at this. A simple cut to the chase man with hands like paddles, who was willing to allow her what she needs. He’s not demanding she move faster, this is just a phase of the game. He won’t let her come until she actually accomplishes what he’s set forward to her, but however long that takes. He doesn’t care.

T’Challa is mostly curious what Natasha will do to make him feel good. He’s done a bit more research on scenes since his first one with Tony that was a punishment, but he hasn’t really felt like going outside of the family to test some of the topics. This will be his first time as a top or dominant in a scene, but the way that Natasha sucks into his neck, he has a gut-feeling that won’t be an issue as long as he does what he’s promised to do. She’ll cover him for the rest of it should he need it, which he very well might by the end of this.

Natasha watches the way that he leans into her sucking action. He doesn’t mind when she’s kissing him, but he prefers the slight pain and the way the skin bruises underneath her more. Definitely something that everyone should have seen coming what with the fact that he’s a switch through and through. And she’s not a switch, but she’s probably the closest to a switch someone that wasn’t could ever get. She inches her way down until she can get her hands underneath his shirt and pull it up and over.

T'Challa does distantly wonder whether that will cause problems for him later. His sister might have more questions than he’s ready or willing to answer if he comes home without some of the clothes that she helped him pack. Granted, he could lie and say he messed it up during training. She’d probably buy that coming from someone who is hanging out with the full current roster of the Avengers.

Natasha pauses before she tries her next move when she watches his eyes track the fancy shirt. “We have a laundry service. Don’t worry, we won’t send you home without some of your clothes. That would be rude.”

T’Challa unwinds his body and brings one of his hands up to her hair to stroke through it. “More to do with meddlesome sisters than actual concern.”

Natasha’s mind briefly goes to the false family that she had almost had. The one that the red room constructed to help themselves hide in plain sight in America. She didn’t see them as family, or she once did. She once had a little sister that would be meddlesome, but her love had been beaten out of her after she had almost killed several soldiers in her attempt to save him. The supposed parents she had hold on affection at all, because they had sent them back. No one who actually cared would have ever done that.

T'Challa watches her face. “You have siblings?”

“Had. Had because I can’t handle the possibility that they actually want to work for the people who abused me, and when push came to shove, they will have to make the first move.”

T’Challa doesn’t understand that himself, but then he’s always had a somewhat happy family. There were times of stress and times of change, but they never betrayed each other or did anything that may cause each other to believe that betrayal is a potential option.

Natasha wants this conversation to end. She knows about her past, and so do most of the people in this room, but she doesn’t particularly like dwelling on it. That makes it harder to be an avenger and not want Tony to pull strings where she can just be a person again and not some superhero that they made her into. So, she does one of the things that she’s best at and goes back to torturing him more than a little.

Her mouth finds purchase over his nipple and closes down. She uses her teeth to scrape but not to make a true bite, only because they hadn’t really talked about what kind of pain that he likes, and she knows that teeth are stronger than they appear when being used for proper bite marks on a person. She uses the sucking technique that she had been using on his neck.

This time T’Challa reacts a bit differently. He winds his hands up and through her hair where if he applied any pressure to move in a direction, she’d be forced to go with it. Then, he drives her absolutely crazy by not doing a thing at all.

Natasha jerks when she feels the location of his hand moving towards her head like that. She’s confident that he’s going to lead her to precisely what he wants done next. But, no she’s still just enough in charge to determine how to bring him the pleasure that she promised. He’s not letting her off the hook even now. Honestly, she could say that it was a bit cruel, but she likes just a hint of cruelty.

T’Challa lets out a moan when she transfers to the other nipple. Especially when she only inches forward at times to make sure that he’s not going to stop her for whatever reason with the grip he has on her hair. There’s a nice wash of feelings associated with the fact that she turns to him for that permission. That he’s the one that she’s willing to listen to in this regard.

Slowly, he chooses to reward her for the teasing aspects that she’s giving him now. He knows well enough that teasing is more than delightful for the later orgasm. He reaches the tips of his fingers to her scalp and starts up a caress. Just enough pressure to be firmly in her view of what he’s doing, and at the same time soft enough that she can tell that he’s not doing this to get her attention or tell her what to do, only give her something to hold on to.

Natasha moans as the fingers in her hair start massaging her scalp. She can’t remember the last time that she had such a gentle touch. Hell, she can barely remember a time when she was willing to allow this type of contact. One that could easily turn violent and put her at a disadvantage. She pulls her lips away from his chest. She’ll need his help to get on the floor where she can actually kneel in front of him to take off his pants, to get his cock into her mouth where her tongue can run up the sides of it.

“Do you need something, doll?”

Natasha nods. She reaches a finger up to tap her lips, asking for permission to speak. She hadn’t really planned on doing that, but with his question, it seemed like the correct thing to do, and she’s firmly willing to do just about anything that he might ask her on this day.

T’Challa watches her closely as she taps her lips. He could refuse her, just to see how she’ll deal with the problem without permission to change anything. Or he could allow this because she’s being so polite and willing to adjust to his rules so adeptly. That’s the part of him that wins out. “You can speak.”

“Thank you,” she starts, surprised that her voice is already mostly raspy. “I would like to suck your cock, but with your grip on my hair and the position of my legs, I don’t have a way to get down to the floor to kneel in front of you.”

The first sentence out of her mouth is exactly what he was expecting. The second sentence not even close to anything that he had anticipated from her with everything that had been going on. Sure, he had figured with what she had started with that she was going to end with his cock in her mouth, but he hadn’t expected her to be so blunt about it. Or be willing to kneel in front of him for it. In fact, he doesn’t like the image of her kneeling in front of him with his cock in her mouth. That feels delightfully barren of all the contact that he has had recently with her.

Natasha watches a frown form on his face and wonders what she had done wrong. Her request hadn’t been as pretty as she sometimes made them, but she thought that he might appreciate that, given that the word play from earlier had featured mostly blunt interpretations. Hopefully, he’ll explain in a minute, and she can change whatever portion is causing the frown.

“Do you happen to know of a different position that will allow you the same result?”

That’s not what she expected. Her options spread out in front of her. Option one, would be that they lay down where she can twist her body to be either further down to get him into her mouth or flip her body where her lower parts were closer to his face while hers was closer to his. They are however limited by the fact that they are on a couch, the floor is taken, and leaving to go to a bedroom seems quite rude in the middle of this family orgy. Option two, would result in her just laying across his lap, same way she’s hoping to be in for her spanking only putting her head directly over his lap. That would have interesting results, especially if she tucked herself into doggy position over him. Option three would involve her draping herself over one of the sides of the couch and having him stand up and enter her throat that way. That would result in her throat being fucked until it was sore and be less of her working for her reward, which she would be fine with, but she’d much rather find out what level of reward she could get with her own effort. “There are a couple that would work tonight.”

T’Challa smiles at her. She’d taken the time and consideration to give his request sincere thought rather than just doing what she thought would be best. She probably even ruled out some options that couldn’t be done with the space they’re currently using given her tonight comment. “Can you tell me the two choices so I can decide?”

She nods. “Of course. So, the first option would be that, I could kind of put my face in your lap with you sitting further up. It’d be kind of like the position for a spanking only with my head in your lap instead of my ass. I’d be able to do most of the things I already planned to do on my knees like that. The second option would be that you have me draped over one of the edges of the couch, and just use my mouth after you stand up, kind of like a free for all.” She’s careful not to inject her emotions and opinions into that.

T'Challa likes both of those a lot. Fucking into her mouth would promise to be a fun experience, especially with his hands contrasting the feelings. Gentle hands, and a rough mouth fucking. That sounds like something straight out of a porno that he hasn’t touched yet but knows about. However, he had told her she had to earn her reward and that would be him working. “We’ll go with hat first choice.”

Natasha tries to move her legs, but the way her head is, she really can’t move them all that much without hurting her scalp. She wonders whether that’s his goal before the grip lightens softly.

Right before Natasha can move, T’Challa interrupts her thoughts with his gentle voice. “Would you trust me to move you?”

Her nod is enough of an answer for him to start moving immediately. One hand slips around her shoulders, while the other moves to the leg that’s on the wrong side of him. He swings her completely over with a curved lift. She pants softly at the abrupt feeling and the gentle way that she hands. Her hands are slightly pinned under her body as he positions her head on his thigh. She has to do the work to get her legs to be under herself enough that she’ll have some leverage, although since he put her hands underneath her, likely on purpose, she doesn’t allow them to move to a better position for leverage, leaving her head very much tilted towards him.

T'Challa loves the way that she adjusts the second that his hands aren’t on her doing that himself. All of the portions that he clearly wanted in the place that he put them were unmoved, while the rest were changed to how she needs them to do what she has planned. He will help her a little, as he slides his pants and underwear down and off of him to the floor. He trusts that if his dress shirt will be taken care of with laundry that so will those.

Natasha has to fight the urge to lean forward and take him in her mouth the second the erect cock is freed. She’s supposed to be giving a show. Showing how good she can be in order to earn a reward. So, she pitches herself forward where she can pepper kisses along his shaft.

T’Challa groans at the feather light kisses that she’s placing on the sensitive skin. That’s certainly one way to liven up his experience by driving him insane. Not sure whether it should be a compliment or an insult but here they are. His hand goes back into her hair. The same twisting style that he had done before. He starts up his massage again, varying the intensities at random.

Natasha’s confidence in her decision goes up with every stroke to her scalp. When she presses a kiss to the tip of his cock and then licks the pre-come off of her lips, she feels him tighten his grip for the first time, and she jerks her own hips down in an effort to relieve the pressure. Absolutely no attempt to get off with that motion, but enough of one to result in getting a loud laugh from T’Challa above her.

She loves that laugh. The one that tells her that she’s following his rules to a tee without even knowing all of them from him. The one that tells her that he’s care-free and that this scene will end nicely for both of them no matter what comes next. She could fumble, and that’d be alright because he’d be right there to catch her the second that it happened. There’s a part of her that wonders whether that’s what love usually feels like.

She hasn’t been given leave to speak again, but her permission from earlier hadn’t been rejected either. She wants to say those words before she does the next step too. So, she swallows her normal caution back, throws the worries over the edge of the cliff, and speaks. “I love you.” Before swallowing the entire tip of his cock in one go.

T’Challa barely has time to register the words, before he’s shouting in pleasure as the tip of his cock is surrounded by the warmth of her mouth with her tongue running over it, in quick precise movements to inch pleasure out of him. Once he gets used to the feel of that, he manages to use his grip on her hair to get her to move her eyes up where he can meet her eyes for his response. “I love you too,” he says in a measured tone. Then, because he feels like this needs to be said, just in case she doesn’t know it for herself. “I’d love you even if my cock was no where near your mouth, even if you hadn’t decided to flirt with me tonight. Same way I love Tony.”

Something in Natasha broke hearing him say that. The few people who had ever given her love unconditionally had often caused her some pain, and T’Challa wasn’t going to do that. He had no intentions to mess with her, he wasn’t going to let mind control get to her, and she wasn’t going to let anyone manipulate her into hurting him. She stops caring about her goal of showing him how good she can be. She wants him to feel her feelings.

T’Challa realizes that the second after he’s said those words that she freezes and then moments later, her movements return only they’re less measured than they were before. Her mouth is opening and swallowing his cock whole in a way that makes him converse with pleasure, but it isn’t the carefully designed method she had used before to prove her worth. It was designed to get him to come.

Once this realization has hit, he stops trying to be as controlled as he had been. He had been forcing himself to wait that way she had complete control on when things ended or sped up that way he didn’t ruin her plans. But her plans were now very clearly make him come. So, that means his reactions could be to assist her. He starts rocking his hips up into her mouth and drool starts pooling around the edges of her mouth.

His orgasm takes him a bit by surprise. Normally, when he’s jacking himself off, he knows right beforehand with how his body tenses. He’s prepared for the orgasm to hit him. That cannot be said for right now. At this moment, his come starts filling her mouth and she’s still swallowing it perfectly. Not letting a drop of him go to waste. Even when his eyes close, hers do not. She’s taking in the full portion of him, and that brings him insurmountable joy.

Natasha doesn’t close her eyes until his open again. Until he’s back in full control of his actions after his orgasm. That’s when she basks in the knowledge that once she put her mind to it she was able to make him come within a short period of time. And that he had clearly understood her message, or at least gave the appearance of understanding it, which she would take given the day that they find themselves in. She’d take a lot of things on today.

T’Challa moves his hand out of her hair to cup her face, stroking up and down from her eyes to the edge of her mouth. He watches her start coming to with her eyes blinking up at him. “Hmm, do you want your reward right away or do you want to cuddle for a little while?”

Natasha takes stock of herself. After a few seconds of thinking she realizes that she is actually pretty deep into her headspace now. She doesn’t recall getting there, but he’s right to ask her questions about things since she’s down. “Can I have my reward?” She’s not sure other than the spanking what it will contain, but she wants to know.

T’Challa nods to her. He helps her climb forward into his lap where her face can be pressed against the couch cushion. She’s still up on her knees, her ass pressing upwards, and her feet dangling in the air. He puts a hint of pressure on her knees to watch her unfold them out at just the suggestion that he would prefer that. “There are only a few rules of this, okay, Natasha.”

Rules are good, she thinks to herself. Rules keep her in line and stop her from losing her mind. “What are they?”

“Good girl asking for clarification when you need it. The rules are simple: tell me if the pain gets to be at a level where you’re not enjoying it anymore. This is a reward, kind of defeats the purpose if you start being hurt to the point that it is no longer enjoyable for you. Come whenever you like, but I’m not going to stop when you do until you tell me you’re done. Which brings up the final rule, tell me when you’re done and want cuddles and all of that stuff instead of this, okay?”

These rules are nice ones. There’s no requirement to warn him about anything. She can just fade in and out of feeling. Her only things that are meant to require her to drag up from her mental states are ones that usually send her up out of her subspace anyway. It takes a moment before she realizes that he wants her to verbalize that she hears and understands. “Okay, sir.”

T’Challa chuckles. “You don’t have to call me sir, Natasha.”

“Don’t have to, want to,” she slurs.

T’Challa takes her at her word for that. There’s nothing that he can really say to deny that truth, and in fact, if she is telling the truth, there’s very little that he can say that will change that. So, he won’t deny her calling him that. He’ll let her call him that, but never force her to use it if she’s not 100% ready for it.

Instead of commenting, he raises his hand to give her a light slap across the cheeks of her ass. He hasn’t actually made sure what level of strength that she wants, but he’s reasonably positive that as long as he’s brining a blush to her cheeks in some order, she’s going to be happy.

The first hit lands, and Natasha’s mind slips away. The lightness of it is a good starting point. It’ll warm her skin up before any of the heavier hits start falling that way there’s less of a chance of deep bruising or the pain starting to take her out of the nice pleasure. Light swats are a good place to start.

T’Challa sets up a system for swatting her. First, he does three swats to her right butt cheek, two to her left, then a grand total of five that land on the center crossing both cheeks. Next, he moves down, two to her right sit spots and three to her left. Then a couple on the tops of her thighs for each. When all that is done, he doesn’t start back up at the top, no he works his way back up in the reverse, a couple on the tops of her thighs for good measure, then two swats to her left sit spot, three to the right, back to the center crossing both cheeks with a total of five to watch her squirm on his lap, finally ending it with two swats to her left butt cheek and three to the right. That’s when he’ll start the loop back over.

It takes about four reptations before Natasha realizes that he is following a pattern of sorts. The pattern is long and full of differing locations and numbers, but it is a pattern and it’s a good one since it took her forever to figure it out. Thinking further, it might be how deep she is in subspace too. She turns her attention towards her ass though.

The swats are still light. The pain is building up, the repetition is to account for that. But the pain is negligible. The pleasure is still there by the way that he’s got her pinned and a hand slapping through her body. Her hands start twitching. A part of her wants to beg for more however she doesn’t want to lose the reward she worked so hard for. That’s causing her to start leaving her head space.

Or at least it was, until Tony’s hands press down on her wrists to keep them pinned to the couch cushion. He gives her a wink as he pushes further down to grind her bones just enough to give her enough pain that she starts rocking her hips in earnest. Tony chuckles down at her before turning his attention to T’Challa.

T’Challa watches as Natasha reacts to the way that he pushes her down. It isn’t the reaction that he anticipated with her flinching away from the pain and to stop moving entirely to avoid the pain, instead she’s thrashing in the hold trying to get more. That’s another heady feeling with her in his lap while she does that.

Tony watches T’Challa take in Natasha’s pain response, and then continue his light swats. Now, Tony has teased Natasha with this before. Not giving her quite what she wants, but from what he overheard from earlier, this was her reward, and it feels a little cruel to deny her anything. “King kitty, I think she’d like you to hit her harder.”

Natasha’s eyes shoot open. She had expected Tony’s presence at some point, but she wasn’t anticipated him jumping in to speak for her. He’s not wrong, but she hadn’t had someone speaking for her in a scene for quite a while now.

T’Challa feels the change in her tension. Probably because she feels like if he’s upset at being told what to do that he’ll take it out on her because Tony has chosen to speak for her. Little does she know that nothing she does can get her in any trouble whatsoever. Still, he’s curious whether Tony’s right. So, he draws his hand back a bit farther and lets it fall.

Natasha jerks forward at the first harsher hit. No where near her general request level, especially for a super soldier who could probably hit her with some of his strength, and for a while, she’d be jerking back.

Tony hums. “Do you remember when I had you over my lap?”

T’Challa pauses. Of course, he remembers that day. His first ever scene, and also the moment that he was fully accepted into the family. “Intimately.”

Tony thinks that’s probably a good thing for his sanity. He’s not sure what he would have done if he hadn’t known that T’Challa remembered. He probably would have offered a reminder right now, possibly with a glare. “Do you remember the strength that I was hitting you with when we were on the second stage?”

T’Challa takes a moment to consider that. He remembers that those were sharp strikes. Ones where Tony was throwing a decent bit of his weight into it, but he’s got enhanced strength. He also doesn’t get enjoyment from pain. He’s unsure of the point. “Yes.”

“Good, hit her with that plus some.” Tony gives the order without questioning it. If T’Challa needs him to stop, he’ll say something, otherwise he’s going to do what feels correct for the scene that they’ve found themselves in. Because it’s clear that Natasha is having the time of her life, but not quite what she wanted, while T’Challa is going with the flow of what he’s heard about and not adjusting to reality.

“That’ll hurt her,” he warns.

Natasha twists her face where her mouth is free. Because as much as she loves other people talking for her when she’s in her headspace, this one requires her to speak. T’Challa hasn’t ever done anything like this, and so he’s nervous for her. And being nervous for her is the nicest thing that he could be. “Please,” she begs, her voice extremely run dry by this point. Once she’s done, she’s going to need a whole bottle of water to get her throat to stop aching. But now that doesn’t matter.

T’Challa pauses once he hears her voice. He had gotten used to the silence. The fact that she was confirming, means that she does truly want this. He’s unable to deny her a thing. He refuses to do his old pattern with that, so he’s just going to chance his angle each time. He aims the first strike.

Natasha moans at the first true hit. That hits every spot that she’s ever wanted. The thoughts that had been starting to plague her again were gone in seconds. Her head drops down and while she wants deeply to come after that hit, the energy to move her thighs is gone as well. Her energy would return if she continued getting these hits of pleasure.

T’Challa watches as she droops in pleasure. The way that the tension that Tony’s holding her up with is gone, and he’s just grinning. T’Challa realizes that Tony’s not planning on doing much more than he has, so he goes back to hitting her. The next time he looks up, Tony is gone from them, but Natasha isn’t moving at all.

That’s a problem in his eyes, because he deeply wants her to come during this scene. Preferably many times. That means that he’s going to have to get creative with his decisions for this. He stops hitting her for a moment to tap her hip, wondering whether she’ll catch his drift to lift her hips.

The strikes stop, which is confusing to Natasha. She could have sworn that one of her only rules was that it wouldn’t stop until she asked for it to stop, and she certainly hasn’t started asking for things to stop. Then, she feels his tap on her hip. Another moment of confusion as she tries to figure out why until she realizes that he wants something under her, so she arches her hips. That takes a solid portion of her energy and she wonders what he’s planning on doing, then he settles her down on top of his fingers.

His fingers start up a gentle rubbing pattern over her clit and slightly dipping into her before coming back up. He watches the way that her eyes roll into her head and wonders what this next thing will do to her. He swats her at the strength Tony ordered him to hit her with again.

This time, Natasha falls over her own edge. She doesn’t have to move her hips, there’s plenty of pressure for her to get off on, and the pleasure from the strike just sends her over. Her orgasm crashes over her and as she comes down from her high, she realizes that he’s not stopping.

His hand is still striking down on her ass. Hard and fast, unmoving pain, which she loves by the way that each strike has her leaning further in to him. And then his hand under her is moving at a slow and steady pace to push her through where anytime that she wants to come she doesn’t have to wait for anything.

Natasha comes again a few minutes later as the pleasure builds up again. His constant use slowly starts getting overwhelming, but this time still washes over her without hitting her limit. But after the third orgasm, she slaps her hand on the couch cushion and manages to speak. “T’Challa.”

“Yes, doll?” he drawls, his motions stopping for a second.

This time she knows that he’s giving her an out. And she’s willing to take it, which she doesn’t think anyone else in the family has ever had her do. Most of the time when they ask her whether she’d like to take a break, she argues that she doesn’t need anything. She’s endured more, and she can endure more. With him and his gentle rules, she breathes out. “Can we be done?”

T’Challa slips his hand from her vagina and starts massaging her ass with the other. “Of course,” he says.

Natasha takes a solid ten minutes to get herself from draped over his lap. She ends up sitting in his lap by the time that she gets up, craving the comfort of his arms around her. He’s handed her a bottle of water that she’s sipping at. When she casts her eyes around the others that she had mostly forgotten about, she gets a soft smile when she sees Clint sleeping mostly on top of his wife who is barely awake herself. Her family, all those living, together at last.

T’Challa hooks his chin over her shoulder. “I am glad to have met all of you.”

“Me too,” she whispers.

Pepper leans her head against the back of the couch. She takes a moment to deconstruct the various roles that she has to fill, as the CEO of Stark Industries, as the primary news partner of Tony Stark, and now as the Avenger Rescue. If this was any other timeline she might even start believing that she was doing far too much. Like if there was a line of too much, it would have been reached already.

James slides closer to her. His bottom lip in between his teeth. “Could I massage your temples?”

She takes a moment to regain her composure and make sure that wasn’t going to send her into a spiral. Letting someone else take care of her instead of the other way around occasionally sets off the wrong alarm bells in her head, and she’d hate to end up safewording on a day as nice as this one. In the end, she inclines her head. She would and could stop him if it turned out badly.

James moves until he’s directly at her side, facing her cross-legged on the couch. He waits for her to decide to turn with her back towards him before he reaches for her head. He carefully makes sure that his fingers won’t pull on the strands of her hair as he starts making circular motions around her temples.

Pepper almost keeps her eyes open. Then, she realizes just how pointless that would be. There’s no danger here. No one that requires her to keep up pretenses to ensure that they don’t take advantage of her or her company. There’s nothing here that could stop her from taking her guard down. So, her eyes close as she groans in appreciation.

James smiles when she groans. Her trust and relaxation mean a lot to him. The surface level research that he’s been able to do from the spreadsheet that he was sent after dinner tells him that he’s likely a service submissive. He likes pampering his dominants. He likes giving them pleasure or being used for their pleasure. He also likes the opposite side of that coin. He likes being pampered, being rewarded, and given things or pleasure.

Rhodey leans over the couch to peck a kiss to Pepper’s cheek avoiding interrupting any of James’ busy hands. He pops his back to alleviate some of the pressure. “He’s good at stuff like this, ain’t he, Pep?”

Pepper takes a moment to consider that this means that Rhodey has had a scene with James, and that this is normal for him. Before she realizes that it almost makes sense that James would go to Rhodey, of all of them Rhodey and him share the most background. “Very good at it,” she confirms.

She loves the way the blush spreads across James’ face, that she can only see because of the lovely camera she’s had pulled up from Friday. Lovely work that Tony did with all of the cameras. Probably has one filming the entire night, where any of them can relive this if they want to. He didn’t think to check with people on being filmed, but that’s fine. She’ll take care of that in the morning if it needs to be done.

James takes a breath of confidence. Rhodey is right there, and he’d confirm if Pepper needed someone too, and he wants to be able to claim that he initiated something with her too. Technically, he’s managed Tony and Rhodey. “Did you know that you’re the only one I haven’t thanked for my flying car?”

Pepper furrows her brow. Sure, she had signed off on the gift, but she’s not sure she would count that as something that she did for him to get the flying car as much as something that happened to help him get the flying car. She’s also confident that she had gotten messages thanking her for it. “Is that so?”

James ducks his head into his chin. “Uhuh. See, I kind of gave Rhodey a blow job the day I got it. And I cornered Tony right before he went to talk to Loki one of the times when he was getting introduced to the family and sucked him off. And you’re the only other person involved with it, and I haven’t actually managed to thank you properly.”

Pepper has to control herself from bursting out laughing. That’s one way to announce something. That’s a hell of a way to announce something. “Oh, Rhodey?”

“Hmm, yes, he did give me a blowjob in a hallway before taking the keys to the car,” he confirms.

Pepper raises her lips in a half smirk. “And what would properly thanking me entail, James? Last time I checked, I don’t have a cock for you to suck.”

That one he knows the answer to easily. That had still been a thing in the 40s, albeit a bit rarer. “Don’t need a cock to be given oral sex. And I’m more than happy to eat you out, the same I suck them off.”

Pepper chokes on her next breath. She had expected the shyness that had come from his earlier answers, not whatever bluntness just spilled from his mouth. Honestly, this boy is trouble. Trouble for her, trouble for Rhodey, and probably the best possible trouble for Tony.

She regains her calm after a few more minutes of him massaging her temples, not demanding an answer. She would have been impatient as hell if she had offered that to someone. He’s a much better submissive than she’d ever be. Probably for the best, since she’s not known for her submission talents. “I certainly won’t stop you if you want to thank me, but I’ll warn you that I like my sex far slower than either of the boys.”

“That’s fine, I can go slow.”

That she has her doubts about. However, she’s more than happy to move herself away from him each time he starts moving too fast. She’s very good at finding things to take away from people until they play by her rules only. It is in her opinion one of the more fun ways of punishing a submissive. Makes them more complicit in their punishment.

If she’s being honest, she had half expected him to take to his knees immediately. He doesn’t. No, his hands are still doing the slow motions around her head. He’s just got this little kittenish smile on his face as he waits. He’ll wait for her to tell him that he’s done with his current task before he even considers moving on to the next one on his list, even if that next one is the one that he wants to get to the most.

Somehow, James can tell that he’s already impressed her. He’s not sure what he’s done, but he’s happy to have done it. He wonders whether if he plays his cards right, he can ask to braid her hair later, or maybe even ask for someone to do his. Their strands are equally soft, and he longs for a soft and pretty braid.

Pepper wonders just how slow she can get him to take it. If she asked him to kiss her until she’s dizzy with the lack of oxygen over and over again. If she asked him to leave a trail of kisses from her neck down to her thighs on whatever pieces of exposed skin that he can reach. If she asked whether he’d mouth over her underwear instead of going right in. Would he be willing to do kitten licks instead of trying to make her come at first?

Rhodey taps her head. “How long are you planning on torturing him before giving him what he wants?”

“Hours,” she answers immediately.

Rhodeyn snorts in amusement. That checks out for her perfectly. She would torture that poor boy with pleasure until he loses his mind. James won’t know what hit him. “Alright. I’m going to prep a plate of fruit to feed the both of you once that portion of the scene is done. I assume there’s a second part, I want in on it.”

Pepper blinks. The rest of the scene unfolding behind her eyes. She’ll let Rhodey feed them both, she’ll get James up towards the couch again. She’ll braid his hair and mess with his arms and his sensitivity until he’s begging for a touch that lasts more than a few moments. Only once he’s a mess with pleas and begs being the only thing falling from his lips, she’ll tell him to take what he wants, just to see what will happen. Even Tony can join if he pulls himself away from the other scenes going on. Which might be a tall order since his eyes are already on literally everyone.

Rhodey stares at her for a long moment. “Jesus, sometimes your brain rivals Tony’s, and I feel like we should all feel fear at that thought.”

James tilts his head to the side and a frown appears on his face. “But then who would make me flying cars as a present for joining the family?”

Pepper tips over and loses her battle against laughter. It rings out in the room filled with slight whimpers of Bruce and whispered flirts of everyone else. She’s the only loud noise in the room, and she doesn’t care how many eyes that puts on her. She’s fucking thrilled by James Barnes and the fact that despite everything, he has a sense of humor. “I’ve already given you a flying car, choose your next present.”

His eyes light up like he’s just been told Santa Claus was real the whole time, and he was planning on making a special trip just for him. Like there’s pure gold streaming from her, and he’s allowed to take some. “A vacation home in space,” he answers almost completely serious.

Pepper turns to Tony before he can leverage himself off the couch. “You heard our submissive, his next massive present is to be a vacation home in space. I’m sure we could sell those for a pretty penny too.”

Tony blinks at her in wonder for a moment. “I’ll put that on the list of things to do right after we finish the whole surviving the intergalactic war.”

“That’s all I ask,” she teases.

James on the other hand looks like he’s been handed the cream. He leans towards Rhodey. “Do you think they know that I’d be happy with a new fantasy book?”

“I think the fact that something that simple would be enough to make you light up like the sun is why they’re willing to spoil you rotten.”

“But not you?” he asks softly.

“Oh, I’ll give you the world. You ever try bratting me like you do Tony, or playing me like you are Pepper, and I will find a way to punish you that doesn’t cross any of your limits.”

James keeps his fingers running through and around Pepper’s temples in varying pressures, while he presses up to place a kiss on Rhodey’s cheek. “Has it ever occurred to you that the reason I do those things to them is because I know that they would enjoy them, and that I do not do them to you because I know you would not?”

Rhodey pulls back to consider that thought for a long moment. He’s not entirely incorrect. With his military background, Rhodey dislikes having to fight for authority in the bedroom. Hell he hates having to fight to be listened to ever, which is a struggle sense with his race some people naturally write him off no matter what he does. And he also doesn’t like tricks for the same reason. “So what do you do with me?”

“I give you the affection that you crave. Gentle caring, a reminder that you are seen, that you are known, and that your contributions are not less than anyone else.”

Rhodey gapes at him in shock. Someone calling him out in such clear terms has never happened. He plays cards close to his chest for a reason, and he’s never confided in James.

Pepper rolls her eyes at his antics. “Darling, he was also a Russian spy. One of the best, trained by mind control to be as perfect as possible. Of course he figured you out within a day or two of meeting you. That’s one of the things that makes the most sense about the world that we find ourselves in.”

Pepper turns her head towards James. “Stop rubbing my temples.” His hands fall from her face, and he folds them in his lap as he waits for her next set of words. Which is problematic, because she had given herself a whole list of would he do this or not questions, but never decided whether all of them was too much. Too late for second guesses now. “I’d like for you to kiss me until I’m going to go dizzy without oxygen, then I’d like for you to pull back just enough for me to get air and do it again.”

“Until you tell me to stop,” he confirms.

With her nod, his hands come up to cup her cheeks. He meets her lips in a lasting kiss. Their lips parting, their tongues gliding against each other. Even with the fact that his hands are the one cupping her face, and the fact that he’s the initiator, there’s no fight for dominance. He’s rather letting her decide what she wants to do and following along. He pushes no buttons, and it isn’t until he pulls back and she drags in a breath that she can feel the fire in her lungs from not having breathed in so long.

She pants and pants, trying to regain control of her mind, but she doesn’t have enough time to regulate anything because suddenly another kiss pulls at her. This time his fingers are stroking down her cheeks while he kisses her brains out. She doesn’t recall anyone ever kissing her and causing this reaction before. She’s reasonably sure that if she wanted to, she could reach down and bring herself to completion with nothing but his kisses spurring her on. Maybe that would be a test for another time.

James pulls back another time once he realizes that he’s pushing her limits again. He watches with his nose pressed up against hers as she struggles to find her breath. It’s been several decades since he last truly made out with someone where he was in the lead. He rather likes the response he gets, even if he is just waiting for his next set of orders. The words to stop don’t come though, so he goes again.

Pepper’s mind comes back in waves. When she pushes her tongue into his mouth, she recalls that this is a test to see whether he’ll be just as delighted with this as the reward that he’s requested himself. So far, he’s proven himself more than adequate at that. When she reaches her own hands up to keep him close to her, she realizes that she wants to know what he’ll do to teasing like this almost as much as she wants to know what his response to this will be. Another thing that she’ll have to file away for another time or perhaps later when she’s got Rhodey with her since her plan is to drive him insane.

This time when he pulls away from her lips, she holds out her hand with her palm facing outwards to stop him. She still has to find her own oxygen again before she can give her next set of orders. Although it is now her full opinion that she needs to have deep conversations with Tony about the type of submissives that they have in their home and family. None of them seem to be the same, and yet all of them are completely perfect at the exact same time, and she swears that’s got to be some kind of scientific principle.

James licks his own lips as he waits. His breath could have held on for much longer periods. He wonders why he enjoys the fact that he hadn’t been allowed to breath as easily through that entire time frame. He wonders whether going further would result in the same reaction or whether it would be a completely different game.

Pepper stares up at James, the way that his lips are slightly swollen. If the super soldier has swollen lips, she hazards a guess that hers are going to require a shit ton of makeup to actually be able to cover up all of the bruises that she’ll need to hide from most of the people. Her head falls back. “I want you to kiss any exposed skin that you can reach. If you try to push at fabric, I will be displeased.”

James pauses to consider that for a second. “Does ducking under fabric count as pushing at it?”

“Huh?”

“You’re wearing a skirt. At some point, I’ll probably kiss up your legs to wear the skirt falls if I’m doing exposed skin. I would like to know whether it’ll be acceptable to duck under your skirt to continue or whether you’d rather me avoid that as well.”

“Told you he was trouble,” Rhodey warns.

Pepper swats at his thigh. She doesn’t think that’s dangerous, she thinks that it’s fucking smart. He’s bothering to check the rules rather than pushing at them. And he’s not pushing for more, he’s just asking for clarification so that he knows where he needs to stop. “That’s fine.”

James smiles at her, before lifting up one of her hands. He starts by pressing kisses to each of her fingertips on that hand. He works his way up all of her knuckles. A kiss on the back of her hand and on its palm. When he glances up at her, her eyes are heavy and she’s just watching him. He presses a kiss against her inner wrist and starts trailing a line of kisses spiraling up her arm. Each one getting more and more open and wet until he reaches the edge of the fabric, and he stops.

Pepper has never met someone who is quite as deliberate as James is. With the way that he took exposed skin to mean that he has every intention to kiss every patch of open skin that she gave him. She wonders whether she’ll last through her own challenge with the way that this is going. Because a part of her wants to shove him down to the ground and yank his head in between her thighs. She has a feeling that he wouldn’t say a word if that’s what ended up happening. She would say several words though. That would be beyond insane given that this is her scene.

Patience is a blessing that he learned several times over. There was a patience to working in the docks before the draft for the war started up. There was a patience in waiting for the person that you’ve been ordered to snipe coming into your angle because you’ve already set up the perfect aim. And there was certainly a patience to being frozen in ice until someone thought they could get trigger words out of his head from the trauma that he’s suffered. So much patience.

That means that he’s got no issues with waiting slowly for Pepper to decide exactly what she wants and when. So, after finishing the first arm, he simply moves his mouth to her neck and places open kisses everywhere on that side that he can find a pulse. Then, he kisses up the side of her jaw, inwards towards her cheek, and back outwards up to the tip of her ear. When he’s done, he finds himself at an impasse of either needing to drape himself across her which would definitely touch some fabric or asking her to turn, since him moving to her other side would be difficult with Rhodey now lounging there giving comments to whoever the hell was further down along the couch. He’s lost track of who is where, and that would have bothered him more earlier than it does now.

“Can you turn for me, please Pepper?”

For a small moment, Pepper debates giving him shit for needing her to ask, but he’s not wrong. There’s not a huge amount of room on the couch that they’re using for their games tonight. They really should have moved down to one of the larger play rooms for this rather than just using the living room. Too late for those regrets now. They’re already pretty glued into the mold that they’ve chosen.

She spins herself up and over, only she misjudges how far back the couch cushions go. Her ass misses the couch, and she’s going to end up planted on the floor. Gods, she’s going to be laughing for the entire rest of the day at the rate that this goes. This is too amusing to her.

James watches in wonder as Pepper rises up to her knees to spin herself back. He notices that she’s not judging the area correctly the second she moves to settle back down. He reacts as he would normally without thinking about the orders she’s given as he sticks his metal arm out to brace her before she can fall. He moves her back to her spot on the couch, before realizing that this definitely counted as touching her fabric.

Pepper reaches out to cup his face the second that she’s settled on the couch. She hadn’t thought about the fact that he’d easily be able catch her or the fact that he probably would move to catch her on instinct. Seeing someone fall usually inspired those movements. “Thank you for catching me.”

“You falling for the pretty soldier boy?” Rhodey teases with his eyes mostly ignoring them even still.

“Almost literally, if he hadn’t caught me.”

James basks in the glory of neither of them being upset for a moment before he allows himself to speak again. “Anytime you require it.”

“Most of the time, she’ll be doing the catching. After all, she is one of the people in a flying suit that can withstand most weights on this planet.”

Pepper contains her urge to roll herself back over and try to strangle Rhodey again. They are the closest of friends, but the man is an asshole sometimes. Like today when he’s just teasing her about her scene. Her glare will have to be enough, although that does nothing to alleviate to the laugher in his eyes. She sighs before redirecting her attention back to James, who deserves to the be the focus of most of her energy tonight. “You can continue, darling.”

James glances between them quickly. Mostly to assure himself that regardless of the bickering that they aren’t actually angry at each other. There’s a memory somewhere tucked within him that says something about how this is completely normal to him. Something about a sister and the way that you love each other even as you make each other miserable. He reaches for her hand, before softly asking. “How long have you two known each other?”

Pepper snaps her eyes down to him. Then, she realizes that it has probably been several decades since he felt actual family dynamics in a healthy way. That alone means that he should bother to ask questions. “I became Tony’s personal assistant in 2004, so around 8 years. He’s known Tony for a hell of a lot longer than I have.”

James nods at that. Not nearly close to what had caused him and his sister to know that nothing was ever permenant in regards to their anger and teasing. However, given that they did still treat each other like that, perhaps the time had less to do with it and something else was more important. He picks up her other arm to start drawing kisses up it as he did the other arm.

Pepper notices that there’s something off. That his kisses feel much more robotic than human. He’s going through the motions with no thought behind them and that’s certainly not what she wants from him. She stops him with a tap to his nose. “What’s going through your head, James?”

It takes him a minute to even realize what his problem was. He could tell that he had one, but not what it was. “Rhodey’s like your brother even though you’re not siblings.”

“Yes,” she confirms.

“I had a sister once,” he whispers. “Her name was Rebecca. And I don’t know how long she lived, I don’t know whether she spent her whole life believing I was alive despite what everyone else was saying like I’m sure I would have in the inverse, I don’t know where she’s buried, and I don’t know whether she even had kids.”

Rhodey had his Starkpad up and running through information before he could finish the thought. Of course, the antics of a family would remind him of his own family back from the day, and it makes sense that given all the holes in his memory that he might never have thought to go looking before this moment right here. “Your sister did in fact say that you were alive. You and Steve both, she said that an airplane couldn’t take down a super soldier, and that if you were dead, she was a zombie. She died at the age of 69, back in 2010. She’s buried in Brooklyn, we can go sometime if you’d like. She didn’t marry, nor did she have any children.”

James drops his head. Tears pool in his eyes. His baby sister never thought that he was dead. There was another person other than Steve Rogers that was willing to believe in him. Another person from his past that he will have no chance to see in his life.

Pepper moves his head to let him rest in on her shoulder. Content to wait until he wants to continue with the rest of the scene. She understands that the amount of time that he has lost will come back to haunt him at random moments. This being one of them is a bit surprising, but not enough for her to be concerned.

James hesitates from her grip but eventually lets her move him. He’s trusting that she’s not trying to force him into being in trouble, and even if she is, he has a safeword, and Rhodey would whisk him out of the room with a moment's notice.

She watches him tense and considers that. “James, honey, you know that when I told you not to push at fabric, I didn’t mean that you couldn’t touch the fabric, right?”

“No.”

“Oh,” she says. “Okay, let me rephrase to explain the rule then, honey. What I mean by that, is that I don’t want you trying to get new bared skin in order to kiss more. I want you to show self-control by not trying for more than I have allowed at the moment.”

James furrows his brow. He glances up towards Rhodey. “I don’t understand, sir.”

Rhodey reaches over to ruff up his hair. “Yeah, not surprising James. Which parts are confusing?”

“If I’m not supposed to kiss anything but bared skin, and I follow that. How would that show self-control? Wasn’t the point of the other comment on fabric to impose something that would be difficult?”

“Pepper’s not thinking about how good you are at following orders. She hasn’t had the pleasure of knowing how good at orders you are. So, yeah, her rules are going to be a bit weird. Right now, all she wants is proof that you follow her requests. No hidden tricks or rules apply.”

He tucks his head further into her neck to nod.

Pepper draws a simple figure eight over his spine. She appreciates Rhodey being able to put him more at ease. She wonders whether that’s why he’s over here with them rather than moving around the room. Just so that he doesn’t have to worry about anything.

James pulls back a few minutes later. He bites down on his lip. “You won’t leave?”

“Never far. I’ll probably head to grab snacks once you’re under her skirt, but a word will bring me back. And I might assist Stephen with Loki if he needs any help given that this is the first time he’s using magic to dominate someone, but no, I’ll never leave you tonight for longer than a few moments.”

James smiles. Then, he turns towards Pepper. “Sorry about the interruption, ma’am.”

“Hmm, I quite like being called that.”

“I’m glad, ma’am.”

Pepper moves her arm back towards him. She won’t tell him that the interruption was fine, nor will she tell him that it was anything else, because it wasn’t. It was what it was. There’s no word that can define it.

James takes the arm back. This time he doesn’t go the way that he had before where he can get himself washed away in thoughts. Instead, he starts kissing his way down the arm. He drags his tongue down her arm and then kisses back up. He gets to her hands, and he tucks it into a fist to kiss all of her knuckles.

It takes him a moment to realize that he’s the one who made the fist. He’s not scared of being hit anymore. He’s just willing to accept pleasure without fear of consequences. He unfolds her hand and kisses back down it. Before he moves back up to her throat that he had rested his head on. He presses soft kisses there. Unwilling to bruise the skin or even apply pressure.

Pepper drops her eyes closed as she feels the lips press against the corner of her lips, up towards her other ear to press kisses there. Her hair being picked up to allow him to the skin. He presses a kiss on each eyelid before softly moving her back towards her original position.

Then, his weight is gone from her. She’s not sure why that feels so terrible until she shoots her eyes open looking for him. They find him shortly after, kneeling on the ground in front of her. Everything about that is wrong. He shouldn’t be kneeling.

“Honey, don’t kneel.”

James furrows his brow. What other position is there that he’s supposed to be on. He wants to be able to reach her legs. Pitch forward and kiss her feet since she has taken off the heels that she was wearing earlier.

Rhodey moves his legs to knock James’ legs out. Once he’s flat on his ass, Rhodey smiles. “Cross your legs on the ground. Or fucking lay down or whatever. Just don’t kneel, I guess.”

Pepper lowers her voice to a whisper. “It doesn’t feel right to have him on his knees in front of me. So, I won’t have him on his knees in front of me.”

Rhodey shrugs. “His submission is a gift. He can give it now, willingly. Don’t take that from him entirely.”

James purses his lips for a second before shrugging. He picks up one of Pepper’s legs to start a kiss on the inside of her leg, right over her pulse point. “You know that super soldier enhances the senses. That means that I can actually hear you even when you whisper.”

Pepper gets a dusty blush over her cheeks. “I’m sorry, James. I did not realize that, otherwise I would not have said anything.”

“Why? It’s a valid emotion to feel. I know plenty of submissive soldiers from back from my time that civilians had a hard time having kneel when they knew what sacrifices that they’ve given throughout their service. It’s why a lot of us stuck to military dominants.”

Pepper narrows her eyes. “But you wanted to be on your knees.”

James shrugs to her. “Yes, but you don’t want me to be. If I need to kneel tonight, later after you’re done with me, I’ll crawl over to Rhodey and let him force me to my knees again. Or I’ll ask Tony. Maybe Thor. All of them don’t seem to have the same issues regarding this.”

Pepper reaches out to brush her hand against his hair. “Thank you, honey. Let me know if you would like anything in reward for being so honest.”

James eyes light up. “Can I have a kiss?”

Pepper barely contains herself from the absolute feral grin that threatens to explode from her. That’s too damn innocent. He doesn’t ask for guarantee that he’s allowed to come later. He doesn’t ask for liberty with her. No, he asks for a kiss from her. She leans down her hair covering them both in a veil as she kisses him gently.

He soaks in pleasure as her lips touch his for the first time tonight. At least he knows that he deserves all the good things by the way that she keeps everything light. Nothing that demands his submission. When she pulls away, he goes back to her leg. He follows her direction. Gentle kisses only.

Pepper almost wants to find out what would happen if she told him to go harder. To leave bruises on her pristine skin just to watch the news lose their minds as the dominant CEO of Stark Industries has the marks of a traditional submissive. To see whether the old rumors that she had paid off a doctor to lie about her designation start up again.

She’s about to say something when his lips start on the bottom of her foot, and she arches up. She doesn’t remember the last time that she’s allowed herself to be pampered for any portion of time. And this is clearly that. He’s pampering her. Switching between foot and foot.

When he starts kissing back up her leg, she spreads them wide allowing him to duck under her skirt. She watches Rhodey stand up to head to the kitchen.

James himself loves that he’s allowed finally to reach her thighs and get the slight tensions to relax from Pepper. Just one kiss after another. Sometimes, he’ll twist his head to get to the other side of her thigh, or at least he is until someone calls for Lady Pepper.

Pepper blinks as Thor calls her name. She thinks that he might believe that she’s less busy than anyone else. Probably true only because Rhodey is outside the room. She hears the question, and she gives some kind of answer that appears to satisfy everyone. Something about the Hulk.

James almost freaks out when there’s suddenly a Hulk in the room with them. At least he does before he recalls that the Hulk and Bruce cannot not be all that different. They are different types of people, but they are still one person, and Bruce would never wish harm on anyone in this home, so they should all be good.

Pepper catches the tension between her thighs, and she waits to see whether a safeword will be thrown. She won’t say a word if he needs to say something. He’s never seen the Hulk as anything but a monster as a member of Hydra. When no words come, she decides to be done with the light peppering kisses. They are amazing, and gods knows it is exactly what she was looking for with them.

“James, I want something new from you.”

“Yes, ma’am?” There’s a questioning infliction on the answer. Nothing to suggest that he won’t immediately go with it, but rather asking what he is meant to be doing. He’d love to please her more.

“I want your mouth on me. But I just want it over my underwear for now.”

James glances up under her skirt and has to fight his own chuckle. “Ma’am, you’re not wearing underwear.”

Pepper freezes. She could have sworn she was wearing panties, she had gone to change before dinner. And she hadn’t actually put them on. She laid them out, she had gotten out of the uncomfortable portions of clothes, and she hadn’t put them on. “Fuck.”

“You forgot your panties, Pep?” Rhodey teases as he falls back against the couch cushions.

“Evidently.”

Rhodey hisses out his laughter. “Well, let the poor soldier have his dessert then. Not his fault you couldn’t remember an article of clothing, or tell that you weren’t wearing them until someone pointed it out to you.”

“Oh, terribly sorry for having other things on my mind, like the gorgeous soldier placing kisses on me.”

James fades in and out as the two bicker above him. He hasn’t been told what to do yet, so there’s nothing that has to be done until he has those orders. He could probably mimic the feel of a mouth over underwear by huffing over her vagina without actually placing his mouth on her. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it might work. He reaches out to tap her ankle.

“Yes, James?” She’s going to potentially force him to torture himself if he dares ask for her to make a decision before she’s ready or push her to agree to him getting what he wants early.

“If you still want to feel the warmth from that without allowing me to taste you yet, I could breathe warm air over you until you tell me to do more. I’d like to think that would give a similar feeling, although since I don’t have the right parts to have tested that, it is just a theory.”

Pepper turns her head to just stare at Rhodey. When he had told her that James was such a good boy regarding any scene that they could throw at him, she hadn’t thought he meant to this extent. He is giving her more ways to torture him without giving him what he wants desperately.

“Good boy,” Rhodey says. He meets her eyes with a shrug. Practically telling her to make her call and stop pondering how amazing he can be for them without even hesitating regarding any of it.

“Make me come, James.” Pepper doesn’t specify how, and she doesn’t have to given that his mouth covers her almost immediately. His tongue licking through her folds and into her vagina. She throws her head back and moans.

James for his part doesn’t hesitate to dive right in. This is what he had wanted. Permission to show his gratitude with his talents with his tongue. Mostly because that feels like the correct option for them. His movements are a bit jerkier than they had been on Rhodey. A blow job requires a lot less precision, than an eating out.

Pepper hikes her skirt up and over her thighs where she can see James’ head. Especially the little bobs that he’s doing. She can see his boner straining against his pants, but he’s not even coming close to reaching for it. Seriously, she thinks one of her long term goals will be to drive James insane by finally getting him to be selfish in a scene. “Rhodey, can you do me a favor?”

“Oh, there’s another one other than getting you food for after he finally finishes his feast.”

Pepper can’t quite make the words come out of her mouth as the pleasure picks up. James doesn’t change his pace, but the building pleasure makes her start huffing out each breath rather than forming words. When she does start calming down from that peak, she turns her head towards Rhodey. “Can you get his pants off?”

“No, I cannot. I could not kneel down to get those pants off of him and get back up again. That would be horrible with the braces.”

Loki’s brain is rather far away from the scenes that he’s overhearing in the corner of his mind. But he had been keeping an ear out for if Rhodey started to having issues with his legs. He snaps one of his hands with Stephen staring at him oddly.

James’ pants come off of him and land folded in a pile next to him. There’s a part of him that wants to pull off of Pepper to ask what the hell just happened. But there are several magicians in the room that could have helped, and he’d be sad to be denied to make her come again.

Rhodey blinks at the clothes now on the floor. “Whichever magic user did this, thank you. And free favor sometime if you want to call it in for doing this in my name.”

“From me as well,” Pepper calls out, before she gets washed back up in the sensations James isn’t even close to stopping with the way that his tongue is now circling her clit. She has a gut feeling that she’s going to be coming another time before she even considers telling him to stop. She probably should tell him after this crest is done, but instead she lets her eyes fall closed as he starts up a gentle suckling of her clit.

The pleasure hasn’t hit the point of being overstimulating yet, and she’ll have a few minutes to relax before she needs to do anything else in the second session of their scene. Which means that in her mind, that she’s got the time to allow him to continue.

Tony plops down next to Rhodey and plucks a blueberry from the plate up into his mouth. He wracks his eyes up and down. “How long has James been down there?”

“Long enough that I question whether he’s breathing anything that isn’t just Pepper.”

Pepper reaches over to swat him yet again, but Tony catches her hand. “Ah, how dare you try to hit the Rhodey bear?”

James wonders what the hell is happening that has resulted in Tony being here with him. But, his primary dominant is Pepper, she hasn’t told him to stop, so he’s not going to stop anytime soon. He just flicks his tongue inside her for a change. Turns out that the way to pleasure people hasn’t changed in decades, and that’s a delightful thing to know.

Pepper tightens her grip on Tony’s hand as she crests over a third time. This time the amount is starting to get to a point where she’s getting overwhelmed.

Tony rolls his eyes as Pepper struggles to open her eyes after this last orgasm. He’s not entirely shocked by that, given what he understands of the scene that has unfolded. “James, get up. Pepper’s done.”

James pulls back. “Need to hear it from her.”

Tony sticks his tongue out to run over his own teeth as he considers this new command. That makes sense to him in a disturbing way. “Pep, your sub needs your command to stop.”

“Stop him for me,” she mumbles.

“James, come on.”

James comes out from under her skirt with a blush along his face. “I could hear her.”

Tony hums. He turns to Rhodey. “She did say to stop him. Do you reckon, I ought to pull him up and over our laps, just to make sure that he doesn’t go back to what he was doing?”

James doesn’t stop the blush traveling across him as he stumbles up to his feet. He doesn’t last long on his own two legs and ends up collapsed mostly on top of the two of them anyway. Not that he had much of a problem with them hauling him up and over in the first place, just that he’d feel a little guilty if he didn’t help them.

Pepper sticks her hand out after a moment. She needs the energy if she’s going to be continuing with her boys to mess with James a little bit. And Rhodey had already promised her the snacks.

True to his word, Rhodey places a few cherries in her hands and watches as she plucks them in her mouth one by one. He nods towards the plate trying to urge Tony to help him. He doesn’t have nearly enough hands to balance the plate, feed Pepper, and then feed James. That’s one too many pieces of fruit.

Tony takes the hint. He steals a blueberry to hold up to James lips. He runs his fingers over James lip as he swallows down the fruit.

Piece by piece they get rid of all of the fruit on that plate. A drastic thing given that Rhodey had piled on to the plate just about any fruit that he could find already washed within their kitchen place. He didn’t want to spend too much time away, yet at the same time, he was confident that Pepper would need food and that James would appreciate it.

“Pep, light of my life, you should tell us the next parts of your plans. Just so that we’re all on the same page with what we’re doing to James tonight,” Tony suggests.

Pepper raises her lips into a half smile. “I was planning on having each of us choose a portion of his body and start teasing him with touches. Until he gets to the point where he’s begging for more, and any time he breaks down and asks us for something, he can have it.”

“Cuddles,” James mumbles, burying his head further into Rhodey’s lap.

“That the important bit,” Rhodey asks a little amused. “That you get cuddles at the end of the scene.”

James nods his head. Sure, he’s got an erection, and it would be nice to have that taken care of before he goes to sleep, but it isn’t anything that he needs. What he does need are people’s arms around him reminding him that he’s not still trapped in his own hell of ice himself.

Tony shakes his head. “Beg for whatever you like during the scene. When we call it, you’ll always get aftercare, and we all know that yours is cuddles.”

“You can join us down here on the floor for a giant cuddle pile,” Laura says from her position away from them. That way all of them get the beauty of clinging to each other and anyway they turn having another person there ready to love them as well.

James nuzzles into Rhodey’s stomach with a nod. That sounds good enough to him. As long as in the end he gets the love that he craves, he’s a peach. “Do you need me to move?”

“Absolutely not,” Rhodey commands before any of the others have a chance to say a thing. His hands start up a massage around his temples varying the pressure.

Tony spares a glance towards Rhodey and realizes that his platypus wouldn’t be leaving James alone anytime soon, and the very idea of any of them continuing to try to move him from the relatively comfortable position that they’ve found themselves in would be an act of war. So, he shrugs to Pepper pretty much telling her to get on board with the fact that Rhodey is now running the show. He grabs James’ flesh and bone arm and starts up a gentle trace of his nails from the wrist to the elbow and back down. Every now and then, he puts enough pressure in that to cause a scratch mark to form.

Pepper thinks that under normal circumstances she’d be rather upset that Rhodey has commandeered her scene, but the way that James melts when he’s told he doesn’t have to move is so adorable that she can hardly stand it. She reaches for one of his feet and starts a light tickle.

James is been bombarded by his senses, not a single one of them being his normal standard of anything. There’s the gentle firm pressure from Rhodey’s hands. There’s the slightly insane way that Tony’s hands are causing him to wonder whether the arm is now a point of fascination for the scientist, and then there’s Pepper who is tickling him. Tickling which isn’t a thing that he’s experienced since before the war began.

And he fades into the distant sounds of his brain. He can just let them do as they please and there’s nothing that needs to be done by him. There are no rules that he was given, well there was one, which was that he’s supposed to beg if he wants something outside of what they’re giving him, but he’s rather happy with the way things are going.

Tony watches as James just drops all the way into his subspace. His eyes flutter closed and whatever remaining tension gives out under them. He turns to Pepper since he knows that his voice isn’t going to do anything to James who has gotten a damn bit used to it. “Were you intending for him to beg you to stop or beg you for his orgasm?”

Pepper’s staring into the now blissed out face of James with a thrilled smile on her face. “Yes, I really was going for both of those things.”

Tony looks back towards James as Rhodey runs his fingers over his eyelids to watch the way that James leans into the contact. “I don’t think that he plays that game very well. As long as he doesn’t have anything that he must do, he’ll just go down like this letting us make all of the calls.”

Pepper hums softly. “Hmm, well then, Rhodey was here for the whole thing. Do you think he deserves a reward anyway after what he’s done today?”

Rhodey pays her very little heed. He hears the question that she’s asking him, and he can’t find a bone within him to care about what any of them think. James has earned everything a million times over, but that’s not quite what Pepper means. “Up to you, Pep. You know that this is your scene.”

A part of her wants to snark back at him, asking where that attitude was when he had said James didn’t have to move. But the time of their bickering has certainly passed. “Okay, then yeah. Think he’s too far down to actually tell us whether he’d like an orgasm or not?”

“Like as in want one ma’am?” His voice is slurred but he can make out just barely that the question that time had been more directed towards him than the others had been.

“Yes, snowflake, that’s what she’s asking you,” Tony explains with a light chuckle.

“Oh, then yes please, ma’am.”

Pepper chokes on her laughter. He wouldn’t beg without her explicit words bringing him into focus, but the second that she does that, he’s more than happy to plead with her for whatever she’s asking him if he wants. Stubbornness and submission have to run in his veins.

She reaches forward and wraps her hand around his cock. Her head tilts just slightly to the side. “Come whenever you’d like James.” Then, she’s pumping her hand up and down. In the same pattern that she knows drove Tony crazy back when they were trying to figure out whether they’d be good together.

It doesn’t take long for James to come with a light whimper that he mostly hides in Rhodey’s chest. The hands around him not moving in the slightest. Once he calms down from the orgasm, he looks towards Tony with a pout on his face. “Do we have to move to the floor?”

“Nope,” Tony says while tossing a wink towards Laura. “Stay right where you are, this is as good a place as any to cuddle after a scene.” And in his own head, he hopes that this family memory will replace all of the shitty ones he has from before the civil war when everyone was always walking on eggshells. This is so much better.

Chapter Text

Back in his lab once again, Tony is busy working on the weapons plans. They need to get rolling out the development of these, which means that he needs massive blueprints and a good count of materials for his company to be able to help him make these. Ever since they said that the public was welcome to put in orders for weapons, public opinion has fluctuated greatly but stock numbers have risen into astronomic levels.

From what he understands, while he’s busy designing, Pepper is busy making sure that no one gets too huffy about the new form of business that they’ve been running for quite some time. That means that he’s mostly alone in the lab. On occasion someone will come down with food or James will stay down here to just hang out and in general stay near him and the bots.

“Boss? I don’t know what to do,” Friday says over the speakers in the lab.

Tony sets down all of his tools. There are very limited things that Friday doesn’t have established protocol for dealing with, and even fewer that she can’t make a judgement call on as an AI. “Okay, Fri, what’s going on?”

“There’s a phone call using one of the emergency contact numbers for Jarvis.”

Tony blinks. He runs through his head all of the people that had access to that number, which is not all that many. Then, he follows that up with a list of people who didn’t know that Jarvis was dead or that Tony had a new AI or that Tony himself had personally given them new numbers to call in cases of emergencies. The problem is that list is pretty limited to the dead. What in the hell was he going to have to deal with now?

“Go ahead and patch the call through to me, and maybe give Rhodey a warning that we might be suiting up if some of this turns out as crazy as I anticipate.”

“Yes, boss.”

The call connects to his line in the lab, and Tony takes a deep breath. “You’ve reached the emergency line of Tony Stark; I don’t know how the hell you have this number or why the hell you’re calling so you’ve got about two minutes to convince me that you’re worth my time and energy before I hang up.”

“Agent Coulson speaking, I’m in trouble.”

Tony’s jaw almost hits his desk with how wide he’s gaping. That sure as hell sounds like Phil Coulson, but that seems highly unprobeable given that he had seen Phil die way back in 2012 when the original invasion had happened, and the avengers had formed. “Apologies, I could have sworn you said Agent Coulson.”

There’s a muttered string of curses on the other line. “Yeah, that’s what I said alright. And look, I know that you have like a million and one reasons to hate me since that’s the truth, and I owe you one hell of a story and even larger apology, but can you listen for like five minutes for me to try to explain my current situation first?”

Honestly, there’s a part of Tony that wants to say hell no. There’s a part of him that wants to say that he has no proof that this is Coulson, he has no reason to believe a damn word out of this mouth if it is Coulson after he’s let all of them think he’s dead. If this is Coulson, he’s going to have to be the one to explain to Clint and Natasha that the person they loved most in the world is actually alive, and not dead. That he is on his way here, and no, Tony doesn’t know why he lied or anything. “Give me a reason to.”

“Because I’m not alone, and you’ve never been one to punish innocents for the faults of the ones that are in charge of them, and they need a safe place to land.”

“Fuck’s sake, Phil,” Tony curses. “Fine, get here to the tower, you can explain whatever shit you want to say in person. Your team will have quarters, and you better explain what kind of danger you’re all in first and foremost, so I know what level of bullshit I should be prepared for on top of you showing up alive out of the blue.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t,” Tony commands. His voice is hard. “Because I’m going to have to go be the one to explain to Natasha that I need her to put a protection detail on Phil Coulson’s team as they’re arriving at the tower, and no I don’t know how the fuck he’s alive or why the hell he didn’t call. I’m going to be the one to dial Laura and tell her to keep Clint the fuck away from the airway as you land because his mind has become a playing ground for so many beings with mystical powers, that he’s not going to trust his mind or eyes seeing you. And then if those two weren’t enough, I’m going to have to be the person who pulls Pepper out of a meeting to tell her that the submissive that she debated collaring, the one that she loves enough to ask me whether I’d be willing to allow a ceremony within the family, the one that she buried, isn’t dead. No, he’s alive, and he’s been that way the whole time.”

“Not the whole time,” Phil corrects. “And if you don’t want to tell them, I’ll handle it when I land.”

Tony scoffs. “No, Phil, you won’t. Because if I let it wait until you land, it’ll be some kind of blood bath, and I don’t know who I will try to save in it with everything that has gone down, and I’d rather you not be in pain.” He slams the phone down. He’s careful not to break it, but that’s about the extent of his restraint.

“Friday, get Natasha down here.”

“She’s on her way.”

Natasha walks into the lab to see the anger on Tony’s face. She automatically reaches for one of the weapons that she keeps on her belt. “Who do I need to kill?”

“I need you to get on protection detail. In fact, I need you to be on making 100% sure that nothing happens to these people.”

She lowers her weapon only a little. “Who? What’s happening, Tony?”

Tony lets out a sigh of air. His own limbs trembling in barely contained anger. He doesn’t think that he’s actually been this angry with any of them. Not with Natasha after her betrayal. Not at Clint after his comments designed to hurt him in the worst way. Not even with Thor after literally being a scum bag. But, this enrages him to the extreme. “I need you to protect Phil Coulson’s team as they land here to be protected.”

She blinks. There’s a mask that settles over her features. “Did you know?”

“No.” Tony shakes his head to clear it. “I’m not Rogers.”

“So, he lied to all of us. He let all of us believe that he was dead and gone.”

Tony hates what he’s about to do, but there’s only one person who has enough experience playing the spy game that doesn’t have literal holes in the memories that can do this task. “That’s what it all appears to be. Can you handle making sure his people have safe rooms and stuff in the compound and the whole debriefing all of them? I need to go tell Laura to keep Clint the fuck away from all of this, so he doesn’t start questioning his mind again. And then I’ve got to call Pepper.”

Natasha braces herself with one hand on the frame of the doorway as her eyes flutter shut. “We got a day, didn’t we?”

“A singular one at that. The war will end eventually. The battles will start coming in less and less and one day we will go months without something getting thrown at us that we weren’t at all expecting or prepared for. That day is not today.”

Natasha nods her head. The war will have to end, one way or another they will get their moments of peace after that, regardless of who wins. “I’ll take care of it. Call Laura; call Pepper. Maybe they’ll be more okay than I am.”
Tony doubts it, but he doesn’t call her out on that as she walks away. He too understands the need to believe that this is just a personal thing that he’s feeling because then it is so much easier to get everything that must get done, done.

“Fri, connect me to Laura.”

“Hey, Tony. Lunch is almost done, are you coming up?”

“I wish I could, lovely lady, however I have a new pile of problems that were just dropped on me with very little warning, and I could use your help dealing with one part of them.”

“What can I do?” She pulls the phone away from her mouth to ask Clint to herd the kids out of the kitchen and towards the table. She can’t say that she ever thought a day would come where Tony needed her help to deal with something that has landed upon him, but she’s happy to try to help all the same.

“I need you to keep Clint away from the air hangar today. And then, I need you to prep him for dealing with the idea that Coulson wasn’t dead this whole time, but rather just not telling any of us about his survival.”

Laura grips the counter top in her hands until her knuckles are white. “Is he alive?”

Tony hums in agreement. He can’t really think of any other words to offer that make this anything other than a betrayal. Not for any of them. All of them that loved him, cared for him before 2012. At least there was something regarding the fact that they hadn’t all accepted his murderer into the family regardless of distress. That’s a silver lining that he could get behind for a moment.

“Alright. I’ll get right to work on that. Am I going to need to convince him that his first action shouldn’t be to punch the man in the face?”

“Go ahead, as long as he does it with fists and not arrows, I’m not going to put up too much of a protection against it. He has to deal with the consequences of the actions that he’s taken. He needs to.”

Laura swallows around the insults that threaten to pour from her lips. She doesn’t know the story, none of them know the story, and with all of the things that they’ve dealt with in the past months, they’ve got to admit somewhere that there might be good reasons for this to have gone down. “Yes, he does. Do make sure to get the story first.”

“When have I ever failed to do so?”

“Good point,” she agrees. She closes her eyes and counts to ten. “I’m going to go feed my children and whoever else shows up. Then, I’m going to convince Clint that today is a really nice day out and that we should take the kids to grand central park, while we watch them run around, I will broach the subject of the dead lying to us.”

“Good luck.”

“To you as well.”

Friday cuts their connection as well. She knows from the accounts of her predecessor that everyone had loved Phil Coulson, so she couldn’t make out why all of this was happening. Why would a dead man call using one of the secure channels from a dead AI? Why would someone who was a part of the family ever try to leave the family after everything that has befallen them? She doesn’t understand.

Tony falls onto his couch, ready to make the worst call of his life. Right after the call that he had made the first day after the Battle of New York, when he had to tell her that he was dead. Or perhaps this would rank under that. He’s not sure which will actually be worst in the long run. “Friday?”

“Boss, I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand, baby girl?”

“Why would Phil Coulson call after this many years? What’s happening that has caused him to resurface? Why did he leave?”

“Good questions. Humans don’t always follow a logical path, and there’s no good reason for any of it, only possible answers that he might throw at us. Until he gets here, I don’t have any answers.”

“But he’s hurting family members,” his AI objects.

“Yeah, unfortunately, we give the power to hurt us to the people that we care about most. Most of the time, they don’t hurt us with the knowledge that they have. Not always though. Sometimes they use what they know about you to hurt you in the worst way possible.”

Tony lets her stew with that information for a while. He takes a seat on the couch while trying to steady his breathing. He knows that once he makes this phone call, he’s practically ensuring that Phil will be back in the family assuming his apology is genuine, because Pepper loves him so much. Which is also why despite his own hesitance, he can’t put off the phone call either. She deserves all of the opportunities to see him and to make her own choices. “Friday, baby, can you use the emergency number for Pepper?”

The phone only rings once before Pepper’s on the line. “Tony, what’s happening? I have the news on, and I don’t see anything about alien attacks, but that could be any number of governments blocking the information until we know whether its friend or foe.”

“For once, the emergency does not have to with aliens,” he quips. The humor falls on dead ears with a dead give away being that even he didn’t manage to laugh. Damn, even his coping mechanisms are failing today. The world may truly be fucked seven ways to Sunday if he can’t make a joke.

“Tony?”

“I don’t know how to say any of this, Pep. You know that I’m shit with feelings, but there are some things even I try to be sensitive about, and I don’t know how to say today’s bullshit out loud. So, I’m just going to give you a summary of today, okay?”

“Yeah, Tony, whatever you need to do.”

“I was working in the lab on the new blueprints for weapons, when a call came into Friday using one of Jarvis’ old emergency contact lines. I was confused as was Friday by the usage of that number, but no one but trusted allies and friends had that number or the new one, so I went ahead and picked up the line. The person calling was Phil Coulson.”

Tony stops hearing the way that Pepper has frozen all of her movements. There’s no longer any noise coming from the TV in the background or the familiar taps of her fingers on the keyboard in front of her. “Phil’s alive, Pepper. I don’t know how or why he didn’t call earlier or really anything other than that he’s in danger with his new team, and that he needs a place to crash for now.”

“He’s coming to the Compound?”

“On route now,” Tony confirms.

“I’ll be there to greet him and get his team settled in.” Her voice fades for a moment as she talks to someone else, presumably to tell them that there’s been a family emergency and to push back all of her meetings and what not. When she comes back, there’s an edge to her voice that he hasn’t heard in a long time. “We’ll need to hear his side of things before we decide what the hell to do, but Tony, that’s my submissive, he’s with us.”

“Yeah, Pep, I know.” The line goes dead, and he wonders whether this is some kind of hell. Whether he actually died in Siberia, and his afterlife is showing him proof of what could have been while torturing him with every single possible person that he’s ever considered loving being brought back to him in horrible betrayals that he’s got to find a way to advance through.

He decides that if Pepper is going to meet them on the airway, then he could go help Natasha prep for protection details. He could also possibly prepare himself for whatever platitudes Phil is likely to hand him right away. He’s never known Phil to be quiet when he knows that he’s done wrong.

His memories take him away to shortly after he found the cure to fix himself from the Palladium poisoning. Phil slid to his knees effortlessly the next time that he had come to Tony’s house. His arms folded behind his back, and his neck held out. He had whispered out an apology for the threats that he had been instructed to make, and how he did not feel that any of them were good ideas, but how he was a good agent and unwilling to give the post to someone else less it become worse for Tony. Tony had offered him forgiveness easily that time. He had just been betrayed, but he couldn’t remember a time when anyone ever apologized so sincerely. Phil hadn’t taken that though, he had asked to be punished regardless. Tony had considered it for a long time before agreeing. That was before Tony knew about how much pain tolerance the average shield agent had, and before Tony had ever considered pain play to be used during punishments. No, back then, Tony had gone to his go to punishment an edging session with no reward at the end. Because that had been before his ban on mixing punishment and pleasure. Phil had shaken in his arms practically the whole night as Tony had forced him to the brink of pleasure and back again. And when they were done, Phil had curled onto Tony like a freaking koala and stayed there for close to a week, no matter what Tony was working on.

Tony finds that he misses Phil too. He’s always known that he misses Phil, that he was mourning the same as Pepper for his death, but he hadn’t really paused to consider what that meant for him. He hadn’t had enough time to think about the fact that he would have started telling Phil that he loved him around the same time that Pepper proposed. He hadn’t thought about how true those words were going to be.

Natasha leans on him once he arrives at her room to help her, and he holds her. Both of them lost in memories wondering whether this will be the start of something good, or whether this will be a time of grief for everyone.

Pepper has her rescue suit on within minutes of the call to make sure that she makes it to the landing strip before Phil does. Her mind still racing by what this could possibly mean. Phil, her Phil, alive and well. That’s almost too good of a wish to be true. And the rational part of her brain still speaks about how it is too good to be true, that if this isn’t some kind of trick that means that he willingly let them all believe that he was dead for several years, and she can’t bring herself to even be slightly angry about it when she’s too busy basking in the joy of him being alive.

Once at the landing strip, she’s not sure what to do with herself. Her hands twist on top of each other as she scans the skies for any hint of the plane that they’ll be landing here. She ends up kind of walking back and forth as she waits.

Meanwhile on the plane, Phil has been a wreck of nerves ever since making the phone call. It had only been a little while since they had all realized that he had been dead, that people had been told he was dead. Even less time since the betrayal of one of their team members, as they all found out that he had been Hydra the whole time. And now they’re being hunted by Hydra, and he has some weird alien tech that none of them understand that’s what’s keeping him alive, and what he wants more than anything is for his team to be safe and to see his family. Two birds, one stone would be his philosophy on the solution, if he was at all sure that he was going to make it through seeing his family. They’d thought that he was dead.

Melinda comes to stand next to him. “We’ve landed, are you ready to deal with whoever the strawberry blonde woman is out there, pacing like mad hell?”

Phil blinks back the tears in his eyes. “I’ll do what needs to be done for the team,” he answers instead, knowing that’s not the question that she’s asking him for. He hasn’t got a clue what the answer for the question she’s actually asking him is. Hell, he’s not sure that any of the family knows what it is anymore.

The camouflage fades from their ship as they open the airlock to let the team step out onto the ground. He sees Pepper standing there, but no Tony or well anyone else, which is the opposite of what he’d been expecting. He’d expected an interrogation from the start. He moves to start going down on his knees for her, as per what he always does when he thinks or knows that he’s messed up recently, but he doesn’t get even the slightest chance to get far.

Pepper charges at him immediately. She notices the way that several members of his team go to reach for weapons before they realize that she’s hugging him. Her arms around him like she’s begged for since his dead and squeezing him tight. “Hi, dear, welcome home,” she says through the tears in her eyes.

Phil really ought to pull back, to tell her that until she knows the story, she can’t possibly promise him that after what he did. But, her arms are around him in a tight embrace that doesn’t leave much interpretation room for how much she’s missed him. And she’s swearing this even with all of the apologies that he needs to get out. Instead, what comes out of his mouth is half a sob, as he lets her hold his weight.

Pepper maneuvers them where she’s holding him and able to face the rest of his team. “Welcome to the Avengers compound, I’m Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, and newly formed hero Rescue. We hear that you guys have a bit of a problem going on, so we’d be happy to assist by giving you a safe base for the time being. Please, follow me to the Compound living quarters.”

She takes off in a purposeful walk, careful not to make Phil move at a speed that would be uncomfortable for him with his position in her embrace. She could let him go, probably should let him go, but he’s not making a move to force her too, and she’s got way too many feelings bouncing around inside her head to be willing to let him go on her own.

Natasha intercepts them at the door. Her eyes are cold and nothing like what Phil remembers her being when he’s in the room. “I’ve got bedrooms made up for all of them, and Tony and I have made sure that no one is going to be able to trace them here. We do however need to have a full briefing tonight on what problems led you here, so that we can make sure we’re adequately prepared for if they do find you later.”

Melinda nods. “Yes, we’d be happy to give a full briefing before settling in. Is there some kind of room where we can do that or is the plan to ask questions in the doorway while we’re all still standing outside?”

Natasha moves away from the door. “I’ve been overruled on that front. According to Tony, some of you might be innocent of the crimes that I wish to punish someone for, so alas, I can’t make only one of you uncomfortable that way.”

“Natasha, behave,” Tony hisses as he comes around the corner. He opens the door wide and invites all of them in. “Right this way.”

Natasha mutters something under her breath, but she does open the door to a meeting room and dig out a notepad to be able to jot down the notes that she might need regarding any and all of this. Her legs are crossed, and her eyes still won’t meet Phil’s.

The guilt washes over him as he realizes that while Natasha will behave under orders from Tony and possibly even Pepper, she’s not even remotely willing to compromise with him. His team could have been in sincere danger right at that moment, and she would not have moved an inch to help him. That hurts, since once upon a time, she would have fought aliens to be able to say that she had tried to save him. It hurts so much more than he was prepared for.

Tony catches the way that Phil sways as Natasha’s coldness hits new heights. There must be some amount of sincere guilt, which means the second that they get this briefing out of the way, he’s going to need to send Natasha out of the room. Phil will have issues with her being here if he’s going to get on his knees again. And Tony can tell that’s what he wants to do even now.

“Let’s start simple,” he says. “Who is after you currently?”

“The threat that we know is certain is Hydra,” Melinda announces.

The two scientists glare at Melinda as she speaks. The female scientist shakes her head. “Yeah, the Hydra agents aren’t all that terrifying. I mean they try to kill us, we try to kill them, and you know all of that. The real problem is that Shield of old stole some super fancy alien tech from some aliens that weren’t Thanos, and they used that technology to bring back the dead, and they may or may not be hunting Phil for it back.”

Natasha holds out a hand face up, and Tony slaps a good 50 dollar bill right into it. She had bet him that regardless of how non-alien all of this had sounded at the start, that by the end they’d be finding out that it had something to do with aliens after all. How she had known is beyond him.

Pepper takes in a deep breath. “Why is that uncertain, Agent May?”

“Because the only information that we have on this alien technology comes from a file handed to us by our traitorous teammate who turned out to be hydra.”

Another agent reaches over to put a hand on Melinda’s shoulder to keep her from losing her mind. He gives Pepper a grimace. “Sorry, we only found out three days ago that he was hydra. It’s part of why we need a place to lay low, he knew all of our safehouses and our plans.”

Tony holds up a hand in the tell-tale motion for pause. He twists back towards Natasha. “Which team member don’t we have?”

“Okay, so the guy you just spoke is Machenzie or Mack, the one that Pepper called Agent May is shockingly Agent May, the two scientists are Dr. Simmons and Dr. Fitz, and then finally the girl staring at us right now is not an agent, Daisy Johnson. That means that they are missing Grant Ward.”

“Friday, update our known hydra list to include Grant Ward.”

“On it, boss.” After a brief intermission, Friday comes back to them. “James wants to know whether he’s allowed to go assassinate this one.”

“Not today,” Pepper instructs. She rolls her eyes to the heavens. “One day, I will not be asked to sanction assassinations while I’m trying to make up with lost time from my dead submissive returned to me.”

“That has been a lot of your days,” Natasha points out.

Tony tugs on her hair to stop her from saying anything further that might antagonize the situation. They’re in enough precarious territory, they don’t need more issues. “Alright, so you guys were betrayed, you need to lay low and find out whether the threat is only hydra or whether hydra boy was telling the truth, and you’ve got aliens after you.”

Daisy heaves a large sigh. “For the sake of everyone being on the same page, let’s get everyone on the same page. Phil said no secrets, so we’re not keeping any secrets. First of all, I am an agent. After Fury’s not quite so good at faking death, he was named director of the new organization. Second, I go by Skye. Any of you ever call me Daisy again, and I will not be responsible for the bruises that you end up with. Third, the reason why myself, Jemma, and Leo are all on the side of aliens coming to attack us, aliens coming to attack us alarm blaring siren is because of Phil. He only recently uncovered that he was at one point dead, and ever since he learned of that, he’s getting flashes of memories of being brought back and the presence of something else trying to watch the same memories.”

Tony scratches at the side of his head. Number one thing he didn’t need, more aliens. Number two things that he didn’t need, unknown aliens being a problem. “Hey, Phil, how good is that trust for us going?”

“I called you,” he answers softly.

Pepper realizes what Tony intends to do. “Would you trust a family member of ours to look at you really quick to tell us whether the aliens are something that we need to worry about?”

“Sure.”

Tony closes his eyes. The correct answer would be to call Stephen wait for him to be done with whatever he’s in the middle of and then have him portal into the room to take care of this. That would be the safer option, but not the fastest, and not the most accurate. “Loki, can you come help me momentarily?”

Loki shimmers into existence in the room, a towel wrapped around his hair. “I’m not abundantly busy at the moment, so of course.”

Phil’s body tenses up in Pepper’s hold, but Pepper isn’t moving a muscle. Pepper isn’t afraid or acting like this is the man who had killed him. So, maybe this is all some kind of illusion, a test perhaps. He forces himself to remain mostly calm.

Loki takes a quick scan of the room, and his mouth drops open. “Okay, not to alarm anyone, but there is a man here whom I’m reasonably positive I killed.”

“You did,” Tony confirms. “I need you to check what brought him back.”

Loki’s eyes squeezed closed. “Are you having nightmares? Is there a dark stretching entity chasing after you? Are there tricks that you didn’t know before you died, that are now second nature to you?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

Tony twists all the way towards Loki. He can tell there’s a fear emanating from him, and he knows how difficult that is to reach. “How screwed are we?”

“Not very. He however is quite frankly screwed by fates and may wish that his death had been permanent before the end of this.”

Phil flinches under the way that even a god or god-like being has no hope for him. That’s a new type of screwed, and he’s still got to deal with his own apologies and trying to earn someone, anyone’s forgiveness. For a brief second, he considers what a sick form of hell he must be trapped in for some crime that he doesn’t even remember being a part of.

Pepper’s eyes fill to the brim with tears. None of this was right. She had gotten the person that she loves back only for a few minutes. Because if even Loki thought that this was a death sentence than it was a death sentence. If anyone believed in impossible miracles it was that man.

Loki tilts his head to the side. He catches one of the tears that falls from Pepper’s cheek as he closes his own eyes. “It is the cost. The people who love you can drag you back from the other side with this technology, but the curse is that you will watch them want to die the entire time or that if they don’t succeed in dying, that the monster you let in will kill you using the one that you love. It is a cruel curse, and the mythos of it is warned in every realm other than this one. I can try to find a way out of this, if you ask it of me?”

“And what would you demand in return?” Skye asks forcefully before any of the people emotional at the table can do something that they’ll regret in the morning.

Phil’s proud of how far his newest agent has come that she remembers that all of this is likely a trick of some kind and that she needs to be on her guard. A god could tell them what they needed to know but asking for help goes a step further. A step that would likely have a steep price.

“Nothing. I would not ask for a thing for this, just as I cannot promise any results. I do not know of any loopholes to this one.”

Pepper shakes where she’s sitting. The force of these emotions threatening to send her spiraling worse than Tony after the battle of New York. She’s got a war to win so what time she does have remaining she can’t dedicate to him because she can’t doom an entire people just so that hers gets some happiness.

Phil chuckles in a dark and twisted way. “Just my luck, I would get revived from the dead by people I don’t love only to hurt the ones I do. That’s just fantastic.”

Loki freezes. “What?”

“Yeah, because Fury got ahold of some fancy alien technology and thought to himself, I have this revival technology, better use it on my best agent so he can do even more work for me. Apparently dying for his cause wasn’t enough for him, I had to be brought back to do it again.”

“You were not brought back with love?” Loki clarifies. Magic fills the room as his eyes start flashing a brighter green. There might yet be one thing that he can do.

Phil shook his head softly. Once upon a time, he really would have liked to consider Fury a friend, someone who would value him and care about what happened to him. The last little while with memories proved that wrong. Fury didn’t love him. No one who loved him would pull him back from death and then ask them to continue doing their job while lying about the fact that they had died.

“Lady Olena, I have need of you.”

The Lady Olena shimmers into existence next to him around all of the alarm blazing in the building before Tony overrides them. She inclines her head low. “My lord prince, I would hope that you would not dream of abusing the power the monarchy bestows upon you by calling me in vain.”

Loki jerks his head over to Phil with a simple motion. He wants her unbiased opinion of this.

Lady Olena’s eyes pierce through Phil, staring into his essence. “Oh, my dear boy, not even I have the power to stop the curse from taking your friends when they’ve already done the evil.”

“They didn’t raise him,” Loki corrects. “But they are the ones that love him.”

“Someone had the nerve to test the Norns by raising someone who they did not love.”

Loki nods to her with a questioning shrug. “Can you redirect the curse since the conditions have been met?”

“Perhaps,” Lady Olena says. She sits down on top of the table in front of Phil and observes him silently for several minutes. “I’m going to need you to answer questions honestly and without a lot of time to consider the answers. Are you prepared for that?”

Phil casts a glance towards Tony who nods at him. He’s not sure where this going, but he’s willing to do what Tony says at this moment. “Yes.”

“Good. To your knowledge who placed this spell within your mind to bring you back from death?”

“Nick Fury.”

“Are you aware of any sentimental value that he would have had towards bringing you back?”

“No.”

She lets out a small sigh. “Would you have ever said he loved you?”

“No.”

Lady Olena turns her head towards Loki again. “The conditions are met.”

Tony stops her from reaching forward before her hands can reach Phil. “As delightful as I find the fact that you came into my house with nothing more than a call from your prince. You have not yet explained anything to any of us, and I don’t feel comfortable with one of my submissives allowing you to do anything with them before you explain what you plan on doing.”

“I’m a master healer, Lord Stark. Trust me when I say, that I understand the need to try to understand what is happening. Unfortunately, this is one of the few cases where I cannot explain, I can only do. The Norns have rules about certain things, this curse being one of them. The rules are not being followed, so I’m going to try to course correct them.”

“What she means is that what she will do is not up to her and until she starts the process she will not know,” Loki explains. “The Norns are fickle with how things work and while the conditions to change the fate of Phil Coulson, we don’t know how that will work, what it will entail.”

Lady Olena nods. “I forget that they do not have the same experience with the Norns as we do. I apologize, I should have been clearer in my meaning. May I try to avert the curse?”

“Is there a risk of it getting worse?” Pepper asks.

“No, the worst-case scenario is that the curse remains.”

“Do it,” she says.

Lady Olena brushes past Tony to place her hand on Phil’s cheek and fall into the open pit of his mind where the curse resides and where his mind has supplied alien in place of anything more reasonable.

To the others this looks like a mind meld from Star Trek movies. Neither of them is moving, but there’s something going on behind their eyes. This lasts for close to a half hour before Lady Olena pulls back looking quite faint.

Loki’s hand catches her elbow as he guides her down off the table and helps her remain on her feet. As she sways, Loki uses his magic to look at Phil again. He smiles. “The curse is gone. May the life that you have been given a second time be much better than the first.”

“You took that life from me.”

Loki blinks. “Well, kind of. I guess.”

“He didn’t do that on purpose, Agent Coulson. His mind was under the control of the mad titan, also known as Thanos, who is planning an entire invasion to our planet. You should not judge him.” Natasha’s words are still bitterly cold and unfeeling. She wasn’t even giving him the right to be called one of his names without title, and that hurts deep within him.

Loki waves goodbye to Tony and Pepper as he steers Lady Olena from the conference room. This will take a bit of explaining to Thor in a little bit, and he would need to be covering for a master healer until she was back to being able to take care of these things herself.

Tony waits until they’re out of the room before leaning back. “So the good news is that we don’t have to worry about aliens.”

Rhodey snorts from his position at the table, having been silent up until now. “The good news is that we don’t have to worry about more aliens, we’ve still got the massive army coming in hot to try to kill us all and then half of all life in the universe.”

Tony finger guns. “Right, and also the Hydra problem.”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “Can we just finally do a full purge of them? Pull a ten rings and just wipe them out, because I’m quite sick of hearing about yet another base sprouting up.”

“Friday, put together a list of everyone who we know has ever been Hydra, then a second list of anyone ever suspected of being hydra, and then run every comparison to double check whether the cops, government, or Avengers have missed any links between them.”

“Yes, boss. What should I do once I have the list made?”

“We have two assassins in the family, I say we let them have a field trip. Even though Pepper said to not commit assassinations today, I think that it would be best to get rid of our problems once and for all, so let's burn hydra to the ground.”

Natasha shoots up out of her chair. The excitement over finally being able to take down a portion of the group that had trained her into being a monster more than enough to overcome her desire to tell Phil nothing about herself. “Can I go tell James?”

“Yes, after you lead the rest of Phil’s team to their rooms. The debriefing is done for the day, and until tomorrow morning when I can handle dealing with all of the more advanced what do you want from this stay, what can I allow and what can’t I allow, I would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t interfere with our training or our labs, other than that you have free range.”

When Melinda stands up to follow Natasha, the rest of the team follows suit although they do so at much slower paces.

Skye turns back before actually making it through the door. “Is there a reason why Phil isn’t joining us?”

“Yes,” Pepper states. The question is honestly a bit ridiculous given everything, but then again some people need even the little things spelled out to them in clear and confident letters.

Phil swallows. “Go, Skye, I’ll be fine.”

“Half of the people in this room are mad at you, why would you stay in here?”

Phil closes his eyes for a moment. He can remember a time when he was young enough that he believed that if you were doing your best then there wasn’t a thing in the world that you had to apologize for. During that time, he thought that the liberation of submissives really would mean getting rid of the constant punishment angle of relationships, and then he had felt the guilt for the first time. True guilt that he couldn’t get rid of with therapy or anything else because his hormones were telling him that he had done irreversible harm and that the only way to fix it was by asking for help from a dominant. “Because they aren’t wrong to be angry, and I’d like the chance to speak with them privately about that anger.”

Skye finally turns back around and leaves the room. Not without pouting towards Phil for not coming with them. He didn’t deserve to be yelled at after everything that had happened, and she’s sure that’s what will happen if he stays in that room.

Rhodey stands up behind them to go lock the door before sitting back down in one of the chairs. He’s probably the most neutral of all of them in the room. He doesn’t have Pepper’s love blinding him to any fault, nor does he have Tony’s anger finding fault where this is some. He debates initiating the conversation himself, before deciding that if Phil is willing to do this on his own, that might be for the best.

Phil watches as Rhodey locks the door. He hopes that if it was going to be any major punishment, they’d let him change out of these clothes first, but that’s okay if it’s not. He can take it. He lets himself move away from the safety of the grip that Pepper’s had on his hand even after they sat down to lower himself to the floor. He kneels in a somewhat tight position between the table edge and the three dominants still in the room.
Tony breathes out. “Friday, this room is on lock down. Nothing short of an emergency comes through.”

“Yes, boss.”

Tony stares at the way that Phil’s holding himself. Almost as if he’s expecting to be hit before even being allowed to say any of the other words. He leans back in his own chair. “You’re kneeling, Phil, and I’ve only known you to go down on your knees once before like this.”

Phil inclines his head. “I don’t actually know where to begin. Can you tell me what to do, please?”

That’s a new one. Rhodey would have no issues with the beginning of this story being a simple I screwed up message.

Tony heaves a sigh. “I don’t know either, Phil. I don’t know quite understand a way in which you couldn’t understand why we’re angry to the point of not knowing what to apologize for.”

“That’s the thing,” Phil whispers. “I’d love to apologize for not calling and telling you I lived, only as Skye and Melinda brought up in the meeting, I didn’t find that out until a week ago. Before a week ago, I didn’t know I had a near death experience or that you guys thought I was dead. I thought that Fury had updated you as normal when I went on an undercover mission or at least a mission where I wasn’t easily going to be able communicate with you until everything was done. Because that’s what I was told happened. And while I feel like an apology is worthwhile, I also know it isn’t something I harbor guilt over because I’m not the one who deserves to be blamed.”

Pepper taps her fingers along her thighs. “And you thought several years was an acceptable amount of time not to contact us.”

Phil ducks his head in shame, taking that blow for what it was. He should have thought to call them at one of the points. “Fury died, and there was a large time period where I was dealing with the backlash of that and becoming director of Shield where I really should have called, but I was so exhausted trying to balance everything that I just kept saying I can call in the morning, but in the morning, there was a new stack of insanity that required me to deal with. I am sorry that I didn’t call then.”

Pepper exchanges a glance with Tony in confusion. That’s a valid thing to apologize for, but it doesn’t make nearly as much since with the Phil that we once knew. “Why didn’t you? Not just forgetting because you don’t forget things.”

“I was having flashes, losing time. There was something in my head that wanted me to not call, and I could never really understand, but anytime I reached for the phone, there was an energy or a flash of half a memory that would stop me in my tracks and make me pause to reevaluate what I knew.”

Tony closes his eyes. He hates the amount of bullshit that this suggests. “So, in your mind, you didn’t know that you were thought dead until shorty before you called. Before that point, you thought you were on a secret mission that needed radio silence, and after that you were a director of a shadow organization who had random mental breaks when thinking about reaching out to us.”

Phil nods. “I’m sorry, Tony. Truly, I know how much this much hurt, and I’m more than happy to stay on my knees down here until you know how to deal with me. Because I am so sorry for what I’ve done to you. I can’t explain my reasons with further context, because I don’t know anything further. I was thrown into this mess, and all I know now is that I want to come home. I want to know that the people that I love are here, and they know me, and they don’t think that I’m dead.”

Tony’s expression hardens. Because those are good answers. Those are too good of answers. They almost feel like Phil is trying to convince him to be happier with the situation than he should. Thus, he’s going to get to the bottom of this. He has questions, and he’s not letting either of the other two do anything until he gets those answers. “I am going to ask you a few questions and your only job is to fucking answer them as clearly as possible.”

Phil lets out a sigh of relief. “Of course.”

“Why didn’t you call the second the memories resurfaced?”

“I passed out when I learned what had happened to me for the first time. It was a bit overwhelming. When I woke up, Grant are old teammate had broken into the plane, and it took forever to deal with that battle situation. Once we got everyone taken care of and not in danger, I called.”

Pepper has a ghost of a smile on her face. This at the very least means that once he knew what they must have thought that he overrode whatever hesitation was being placed in his head to stop him from calling. That means something, although she’s not sure how much or what to make of most of this.

“And how were you able to overcome the resistance that time and not before?”

Phil’s brow furrows as he tries to piece together the words for that answer. “I think a part of it had to do with the insane amount of guilt I felt over the fact that all of you had thought me dead. And I do believe that was a rather large portion of it, but there was also the matter of the others in my ship being in danger, and I think that I convinced the voice stopping me that I wasn’t calling to regain what I had lost but was calling to try to stop harm on them. So, it was kind of a combination of everything that allowed for me to call that time.”

Rhodey reaches out to lay a hand on Tony’s shoulder before he can leap up and start pacing. He knows his best friend, and his best friend is going to hate these answers. Not because they don’t make sense, because they do unfortunately make a lot of sense. But because they mean that he did try to call immediately once he found a way to do so, and not only did he call them, he came home. They can’t hate him for what he didn’t know. Nor, will it be easy to overcome the anger seething in the bones.

Phil inches his head back down to completely bowed down and staring only at shoes. “But as I said before, I defer judgement to you. I can’t imagine what kind of pain this caused, and I would like to ease that pain in whatever ways that I can.”

Rhodey glances between the two dominants and the submissive kneeling on the floor. The submissive who has yet to have any comfort since waking up from the grave because he thought that it was something else entirely. And he knows that while Phil will have to be punished, that it cannot be done the way that they have been doing. He needs Pepper right now more than any of them need equality.

He leans over to whisper into Tony’s ear where Phil can’t hear them. “He needs comfort more than punishment. I say that we let Pepper forgive him now, and when he’s a little more stable emotionally, he can come to you.”

Tony’s eyes peer at Phil. He nods slowly. Rhodey is probably the most right of them all, he needs help, not someone else hurting him right now. He turns to Pepper and jerks his head towards Phil. “He’s yours first and foremost, his issues with the family can be put to the side until you’re reassured that he’s alive, and that he knows it as well.”

Pepper grins at him. She had wanted to be with him for so long that the idea of finally being able to do so overwhelms her slightly. The best kind of assistance that they could offer him was that. “Phil, crawl to me.”
Phil had been expecting Tony to rake him over the coals right away. He had screwed up so badly, that he’s not even sure he’d believe in his right to be forgiven at all. To be willing to tell Pepper that she gets him first, that Pepper can have him alone and without dealing with the rest of the family until both of them are more stable. He pitches forward to crawl towards Pepper, making sure to keep himself in proper form as he moves.

Pepper reaches for him the second that he gets within her reach. Her hand holding his head steady as he curls up in proper form on his knees at her feet. Her choice on what to do. “Phil, do you want my forgiveness?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Picture perfect compliance is Phil’s general position regarding any kind of apology and any kind of attempt to garner good will. This Pepper knows well. This all of them know well. Pepper tips his head up with the grip that she has in one of her hands. Then, she drops him and slaps him as hard across the face as she can manage.

Phil rocks with the strength of the blow before finding his center again. He doesn’t drop his head, because his mistress had dragged his head up already, if she wanted something different than she would move him. There’s a burn on his cheek that would normally demand his attention, but that pain is something that his mistress would like him to feel, so he doesn’t move to rub at it to alleviate even a portion of the pain.

Pepper raises one of her feet and pushes Phil down to the ground. Until his head is bowed at her feet, with only his ass in the air. It’s a horribly demeaning position, and one that would make a spanking painfully unbearable for more than a few minutes. Good then, that she doesn’t care for pain. “Stay, Phil.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replies. Staying in position is simple enough. They could test him to see whether they could get him to break the order. See whether or not they could convince him that there was something better than earning the forgiveness of his mistress right then, but they wouldn’t find one.

Pepper keeps one of her feet on the center of his back to remind him of his only position right now, which is lower than them. “Let’s talk logistics.”

Rhodey has to fight back his snort. This is a power play if he’s ever saw one, and he recently witnessed Tony doing the exact same power play to an Asgardian king. He definitely chose correctly with his family if he never wanted a normal day in his life. “Logistics?”

“Of letting Natasha and James just tear down Hydra on a mission. What kind of legal standby do you think we’re going to need? Do you think that they’ll need Accord committee support?”

Tony purses his lips. “If I’m being honest, I kind of planned on going the other route today.”

“What other route?”

“The one where they don’t leave any evidence and travel as ghosts, properly,” Rhodey answers.

Tony hefts his shoulders. “The governments of this world want us leashed, as they reasonably should. However, the criminals that would mess with powers beyond their reach should know that we’ll come down on them with or without government approval when we must. This does both, and if the governments question us about the fact that Hydra agents are turning up dead, we can answer completely truthfully, they have made plenty of enemies over the years, and there chicks have finally come home to roost.”

Pepper leans back and laughs. “Alright, so we’re letting assassins be assassins for the reason of trying to scare villains.”

Tony winks at her. “Now, you’re catching on.” He sobers up pretty quickly though. “There’s the other issue though.”

Pepper furrows her brow. “Pretty sure Loki solved our other problem, in all of his mysterious ways.”

“Not the issue that I was referring to, although you are right that Loki did solve another one that we would have been having to deal with. No, I’m referring to the fact that Natasha is about minutes away from killing Phil every time that she sees him, and that Clint might actually be worse off.”

Pepper winces. She had been mostly writing off the fact that they’d do anything because they’ve been trusting the dominants to deal with punishments a lot more than before, however she’s flirting with the line of actually punishing him this time, because of the fact that he’s home and she wants to have her submissive back, and Tony’s allowing it for now. “Right.”

“Now, Natasha is going to be leaving very shortly with James hot on her heels, maybe that protects him, maybe that makes it worse when they get back. But Clint lives here, he has the status as a family member who is loved. And by gods if you try to make him confined anywhere at any point so Phil can exist within the home with you when he’s not currently made up for what he’s done to the family, I’m going to let them do as they please with no limits,” Tony warns.

“Fair.” She takes a minute to think about her options. None of them are delightful to her, but they do need to come up with something that gives at least the image of being fair to the family. “Okay, simple solution. Phil, honey, are you going to go up to Tony to apologize to the family once you’re in a more stable place?”

“Of course, Ma’am. The second that I am able,” he answers. That’s a no brainer to him. He loves Pepper and would relish being her submissive, but he doesn’t want to cause issues for the family. He doesn’t want to result in any stress points, and he’d like for Tony to be loving with him one day like they used to be.

“Then, that’s what you say if they ask why you’re allowed this time. That Tony needs you to be mentally stable for a punishment for the family, and until that point you’re just my submissive as you have been for years.”
“And if they push?” Rhodey asks.

“If they push violently, respond in kind. No breaking bones or anything else that would end up in the hospital, but win the fight.”

Tony nods. He picks himself up and gives himself just a small moment of peace by running his hand down Phil’s spine. “Then, I think that concludes what needs me for the day, and I’m going to go crash on a couch in someone’s room or maybe their bed depending on their mood, because this was way too much for a Monday.”

Pepper urges Phil up and into her arms as she waves goodbye to Tony and Rhodey. She buries her face in Phil’s neck. “I am so glad that you’re alive.”

Phil’s chin warbles and the tears that he’s been holding back since finding out escape him. He lets Pepper cling him to her without a muscle being willing to move. “I’ve never been more scared in my life. I was dead, and now I’m not dead and everything isn’t okay.”

“It’ll be okay. I’ll make it okay,” she promises. And she hopes that she’ll be able to keep that promise with aliens and everything else still demanding at least a majority of their attention at all times.

Chapter Text

Skye does not like this place. They have no reason to trust Tony Stark’s judgement, and his Avengers while always the heroes are not known to care about the smaller guys. That was the whole purpose of the Accords to ensure that they had to care about the small guy and stop getting them killed. And Phil had just been left to their den of leaders like a sacrifice, and it doesn’t sit well with her.

Melinda fixes Skye with an annoyed look. “Relax. Nothing is going to happen to Phil in that room that he doesn’t consent to.”

“Oh, and we’re taking their word for that, right? What’s stopping them from lying?”

Melinda points towards Natasha who’s still leading them and pretending that this conversation isn’t happening. Since, she has even less patience than normal, and they’re attacking and insulting family with their words. “She is Phil’s friend, she wouldn’t leave him in danger.”

“Be careful there, Cavalry, you don’t know me,” Natasha mutters darkly.

“Everyone from the agency when you were around knows that you love Phil more than anyone other than Clint. You wouldn’t want him harmed.”

“That was before he let me believe him dead for several years without ever reaching out. And don’t tell me about secret missions, I have drop locations in every country in the world for that reason. Even if you’re so below ground that you don’t want to think about people, I have ways to get to my people. He may not have been able to contact Pepper, his dominant since she is a prominent figure, but if he had wanted to, he could have reached me.”

Natasha pushes open a door that leads to all of their rooms. She leans against the doorway. “And you’re only partially right, Agent May. Phil Coulson is safe in there, and I would likely intervene if they were the ones about to cause him harm, but so help me if the person who decides to hunt him down for what he’s done is Clint, I will let him.”

Skye’s eyes bulge open. They’re even admitting that there are people in this building who might wish him harm, and they’re expecting them to behave.

Melinda snorts indelicately. “Agent Romanoff, if Clint ever tries to harm him, I’ll have a heart attack on the way to the hospital myself.”

“You might,” Phil warns her as he arrives with Pepper walking beside him.

Pepper jerks her head away from all of them, and Natasha takes off in a dead run, happy to be free from having to pretend that she’s not just a giant ball of rage at the moment, which in all honesty was taking a significant chunk of her energy. She offers Skye a nod of her head. “I wouldn’t fret too much about Natasha’s warnings, I don’t think that any of them are actually going to challenge Phil.”

Skye ignores Pepper, instead staring directly at Phil. “We could set up a watch, that way we would know if anyone was coming to attack you.”

“That’ll be difficult since I plan on staying with Pepper for the moment. I was more coming to make sure that you found the rooms alright, and that you understand that we’re laying low here and not doing missions. Consider this a vacation from work where you can’t actually go home.”

Melinda snorts. “Right. If it’s a vacation, then I’m going to sleep. Unless you need to talk.”

“I’m alright,” Phil says.

Melinda slips into one of the rooms prepared for them with a bag over her shoulder. No more stresses for her today, just a nice bed and some relaxing times. Maybe sleep will drown out the memories of who she had last scened with, who she had last trusted with herself.

Mack picks up a couple of the bags as well as he heads towards a different bedroom. He nods towards Phil. “Wake me up if any of the status stuff actually changes. Otherwise, I’m going to pretend that I’m off the clock and somehow got permission to stay in one of the fanciest places on Earth.”

“The AI that runs the building is named Friday. If you want anything or need anything, let her now and she’ll take care of it.”

Mack blinks. “I’m in one of the fanciest places on Earth, and I have an AI in the building willing to help me with what’s happening. Greatest vacation ever, boss.”

Phil shakes his head in amusement. Mack always does alleviate some of the tension in the team with his jokes.

Jemma turns towards Pepper. “I know that you set us all up individual rooms, and I’d hate to be seen as rude, but does it matter if Leo and I just take one of them instead?”

“No, that’s fine. We weren’t aware that there were any couples on the team or we would have planned for that better.”

Leo shakes his head. “We’re not a couple, we just also haven’t slept well without the other since everything with Hydra has gone down.”

Pepper’s pretty sure that’s all a relationship needs to be functioning. If you sleep better with the person than without, you’re a couple. When you start wondering when you’ll see a person next or being sad when they leave, you’re a couple. But, far be it for her to correct people on that when her relationship includes about a dozen people right now and half of them are a little off their rocker themselves. She’s got no room to judge and not a whole lot of desire to judge in the first place. “Whatever it is, you can use all the rooms or some of the rooms, it won’t offend us any.”

Jemma smiles. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Skye narrows her eyes. “None of this explains why you’re willing to take us in when honestly it feels like you’re doing all of the work, and we’re just here for the ride.”

Phil raises his hand to cover his face. Skye doesn’t trust people easily, and in her eyes, he had only just decided to come here when things went to hell, not that he would have come here way before this time if he had any ability to at all. And he can’t fix that himself, hell he doubts he could even come close.”

“That’s an easy answer, Ms. Johnson, you’re here because Phil is my submissive, and he finally got his head out of his ass and flew home where we could take care of the problems coming after him. The reason I care about you is because he cares about you, which makes you one of my problems for the moment.”

Leo pauses from where he had been heading towards one of the bedrooms. “Then, why haven’t we heard of you?”

Phil ducks his head down in shame. He keeps his emotions really close to his chest, which is rude on several levels. But especially by dragging his family that he’s made out of team all the way home to his family where his heart lays, he’s going to have to deal with the fact that he never tried to connect the two.

Pepper shrugs towards Leo. “Several reasons. The primary one being that you guys met him while you were under orders not to contact anyone else, so he didn’t tell you about the family that he had waiting for him back home. The second one being that everyone in this house thought him dead.”

Before Pepper can try to avoid any of the other important questions that are definitely going to be coming at them, there’s a knock on the frame of the hallway. She turns her head to see Laura standing there with Clint staring with open-eyed horror. Not even a single day without dealing with the anger growing in every single corner of the house.

“Clint has questions, thought I’d see whether we could ask them,” Laura says. She still has one of her hands holding Clint back in a tight embrace. She knows that there’s a definite chance that this could turn ugly depending on how everyone reacts to the questions.

Pepper raises her hands. “I guess. Just about everybody’s got questions today.”

“You don’t,” Phil points out.

Pepper huffs. “Yeah, I don’t have that many concerns. You’re not dead. That’s good news in my opinion. Screw whatever the hell led to that being kept from us for this long. Screw whatever enemies might be coming for us. Lord knows we have so many things to worry about in terms of things that are hunting us that one more is nothing to even rank a concern.”

Clint’s hands start jittering all over the place. “I feel that. But, umm, can you prove that’s him?”

“You helped Natasha blow up a kid in Budapest which is why we don’t talk about Budapest,” Phil says deadpan calm. That secret has no reason to be a secret within the family, and this is one of the only facts that he’s confident that Clint will acknowledge is a truth that no one else would know.

Clint blinks. “Oh shit, fuck, hell. He’s alive. Laura, Phil’s alive.”

“Yes, Clint, I know.”

Pepper frowns for a second. She hadn’t even thought about the fact that she should probably make sure that Phil was Phil. That hadn’t even dawned on her because she was just so happy that he was alive and near them. Shit, she could have endangered all of them.

“Tony quizzed me before ever telling you,” Phil explains in a hushed whisper. “I only gave Clint another answer because I know that he’s struggling and might need his own proof that I’m who I say I am.”

Clint twists his hands together and apart over and over again. “But, Phil, why the hell didn’t you come home earlier? We definitely could have used you.”

Phil thought that he’d be prepared for the questions asked of him, but he hadn’t prepared himself for the deep guilt that fills him when those words hit him. The people who love him had needed him, and they hadn’t known that he was even alive to be called. Because he would have come during the civil war if he had been called before it all finished up. He would have come for Tony in the hospital, or any of the other things. But he hadn’t known ahead of the news, and he didn’t know ahead of the news, because no one knew that he was alive.

He collapses down to the ground. Sobs wracking their way through his body. Tears blurring his vision. He doesn’t want to have caused pain. That was never his intention. That would never be his intention.

Pepper slides down the wall to wrap her arms around him. She holds him tight, but she has no words to offer him to alleviate any of the guilt that he feels. He had done the best he could, at least in her mind, and she’d like to be happy rather than angry about his return to her. That’s her choice.

Laura releases Clint and lets him run towards Phil. She knows that Clint will crawl into Phil’s lap. She knows that he’ll comfort the man until he’s no longer a blubbering mess, and she knows that he’ll never ask that question again. He might want or even need the answer, but he’ll never hurt someone he hurts like this ever again. And she can’t blame Phil for the reaction that he has, because if this was a manipulation, if any of this were a manipulation, Tony wouldn’t have let him in the house.

“Pepper,” Laura calls out. “Where’s Natasha? I’m going to go check on her since Clint is here with Phil.”

“With James,” Pepper replies distantly.

Laura takes another second to watch her husband reach Phil and start wrapping him up in the largest embrace that the shorter man can give the one curled up on the floor, then she leaves. Better for her to not be there when Clint and Phil make up from what happened, when she’s going to fall closer to Natasha on this issue. This one can’t just be forgiven with ease after not hearing from him for years after burying him.

Clint tucks his head underneath Phil’s chin as he forces his way into the man’s space. “Sorry, didn’t mean to ask a question that would upset him.”

Pepper shakes her head. “No, no, sweetheart, you have every right to be upset about this. I promise that you have plenty of reasons to ask those questions, just as he has plenty of reasons to break down over it.”

Phil manages to give a shaky nod. Clint shouldn’t be feeling bad for causing his breakdown. He leans into Pepper’s touch. Not quite the touch that he’d like when drowning in his own guilt though. He hadn’t been ready to address that guilt when going down on his knees. He had needed to know that he had someone left who still cared about him, period. Now, now, he needs to know that the pain he caused can be washed away from someone.

Pepper sighs. “Come on, Phil. Let’s go to bed. Clint, you can come with us tonight if you’d like.”

Clint breaks out into a smile through his own tears. “Thank you, Pepper. I know how much this night must mean for you.”

“You also love him, and this night should be for all of the people whose love for him overwhelms the urge to hold onto even a strand of the anger.”

She manages to get both submissives up. When she realizes that Skye’s blocking her way, she sighs. “Skye, I don’t care what your problem is. I don’t care why you’ve got it messed up in your head that we’re the ones hurting him, and I don’t honestly even care how you’ve convinced yourself of whatever delusion that I’m a danger to my submissive. I will tell you only once, get the hell out of my way.”

Skye takes a step back away from the door. “He shouldn’t be away from family when he’s like this,” she states.

“Good thing that family is taking him then,” Pepper retorts before pushing past her. The time for niceties had passed when her submissive had broken down onto the ground.

Phil waits until they’re far away from his team before he turns his head into Pepper’s neck. “I need Tony.”

“Honey,” she trails off. She has no idea what she wants to say. There’s the part of her that wants to say that he can wait until morning. Surely, he can give her until morning before submitting to Tony where they have to deal with the punishment for everyone else, and she can’t interfere and stand before him and whatever pain would face him today. At the other end, she understands that the person who would mean the most to him would be Tony, who was justifiably just angry the whole time.

Clint makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat as Tony walks out of the elevator with an arched brow. “Heard that someone sent Phil into a spiral?”

Phil’s head shoots up. His eyes red-rimmed from the tears. He had expected Pepper to tell him that he would have to wait or to go to Tony immediately and start begging. Not that Tony would walk straight out of the elevator.

Tony snorts at the surprise on everyone but Pepper’s face. Pepper just has gratitude. “Shouldn’t surprise anyone that I have Friday set up to alert me if any of you drop while you’re living in my home. I’m not about to make you suffer while here.” He walks over to them and runs his hand through Phil’s hair.

Phil garbles incoherent words even to himself. He pushes against the hand in his hair, begging for just a bit more.

Tony shakes his head. “What set him off?”

“Asked why he wasn’t there when we needed him,” Clint admits softly.

“Valid question. And we’ve got insurmountable guilt.” Tony rolls his eyes. “Glad to know that some things don’t change in all of their years.”

Phil shakes, and Pepper’s grip around him tightens. He wants to get down on his knees again. He wants to lean up against Tony until Tony tells him what he can do to earn any of the kindness that’s being given to him.

Tony flicks him in the center of his head before he can manage to slip from Pepper’s grip. “Hey, dumbass, stop trying to escape her embrace. I’m not going to scene with you when you’re this close to dropping.”

Phil’s body pauses. He can’t remember the last time that he’s even come close to drop. Most of Fury’s top agents are trained out of coming close to drop. Because if you can drop, enemies of the state can torture you into drop and then you’ll spill all of the state secrets that might hurt people.

Clint takes in the hint of panic edging through Phil’s exterior and shakes his head. “Phil, it’s fine to be close to drop here. Fury’s not going to pop out of the wood work to throw you through a hundred different torture scenarios until you can’t drop again. Tony and Pepper and Rhodey and Laura and maybe even Stephen if he’s home will make sure that you don’t have any issues while dropping. They aren’t going to let you go out into the world like this, and just because you drop for family when you’re in a state doesn’t mean you will out in the field.”

Pepper nods when he twists for her for clarification. “He’s right. Hell, if any one of us told Friday to call in dominants to help with a drop everyone nearby would drop what they were doing to come help.”

“Seem to recall you flying in from California for one not all that long ago,” Tony muses.

Pepper gestures with an open hand in front of her. What else was she going to do, leave a submissive who was trying to earn forgiveness just suffer so she could finish up a business meeting. Hell that’s more evil than most of the things that have gone down from aliens.

“Thought you were hating me,” Phil mumbles through the tears in his eyes. “Why are you being nice?”

Tony points towards himself. “Who me?”

Phil nods, with a slight pout forming. None of this should be this hard to understand. They could be nicer and just tell him what they want him to do rather than all of this what comes next mess.

Tony slings his arm around Phil’s neck to allow his warmth to join Pepper’s and Clint’s. “My anger is burning hot for you, because the pain you caused us is so fucking bright, I can barely see past it. However, I have never once put my anger over the safety of the people I love. After I found out Natasha had kept the truth about my parents’ deaths from me but was on the brink of dropping, I didn’t punish her, and I didn’t send her away. I drew her up into my lap, and I helped her through it. When Bruce after literally leaving to pick up my own broken pieces of my sanity after a huge bout of PTSD arrived home and couldn’t do anything but sob violently in my arms because he couldn’t even force himself to try to apologize for what he’d done, I just let him cling to me until he could form those words again. You’re not okay right now, that’s alright. I didn’t think you were when you went down onto your names in our board room, which is why I agreed with Rhodey that letting Pepper take care of you her way for a time would be for the best. If you need me there too, that’s just what you need, no issues with me coming to help for that.”

Phil closes his eyes. The concern that had been growing in him starts dimming. As long as he wasn’t okay, Tony wasn’t going to force him to do anything that he doesn’t know what it will cause. He will help for as long as is needed. He won’t be hurt.

“Now, let’s get this lovely triad upstairs and into the bed that you clearly need,” Tony says. He starts nudging them forward and into the elevator. He waves towards Pepper once he clicks the right button. He knows full well that she’s correct on who should be with them tonight, and he’s made sure that Phil isn’t going to be dreading his anger for the rest of the night, which is more than enough for what is needed today.

Then, he turns back around. “I know you snuck out here to watch this whole thing go down.”

Skye pokes her head around the corner. “If you knew, why didn’t you do it somewhere I couldn’t follow without getting caught?”

Tony shrugs. “I wasn’t aware that I needed to. Nothing in that was a secret.” He tilts his head to consider the junior agent standing there, who has issues with trusting anyone and who clings to Phil like he’s her father figure. “Never had a family, huh?”

“That obvious,” she says.

“Oh, yeah. You don’t trust anything that we’ve done.”

“Orphan, and the closest thing to a family I have is this team. And one of those family members just tried to kill us all in the name of Hydra.”

Tony snorts as he pulls out some coffee for the machine, he holds it up and pulls down two mugs at Skye’s nod. He can’t believe that he’s decided to have emotional late-night talks with someone that he’s only just met today, but that’s what he gets for telling Phil he’ll take in his team of not quite superheroes. “Found family’s fuck up sometimes too, it’s more of a matter of trying to figure out whether they’ll regret it later and strive to do better or whether they really were just always out to hurt you and sometimes it takes way too long to figure out and it hurts you the whole damn time.”

“Then why the hell do we keep trying?”

Tony waves his hand over everything near him. “So that when you stumble, you don’t have to keep yourself from falling. So that when you’re out of fucking options, and you don’t know what the hell to do, you don’t have to figure it out alone. So that one day when you’ve finally figured it all out, you can look behind you and not have a single regret because you stayed true the whole way through to yourself.”

Skye shakes her head. “I don’t think I believe in that.”

Tony shrugs. People never believe him when he first says it to them. They usually don’t believe him until they stumble in the dark, and they manage to get themselves picked back up. Because some things need a bit more time than others before you can trust. “You’ll learn.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yes, miniature agent who is not a child, you are literally getting coffee made for you by the addict of Stark Industries insane super hero Iron Man, that entitles you to some questions. I may or may not walk out at some point during the conversation though.”

Skye laughs just a little at that. She had never thought of the heroes as people, they were always just media figures inside her head, but standing in front of one, it’s a lot easier to see why people love them. It’s a lot easier to understand how someone might be willing to die for them. “What do you do when a family member betrays you but clearly doesn’t want to?”

Tony turns to face her completely. “What do you mean?”

“Grant had orders. He had orders to kill us so that Shield couldn’t reform.”

“So, everyone has said, what hesitation did you see?”

“He didn’t reach for his gun on me. He held out a hand. He asked me to join him, said he’d vouch for me, said he’d get me to safety, walk me through the new order. That he’d give me a learning curve and that I’d have his protection. He gave me a choice. It wasn’t until I rejected him that I was ever in any danger.”

“Why does that make you think that he’s anything other than an evil person who does love you? Because I hate to tell you, even people with limited morals do feel that pesky emotion of love.”

“It sucks,” Skye confirms. She plays around with her coffee mug for a few seconds. “Because of how he ended up in Hydra. His parents were abusive fucks, and the only person willing to save him was Hydra. There’s a lot a kid can get messed up with if that’s the only thing offering them any safety at all.”

Tony breathes out. “Want my advice or want me to tell you how bad that sucks?”

“Advice, please.”

“Go offer him the same branch and see how much of this is because he doesn’t believe he has a different family and rates his own safety over others, or whether this is something that he now believes because these were the people that saved him. Give him a chance.”

Skye raises an eyebrow. “With your assassins after him, yeah that sounds like a mission doomed for failure before I even started it.”

“You could ask one of the assassins in the morning whether they’d be willing to take his name off the list for long enough for you to try.” Tony pauses as he considers whether Phil would have counted him among his family of a team earlier before the betrayal, and he thinks that’s pretty solid. “If he takes your hand when you outstretch it, bring him here. I’ll try to see whether I can do something for him and what he’s done.”

Skye blinks. “Why? Because that can’t just be for Phil.”

“Part of it is. Phil would want me to try to save someone that he once would have categorized as family and even if he’s not the one to drag him back in, he’d give them a chance. The bigger part though isn’t that, it isn’t even to do with you. But once upon a time, I think that if my family had given up on me when I was a stupid idiot selling weapons to the government that were killing innocents, if one of them had actually reached and told me what I was doing was wrong instead of letting me learn it for my own, I think I would have changed a lot sooner, and I think everyone deserves that chance.”

Skye nods after a minute. “I think I can take that a lot better than I can that all of you people are just doing this for Phil all of the time. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe one day it will,” Tony murmurs to her. “You should try to get some sleep like your team. You probably need it.”

She holds up her coffee. “Night owl, and you supplied my energy.”

“Alright, night owl, do you have preferences on what to do when you’re not on the clock?”

“I’m a hacker by trade. I’ll entertain myself somehow.”

Tony tosses her a tablet. “Here, use that. Friday, try to keep her from getting any traces to the Compound, because I don’t want to deal with that.”

“Yes, boss.”

Skye winks. “What if I try to hack you, just for fun?”

“If you succeed, I’m offering you a job that’ll pay way more than not shield can afford. And you’ll still probably work with half of the shit that your team does.”

With that Tony finally makes his way to his own bed. He’s not all that surprised to find Natasha and James waiting for him. He just crawls under the covers and let’s the super soldier’s body bracket him as Natasha leans her head on his shoulder.

“What took you so long?” James asks. “Could have sworn you’d have been up shortly after Pepper and Clint left with Phil?”

“Ended up helping another stray who doesn’t understand emotions.”

Natasha chuckles. “Are we going to end up with more family members with emotional trauma?”

“Yes,” James and Tony answer at the same time. Neither of them know who the new family members will be at the moment, but it seems clear to see that everyone will be present.

Morning comes far too quickly for anyone’s preference. Natasha stretches as she wakes up before looking at James. “Let’s do a large breakfast before heading out just in case that’s the easiest meal we get for a while.”

Tony blinks trying to clear his eyes from the sleep haze that he’s still in. He’s never been one that can jump right in after waking up. Still, he thinks he manages a good effort at it. “Yeah, I’ll go down to the lab for a short time, call me once food is ready, I’d like to have that meal with you guys before we all go off to deal with our own little things for a while.”

Natasha pecks him on the cheek. “Of course.”

Tony barely gets a foot into his lab before he sees Phil lurking in the shadows. “Jeez, Phil, are you trying to give me a heart attack again?”

“I’m pretty sure we established that I wasn’t trying to give you one the first time either.” Phil steps further into the light, his back hunched over slightly. “Thank you for last night.”

“You’re welcome.”

Phil swallows hard, before coming closer to where Tony stands. Then, he folds himself down on his knees. He raises his eyes to stare up at Tony a small shiver running down his spine. “Please, Tony, I don’t want to have to carry this guilt for a long time. I know that yesterday was a bad day for me, but...” The sentence trails off as he can’t find any of the words to say that will make this easier to explain.

Tony sighs. “But today is a decent day, and you’d rather have the whole family only loving you on the next bad day rather than watching them shove aside what their emotions really are in order to take care of you on those bad days.” That unfortunately makes too much sense to Tony. Especially for Phil who has always hated literally anyone being upset, angry, or disappointed in him for longer than a few minutes.

Phil nods. Of course, Tony would know what he was talking about. Tony seems to always know what they’re all talking about when it comes to their mental health.

“Alright, we’re going to do this with three rules. You got that?”

“Three rules, yes.” He pauses. “Do I get to know the rules or am I supposed to learn them when you knock me down for breaking them?” Both are within the realm of possibility knowing his own checklist, but last time he had scened with Tony it had been a soft limit for him to try to trick a submissive and use any form of punishment when they failed to understand what he had wanted.

Tony raises his eyes to the ceiling for a second to count to ten. “Yes, Phil, you’re going to know the rules. I was more checking in to make sure you were good to follow orders today.”

“Oh.” That also makes sense. Especially since now as director there are going to be times that his brain is so focused on the aspect of giving orders that need to be followed for the safety of the entire organization that he won’t be able to do this. He hadn’t even paused to consider that option.

“Rule one, until it is actually time for your punishment, you stay on your knees in front of me. If you want to kneel in front of someone else, you have to ask me to be allowed to move. And I don’t know when today, I’m going to figure out what I’m willing to punish you with followed by when I’ll have time to do that plan. Color?”

“Green.”

“Rule two, you don’t give input on any of the things that have to be done today or their order. I don’t care whether you want to later, but today, if you interrupt me while I’m dealing with some of the shit storm in front of us, I will lose my mind. Do you understand or do you need me to explain?”

“No, I’m fine with that. I am allowed to talk, but you don’t want me to interject opinions into what you’re doing, more being a silent presence who happens to be alive.”

Something like that is accurate. Tony admits that if he had been asked to explain it probably would have taken him longer to figure out how to say the words that he’d need to be said then he’d care to admit. “Rule three, don’t lie to me about what you can handle. If your knees start bothering you being on the floor, tell me. If the punishment I outline is going to be too far for you, tell me before we start the scene. If I ask you what you can handle, tell it to me straight. And this last one is really important to me, if I ask whether you’re mentally still in a place to receive punishment, you tell me if the answer switches to no at any point. Because I promise, I will handle needing to put that off for however long you need me to put it off. But I do need to know in order to do that.”

Phil smiles at the clear amount of care that is being displayed just by telling him that all of this is still available to him. “Yes, Tony. I won’t lie, and I’ll tell you straight away if anything starts going wrong.”

Good, that’s all Tony needed to hear before he can start double checking some things. Starting with his email to see whether all of the different branches that he’s working with are ready. The first weapons they need to get working on are the ones for Asgard. He needs the army actually practicing with decent proficiency since they're going to be the main ones on the ground. He had sent off the blue prints before Phil’s call came in.

R&D has a reply suggesting that testing should be done by Wednesday at the latest. Marketing says that they should be able to whip up some sale revenues for other quadrants while focusing on non-profitable things in the present, by releasing the flying car models early. And finally, their accountant program has told them that they should have all the supplies ordered and in by Friday, which means end of the week, they can get this off the ground into production. Perfect.

“Boss, Natasha wants me to tell you that she’s starting to plate breakfast, so you better get your ass upstairs before it’s all gone. Also, Skye is now sitting at the breakfast table making small talk with people.”

Phil’s about ready to ask why Skye is willing and at the table without having checked to see where he is, but he’s cut off by Tony.

“How’d Skye do last night?”

“She never cracked all of the firewalls in a night, but she did get through several layers. Also, she took a break at one point to hack into Russian servers just to double check that no one was moving towards accepting Hydra firmly in their government yet.”

“What’d she find?”

“The assassin duo by my committing some actual assassinations rather than just murders.”

Tony laughs. “Tell IT that I want a job offer for someone who in under four hours managed to bypass that many firewalls. Tell them that she’s got skills similar to that of Ms. Rushman.”

Tony taps on Phil’s shoulder. “You good to crawl to the elevator and out to the table?”

“Is there another option that doesn’t break rule 1?” He ignores most of the exchange that he heard from Friday and Tony. He knows that this is probably one of those things that rule three covers that he doesn’t want to have to deal with opinions about, and that seems fair to him. No clue when he bonded with Skye, but he’s willing to allow it to rest until after some information has been gathered and he’s not on such rocky ground.
“No, but I could improvise one if you needed.”

Phil shakes his head. “I’m okay to crawl. I haven’t been on my knees nearly long enough yet for that to cause a problem. It might later, but I’ll let you know when that later is.”

“Good boy.” Tony takes off towards the elevator with a much slower speed than he normally would, that way Phil doesn’t fall too far behind him that might cause anxiety. And like a true gentleman, he makes sure the elevator doesn’t close on Phil as he makes his way over the edge on his knees.

Phil leans against Tony’s legs as they ride the elevator up towards the common rooms. He needs slight support since as far as he’s aware most of the people likely to be in the kitchen have never seen him on his knees before and despite how much trust he has in Tony’s family and his own, the nerves are there at the fact that he’s about to expose himself this far.

Tony lets him suck in all the comfort he needs even once the elevator opens. Until Phil’s ready to move, they both stand motionless. Once Phil does start moving, Tony leads the way.

Pepper’s eyes land on them first, and she inclines her head. She hadn’t thought she’d get much time with Phil before he decided to submit himself to the ordeal of a punishment by Tony. Perhaps, she had hoped for more than a single night, but that might have been too much to ask for at this time.

Skye notices him and moves right over him. Her eyes meet Tony’s almost asking for permission to beg them not to kill Grant, but also knowing that she doens’t need permission. More of the idea that there will be at least one ally in the room.

Tony settles down into a chair at the table. He lets his legs dangle further under the table, so Phil has a better position to kneel. He gives a barely noticeable nod to Skye, just so that she’s got what support she might need after the food is served.

Skye waits until the food is on the table, and all of them are at least partially done eating before gathering the courage she needs to speak. “I’ve got a favor to ask of James, whoever that is.”

James glances up from his extremely large bowl of fruit with a puzzled expression. “That’s me. Wasn’t aware I was capable of doing much in the way of favors, but I’d be more than happy to try.”

Skye rubs her fingers together under the table to muster up the remainders of her words. “I was hoping that you could possibly put one of the names on your list into a new one, so I could have a chance to umm try and save them, I guess is the best way to put it.”

Every eye in the room other than Tony’s turns to her in shock. None of her team would have ever dared to believe in possibly forgiving Grant Ward, let alone spare him from his fate.

“Uhuh, what name? And why?”

“Grant Ward,” she whispers. “And because he didn’t kill me. He wasn’t willing to kill me for the cause, and I’d like to give him a chance to take the alternate branch if he can.”

“He didn’t try to kill you, maybe. He definitely tried on Phil and me,” Melinda snaps.

Leo looks down at his plate. He taps at the edge of the plate several times. “But he didn’t for me and Jemma, not until we told him we’d do all that we could in order to stop him. And even then, his attempted kill was at best lackluster since there were several ways for us to be saved before we died. Umm, I think the reason why he tried to kill you and Phil without that hesitation, was that he knew you’d never take him up on his offer. You’d hunt him to the ends of the Earth for being hydra, no matter who he was.”

“So do I,” Skye confirms. “And I can’t just let him die without knowing whether he’d turn his back on them for us, like he was asking us to do for him. I’ve got to know or his death will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
Natasha groans. This is why she hates people sometimes. The pesky emotions that cloud their judgement. The last time she had let that happen, she damn near lost Tony. Not only as a member of her family but his life as well. At the same time, she refuses to fault someone for wanting to find the best for their family. “Friday, remove the name.”

James tosses a look over to her then shrugs. “Yeah, sure. But you can only have until we finish the rest of the current list. Because I’m not about to let Hydra regroup with one man because of someone’s feelings. Not after everything they’ve done.”

Skye nods. “About that, I had a possible solution to making sure that you knew when and if he was available again.” She really did. Outside of all her hacking yesterday, she had pondered long and hard about how best to convince them that she should be allowed to try to save people. Because even she can admit that some people may not want to try and save them.

Natasha has to smother a grin. Spoken like a true baby spy who wanted something. She has a lot left to learn, but she’s good. That’s clear by the way that Tony favors the way she speaks with his little nods, and his overt gestures of confidence. “What’s that?”

“Umm, Dr. Stark’s rules for you guys include not getting caught. And one of the biggest ways that you could get at least suspicion thrown on you, is the number of times, you’re going to have to call Dr. Stark to help with the technological stuff that you’ll encounter at Hydra bases that you don’t want to leave lying around. So, I was thinking as a hacker and a pretty damn good one, that I could be your IT agent on this case. I won’t interfere with the killing or even come out of the hiding spot until you’ve cleared the whole base where you need me,” she offers.

James closes his eyes. “If we encounter Ward in a base, that could be a problem.”

“Not if we just knock him out as we kill the others. Knock him with a good old head punch from a metal arm, and I’m reasonably positive that not even he’ll manage to get up fast enough to cause us problems. Then, Skye can work on wiping shit while we watch the prisoner. Go from that layout instead of the kill everyone method if we encounter him.”

“We got a picture, so if I see him, I know the plan of knocking out.”

Natasha pulls out her phone and after a couple quick types, throws it over to him. The only good thing that happened from the leak of Shield is that she is able to pull up the pictures of every agent. Not so good for spies, but really good for hydra agents as they find them.

Natasha turns back to Skye once the phone is in James’ hands where he can figure out whatever he needs to figure out. She stares at the newbie agent with an appraising look. “Is Phil allowed to talk?”

“Yes,” Phil answers from the ground. He figures that making Tony answer that would probably look just as bad even if the answer he said had been yes.

“Has she been trained to go out on kill missions?”

“You know full well that I would never. I hated that Fury still did them, I hate that anyone does them. No one should be an assassin for their government with their crimes being capable of being wiped away by the government.”

James shrugs. “We’ll talk her through it on the way then. Since she’s not actually planning on doing any of the killing, we should be fine.” He tilts his head to stare into Skye’s eyes. “You understand that our plan is to literally wipe out every last trace of Hydra from this planet using force, right?”

“Yes, James.” Skye leans back into her chair as she pops another piece of fruit into her mouth. “Seems like we ought to have done that years ago with all the things that have happened when we do anything less.”

Natasha hops up from her chair. “Time to go.”

Skye pushes back from the table without asking any other questions. Even though one of them was whether they were on some sort of time crunch just based on the reaction that Natasha had with the time.

James stares at Natasha for a long minute before shaking his head. “Tech girl, did you eat enough?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure because we may or may not have stable meals during this mission? Actually, we probably won’t for at least a few of the times.”

Skye lifts her shoulders up and drops them down. “That’s fine. Grew up an orphan, I know how to skip meals sometimes.”

Natasha wastes no more time before starting to herd the other two out of the door. “We’ll keep communications at a low, Tony. But, I’ll have the burner on me in case anything happens and you need to be able to get into contact with us.”

Tony nods to her before they leave. Then, he drops his head down on the table with a laugh. “Okay, Phil, got to give you full credit for raising a right spitfire of an agent and then bringing her home. That’s probably the best gift you could have possibly brought.”

Phil blinks. “I’ve never seen her act like that before in my life. Usually, she’s waiting for other people’s decisions, not commanding decisions.”

Melinda’s lips twitch up into a smile. “Except for when she doesn’t agree with them, in which case she goes off on her own and possibly gets herself and all the rest of us killed when we don’t know what the hell is happening. Guess, Skye decided that today, she’d try another way.”

“I’m sure she had no encouragement,” Rhodey says with a glare towards Tony.

Tony covers his heart with his hand. “Who me? I would never do such a thing without some indication that it was welcome.”

“Was it?”

“Welcome, oh yes. I particularly liked the part where I told her that if she was going to try this that she should ask James. And then, she had the nerve to not only ask him, but start the conversation by asking who that was. Glorious.”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “Did you get any rest yesterday?”

“Of course. I just woke up with the assassin duo.”

Phil doesn’t know where he fits in here. He knows that he’s supposed to remain on his knees, but also he should probably ask at the very least whether Skye will be okay after this. He won’t train anyone on how to kill people, because he doesn’t believe that is the reasonable choice for any version of a mission.

Tony leans down and runs a hand through Phil’s hair. He’s impressed by the fact that Phil hasn’t said a word this whole time that could even conceivably be an opinion to any of the decisions of anyone. “She’ll be fine.”

“Will she?” Jemma asked from the other end of the table. “Like she sure seemed to know what the hell she was talking about. but can you actually guarantee that she’ll be okay if Ward rejects her offer, and she watches them kill him? Hell, can you guarantee that they’re not going to be overwhelmed and end up dead instead of their enemies?”

“Yes, to the second, and probably to the first. She’s a strong person, and she needs to know whether he could change for her, but she knows that is a reach in the dark. She understands that someone might need to put him down given what has happened. Not saying that won’t suck, but I’m reasonably positive that it won’t cause her to crumble and never pick herself back up again.”

Jemma nods. “I hope you’re right, Dr. Stark. Because if you aren’t, I would probably be a little scared.”

“Because she’s a genius too, just in a different way, yeah I know. Friday’s going to pull together an actual job offer for her when she gets back.”

Pepper raises an eyebrow. “Oh, really now?”

“The tech division could always use geniuses, and there is a rule on the books that if you can hack me, I’ll offer you a job for triple of whatever they make now.”

“I’ll warn legal about the new incoming hire that is almost definitely a criminal and a spy and quite possibly an assassin by the time that she gets home.”

Tony flashes her a grin. “Thank you, Ms. Potts, you make life so much easier.”

Pepper sighs as she twists towards Loki. “I’ve changed my mind, can you go ahead and have killed him when you invaded New York?”

Loki spreads his hands wide. “I did try, my lady. Alas, he just doesn’t want to die.”

Tony rolls his eyes. As if Loki had ever actually tried to kill him, please. If Loki had wanted the Avengers dead, they’d be dead. If he wanted Earth under his control, Earth would have fallen, it’s not like they have anywhere near the amount of training needed to actually stop a prince with an alien army from conquering.

Tony pushes back his chair and taps on Phil’s shoulder to let him know that they were leaving. He wants honestly to have this punishment done before most of the day passes. At least that’s his goal. He might have asked Phil to go on his knees until he has the time to deal with it, but he doesn’t actually intend for that to be long enough that he starts having issues with his joints.

Unfortunately nothing ever goes according to plan, as Pepper slides a file over. “Sorry, Tony. But legal needs you to have a look at this just to tell us what direction you want to take.”

“Oh?”

“There’s been some slander on the podcasts from the right-wing nutjobs, specifically that you’ve been under the mind control of Loki since the battle of New York and are actually attempting to destroy the world not save it, and that’s why you’re slowly weeding out the true heroes.”

Tony chuckles under his breath. That sounds like something those conspiracy theorists would go try to spread about him. Don’t worry about the fact that it doesn’t make sense when you think about it for more than a few seconds at a time. “Alright, what’s legal’s take on this?”

“We have two options. Option one, is suing them for slander and defamation of character. Likely all that will result in is us getting some of the funds that they made from their podcast and for them to have an even bigger audience as people who will see the news about us suing them as a reason to tune in and find out what exactly has been said.”

Tony shakes his head. They don’t need the extra money for one thing. And for another, any time that you allow people to get closer to the center of the cult, the worse that things will get. Inevitably, they will need to deal with this for themselves, which sucks on a whole different level.

“Yeah, legal didn’t think that you’d like that option worth a darn, but we also can’t let them continue dragging your name through the mud because unfortunately these people do have access to the internet where they spread these lies and combatting that is getting out of hand. So, legal has come up with a second option. One that also isn’t great, but that at least isn’t as bad hopefully.”

Tony glares at her. “Given that you haven’t said what the option is, I’m getting a little nervous about whether it will actually be better.”

“It won’t,” she confirms. “The second option is that we actually push for legal consequences of spreading false information on the internet under the guise of news. Which would in fact be criminalizing the use of satire as well making sure these people can’t post fake things.”

Tony shakes his head again. They aren’t doing that either. Laws and criminalization never have a tendency to actually fix the problem that they need to address, they always just seem to make things worse, and he isn’t about to add more problems on their list of to-dos.

Pepper grimaces. “I figured you wouldn’t like either option, which is why legal needs to know what you want them to do.”

“Yeah, I’ll go down to the lab and try to come up with a solution that doesn’t involve either of these things.” Maybe a talk-show would do the trick. He could probably agree to a public appearance at a talk-show full of crazy people. Hell, he might even be able to convince some of them that this is the better angle to run for their conspiracy.

Phil swallows since he’s not sure whether this comes too close to an opinion on something, but he’s going to run with it since he is in fact just asking a question, and he can’t possibly be of help even once his punishment is over, if he doesn’t understand what kind of problems, they’re all facing. “Why don’t you ask President Ellis to step in since he’s also being harmed by these rumors flying about him allowing aliens better benefits than humans?”

“Ellis is being a dick,” Rhodey answers. “He wants Tony to stop standing in the way of the precious pardons that he wants to hand to Rogers so that he can be the man who brought Captain America back to America in time for the next war. He thinks that if he doesn’t exert as much pressure himself and rather doesn’t press against the ones going against both Stark and him, he might win Stark over into agreeing to do him a favor in return for Ellis stepping up to deal with them.”

“Which we also aren’t doing,” Tony points out. He’ll be damned if he lets Ellis think that he can actually manipulate him that way. Fuck that noise. He’ll find someone to run as a figurehead before he lets Ellis use this against him.

Phil nods, his head inching forward. That he might be able to take care of later. Or at least, he might be able to assist in ensuring that doesn’t happen even if Ellis continues trying to press his support.

Tony leads them both down back to the lab with a heavy grunt. This was not in his plans for the day. He throws down a cushion in front of his feet and slowly convinces Phil onto it, before leaning back and closing his eyes.
Phil pauses as his knees hit the soft cushion. A little surprised by its presence. After all, this is a portion of his punishment to have to stay down on his knees until Tony can deal with him. Probably a reminder that Phil is making him have to deal with him instead of all of the pressing matters pushing down upon him from all angles with the invasion coming.

“You being on your knees doesn’t have anything to do with a punishment, Phil. If it was a part of your punishment, I would have told you it was a part of the punishment.”

Phil frowns.

“You were muttering the words out loud,” Tony explains.

That makes more sense to Phil than that he had somehow managed to just lose his mind and forget that Tony was a mind reader or something. Although he can’t remember the last time he felt comfortable enough to mutter in the presence of someone else. “Why?”

“The cushion or the kneeling?”

“Both, please.”

Tony nods softly to himself. Allowing the conversation to come to the forefront of his thoughts and let his other mind puzzle over the legal situation he’s found himself in. “You’re kneeling, Phil, because you prefer to be on your knees before a punishment. You get more and more panicked leading up to a punishment if you haven’t been in a submissive head space for quite a while before it, not to mention the panic you build up wondering whether or not you’re a good enough sub to be forgiven.”

Phil’s tension releases, and he leans forward to press his head against Tony’s leg. He had forgotten how well the man had learned to read him and how well he adapted to any quirks that his submissives might have regarding their submission. “Have I told you lately that you’re amazing and I love you?”

“No, I don’t think you have lately.” Tony pauses. “I love you too, Phil. That’s why it hurt.”

“I know.” Phil doesn’t offer another apology for what happened. They both already know that he’s sorry, and they both already know that words alone can’t fix what has happened here. They’re going to have to improvise here to find a way for forgiveness to be offered without either of them having a breakdown over what has happened.

“As for the cushion, I honestly didn’t plan on having you down on your knees this long. My goal was for me to usher you into an elevator after breakfast and take you to the play room for your punishment. Obviously my plans have been somewhat foiled.”

Phil huffs a small laugh. “I know you didn’t want opinions from me, but I think that was mainly for Skye’s benefit, yes?”

“Yeah, Phil, that’s what I was doing there. Do you have a solution for my legal problem?”

“No, but I could be a sounding board to come up with one.”

Tony shrugs. “Alright, so my best bet is going to be getting these conspiracists on my side. Which also won’t be great, don’t get me wrong, anytime that you’re banking on support from someone who believes the moon landing is fake after we’ve been invaded by aliens, is not the kind of person that you want to be relying on, but I also haven’t come up with a better solution to the problem.”

Phil nods. “I agree, best bet is definitely to work with them not against them at this point. What are their main talking points? Not about you, but like in general.”

“Friday?”

“The group appears to be under the opinion that the reason that heroes started popping up out of the wood works was an act of god to save us all, and that fighting against god like Tony Stark is doing after being anointed by them can only be the act of the devil.”

Phil sighs. Religious fanatics are the worst, especially when no one really knows which version of the bible they might be using to justify things.

Tony has a wide smile on his face though. “Fri, can you put me through to legal?”

“This is Jennifer Lee speaking, the current head of the legal division of Stark Industries. How can I be of assistance today?”

“Hi, Jen, it’s me.”

“Dr. Stark, thank goodness you called. I’ve got to be honest, we’re at a crossroads down here on what we should be doing to deal with the mess that we’ve got going on.”

“No worries, I think I’ve got a plan of action for you. We’re going to change the narrative a bit.”

“What narrative?”

“Why the conspiracy group of course? We’re going to need like all of our IT people on this to create fake accounts and the like. But, what I want to do is start pointing out who exactly got the heroes to leave from the American shores? Not Tony Stark, no but the charismatic Steve Rogers. Who has been pardoning heroes and trying to reunite the standards of the Avengers? Not Steve Rogers still in hiding but Tony Stark. If one of those people is the devil’s worker, trying to make sure that we’re left defenseless for the upcoming battle?”

“It’s not you, but Steve Rogers. Oh, this might just work and put us in an even better position to be able to argue that he can’t be given a pardon. The president is going to be calling, I’ll make sure to brief your secretary on the fact that you’re extremely busy with weapons plans and can’t be reached until a minimum of a week from now.”

“You’re the best, Jen. Also, if you wouldn’t mind also sending out a company wide email saying that we are not affiliated with any religion, but that if any of them are willing to help spread some of these points without the fanaticism, we would be grateful.”

“I’m on it, Dr. Stark. Thank you for calling.”

“Thank you for handling this.”

The line dies, and Tony grins towards Phil. “What do you do when you can’t beat the conspirators with logic?”

“Beat them with having the better supported and far more amusing alternative conspiracy.”

“Next time someone asks me whether I think JFK’s death was staged, I’m going to go, why yes of course it was. He was killed by the winter soldier, whom I have living in my house just to watch them flounder.”

“Some days, I think that you might be a little evil.”

Phil sobers up after a moment. “Am I allowed to ask whether your other plans will continue now that we’ve mostly solved the problem that was inhibiting them?”

Tony reaches out and runs his fingers through Phil’s hair. This moment of back and forth felt so much like before. Before the Battle of New York and all of the fucking problems that came with it. This is what he wants back, and they’re both going to need the punishment in order for this to work out. “Yeah, Phil, we can do that.”

Phil notices the wistful voice that Tony’s using and tilts his head to the side. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s this moment in my brain that I can’t help thinking about. About how I could just let go of this anger. How I could just let everything be okay like Pepper is and call it a day. We don’t have to do a punishment, and we can both just be happy.”

“No, we couldn’t.” Phil hates himself a little for having to say these words, because he knows how much pain this punishment will leave him in, because Tony has every right to be angry. He has every right to want him to suffer for a little bit to prove that he is actually sorry about how this turned out. “I would wonder every time that I messed up even a little whether that would be the straw that finally broke you, and you send me to the curb away from your love because I’ve already asked too much of you. And you would wonder every single time that I left for a mission, every time that I didn’t pick up the phone, every time that I went out with a different member of the family, whether I was truly coming home, or whether you’d get another phone call and whether this one would be the truth or not or whether I’d tell you if it wasn’t the truth. We can’t live a life like that.”
Phil tightens his hand into a fist to regulate himself somewhat. “But, umm, as a favor, if they ever do call again, telling you that I’m dead. Make sure to see my body. Force them to hand my body over to you or to Pepper. And umm don’t let them do this again. Don’t let them raise me. That curse was hell. That curse had me question at more than a few occasions whether staying dead would have been better, and I don’t want to live through that again. Please.”

Tony surges forward before the tears could get any further down Phil’s cheeks. He has his arms around Phil’s back and is holding him as tightly as he possibly can. “Yeah, next time, I’ll make sure that you get home in death at the very least. And I won’t let anyone drag you back from death. I promise.”

Phil leans into the embrace. “Thank you.”

“Of course, Phil. Of course.” Tony gives himself another minute of just holding his submissive as tight as possible before standing up. His hand staying as a steady wait on Phil’s shoulder. “And you’re right. We both need this punishment to be able to start from where we want to start without all of the issues.”

Phil is the one that initiates movement. Crawling over the lab floors which are honestly clearly not designed for a submissive to be present and yet, he notices the touch of one in every corner. Starting with the fact that Tony had a cushion for him to kneel on within seconds. He stops at the elevator doors because he doesn’t quite reach high enough on his knees to easily press the button without raising himself from the floor, and Tony was right, he hates raising himself from any form of submission when he’s about to be punished.

Tony presses the button for the elevator and guides them both inside the steady lift of the elevator. He’s been running on the idea for what to do since Phil called, so he doesn’t need to think about what will happen in too much detail. His primary goal now is to ensure that both himself and Phil will feel confident once he’s done with this, and like he hasn’t just stripped away layers of them both..

Phil leans his head against Tony’s leg on the ride up. Once the elevator stops, he follows Tony into one of their play rooms. This one has all of their more whip like toys along with the cross to hang onto in the back of the room. He swallows harshly waiting for Tony to tell him what’s expected of him and what’s coming his way. Somehow, based on the room alone, he suspects that it won’t be nearly as partially enjoyable as the last time he was punished by Tony.

Tony clicks his tongue as he considers how to start this scene. He knows Phil’s limits by heart, and he knows that the mental state of all of this isn’t exactly what he’d call perfect, so he decides to take it slow. “Remind me of your rules.”

“Stay on my knees until you tell me its time for my punishment. Don’t offer opinions unless asked for. And the last one was to tell you the second that anything goes off whether that’s in my head, in the scene itself, or probably really any single thing that makes me think I ought to be telling someone something, I should probably start talking.”

“Good,” Tony praises. “We’re adapting that last one you said until the scene starts to include any hesitancies, okay? You aren’t sure you can handle what I have planned, you tell me. You aren’t sure that this is a fair punishment, you interject. Got that?”

Phil nods. His eyes blurring ever so slightly under the weight of the tears there. He knows that he’s screwed up and that he needs to accept his punishment, but the lack of trust is killing him. He has never let Tony continue when he’s unsure of something.

Tony brushes back the tears. “Honey, give me a color on this. Because if you’re already crying, I’m a bit nervous about what will happen during the punishment.”

“Green, Tony.”

“Will you explain the tears?” Tony asks with gentle pressure. He doesn’t want to force Phil to speak, but he does need to know what his headspace is looking like for his own sanity.

Phil bites down on the inside of his cheek for a second before responding to Tony. “I know I screwed up, but I don’t understand the lack of trust. I came home once I knew, I swear I came home once I knew. I didn’t betray you. I hurt you in horrible ways, but I didn’t mean do it. I promise I didn’t mean to.”

Fuck. Tony hadn’t meant for Phil to start thinking that he was blaming him for all of that. He understands that a portion of this was just sheer bad luck. “Phil, no. That’s not what’s happening here. I can’t even deny that I still trust you a lot more than I trust plenty of people. I’m checking in, because of things like this. There are so many ways for this to go off the wires on what we mean to be trying to say to each other, and I don’t want us hurting each other over and over again because of the stupid shit that’s in our brains.”

“Oh.” Phil hesitates. “You know that we could just use words to avoid that.”

Tony flicks his head gently with a duh stare. “Well yeah, but that doesn’t always mean anything when we get stuck by the voices in our heads, so do me a favor and go with my attempts at being healthy via communication.”

Phil nods.

Tony shakes his head in soft amusement. Phil always willing to bend to the wills of others in scenes. Phil always desiring immediate forgiveness. “I want you to stand up from your knees. I want you to walk over to the selection of floggers that we have, and I want you to choose one. I won’t tell you what’s happening until you choose. Once you choose, come back to stand here in between me and the cross, then I’ll explain what’s happening today.”

Phil swallows hard. None of those instructions are necessarily hard to do, but Tony is putting the weight of his choice on him. He has to decide how much pain he’ll live with today, and he doesn’t know what he’s signing up for when he selects one. It could be a deep spanking, although unlikely. It could be a proper whipping where Tony plans on drawing blood from his back, and there are about a hundred different possibilities in between.
Eventually, he manages to get his feet up underneath him. He pushes up and stands up. He sways for a moment, before being stable on his feet as he walks over to the assemblage of floggers. Here’s where his choices are coming to bite him in the ass again. What kind of torture does he want to invite upon himself? What kind of torture does he deserve for leaving the family to deal with the worst times alone? A better question in his mind. His first instinct is to pick up the heavy thudding flogger designed to draw shouts out of people, present it to Tony and just lose himself to pain.

One tiny issue with that plan, he’s been trained to zone out through the pain. If he chooses to go that route, he’ll certainly recall this punishment for the rest of the week or month depending on what Tony actually intends to do with it. But, he won’t live through this punishment easily. That flogger is certain to drag him all the way under with no chance of staying present to learn a lesson. His next choice is the large rope flogger, less to do with instant pain and a lot more to do with long term growing pains across his skin.

He almost ignores that instinct to pick up a blush flogger or maybe even just a single rope flogger. Just because he’s never liked the growing pain of the rope flogger. It keeps him in the moment, and he likes to drift. That’s not his goal today though. And the pain level should be somewhat equivalent to what he’s done to the others. Which is cause them a large amount of pain through the actions that he’s chosen.

He grabs the flogger from the wall and kind of drags his body back to Tony where he can hand it over. His free hand trailing behind his back. He wonders whether Tony’s going to comment on the fact that he picked something that he hates for pain play. He almost wishes that Tony will call him on the fact that the last time they played with that he called yellow. But he had made his own choices.

Tony takes the flogger from Phil’s hands and stares at it for a moment. This could get interesting, since Tony knows the reason that he dislikes this one. It could provide a decent grounding that this is for a punishment not for fun. Or it could result in the poor man toppling over an edge and starting to scream as things are happening. Either way, Tony will at least give him the run down before asking for a color again.

“See, part of the problem is the fact that when we didn’t call you, you got it into your head that you shouldn’t call us either. Ridiculous notion, something that definitely deserves some punishment.”

“Yes, Tony.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. He had half expected Phil to object that how was he supposed to know that it wasn’t abandonment, but the fact he doesn’t means that he admits that was the first moment that he forgot to trust them to catch him if he started to fall too far down a path that he wasn’t supposed to be on. “The other portion of the problem is that it fucking hurt. Thinking you were dead only to find out that you weren’t and that you hadn’t managed to correct that for years, regardless of knowledge which we could go back and forth on for almost as long as you were supposedly dead, it hurt. That means that you caused hurt to us.”

“Yes, Tony.” This time the words are slightly fainter. He hates the way that the guilt of that settles against his skin. Like somehow, he wanted this to happen. That he wanted to hurt his family when nothing could be further from the truth.

“My intention is to ensure that even if this all happens again or some other piece of magic is trying to convince you not to call me, that you’re to call anyway. And that this will override whatever hellish structure decides to take up in your brain under the control of magic. Now, how am I going to do that you might ask? Easy, I plan on flogging you until your skin is just a artistic reconstruction of a purple sky.”

Phil stares at Tony for a long moment. He trusts the man, but hell some of the areas hurt like a bitch to get hit and if he does it wrong will end them up in a hospital, and the extent to which he doesn’t want to explain to a nurse why he deserved a punishment this strong was high. Still, he did the crime, so he should pay the price, and this was apparently Tony’s price. He inclines his head.

Tony watches Phil carefully. “I would like you to hold yourself up the cross for the duration of this. What’s your color on that?”

Phil furrows his brow. “Umm, how hard to you plan on hitting the areas covering organs and my feet? That’ll probably largely influence how long I can stand. I would be happy to attempt either way.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. That was not nearly close the question that he had asked. In fact it almost feels like that was a deflection of the question that had been asked. Still, he’s curious on what the answers will get him in terms of an answer. “I was mostly exaggerating on the depth of bruises I plan. I mean your ass will definitely be purple when I’m done, so will probably some of the more stable areas to hit, but I’ll probably go for more of a deep red around the other areas that are dangerous to hit hard. I’m not about to cause you unrepairable damage when the goal is to forgive you at the end of this. As for your feet, I was planning on hitting rather hard.”

Phil takes all of that in. Tony had reassured him of one of his fears. This wasn’t to be a true torture session where it doesn’t matter whether damage is done as long as he’s not dead at the end of it. He blinks. His feet will be in pain, but he’s stood on them for a lot worse for a lot longer than what Tony will likely demand him be in position for. “Green.”

Tony studies Phil for another moment. “Why did that change the color?”

“Huh?”

“Your answer wasn’t green when you asked me to explain some of what was happening to you, so tell me plainly what exactly changed from that moment to this one that made you believe that somehow this is better in the long run.”

Phil swallows. “I thought this might verge closer to torture than punishment. I think my color would have been yellow if that was the case. I wouldn’t have turned away, but I probably would have asked you to reassure me that you still loved me on many occasions.”

Tony sighs, he reaches over to drag Phil’s chin up to make sure their eyes were at the same level. “Phil, I’m not going to torture you. No matter what you do to me, no matter what punishments you either deserve or ask for in the future, I’m never going to force you to take more than what I believe you can handle. Hell, if this gets too much at any point, for any reason, you’re allowed to safeword, and I’ll take you down from the cross. I’ll pull you into my lap and call for Pepper to come down here too, probably Clint, maybe some of the others depending on what you need. And that’s the end of it.”

Phil takes a step closer to Tony away from the cross. He lets his eyes drift towards closed. “I know that logically, but I also know what I allow and what shield required before I took over. Sometimes what I know goes a little fuzzy in the face of what might happen to me.”

Tony growls under his breath in the face of his rage. “You better hope that spy master of yours is actually dead, because if I ever see him again, I will bury him in a hole so deep that you can’t find him ever again.”

Phil presses a kiss to Tony’s wrist. Then, he forces himself to step away from the comforting touch and towards the cross. “Which side first, Tony?”

“Your back,” Tony answers a little distracted suddenly. Because he hadn’t even realized how little he believed in Fury’s death until he was hissing it at Phil. If Phil was alive, then Fury probably had a backup plan in case he ever found himself on the wrong end of someone’s gun. He will have to deal with that at some point.

Tony reaches out before Phil can walk any closer to the cross though. His brain catching up to what was happening at the last minute. “Naked, Phil. I would like you naked.”

Phil shakes his head to clear it. Of course, he’d need to be naked for most of this lesson to sink in. That’s how to make sure that the lesson will never be forgotten no matter how long it has been. He quickly and methodically gets all of his clothes off and folded into a small pile at his feet and gets a smile of praise from Tony for all that he’s done.

Phil steels himself because there are too many portions of him that wouldn’t walk up to a device designed to bring him pain, but he’s not in one of those positions anymore. He’s walking towards his punishment because he did something wrong. He reaches up and wraps his hands around the long part and presses himself up against the cross. Even just standing like this, he’s sure that when the flogger starts coming down his skin in a rain of punishing fire that he’s going to flinch up against it, but he doubts that Tony will hold those natural instincts against him unless he fully breaks position.

Tony places his hand in Phil’s hair and scratches for a moment. He considers Phil’s backside for a moment trying to decide where he wants to start, because he meant what he said when he had told the man that he planned for most of his skin to be red by the end of this. The exceptions being his face and neck, because even Tony couldn’t wield a flogger with the kind of precision that would require without possibly causing some massive injuries.

Tony takes a step back and lets his hand drop from Phil and tries not to let the whimper that comes from the man play on repeat in his head, since he knows that the reason why it comes doesn’t mean that Phil needs the touch right at this moment but that he wants the touch always. He bites down on the words that want to fall from his lips. There will be plenty of time for praising the man, positioning himself in the way that Tony asked him to, probably doesn’t count as much as Tony wishes that it would.

Phil waits for the first blow. He barely even feels the light flick of the flogger against the wrist of one of his arms. That doesn’t last long. Tony isn’t going any harder on his arms, but by the fifth time that the flogger lands against the same piece of skin, Phil releases a hiss as the pain filters through. Tony doesn’t stop with five blows though, he doesn’t even start moving down until he hits eight strokes, and half of that area is still in the flogger’s path the next set of hits.

Tony watches as Phil rolls his head forward as he grunts and hisses as the flogger falls across his left arm. Nothing but those sounds filling the room, well those and the sound of the flogger against his skin but with the light strokes that Tony’s currently doing, those are more of a whisper than anything else.

Phil’s arm is screaming when he’s rather positive that Tony has covered every inch of it in that slow progression of his, showing off his skill at knowing how to overlay hits to ensure that the pain grows with every hit even when new skin is under the brunt of the attack. However, when Tony’s first larger strike where Phil can hear the flogger hit the skin over his shoulder, he does scream. The rope burns lash over the bare skin where the lashes from his arms had gone, and the harder portion of the flogger had landed on his shoulder in a burning position that causes him to question whether he should have said green. He’s not sure how long he could stand with those blows coming.

Tony freezes after the first hard swing on Phil’s shoulder. He had been more towards the back where he wouldn’t cause much damage with a fuller swing, but he hadn’t been expecting the scream to be torn out of Phil’s mouth either. So he pauses, and he waits to see whether a safeword would come. He wouldn’t be angry if it did, even if something is on your okay list, doesn’t necessarily mean that it stays there, and this was an intense punishment.

Phil pants where he’s leaning his body on the cross. He wonders what kind of fresh hell this will be when he needs to rest his back on it after Tony’s done with it to allow him access to his front. He almost considers begging Tony to tie him for the second half of the punishment, but that’s how Tony wants to be shown that he can be good.

Tony raises the flogger and lines it up. Most of the hit not going back over any portion of his arm but covering a decent volume from his shoulder down. The red lashing lines that appear give him some satisfaction as does the way that it pulls another noise from Phil’s throat. This time not anything as clear as a scream, but nothing unmistakably still pain.

Phil promises himself that unless he does something truly horrific, like kill a baby or something, that he’s never going to pick up that flogger to be used on him ever again. Not when the third strike lands over his shoulder, and he feels like perhaps he’s spoken too soon, maybe he’ll just never do it regardless of his guilt. The pain lashes over him, and while he can hear himself making noises in response, he’s drifting far away from that. The intensity too much for him to not to escape partially.

Tony stops after his eight stroke on Phil’s shoulder. Eight is a good number for the more layering effects that he’s planning and it’ll work for the heavier strokes on areas that he’s not intending to bruise to hell as well. Phil’s going to probably land himself in a place of shock when Tony switches to twelve of the large strokes over his back when they get there. He’s looking forward to seeing whether Phil says anything.

Phil barely catches himself from another open throated scream when the lighter hit lands on his right arm instead of his left to build up those horrible lashing pains. Gentle hits, something that wouldn’t come anywhere near the territory of hurting his skin except for the fact that Tony keeps hitting the exact same spot. His wrist must be getting an incredible workout from not moving an inch in between each of the hits. He knows several people who would be mystified by the way that Tony is precise in these hits.

Up his arm these hits keep coming. Cycles of eight. This time when Tony’s blow lands on his shoulder harder than before, he keeps himself from doing more than a large exhale through the pain. There would be noises, but there’s no shock. The pain is just that, pain. Tony is making sure that the lesson sinks in, not doing this in a deliberate attempt to break him.

Tony lands the first of his wider arching hits towards the center of his upper back, in between the shoulder blades and watches as Phil collapses into the cross. His hands gripping the wood to keep himself upright, and Tony’s confident that if Phil lost even an inch of that grip, he’d fall down to the ground and need someone to be able to pick him back up before he could continue. He counts through the strikes in his head. Two, three, four, and five.

Number five rips another scream out of Phil, only this time he feels a burn in his throat. A different type of pain than the one that Tony wanted to cause. There’s a distant sort of understanding that he needs to call yellow. He needs to call yellow and ask Tony to bring him some water. But there’s another hit on that section of his back and his eyes black out for a second as the pain rocks through his body. Does he still know how to form words? That seems like an important thing to still know how to do, but the way that he’s struggling, he’s not sure.

Right before Tony raises the flogger back for another lash across his shoulders, the next one in the set for nine, going towards the final four blows. He catches Phil trying to move his mouth and lowers the flogger to give the man time to form whatever words that he needs.

“Yellow,” Phil rasps out.

“Okay, what’s wrong, Phil?” He’s prepared for a lot of different answers. It could be that this position isn’t as sustainable as Phil thought it was, and he needs enough time to move. It could be that Phil thought that he could hold himself up against this onslaught of blows, but he couldn’t, and he needs to be tied down. Or it could be him begging Tony to say something. That’s probably reasonable since they’ve gone almost a full hour without either of them speaking, and that might be a dangerous place to send his head.

“Water, please.” Phil closes his eyes, resting his head to the side. “I’m screaming more than I thought I would, so my throat is dry and it’s kind of ripping.”

“Shit, Phil.” Tony places the flogger on a table before walking over to the mini-fridge in the room to find a water bottle. He comes straight over to Phil ready to hand over the water bottle before realizing just how shaky Phil is. He can see it in the way that his arms tremble. “Phil, you can relax while I’m getting you water,” he says.

Phil shakes his head. “If I move, I’m going to fall and if I fall, I don’t trust myself to be able to get back up.”

“We can take a full break,” Tony reminds him softly. That’s easy enough for him to do. He could wrap Phil up in a blanket, pour some water in his mouth and just wait for Phil to be better before continuing.

Phil purses his lips because a break sounds so good, but also, he doesn’t deserve breaks. He didn’t get to give a single one of them a break from their grief for the entire duration of his supposed death. Why should he get one when they didn’t? “I shouldn’t.”

Tony rolls his eyes and plucks one of Phil’s arms off the cross where he was leaning on Tony himself rather than the cross, so he could get better access to be able to assist Phil in drinking the water. “Yeah, well, you’re already getting part of one, since you’re not going to damage your throat to appease me today, we’re not playing that game.”

“Thank you.”

“For what? Being a decent human and not wanting to damage you beyond the plans I have for you. Plus, taking a break is going to make your skin more sensitive when I strike it again, not less.”

Phil takes a moment to consider that. Then, he comes up with the precise words that he wants. “Yes. It’s a thank you for being the man and dominant that you are.”

“What about that ego that the file says I have?” That’s just an inside joke between the two of them. Phil had known that file was a lie. He let Fury believe that it wasn’t anyway. Natasha thought that she was fooling everyone and never bothered to check that none of the people that she was trying to fool had ever been on the other side of her love, because that’s a different position entirely to occupy.

Phil laughs. The noise startling him as the water dribbles down his face. Through all of his tears and all of the pain, he can still relax when it’s just Tony at the other end of everything.

Tony wipes some of the water from his face. No way that he’s going to get all of them, not when the tears are still coming. Especially when the tears are kind of most of the point of his goals. “You’ll let me know if it gets too bad.”

Less of a question and more of a command. Phil nods. “Can I have something to drop to signal that I need to talk to you? It took way longer than I would have liked to force my lips to form the words around yellow earlier.”
Tony reaches into his pocket and withdraws a little buzzer button. He keeps one around because they amuse Nathan so much. He presses it into Phil’s hand. “Just press the button. It’ll make noise that even over your screams, I’ll hear and know that you need to talk before I continue doing anything.”

Phil nods his head gratefully. He manages to have the strength to re-wrap his hand around the wood of the cross, lean forward and breathe in. The pain would come back, and that would be alright. They were no where near his pain threshold for a scene, especially a punishment one.

Tony brushes over Phil’s shoulder softly. He can hear the whine that falls as he does so. “Also, Phil, you should know that you’re welcome to let your mind wander. I promise that come morning the reminder of why you’re aching in every inch of your body will be better than me forcing you to try to remember why you’re here now.”

That being said, Tony takes a step back from his submissive and picks up the flogger once more. He still has four strokes to land over the upper center of Phil’s back before he starts moving down the back. That first one draws a full born sob from Phil for the first time. The bruises having already formed, so the pain lasting much longer than the ones that had happened before.

Tony sticks to his guns though. If Phil was nearing too much or if something else went wrong, he would press the buzzer and until then, Tony would be sure to wail on his back to his heart’s content. One set of twelve, two sets of twelve. Over and over down Phil’s back, very careful to make sure that nothing wraps around the side of his back where the ribs might be injured with the strength he’s using, and nothing that lands too hard directly on the spine.

Phil floats in and out of what’s happening. He can hear the noises he’s making which are something in between whines almost begging for some hint of mercy that he knows won’t be coming and a shout being pulled from his depths as his back is layered with hits. He’s confident that the first time he steps into a shower the water landing on his back might kill him more than any of the rest of this punishment.

Tony pauses once they reach the start of the curve towards his butt. He knows well how bad injuries on that area can be, so he never hits there with any impact toys. That doesn’t change today. He comes forward, the flogger trailing on the floor to place a hand on the center of Phil’s back.

Phil scrambles to try to get away from the touch that feels like someone is branding him, but there’s no where to go. His front is pressed against the cross to keep him attached and not slipping down to the ground. All he can do is stand here and take the pain that Tony wants to give him.

Tony bites down on his own lip to keep himself from laughing at the movements that Phil gives from the touch. “You don’t want my comfort, Phil?”

Phil tries to make sense of the words and fails miserably. All that he knows is that he’s taking the punishment that he deserves and everything else is mostly secondary to that idea. Completely irrelevant to the situation is anything else.

Tony jiggles the water bottle in front of Phil softly. “I figure if I give you some water in between each portion I have planned, you won’t have to safeword for water again, because that should have been something that I took into account, and I am sorry that I didn’t.”

Phil opens his mouth and lets Tony pour the water in. As more sips come, he starts coming up from where his head had gone. “Thank you for thinking to get me more water, Tony.”

“Christ, Phil. I literally just apologized for the fact that I made you think for even a moment that I wouldn’t. I don’t like my subs needing to safeword for a basic need.”

Phil blinks. That would make sense with the words that he recalls were said. “But, once I safeworded the first time, you adjusted everything so that I wouldn’t have to do it again. At least I think that’s what this means. No reason to be upset at you, it’s not like you’re actually perfect, we can all expect some issues to arise occasionally and to be solved by us talking and handling things.”

Of course, his submissive would believe that this was not a fault on him. Phil sees the good in people. Even in assassins with a history for not doing a single good thing, Phil would find some reason to forgive them. Find a reason for them to be allowed back home, graciously.

Tony places the water back on the table slowly. “How are you doing?”

“I mean my pain scale is going to be fucked up from this for the next several centuries if that’s what you’re asking.”

Tony flicks the center of his back and watches as Phil arches up from the pain. He waits until he’s certain that pain has died down. “Not the greatest time to be snarky, Phil.”

“I’m still green, Tony. I promised you that I would tell you the second that I wasn’t green and that hasn’t changed through this whole haze of pain. I promise.”

Tony takes him at his word for this one. He steps back and raises the flogger. He pauses before releasing the hit though. “These ones are going to be less precise and more just repetitive because I’m going to be working on your ass,” he warns.

After his warning, he lets the flogger fall right over the crest of Phil’s ass. His rhythm is straight to his word, this time there’s no layering the hits over each other, rather changing each strike ever so slightly, but always going back over the other hits in some direction. Some of them perpendicular, some of them diagonal, and some of them vertical.

Phil grunts as each hit causes him to drive his cock uncomfortably into the wood. The pain is less intense for the moment than what had come from his back. He knows that won’t last long, but the lack of the intensity for the moment gives him a welcome period of bliss.

He quickly regrets those thoughts as he starts crying out with every hit. The hits have no new space left and they’re not showing any signs of stopping. Not as each line still draws another cry from him. This time he’s not as far gone as he was before. So, his brain has enough time to go down the rabbit hole thoughts.

Particularly that every lash was so well deserved, that he didn’t really think he should be allowed to cry out. At least he’s not allowed to plead for mercy. No matter how deep the pain settles in him, he shouldn’t be allowed to ask for any leeway given, because he hadn’t been able to give them any from the pain, he caused them.

Tony breaks once he can see the lack of a blush still rising in the cheeks. They’re going to bruise like hell once he stops hitting them, which may or may not be a small mercy. On the other hand, since Tony fully intends to flog his chest and front as well, he’s probably going to end up hating him as those bruises are what falls upon the cross.

He sets the flogger up on the table as he walks up to Phil. This time he’s a bit nicer in regards to that break. He lets his hand rest on Phil’s head. He tilts his head towards himself so he can judge for himself the mental state that Phil is in.

Phil’s eyes are hazy and blown to hell. But once, he realizes that Tony’s the one moving him, he does try to lean on the other arm more so he can lean towards the dominant somewhat. If Tony’s allowing him some time, then he’s allowed to take that time.

Tony chuckles to himself as Phil maneuvers himself further into the touch this time. He reaches over to grab the water and holds it up for Phil to drink from. He realizes that his anger is almost completely gone now. All of his anger has died out from the way that Phil is taking the punishment without a single argument. No matter how many lashes Tony gives him, no matter how much pain Tony demands from him, he doesn’t move away.
That’s the best way to show remorse in Tony’s eyes. Or at least it is in this case, because Phil’s pain tolerance is insane, and this shows immense trust that Tony won’t take this too far and end up hurting him. He leans forward and presses a kiss to Phil’s forehead. “Honey?”

“Hmm,” Phil responds.

Tony shakes his head softly choosing to discard the question. He doesn’t have to ask whether Phil wants to continue to the finish. He knows the answer, Phil still feels guilty, so he wants to see this all the way through. And Tony doesn’t have enough strength to tell him that he doesn’t have to. Instead, he takes a small gulp of the water himself. He does however tell himself that he might cut the number of firm hits down towards four along his chest and front shoulder lines. Just because Phil has been doing so well that he doesn’t need a full twelve set to learn his lesson. He’s already learned the lesson, now this is just about forgiving himself.

Tony drags the tail of the flogger down Phil’s legs, slowly but surely. Giving the man plenty of time to safeword if he doesn’t think he can handle the pain of having his legs lashed after what he’s already taken. He’s not surprised when the word never comes, so he starts up the sets. Similar to the ones on the arm, 8 slowly overlapping in precise movements.

After a while, Tony himself has to go down to his knees to hit the correct area. Only one spot is by-passed, which is the knees, because he doesn’t want Phil to buckle under the strain of that pain. He doesn’t want him to fall over and fail to hold himself up. There will never be an intention in his eyes to actually hurt his submissive by causing them to fail purposefully. He doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.

Phil whimpers as the pain in his legs grows and grows. His limbs are shaking. He can feel them waver every few seconds, and he’s positive that when the flogger lands on his knee that he will fall. He’s pretty sure that Tony will catch him. Or at a minimum check in with him before trying to pick him up to continue. That’ll be enough.

Phil doesn’t find out though, because the next set of hits starts underneath his knee towards his calf no overlap at all. For a second, he wonders whether Tony had missed his knee. But as the sets keep coming, he realizes how purposeful that was. Tony had known that he couldn’t do that this time. He couldn’t bear that pain on top of everything, so he didn’t give it. A wonderful reprieve from what could have caused him to fail. No judgement about the fact that he needed that reprieve, just a gentle understanding of where limits were.

Phil takes in a deep breath when he hears the flogger settle on the table instead of being dragged anywhere. The pain covers his whole body now. He can barely keep his eyes open, even when Tony tilts his head up. He manages to drink the water that’s offered to him.

Tony strokes down Phil’s hair as he makes sure the submissive drinks. He has a hard time recognizing this man with the one who had been begging for the chance to prove his worth earlier. This person wouldn’t have dared to do anything other than exactly what was asked of him.

Tony taps his cheek. “Phil, do you want me to do your feet now and make you stand on them for your front or would you prefer them to be done last?”

“Your choice.”

“Let me rephrase,” Tony suggests. The slurred tone telling him that Phil didn’t read the subtext of that question in the slightest. “If I flog your feet right now, is there even a remote chance of you staying on your feet throughout your front being flogged.”

Phil takes stock of his body. His arms had stopped trembling, but his legs were a mess. His feet were about the only thing keeping him upright, especially if Tony started back with his arms again. So perhaps, he would remain even with those taken out. But, more than likely he would not. “No, Tony.”

Tony snorts. That’s what he had thought with the way the man was shivering. His arms still shaking under the simplest movements. Even if they weren’t buckling, they weren’t stable either. He reaches forward. “Okay, that means you need to turn for me. Lean on me for that.”

Phil releases his death grip on the cross to let Tony help him switch sides. He realizes that all of his weight is on Tony because he’s not even managing to stand upright without something to hold onto or lean on.
Tony says nothing as he holds up Phil and spins him around. He knows that if he had been on the other end of this flogger, he’d probably have been begging for mercy. There’s nothing but strength about his submissive right now. Once, he helps Phil wrap his arms around the cross so he can still have his grip solid. It obstructs his ability to hit Phil’s arms, and that’s fine, he can just say that those don’t need more attention. He doubts that Phil is in a spot to complain about what choices he’s making.

Instead, he leans forward to press their foreheads together. “Color?”

Phil swallows around the fuzzy feeling in his mouth as he hears the question. “Green, I think.”

“Why only think?”

Phil blinks slow and tenderly at Tony. “I can barely keep my eyes open. I’m reasonably sure when you ask me to raise my feet at the end of this, I might just fall after your done. And my whole body feels like you’ve taken a blow torch to it, and it’s horrible in the best way. I’m not sure that I know anything for certain other than what I’m feeling anymore.”

Tony lets out a single chuckle. Another kiss to his lips as he’s now facing him. “You let me know if that changes.”

“Aye, aye.”

Tony rolls his eyes. Only Phil would make jokes at a time like this. He picks up the flogger and notes the way that his eyes dilate way more now that he can see where Tony’s about to hit. He doesn’t leave Phil to his thoughts for long before landing the first hit across his chest.

Phil shouts as the hit lands. He had forgotten that not only will the pain be there from the strikes on his front, but when he shrinks back into the cross to avoid the blow, that will aggravate the old strikes. Tears spill from his eyes.

Tony keeps the flogger hits extremely controlled over his chest as he hits. The tears might get to him further in this direction with than when he had only been hearing the noise of the cries. He finishes the chest off with a few light strokes directly over Phil’s nipples.

Phil lifts his head as Tony approaches him now that he doesn’t have nearly the best position to rest it on wood instead. He breathes in and out.

Tony reaches out to hold the hair on Phil’s head and help him hold his head in place without drooping down. His arm stretches out to grab the water. He pours the water into Phil’s mouth.

Phil swallows greedily around the water. He starts drooping almost the second that he’s done with the water. He blinks towards Tony. “Can I ask for an update, please?”

“I plan on giving you a few soft hits over your stomach until it has a pale flush. No numbers, probably not focusing on repeated hits just in case because I’m concerned that otherwise I’ll hurt you too much. Then, I’m going to do the front of your legs. A few, no more than five, over your cock. After that we’ll do ten blows to the arches of your feet and then you’re done. I’ll drag you over to the cushions and we’ll stay there until the shaking subsides.”

Phil smiles softly. “Okay, okay.”

“Color?” Tony checks in again. Because the fact that he’s gone far enough to ask for Tony to explain anything suggests that they’re nearing his limits more than he thought that they had so far.

“Green, Tony.”

Tony steps back from Phil a small frown on his face. He pauses. “Are you good for me to go the whole way without pausing for another break or do you need a break after some of this?”

“I’d prefer to finish this, please.”

Tony nods to him. He starts up the lightest blows so far on the stomach. One blow at a time. Thwack, cry. Over and over again. He watches as Phil fights the urge to let go of the bar of the cross to curl up over his stomach. The first time that he notices one of Phil’s fingers flat out started to move, he moves on.

Phil pants as he fights the urge to curl up into a tiny ball in order to avoid pain. There’s so much pain. The lash against his legs shouldn’t feel like a relief, but it does. It means that another segment of his punishment is over. It means that he’s an inch closer to the connection with Tony afterwards.

Tony keeps the lashes on his legs lighter than when he had been working on the backside. He knows just by the way that Phil’s constantly making noise now, that he’s not nearly as green as he had been at the start.
Tony flashes a grin to Phil, when the man actually sees him get down on his knees to be able to hit the lower parts of his calf. The trail of bruises on his backside are starting to form, and Tony can’t help but love the way that they look. The markings would be there for a rather long time, and that would be nice for them both.

Phil shifts when Tony trails the flogger away from his legs. He forces himself to put more weight onto his back so that he can shift his arms further down the cross and spread his legs. The pain overwhelms him each time he moves like this, but Tony had said that he wanted to hit his dick a few times before the final portion, and Phil wants to make it easier for him.

Tony coos as he notices that Phil forces himself to spread his own legs to help him out with the next segment of the punishment. A wonderful gesture, and one that he’s confident Phil doesn’t know will buy him a few less hits. Not on his cock, no that was always going to be three after he trails the flogger up and down it a few times just to see what Phil will do with the anticipation of more pain. But, the ten strikes to the arches of his feet, he’s confident that Phil thought he meant to each, which he had at one point. He’s been so good though, that Tony will take the other option for what that meant and only give him five blows on each.

Tony reaches out with the flogger to let some of the ropes on it trail over Phil’s cock. Watching as the man squirms under the flogger carefully, just to make sure that none of what he’s doing is pushing too far for the man and will result in him getting upset or hurt. That’s never going to be his intention.

Tony barely removes the flogger for the light hit that he lands on the head of Phil’s cock. That doesn’t stop the absolute manic scream that comes from Phil’s lips as he struggles to keep himself upright. He trails the length of the flogger up to make sure that this strike lands on the shaft. The wail that fills his ears would haunt him if it wasn’t for the way the bright eyes are staring at him, begging him to finish this and once begging him to do just this. Phil’s shattered into tiny pieces, and that’s exactly where he wanted to be in order to survive this. The final hit comes mostly on his balls, and Tony watches as Phil slumps into the cross barely holding himself in place by the spread position that he put himself in.

Tony backs away just slightly. To give Phil enough time to regain enough control over his body that he could theoretically manage the movement that he’s going to need to get balanced in order to lift a foot up. He has the time to wait for a moment.

Phil no longer has the strength to hold back any of the tears as he fights to get his legs further closed so that he can have enough of a way to lean that he can hold one foot up for Tony to torture before setting it down and raising the other. Tony had mentioned about waiting until he was ready to move from the cushions down here tonight, but with the number of blows he’s hit, he thinks that the cushion might become his bed for the night.
Eventually he ends in a position where he should be able to raise his foot, although the second one might involve him screaming every second as he’s forced to press down on the injuries. He doesn’t lift it though, not quite anyway. “Tony, can you tell me when you’re ready to have my foot up? I’m not sure that I can hold for much longer than the hits.”

“Of course. Just for a second, can you show me where you’ll position it?”

Phil lifts his foot slowly until he’s reasonably certain that the base of his foot can be reached by Tony. He counts to three in his head, and he lets the foot drop.

Tony pauses. “You know that will kill you for the second foot, right?”

Phil chuckles dryly. “Yeah, you got a better way for me to manage to keep myself up without ropes and present my feet to you to be whipped by that flogger to receive my penance.”

Tony raises an eyebrow all the way to his hairline it felt like. Because yeah, that’s one way to phrase this. That’s certainly one way to claim a punishment, but he’s also reasonably positive that Phil knows full well that’s not what he means. Any submissive of his can ask for help during a punishment, if one of the requirements is getting to be too much. He’s not going to spell that out, because it defeats the point of the loophole of asking for the help that you need, if someone else spells out that you need the help.

Phil notices the stare that Tony’s giving them. “Feels as though I don’t deserve to ask for help,” he explains. He hadn’t thought that he’d need to write that out for Tony. He remembers that he’s always allowed to ask for it regardless, and that if it gets worse, he has his safewords too.

“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, Phil, but you never deserve to ask.”

Phil narrows his eyes. That doesn’t make any sense. He knows full well that some people are allowed to ask for help, and that Tony has never once denied them. Of course, they deserve to ask.

Tony shakes his head as Phil stares at him in disbelief. “If you’ve made it all the way to an actual punishment by me, not something that you ask for mind you, but like an honest to god punishment like this, than you don’t deserve to ask me for help. You’ve hurt me, and you sure as shit don’t deserve me helping you fix your own fucking shit. That being said, I am exactly as I always have been willing to give it regardless. Because another one of those things that you can’t change, is that I love you. I love you, Phil, so it doesn’t matter what the hell you deserve, what matters is what I’m willing to give, and this is something that I have always said and offered to those I love. If you need help, ask.”

Phil stares at him open-mouthed for a moment. He had never considered the fact that when they were being punished the fact the rules didn’t change on being able to ask him for help was a testament of his love for them and not just a smart move for a scene. Then, he swallows loud. “Tony, could you help me find a way to balance that doesn’t hurt as much as rebalancing my weight on my feet?”

“Yes, honey, I can do that.”

Tony keeps his word; he drags the table that he’s been setting the flogger on for breaks until its settled right in front of Phil. He comes around and wraps his arms around Phil’s center, watching as the man flinches before melting into the contact. “Trust me?”

“With everything, otherwise I don’t think that I’d be here.”

Tony snorts. He lifts and settles Phil’s ass down on the table and his legs swung out in front of it. “This way you should only have to stretch out the foot for the hits, not defying nearly as much gravity to do this.”

“Thank you.”

Tony shrugs. “I’m not trying to make you fail in succeeding at this punishment. I’m just teaching the lesson.”

“The lesson being that I’m never trusting Fury again for the rest of my life, and that I should always call home. Fuck whatever else is happening, just call home.”

“The second one is moderately more important.”

Phil lets his eyes close as the pain from his ass sitting on the table catches up to him. He offers a smile towards the area he recalls Tony’s voice coming from. “Second one is more important to life, the first is the one keeping me from losing it in the moment though. He’s the one who lied, which made it impossible for me to even know what I was doing. At the very least I would be culpable if he had told me the truth, instead I didn’t even know the pain I was causing people. Seems shitty of him. He deserves to suffer.”

“If it turns out he faked his death, I’ll make sure you get the chance to punch him before I blow him up,” Tony teases. He runs a hand down Phil’s calf. A small warm-up until the man is prepared to raise his leg. Tony won’t give the order, hell he won’t even complain if after every blow, Phil lets his foot fall before picking it back up.

Phil lifts his leg with great effort. His eyes squeezing shut. The first lash draws a scream from him. He knows as well as Tony does the ultra-sensitivity of feet and why they’re so often used during torture sessions. The second lash has him twisting on the table, although never moving his foot from the correct position. The third lash feels like its cut through his soul and laid it bare as he starts sobbing. Full on chest moving sobs, barely able to keep the pleas for mercy out of his mouth, so desperately does he want that sweet relief. The fourth lash is lighter than the others but that doesn’t change the way that he has to lock his knees and jerk his arms to keep himself from folding up and truly begging Tony to pause, to forgive, something other than this. The fifth hits, and he’s not able to keep his leg up. It folds. That’s the worst feeling that he’s experienced throughout this whole session.

Tony runs a hand through Phil’s hair, nice and smooth. “Good, you’re doing so good. You’re halfway done.”

Phil nods eagerly into that touch. He’s done good according to Tony. It doesn’t matter that his foot dropped, and a part of his punishment was being able to stand for his own punishment. He’s done enough that he’s good.
Tony forgets for a moment which thoughts might be circling around Phil’s head when he lifts up that same bruised foot towards him. He shakes his head even though he knows that Phil’s not going to be able to see that motion with how far down he is. “Honey, I said halfway done. I didn’t mean for that foot. You’re halfway done with the last segment of the punishment. All I need is the other foot.” His voice is gentler than he’s spoken much of anything to Phil in a while, and he can see what kind of reaction that has on the man.

Phil gasps softly. The words from earlier flicking by his head. He supposed Tony hadn’t ever told him that it would be ten strikes on each foot, he had just made assumptions about the fact that’s what it would be. Eventually, he manages to lift the over foot up.

Tony steps back from Phil. The first hit, nothing more than a love tap with a flick of the wrist. Still on the most sensitive portion of his body, resulting in Phil shaking trying to avoid the pain. The second hit, just a hint harder, and Phil’s tears were streaming down his face as he shook his head back and forth. He swings a bit more of his arm with the third hit, only to hear the way that the scream breaks Phil as he wishes that he had never broken a rule that would lead to this kind of punishment as much as he knows how bad that he hurt Tony. The fourth hit, he backs down to the same strength of the second and watches the way that Phil stares up at him, sobs coming from his chest but knowing that Tony’s got him. Tony’s got him. The last hit, not even a flick of the wrist, just a press a jerking motion that lands the flogger against the fresh bruises.

Tony moves quickly because as soon as that last hit was placed, and Phil knows that he’s done, his control drops. His hands do not manage to hold his body up at all. Luckily for them both, with the amount of equipment that Tony has to move around to make the suits and other prototypes, he manages to hold Phil’s weight easily. He drags Phil off the table and over to the cushions, then he grabs a cup of juice with a bendy straw to hand to him. “Can you drink this for me, while I pick up our scene really quick? Promise that I’m coming right back.”

Phil reaches for the cup and starts sucking up the juice. He nods to answer the question. As long as Tony doesn’t leave the room where Phil’s trained senses can’t pick up where he is, that should be fine. He can wait for his cuddles.

Tony moves pretty quickly to get the flogger put back up after sterilization. He pushes back the table into the better position and runs a wipe down it. The cross didn’t really have much in terms of cleaning other than a quick brush through with the wipe for the sterilization. Then, he’s done.

He comes back and pulls Phil into his arms, settling Phil on his side away from the vast majority of the bruises and holds him tight. “You’ve been so good for me these last few days, you know that.”

Phil leans into the embrace, grateful that none of his bruises are being pressed into Tony in order for the cuddles to be allowed. “Never want to upset you or Pepper.”

Tony presses a kiss to the top of his head. “Good. And now that you’ve taken your punishment, we can start over with a fresh slate. No more punishments for you for a while.”

Phil shakes his head as he starts falling towards sleep. “No, only gotten two from you ever. And one of them was more because I asked than you actually being angry at me.”

“What about Pepper?” He can’t help but ask the question. He hadn’t pried into their relationship before, but now that Pepper is in the huge family and they’re all trying this thing to make a family work, he’s got a few more questions about how this will work in the long run.

“Counting the one from the conference room?”

“No.” Tony knows full well that wasn’t a punishment. He supposes that it could count for a punishment that was more performative for them both to manage, but that had nothing to do with actual punishment and everything to do with getting yourself into the right headspace.

“Then never,” Pepper answers for Phil as she opens the door. She raises an eyebrow. “I figured after having watched the live video of this that the two of you might need help getting to a bed.”

Tony glares at her and picks Phil up in his arms. “Lies. I can carry at least one of my submissives in my arms.”

“Can you open doors?”

A pout crosses Tony’s lips as he realizes how right she is. That doesn’t stop the two of them from bickering the whole way to the suite’s bedroom. Nor does it stop Phil from falling asleep in Tony’s arms and not moving even as Laura starts rubbing a cream to soothe the bruises into his skin.

Tony waits just a second before starting to undress to tap Clint on the shoulder. “Do the kids know where you are in case of nightmares?”

Clint nods. He drops his voice down to a whisper. “They also have Uncle Rhodey sleeping in our bed down near them. He didn’t want to have the kids with no one on the same floor since half of our deadliest have gone on a super secret spy mission and the kids were getting a little nervous.”

Tony happens to think that’s rather smart of the kids. There are a few things that they can be reasonably sure of for their entire lives, and one of those things is that if they are in danger, Natasha will kill anyone and everyone who has ever had the audacity to even think about harming those kids. He gives Laura a quick peck on the cheek for helping him with the bruise paste before he feels the softness of the blankets he bought and gives in to his deep desire to sleep for the rest of the year.

Chapter Text

Pepper swears every morning when she opens her news apps to catch up on the news both in their country and in the world, she gets a little more discouraged from saving any of them. She rubs at her nose, before typing up a message to the PR division asking for a statement in sheer distaste over the fact that President Ellis plans on signing the pardons on Monday morning. If it wouldn’t likely destabilize the entire country, she’d pull all SI funding from his fucking campaign.

Rhodey watches as she basically slams her phone against the table in Pepper standards. “Good morning.”

Pepper raises her middle finger at him as she grabs the tea she made earlier and starts drinking loudly. Once she’s taken a good long break from thinking does she turn to Rhodey. “The pardons will be signed on Monday.”

“What?”

“Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson will be given governmental provisional pardons on Monday, since President Ellis believes that it will be a good will gesture to reunite the country. Stark Industries will be against this decision. So will Germany and South Africa. Almost every other country is abstaining from voicing an opinion at this time.”

Rhodey groans. Of all the responses that the President could have had to Tony’s game of playing what’s the better conspiracy. This was both the dumbest and smartest thing that he could do. He grabs his own coffee mug from the counter to start pouring the only thing that might give him energy. “I’ll probably be called in to discuss their addition to the Avengers.”

“Oh, who’s joining?” Phil asks as he makes his way into the room. A pair of underwear being the only thing on him because further clothes against the bruises littering every inch of body was just asking way too much of him for the day.

“No one good,” Pepper says with a flat tone. Her nails tapping against the table. “Natasha and James will probably be fine until they get back to be informed, but I should let Clint know. And Loki. And Bruce.”

“For those of still confused, why are there people who aren’t good being allowed on the team? And why are you planning on warning people instead of fighting it off?”

“And why aren’t you wearing any clothes?” Melinda questions as she walks into the kitchen. That feels like the most important question here. The bruises sure don’t look pretty, but she’s always been a fan of the way that clothes press down on them. Plus, if it was a punishment like she was reasonably positive it was, then why would he be allowed to skip out on some of the after effects of it.

Phil glares at Melinda before anyone can answer his questions. He knows that her primary purpose is just to piss him off, and he’s not going to take that lightly.

Melinda shrugs her shoulders unbothered. He had said they were off duty, and off duty Melinda didn’t have any reason to respect Phil’s authority. Especially not when he’s going around in boxer briefs over enough bruises to have led to a lesser man giving up. She reaches into the fridge to start dicing up some fruit.

“To answer your questions, Phil. We’ve already tried every non-rebellious action to stop the United States from pardoning the remaining rogues. We’ve used damn near every block of our influence, but Ellis is still president. He does still have complete authority to grant pardons. And there’s nothing left that we can do to stop him.”

Melinda snorts. “But you don’t want them?”

“We don’t want Steve anywhere near Tony or Clint or Natasha,” Pepper corrects.

“So don’t do this the nice guy’s way anymore.”

Phil inclines his head to Melinda. “She’s got a point. I mean I’m with the rest of you in agreeing that we might well need him in the final battle. But, we sure as shit don’t need him back in the United States right now. Hell, arguably, the president shouldn’t even be allowed to offer a pardon given that half of his crimes occurred in other nations.”

Rhodey shrugs. “All points that we’ve raised with several different people. Legally, though, President Ellis has the power to pardon the crimes done on US soil and since we don’t have an extradition policy with any of the countries that he has theoretical crimes outstanding in, there’s no real way for us to convince him that this won’t change the legal status.”

Tony walks in and whistles at the sight of Phil in nothing but underwear covered in bruises. It’s a nice look, even if both of them were likely upset on the reason for the intensity of bruises all along his body. His eyes cover the rest of the room, and he sighs as he realizes the slightly annoyed air. “What’s happening now?”

“Ellis,” Pepper snarls. Her nails tapping against the table harsher now. “He’s certainly not getting an endorsement for whatever candidate he chooses after this race.”

“I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear that,” Tony drawls. “And as fun as hearing you speak about ruining public officials’ political power, what is it that Ellis is doing now? It cannot be worse than some of the inane policies that he’s created regarding the creation of other superheroes. Seriously, those laws are ridiculous.”

“Apparently,” Melinda says, choosing to fill him in partially curious to see what kind of reaction he’ll have to the news, “he’s chosen to pardon both Wilson and Rogers.”

“Good for Wilson. It’ll do him some good to be back in the States where someone might be able to get it through his thick skull that Rogers is an abusive asshole.”

“The president has also argued that since the Avengers are the only place that he could train for the upcoming battle in the US, mostly because of your decision to not allow the armies access to weapons freely, that Steve would need to be allowed to practice with us at least once a week.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. He had not seen Ellis pushing that hard for Rogers to be a part of the Avengers since he doesn’t have any authority over the group, but he supposes it does make some sense. It could be seen as a punishment on Tony for not daring to give them the weapons that they had demanded for rather insane reasons. It could also be seen as a restrictive measure on Rogers to ensure that he didn’t have complete free range like he did before.

“Friday, would you mind putting out a couple of feelers to our allies in the Accords council, find out what countries might be willing to host the Avengers?”

Pepper turns to stare at him. She had expected anger. She had expected blinding rage and then maybe dull acceptance of what they can’t change. She had not seen this coming.

“What? We sell the rest of this land to Thor and his people, make it known that this is in fact their land. Their sovereign land, no less, and we fuck off to another country where Ellis can’t send Rogers. Solves the problem and doesn’t result in us wanting to assassinate a sitting US president, which I would like to point out is what I’m doing my best to avoid having happen, because I like us all not in a jail cell.”

Phil shuts his eyes for a moment. While that wouldn’t be the worst plan, and if they truly couldn’t stop the pardons, the best one, he hates that it is even being considered. The victims shouldn’t have to be the ones to start over from scratch because the bad guys had managed to gain political power. That just seems like a horrible strategy. “Or we could try another method to stopping them first.”

“All ears, Agent Agent.”

Phil’s head droops down. “We could find blackmail material on him and use that against him.”

“Yeah, no. I don’t need the hassle of trying to ensure the voice can’t be tracked. We’re all known.”

Melinda perches herself up on a counter, in a move that Tony’s watched Natasha do a thousand times while waiting for the order to actually come through. “We’ve got someone who could.”

“Who?”

Mack reaches above Melinda to pull cereal out of the cupboard to start making cereal as he starts to take in this conversation. “Presumably, Dr. Stark, they’re talking about Skye, who has done crazier things.”

Phil holds out a hand to Pepper. “May I have the phone to call that burner number please? I’d hate to have all of you do all the work for moving when there’s another simple solution.”

“If Natasha decides to kill you for distracting her mission for this, don’t blame me.” Pepper hands over the phone all the same. She’s not one to dissect the meanings of why he wants so badly to help with this issue. It could be a remnant of guilt or it could be something that he just isn’t willing to allow people to compromise over, also a valid concern given the situation that they’ve found themselves in.

Phil dials the number and sets the phone up next to his ear.

“Pepper?” Natasha’s voice comes through with a bit of a rough pant.

“Hey, Nat. I’ve got a situation.”

Natasha curses in several foreign languages. “Is anyone compromised at this second?”

“Not this time.”

“Good, hold please.” Natasha drops the phone which can be heard by the whole room. Gun shots resound out in the air. There’s a few Russian phrases and a Brooklyn drawl to far away to discern words in response.
The whole time Phil just bounces his head from side to side, thinking of some of the nice music that Tony can play on the piano. The gunshots an interesting beat to the music that he’s listening to inside of his head.
“Okay, Phil, I’m back. What kind of situation have we gotten ourselves mixed up in?”

“The president of the United States has decided to push hands in order to pass through the pardon for Rogers.”

“Right, well thank you for letting us know. I appreciate that you didn’t decide to spring this on us once we returned. I don’t know what kind of plan that Tony has brewing for how to handle things, but I vote for whatever he says.”

Phil shakes his head. “Natasha, I’m not about to let this happen. However, that does mean I need to talk to my agent that you have gallivanting around with you, please.”

“Phone’s for you, little Skye.”

Skye places the phone up to her ear. “Hello, boss man. I am currently attempting to destroy an entire base worth of computer information, so better be quick about what skills you need and on what time table.”

“I need you to blackmail the president into not giving Rogers a pardon and creating international tensions on the break of a war with aliens.”

She shakes her head. “You never ask for easy.” She tosses the phone over to James.

“Hello, Agent Coulson, apparently, I’m holding the phone for a minute.”

Skye grumbles in the background. There are some rather large keyboard clatters from the phone which causes Phil to hold the phone away from his ear. “Stay on the line, that way you know what I’ve said and can better prepare for the wrath that the president is likely to call down upon you. He’ll know that you got this done, but he won’t know how so he can’t have you arrested or anything.”

“Of course.”

There’s a voice modifier placed over Skye’s head as she dials the private number she had found for President Ellis. She’s prepared to start a fight this time, and she doesn’t intend to have it be a long one this time. She’s dead tired from hunting hydra to deal with a long wavering phone call.

“Who is this?” the president demands the second the call connects.

“Wrong question,” Skye corrects. “The correct question is how did someone find out about the nuclear deal that I have going on with Russia to return as many hydra operatives to them as possible in return for dismissed number of nuclear weapons?”

“What?”

“Oh, come now, President Ellis. No need to be shy. I also know about the pretty brunette from the coffee shop that you ask your intern to pass notes with. I’d say we know each other quite well at this point. Perhaps to well.”
“You plan on destroying me,” he whimpers quietly from the other end of the phone.

“Oh, I could,” Skye confirms. “I could absolutely tear you apart and let the media vultures pick at your entrails. Or I could bury this information. I could make sure that no one ever knew what you were doing. Don’t you want to hear what I want from that?”

“What? I will do anything in my power to make sure that information does not come to light.”

“What do you know? I want something within your power set. I want you to deny Steve Rogers previously known as Captain America, his pardon.”

“But..”

“No buts, dear president. After all, I’m sitting pretty on a stack of information that you really don’t want me releasing to the general public. In fact, I’m pretty sure you offered me anything I want.

Ellis lets out a frustrated breath of air over the other line. “Why? At the very least tell me why you’re willing to fuck with the president of one of the most powerful countries on the Earth?”

“Partially because I can and its fun. Partially because I have thing against betrayal. You know, fool me once, and all that. And then finally, a large part of this is because I don’t want the United States to be without allies when the aliens attack us.”

Ellis sighs. “Alright, be vague. I won’t propose the pardons. I’ll ignore the fanbase for Captain America, and you lose this number.”

“Nice talking to you, Ellis.” That line goes dead with a buzzer.

Skye lets out an unnatural long and deep scream, before a few more taps were placed on the keyboard. “All done, boss. Am I good?”

“Yeah,” Phil answers her.

“Good, give the phone to Tony.”

Phil hands the phone in question over. He has a few questions that he would honestly like answered about why Skye is willing to talk to Tony herself. He knows that they had a bonding moment before she left but not to the extent that she would ask for him right after a mission.

Tony grabs the phone and holds it up to his own ear. If she didn’t ask for the phone to be put on speaker, then whatever she wants to say isn’t something that she’s ready or prepared for everyone to hear. That’s fine by him. Secrets can break a family, but not a good one, and he’d like to thing that he managed a good one this time. “I’m here, little dom.”

“Nice one.” Skye hesitates only for a moment. “That job you mentioned possibly having for me in return for my hacking prowess, is it still on the table?”

“Uhuh.”

“I don’t want to do this anymore. Not the mission. The mission is good, grounding even. But, I don’t want him to be able to call me and ask me to hack blackmail material on a president and then expect me to do it. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I thought that I wasn’t when I agreed to his job, but it turns out being a hacker criminal isn’t all that different from being a hacker spy, and I’m done.”

Tony blinks. He hadn’t expected that. There are many things that he saw coming, but one of Phil’s agents not being okay with all the spy shit wasn’t one of them. He hadn’t considered that any of them wanted out. He makes a note in the back of his head to ensure that he checks in with each of them at different points to make sure that they’re in the place they want to be and not in a situation that they can’t get themselves out of. “Then, that’s done. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.”

Tony hangs up the line. He shrugs at the series of questioning looks being thrown his way. He doesn’t feel the need to explain anything. Most of them will find out rather quickly once she’s back in town, and the rest of them weren’t all that important to let know. Other than Phil. Phil deserves to know, but he also may be the one who just pushed her out of the business and that might hurt him a little to know.

Pepper raises a shaped eyebrow at him. “Is she taking our job offer or something?”

“Damn you, Pepper. Let the woman have her secrets for a few more days before one of the assassin duo launches her into the family.”

“No.”

Phil’s face drops. A frown coming across his features. “She really hated it that much?”

“Yeah, Phil.”

Melinda groans. She pulls her wallet from her back pocket and digs out 20 bucks to slap into Phil’s hand.

Mack salutes Phil with a single hand. “You’ll collect your money from the scientists too, but not from me. I knew better. That girl was bound to end up on the other end of the spectrum at some point. She cared too damn much.”

“Fuck you,” Melinda hisses.

“Taking bets on whether you’ll push your employees too far?” Pepper’s voice is way to calm to be anything other than a threat. As much as Phil would love to goad her just to see how far he could convince her he would go, he doesn’t think that doing that when he still has bruises covering his entire body would be a good choice.

“I didn’t ask her as a boss, I asked her as a friend. She wouldn’t have done in for me if I was just her boss. That she was willing to turn to Tony is unexpected, but honestly kind of nice. Means at the very least she’s probably going to end up coming towards the family at some point before all of this is over, and that would be nice.”

Tony reaches over to pinch his side, causing Phil to go up on the toes of his feet to keep himself from yelping. “Be nice.”

“Yes, Tony.”

Pepper snorts in amusement. “I see we’ve worked that all out, yes?”

Tony rolls his eyes. “All worked out and he’s back to being a part of this dysfunctional family, including apparently making sure that Rogers doesn’t come back to bug us.”

Loki appears in the room in a flash of magic. He watches as everyone takes in his presence for a moment before he smiles gently at them all. “No bad news from me, but if I had to hear Thor tell everyone one more time that we aren’t doing any conquering until the war’s done, I think I would kill someone.”

“They really don’t like being stuck here,” Tony muses.

“They don’t like being here but not being in charge here, and they don’t understand why their king won’t force the mortals with terrible strength to listen to them above all else. They don’t have allies, they have subjects.”
Phil winces. “That sounds like a horrible place to be anything but an Asgardian.”

“Indeed,” Loki drawls. “After all when I found out that I was in fact not one and should have been treated like trash, I tried to kill an entire race of people to prove that I wasn’t like them. Terrible for children, really.”

Pepper holds out her hand.

Loki takes the offer and folds down onto the ground in front of her with impressive grace.

Pepper moves her hand to start carting through her hair. “I assume you still haven’t convinced Thor that he should stop allowing such talk to be permitted within his kingdom.”

“Thor still thinks that at least some of those people are his subjects to rule over even if they’ve had no say for hundreds if not thousands of years. He thinks that you guys are different because you are worthy.”

Bruce shakes his head as he walks in. “That’s not what he thinks. He doesn’t think that those people are any less than the Asgardian’s and I’m sure once he ahs a place not on Earth to set up court, he’s planning on inviting most of them to actually hear and listen to what he has to say. He just also doesn’t think that he should let them go and no longer be a part of Asgard because they have always been of Asgard. That doesn’t mean that he wants them subjugated, although I agree allowing them their freedom would be a better gesture.”

Loki tosses a glare towards Bruce. “Why must you be smitten on the insufferable one of us?”

“You’re pretty damn insufferable,” Tony quips.

Loki flips him off. He leans into Pepper’s leg. “Regardless of his thoughts, it does not change the fact that he will not stop his soldiers from speaking their minds.”

Phil shrugs. “Maybe that’s okay. I mean Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor did it collapse in one. Let him try to rule the way he wants to and when he fails, offer him advice, show him what you would have done differently. See if that makes all the difference in the world.”

Rhodey rolls his eyes. He pushes back from the table to come nearby. He presses up against Phil, watching as the man curves into the touch. He presses a light kiss against Phil’s lips. “It is good to have you home. We haven’t been the same since you left.”

Phil nuzzles into Rhodey’s neck. “Glad to be home. Can I stay a while longer?”

“Stay as long as you’d like,” Tony responds. “The door is never closed for family.”

Pepper tilts her head towards Loki. “As he likes proving by just teleporting in whenever he feels like it.”

Chapter Text

Skye looks up at the sky from where she’s sitting on the edge of the balcony of the hotel room they’ve managed to get this night. They’re playing the part of a throuple on vacation for the next hydra base. Mostly because they’re pretty sure that this is where Grant is. Also, because this might be the last base that they end up destroying. The others have been systematically wiped out.

She had expected it to take way more time, but James had started with the list of agents. He didn’t ask them any questions, just lined up a sniper shot and then went about his day. He’s being careful to change the type of ammos that he’s using and never replicate what he had used as Sergeant Barnes or as the winter soldier. She’s still confident that there are several people who could put together the pieces and accuse him of doing exactly what they are doing, which is be a problem to the governments of the world as they use their own moral judgements to pass execution sentences onto others.

Natasha slips out to lean against the doorframe and stare at Skye. She hadn’t been sure when this mission started whether she was going to be a burden or an aide. So far, she’s never been anything but quick on her feet and quick to assist in whatever ways that she could. Including on one instance, killing someone that both her and James had thought dead already. But tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow, she had to face the demon that she was on this mission for an opportunity to throw down with.

“Do you have anyone that you would offer this chance to?”

Natasha shrugs. “I guess if any of the family were in this mess, I’d take a moment to see whether they were still the person I loved or if the mess of being Hydra had corrupted them. Once upon a time, I thought I’d hesitate when it came to the red room at the other girls that I know were brainwashed from a young age to be nothing but this, but I didn’t. I killed them when they attacked, because if they wanted saved, they could have asked this time. They could have reached out ever, most of them knew ways to contact someone as public as me. They eventually got too indoctrinated to be saved. You have to draw that line somewhere.”

Skye tucks her legs up and under her chin. Deliberately not turning around to where Natasha could see her, and the way that tears are streaming down her cheeks. “Do you think I’m fool for giving him this chance?”

“No.” Natasha pats the top of her head gently. “You are doing what anyone in love would do. You’re giving him the best chance that he’s got, hoping that this wasn’t just a betrayal. That’s admirable.”

Skye shakes her head. “I don’t even know whether I love him. He had been dating May. They had some kind of relationship, and while I cared for him, he was more a part of the family than someone who I wanted to love.”

Natasha chuckled. “Familial love is an option too, my dear.”

James slips out onto the patio, his arm crossing over Natasha’s stomach. “Come to bed, there’s no sense worrying about tomorrow before we get there.”

“There are like a good 100 reasons to worry about what’s going to happen,” Skye quips. Her mind has already given her several of them. Like what is she supposed to do if he tries to hurt her anyway. What if he goes after one of her team? Should she be the one to pull the trigger? Should she ask one of them to do it?

James looks her up and down for a long time. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to confront him. I could just leave him alive in the ruins of the organization that he had been a part of. His olive branch can be that we don’t fucking kill him unless he decides to start from scratch as the one sole survivor of an organization that we have purposefully tracked down, hunted, and destroyed. That’s fine.”

She could take him up on that. She knows that she could. She could walk away from this. She shakes her head again. The motion becoming achingly familiar on this trip. “No, I have to have some answers, and if they’re the wrong answers, someone needs to kill him before he gets anymore innocents killed on his quest for betterment or whatever the hell he wants to call it. I can’t let him live and know later that even a single person died because of that call. I won’t survive it.”

James inclines his head. “Good, then you’ve already made the only decision that matters. Now come to bed, so we can handle tomorrow with an actual decent night’s sleep on our shoulders.”

Natasha pushes him back towards the door. “Some people can’t sleep before a decision like this. Leave her alone to do what she needs to do.”

“No,” James says flatly.

Natasha narrows her eyes at him. “I could force you.”

“You could try, widow. You forget that they had me try to train you once upon a time. And I’m not nearly done with this conversation. I’m not planning on being done with this conversation until one of two things happen, the sun rises after we spend the whole night on this fucking patio talking or we all curl up into beds under covers with alarms ready to tell us when the sun rises.”

Skye raises her eyes to stare at him. A question burning in her gaze, as she tries to decide whether the question is worth saying out loud or not. "Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you care whether or not I get any sleep? We both know that I don’t need all that much sleep to take care of the hardware issues, and I’m pretty sure with how many times I’ve ran this confrontation in my head that I could do this on pain meds.”

“So why are you out here?”

Skye turns away from him again to stare out into the city. “What happens if this was all a lie? What if he looks me in the eye and tells me that the reason that he gave me and Leo and Jemma a chance was because he wanted to see whether we could be converted and none of it was for feelings? What happens if I break down when I realize that someone I would have stood in front of bullets for wouldn’t even claim me as a friend? I know how the conversation goes. I know what words I will scream. But what about me? What happens if I die realizing how much he doesn’t care?”

“Like I said,” James whispers, “there’s nothing left that you could do in your head. You aren’t going to know how it will impact you until you’re done with this. There’s no knowledge to be gained out here in your mind.”

“How do you know?”

“Because nothing in this life could ever have prepared me for the realization that the only man that I remembered through years of brainwash was nothing but a lie. Nothing could have told me how much it would hurt to realize that the best friend in my whole life that I did die for could look at someone else he called a friend and lied about how their parents die, so he could benefit. There’s nothing to prepare for when someone betrays the love that you’ve given them.”

“Then why should I try?” She meets his eyes, so that he can see the way that tears are pooling in them. So he knows that she’s not calling him a liar. That she feels for him, and she feels for herself, and that she doesn’t know what she’s doing anymore.

“Because you need the closure. Only reason that I don’t need that myself with Rogers is because he chose to try to kill Tony right in front of me. I saw the depths of his depravity without having to ask a single question. Guess we might call that lucky.”

“Think I’d rather call it hell,” Skye replies. She can’t imagine how little strength she would have had, if she watched Grant actually place a blade through Phil or through May.
Natasha sighs. “Don’t go comparing who has had it worse in betrayals. I promise you that while both of you have been broken down, that I can tell you the story of someone who will make both of you seem like pale comparisons.”

“You have someone whose list of betrayals beats out the winter soldier’s?”

Natasha casts her mind back to the first betrayal that Tony had suffered. The way that his father had thrown him to the press where he had to fend for himself, and the way that he was only seven years old. She remembers the story he had told of his father telling him that he was the one that dropped the metal into the fire, he would be the one to retrieve it, no tongs, while his mother stood to the side and did nothing to change it. She recalls how fucking happy he was with Stane. The way that there was a parental figure who did love him, and she was there when that same man tried to rip the artificial heart out of Tony’s chest to gain another pretty penny. She remembers how Pepper had turned on him before she realized how important the suit was to Tony still. She remembers the look on his face when he found out that she knew and had said nothing. “I know of someone who could probably cause the winter soldier to cry.”

Skye tilts her head. “It’s Dr. Stark, isn’t it?”

“How do you know?” Natasha is honestly curious. She knows few people who could read her well enough to say without questioning who she was talking about at any given point.

Skye pushes herself up off the ground of the patio and when her legs tremble, two hands wrap around her. One with skinny fingers clutching onto her arm as if to transfer strength through the grip alone, and one with a heavy metal feel steadying her with his own stability. “Because he’s the one who said those words to me first, in a different fashion, but he told me that I had to do whatever it was that I needed, because it was better than the endless questions.”

Natasha’s mouth curls into a smile without her permission, imagining Tony trying to help the poor girl who doesn’t know why this hurts so bad. “Well, you’re right.”

James arches an eyebrow. “That man is way to forgiving to be jaded by betrayals.”

Natasha laughs as she runs her free hand through her hair to get it out of her face. “Tony didn’t get jaded after each betrayal, he got smarter. No one ever gets to hurt him in the same way twice. They might still manage to hurt him, but it will never be in the same way, except for those of us in the family. But every one of us who has ever dared to hurt him got hurt right back in a punishment, and I don’t know a one of us who dare to make the same mistake twice.”

James winces at that. “I wasn’t.”

“You didn’t betray him,” Natasha counters pointedly.

Skye tilts her head considering James. She has realized throughout the duration of this mission that he has his issues, not just with being a submissive but with allowing others to care for him. He prefers when he’s able to service them, offer them some kind of favor. He won’t turn down someone approaching him, nor will he seek them out. She’s curious whether the further into this side tangent they dwell she’ll be able to piece together some of the reasons for it. And why there’s a kink checklist half filled out sitting on his side of the bed that he randomly glares at through their down time.

“No, I just tried to kill him.”

“Were you in your right mind?” The question leaves Skye’s mouth before she can even consider whether it might be a better idea to let the two of them rid this out in their own little bubble and not draw attention to her presence near them. But now she’s gone and done it. The words had left her mouth and their heads are turned towards her, and she’s the center of attention.

“Of course not,” James cries out. There’s a desperation to his words, like he’s begging her to believe him. Like he needs her to understand that when he says this, he means it.

Skye glances back towards Natasha who has edged back into their hotel room and away from them. Not sure what exactly she intends to do, she ignores that. “Okay, so why the hell would someone punish you?”

“I tried to kill him.”

“Yes, I got that part. What I don’t get is why you want to be punished for that? You weren’t in your right mind, you didn’t want to do the actions that you took, there’s nothing there to feel guilty about.”

Tears burn in James eyes. “I thought he was attacking me.”

Skye blinks. That one she’s not sure she follows quite as well as the rest of the conversation. Finally, she sighs. “James, look, I don’t know this story. I don’t know what all went down, but I can promise you that if Dr. Stark thought that you deserved a punishment, he would have given you one. Hell we all saw that Phil was waiting on his, and I know full well that Phil was compromised, so I don’t think that it’s just that.”

“It’s not,” Natasha confirms. Three blankets loaded up in her arms, that she casually drapes around each of them before settling into the chair that is on the patio deck. “The story has a long and winding path, and there’s every chance that at the end of it, you won’t want to be near him, so tell me now whether you want to ignore this.”

Skye thinks for a second. The only thing that she’s ever considered cutting someone she cared about off for was being a Hydra agent, and she couldn’t see James, the man on a mission to kill them all being one, so she figures that she’s rather safe on that one. Plus, this promises to be a good distraction from the paranoia over tomorrow that she feels. “Lay the story on me. Let’s see if another dominant confirming to him that he’s not on the guillotine stops him from continuing the pity party this is.”

James leans against the doorway. “If she runs screaming from us and gets us caught, I’m blaming you when Tony gets here to bail us out of trouble.”

“She won’t go running,” Natasha says. She had heard Skye’s end of that conversation with Tony. Skye wants to be here almost as much as the rest of them want to be here, so nothing short of Tony telling her that she couldn’t come back would stop her from deciding to join them today.

Skye settles under her blanket back on the floor of the patio, leaning against the railing. “Who will be telling this story?”

Natasha turns to look at James who shakes his head. “I guess I am.”

“I’ll chime in with corrections as needed,” James confirms.

“So the story starts a long time ago back in world war 2. See James here was drafted into the war, and he quickly moved up the ranks to sergeant and specialized in sniping missions. However, there were some unfortunate times during world war 2. To start with there was a whole hidden portion of the nazis called hydra doing experiments with the same things that led to Captain America being formed, and they were also trying to harness alien technology. Moral of that story, hydra were the mad scientists of the nazis.”

“That’s not in any of the history books, although depending on how deep you go into world war 2 information, you can find out about Sergeant Barnes.”

James nods. “Yes, those same books are the only things that I originally had of my identity in recent times.”

Skye blinks. “What about memories?”

James waves a shaky hand. “Sometimes the past memories are clearer than what they are most of the time, but around 90% of the time if you ask me about any memory past 2016, I’m going to be shaky on it. And the memories in 2016 feel like they were done by someone else because I couldn’t have told you a damn thing about what I wanted or what I felt.”

Natasha snorts in amusement. “Now who is jumping ahead in the story?”

James chuckles back. “Right, I’m sorry. Ignore my little rant there, that is quite a way’s into the story and won’t completely make sense without this background that she’s given you.”

Skye turns to focus back on Natasha. Ready to learn more about the secretive submissive that she’s on mission with and even more dedicated to finding out how all of this might help her understand James’ hesitations to a level that she could talk him off the ledge that he’s walked himself onto.

Natasha settles back into the story. “His entire regiment is kidnapped by hydra agents. They need test subjects for their mad science and what better than allied soldiers to use. That time, nothing too horrible happened, other than the beginnings of the mind control and possibly the start of the injection for the super soldier serum, although neither of us are confident on the timing of that. Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, saved the day.”

“Saved a whole lot of punk ass soldiers and got his ass chewed out for it. Not that I blame the commander for tearing him a new one, because while yes he saved a hell of a lot of us, he also risked the allies losing a lot more if he hadn’t had won that fight. Including them getting the correct super soldier serum, meaning they’d have even more stable bastards like me out there and the possible destruction of the CEO and head designer of the primary weapon’s designer, Stark Industries had, Howard Stark. Terrible strategy move, but a damn good one if you could pull it off.”

“And no one thought he could pull it off?”

“He didn’t,” Natasha corrects. “Howard Stark and Peggy Carter pulled it off using Rogers as muscle.”

James’ lips twist into a grimace, but he doesn’t offer a correction. That’s probably one of the better understandings of the war than the history books included, and with his memories shaky as they are, he couldn’t use anything other than his gut to say that Steve did more for the battle than just be a muscle shirt.

“Anyway, after that, Steve joined the Howling Commandos, which was James’ unit. They were carrying out missions, trying to take down hydra. There was a train fight, James fell off the side after Steve failed to catch him. He lost an arm and got re-captured by hydra,” Natasha summarizes quickly. She doesn’t want to go into details about that day. There’s so much trauma loaded into that one day that she’s not even sure that she could adequately try to explain it if she tried.

James blinks. He waves his metal arm in the air. “That would be the day that I got my first one of these. If you don’t mind Natasha, I’ll tell the next segment up until the Avengers.”

Natasha nods easily, conceding the floor. This is not her story, and while she will tell it when he asks her to, she’s also willing to stand to the side and let him tell his own version of it whenever he is willing and able to do so.

James crosses his arms. “Once I was re-captured began the worst portions of my life. They began electrocuting me daily to try to brain wash me. They eventually succeeded. Don’t ask me how long it took, I don’t know. I don’t know whether I lasted months or if I lasted years, but they did win. They installed in my head a series of code words that when they were spoken, all I was willing and able to do was obey the commands.”

“Your first hydra mission was around 2 years after your capture,” Natasha filled in. “I don’t know whether you lasted that long or whether that was there first test run out in the world rather than in a controlled setting, but for what it’s worth, you made it two years before they could send you out into the field.

James flashes Natasha a quick smile. That doesn’t really change of influence anything, but it is nice to know. There’s a certain blessing in understanding that he did hold for a long period of time regardless of the particulars. “During the time of my brain wash, I was the winter soldier. Hydra’s best assassin. The people I was sent after, did not survive. Most witnesses did not survive. I was a flash in the night, and the only time other than missions that they took me out of cyro-freezing was to train children. The children that they wanted to be slightly more human and less brain washed killers like me.”

Natasha lets out a small noise. She’s not sure whether it was a whimper or a groan or a sigh, but the noise escapes her immediately. “I was one of those children once.”
Skye looks between them. She crawls out of her blanket and over to Natasha where she presses herself against Natasha for whatever comfort can be gained. “You made it out. Both of you made it out.”

“Not without mistakes,” James says.

“Not without blood in our ledgers,” Natasha confirms.

“So?” Skye pushes back to force Natasha to feel her weight and the fact that she wasn’t moving away. They were saying terrible things and it didn’t matter, because she wasn’t going to be pushed away from this conversation.

“What?” Both of them ask, stunned into a state of one-worded responses. Neither of them expecting for their crimes to be written off.

“Children don’t have agency, which is why child soldiers are considered a human’s right violation. You didn’t have the ability to understand what was asked of you Natasha. Anyone who blames you for the acts you took when you didn’t know that another side to the story even existed is a fake asshole. Which is why if I’m not mistaken, Dr. Stark would never have asked you to be punished for what you did with them, yes?”

Natasha offers a muffled nod.

Skye turns to James. “And you, you were a prisoner of war. You were a prisoner of war that got his brain re-written after being forced into a super soldier without your consent to become an assassin. You might have been their weapon, but you were not a killer. In order to commit a murder, you have to have agency. You have to have intent. You had neither. Which in case you’re still wondering why Dr. Stark won’t punish you, is why.”

James shook his head. “That’s not when I hurt Tony.”

Skye mumbles under her breath about even this far into the story, she already has a clear enough picture on why the hell Tony won’t punish James for jack shit. Hell, she’s not sure that she would ever put punishments in a scene with him on anything but a limit list. Like he’d have to be so far out of line to warrant a punishment that at that point, they’d need to reassess what the hell has happened. “Please, continue.”

Natasha closes her eyes. “Steve was on a mission when he got back and found out that hydra was still around. How dare the past after he went in the ice not actually take care of the organization that he nearly sent to the grave? He wanted them gone. I went with him to help him clear out hydra. I thought that it might help get some of that red out of my list of sins. Not so sure it didn’t do anything but add to the growing amount of things that one day I will have to apologize for profusely.”

“We found out in a bunker that we had cleared one day, that there was some evidence that the winter soldier was his old best friend, James. Steve became obsessed with finding him. Didn’t even really care about hydra anymore other than that they were the opening that he had to get James. That was fine by me and Tony. Until in a different bunker after the winter soldier had tried to kill us several times, we found evidence that the person who killed Howard and Maria Stark, Tony’s parents, was James.”

James winces. The reminder of the fact that while him and Howard hadn’t been close by any means, that he had been the one to kill him still sits heavy in his understanding. The man had trusted him. The man had every reason to trust him, and he had shot Howard point blank. Then, snapped poor Maria’s neck.

“I got called in,” Natasha explains with a soft murmur as if the words were too horrible to even share in the normal tone of voice. “I got called in and told Steve that Tony had to know. That we had to tell him, and when I got back two things had happened according to what I was told: Steve had reawakened James from behind the winter soldier mask, and Steve had told Tony what happened. I was going to go talk to Tony myself, but Steve had told me that one of the only requests that Tony had made was that the people who were still going to search for James after this, give him a bit of space while he processed all of this. I thought it was reasonable. I thought he knew.”

“Did he not?” Skye questions.

James shook his head. “Now, we’re at the shit show that was the media’s termed civil war between Avengers, and this is a hairy and windy story that pretty much shows that few of us are actually good people. We’re all heroes, but that doesn’t make us paradigms of the light by any means.”

Natasha inclines her head to him. This paints all of them but Tony in a horrible light, even her. Even the ones that were truly trying to be the best they thought possible, other than Rogers who was just treating everyone like they were less important than his end desires. “Do me a favor and don’t interrupt or ask questions until I’m done with this section.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Skye offers immediately. As much as she might enjoy being able to understand where they’re coming from and why they’re all feeling like this is an unbeatable situation that they may never recover from, she’s not going to be the one that hurts them like that.

“Yes, we do.”

Natasha lifts her shoulders in a half-shrug. If Skye does decide to join the family which is getting more and more likely with each passing day, eventually she does have to hear these stories, and she needs to understand them. Understand them enough to hear the reasons that to them this is all unforgiveable and has been for quite some time now.

Skye stares between them for a moment. She hates when people seem to think that she has to know their secrets to care. She needs to know their secrets to help, not to care. Still, she’s not ready to face the bedroom and the night before the day, and this story is a reasonable solution. “Very well, no questions or interruptions.”

“Steve had recruited another person, Sam Wilson, the falcon to help the two of us track down Barnes here. We had a lead in South Africa. The mission went south. There were a lot of questions regarding what happened, because the scarlet witch let civilians die. Tony managed to get her back to the states and feat of fucking magic given the calls for her execution were back in full force. Tony managed to her under suspension and not arrested, another miracle. And then in order to stop her from potentially overreacting to the public protests, he asked her not to leave the compound or more accurately asked Vision to please keep her from leaving while he tried to work more miracles.”

“One of the compromises he had to take up in order to even come close to getting Wanda Maximoff back in the states was that he was to champion the Accords. That was fine by Tony, the documents weren’t perfect but then nothing was ever perfect the first time they were crafted in this nation, and by agreeing to be the spokesperson, he would be capable of arguing for every amendment possible. Tony signed them; the rest of the avengers had these tossed in front of them. Apparently I was the only one who kept up with the news enough to know that this was coming.”

James is staring her down because he’s never heard the background before, and Skye has a contemplating look in her eye that would terrify Natasha if she hadn’t been trained to never respond to terror. And there was still so much of the story to cover, and so little decent explanations that she can give when they ask her whether she even tried to stop some of the rougher times during this or whether she let them happen out of selfish preservation.

“I agreed to sign the accords on the spot. I agreed with the sentiment behind them. Better to have some laws governing us than for many people to be terrified every time we walked into the room. We didn’t want to resemble the people we were fighting who thought themselves above the law. For a time, we really thought that would be for the best. We were working on talking things through when hell broke out. Tony was talking to Steve about getting mental aid and therapy for you. Steve thought about signing. Everyone lost their minds when they found out Tony imprisoned Wanda or whatever lie that they were running with, I never did get a straight answer.”

“Hell is exactly what happened. Steve got false information that someone was coming at James with a kill order. Steve killed a lot of soldiers on his war path to get Bucky out of there, and then he did the unthinkable, he collapsed that bridge to kill civilians. Or maybe James did on Steve’s request. Hard to say because his memory isn’t trusted in a court of law anymore. After that the avengers that had already signed the accords were given permission to bring them into custody and discuss whether pardons would be possible should they prove their willingness to follow the guidelines of the accords.”

“They did not come peacefully with the people that they called friends. Instead, they started a fight. Being the only two without really any enhancements over human, Clint and I started the fight. We were teasing like always because while we disagreed or at least appeared to. Hard to say that he was truly himself then, since he was also under mind control at the time. When he failed to hit me hard, the scarlet witch threw me back with a blast of magic that probably could have damaged me if I hadn’t been trained to withstand pain like that from a very young age, and she didn’t appear to have any issues with that.”

“That’s when I realized that somehow Steve had convinced them that they were fighting enemies. They were fighting people that would hurt them. And the one person who truly wanted to harm them was T’Challa, and he was heading for Steve and James, and I knew right then and there that I had a choice to make. I could choose to let the fight continue. To let T’Challa injure Steve and James, probably kill James and the rest of the chips fall where they may, or I could help Steve escape and damn myself in the eyes of the law. I still thought we were a family. I thought that Steve had lost his mind when it came to the government because of the shit that we’d seen fighting hydra. So, I stunned T’Challa and made sure that they made it out. Then, I went undercover and as I did, I watched as Rhodey took a hit that was directed at the falcon after the falcon dodged. The rest were easy to capture, and as much as I desperately wanted to be at my dominant’s side, I knew better. I knew that my presence would only complicate matters, so I ran.”

“Worst decision in my life, in case anyone wanted to know. Do you know why? Because the story that Steve had been telling the others was that there were winter soldiers way more unstable than James and they were about to be set out on the public. Same trusted Tony with that information. He begged Tony to go alone, to go as a friend. And Tony went just like that, because if there was a threat, that was more important than anything else. Only the winter soldiers were a set up by a man that wanted to watch all of us crumble. A man that framed James Barnes as the person who exploded the United Nations during the peace talks. He had the same video that I had seen in the bunker, where Maria and Howard Stark were killed. Tony was forced to watch his parents murder in front of their murder weapon who happened to be breathing, and to make it worse, Steve lied to me the whole time, he never told Tony. Tony didn’t know that they were murdered. Tony threw a punch at Steve. James got involved in the fight at one point, and at the end of the fight, do you know what happened? Steve almost killed his teammate, and for why? Why? Because Steve Rogers needed to keep James safe. Damn the rest of us.”

Skye blows out some air. She can’t handle this family sometimes. First Phil with his damn demon from being dragged back to the land of the living. Now, this level of bullshit. She’s confident that the longer that she still allows herself to hear what the stories of the family members, there will be more. No wonder no one really batted an eye that he was alive. That was barely even a unique Tuesday anymore to them.

James ducks his head. “I’m fine if you don’t want to work with me anymore.”

Skye points her finger at him. A glare finds its way to her face for the first time in this conversation. “You stop with the loathing for a minute, I’ll get to you. I’m not ready for that though.”

She twists over to face Natasha. “I’m starting with you. Did Dr. Stark punish you for running away and not talking to him yourself about his decision to cut you off for a while?”

Natasha nods. Distantly, she wonders whether she could actually handle a punishment by a different dominant for the same crime if they thought that she didn’t suffer enough for the crimes she committed. She brings a good paddle hairbrush on every trip a leftover habit from her time with the red room that she never really had the desire to break herself out of when the situation didn’t call for it.

“Then, stop blaming yourself.”

Natasha freezes. All of her thoughts going blank. She knows that Tony often has a bleeding heart ready to forgive, but someone who doesn’t have any compassion towards her telling her that this was fine, that’s not normal.

“Seriously, Natasha. There’s nothing to be gained for hating yourself. You loved Steve Rogers too once, before he tried to kill someone else you loved. There is nothing to be ashamed of or guilty of by letting the people you love escape a deadly situation. Regardless of what they did with that attempt because you didn’t know. Just like I cannot be blamed for any of the number of times that I threw myself between Grant and an enemy on mission. I thought that he was my teammate, a member of my family, and I treated him as such. That’s not my fault. He was lying. They were both lying.”

“Yes, they were.”

“So stop passing the blame. The person at fault for what happened as a result of their lies is them, not any of us who believed them.”

Natasha blinks. “But I’m supposed to be better than them at finding out lies.” That’s why she’s willing to hang onto her blame. She’s supposed to know when people are lying to her.

“You are not at fault for daring to trust someone. No one is. That’s why it’s called abuse. Because the people who make you feel as though you can’t trust anyone ever again, they’re the assholes. Not you, sweetheart. Never you.”

Natasha’s whole body starts shaking in invisible and silent sobs. As she realizes with a start that she’s been carrying so much of the blame from Steve and Wanda’s lies. She blamed herself for not seeing what was happening to Clint and for not seeing Steve’s lies for what they were. She couldn’t believe that there was a person there who just looked her in her eyes and told her that she doesn’t have to. That blame has been a constant weight since after she arrived home and was welcomed back.

Skye lets her cry. She’s not about to push for contact right after they’ve bared their souls, and she’s the one here to try to force them into not holding onto unhealthy emotions. “As for you, James, you are a better person than I will ever be. I wouldn’t even pretend to be okay coming back to the force after what happened. It is and always will be an honor to work beside you in any capacity.”

James stares at her through his ducked position. She doesn’t have any tension in her body. She means all of the words that she’s spoken to them as weird as they are. “I don’t think you took the same morals from that story that I did.”

“Which ones? The ones where I’m not about to blame you for actions taken by other people. Steve came to break you out, and you were just reacting to what you knew. The one person you still had memories of told you that people were coming to get you, trusting that is again normal. Nothing to be blamed for. And what happened in that bunker in Siberia was fucked from the start, but I can safely say since I have seen the video that trended on twitter for a while, that you did not try to kill Dr. Stark. You just didn’t stop Steve from that, which is reasonable given you probably couldn’t remember your own thoughts at the time.”

James lets out a huge bellowing sigh. “You parrot the same things that Tony and Rhodey tell me when I get lost in my head.”

“Good, at least that means they both have some sense in their brains on what should be done when it comes to trauma.”

“None of that fixes the guilt that resides in me because like it or not my hands were used in the murder of several people.”

“Have you tried apologizing for that and not for all the other shit?”

“What?”

Skye blinks at him. “Well yeah, that guilt makes sense. You were their weapon. You might not remember all the lives you took, but you know that you took them. That would be an immense guilt on anyone. Feel free to apologize for the fact that you took Tony’s parents from him. Say that you didn’t know them when it happened, but now that you do, you feel remorse. Say that while you know that you have no culpability in your actions because they weren’t yours to take, that you are dreadfully sorry that you have to hold onto those memories as they do.”

“Say that you’re the one who did eventually make sure that all of the people truly at fault for what happened that day got punished. Say that you’re the one who made damn sure that the world didn’t just write all of this off and slide it under the rug again,” Natasha adds.

“Say that while you can’t and won’t accept punishment for crime that weren’t yours to be punished for, you are working towards amends anyway.”

James looks between the two women in front of him, and he laughs. Carefree and young, like a faint glimpse of a memory back with the howling commandos before being told his next target in the battle ahead. “Yeah, yeah, alright. I’m making my amends and it won’t be through punishment because I’ve suffered enough. It’s time for me to choose something else.”

“Let go of that guilt, James,” Skye suggests as she picks herself up and gives a final look towards the night sky with the stars blazing so brightly.

James stops her before she can actually enter the room from the patio. His eyes burning with an intensity that wasn’t even there when he was telling the story of what happened to him where the awful things were happening constantly. “If tomorrow goes down in the worst way, and you need help, ask for it.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I’m giving him a strand of mercy only for you. And yeah, I don’t really care one way or another how he responds to your speech that I’m sure you’ve got prepped up in your head. But, I know that if you care about a couple of assassins that you’ve known for the past month burning down the traces of hydra in every corner of this world, then your love is a fucking sight to behold. So, if tomorrow comes, and he spits that compassion back in your face, and you still can’t manage the bullet that the asshole clearly deserves, I get it. I get it, and I’ve got an extra bullet in my gun if you need it.”

“So does mine,” Natasha says softly.

Skye smiles to them both. “Thank you for having my back.”

“Thanks for having ours.”

Skye lifts her shoulders up and lets them fall. “I’m a little sick of not having anyone to rely on when everything is said and done.”

“Call us,” James offers. “Doesn’t really matter whether you stick with the family, whether your strike out on your own, or decide that your impromptu quitting of your job wasn’t actually what you wanted, if everything starts going wrong, call us. We’ll come.”

“At least once,” Natasha clarifies with a smile of her own. She stands up from the patio chair and leads them both into the room while James takes care of folding up the blankets.

Skye leans against her. “Can I sleep with the two of you tonight?”

Natasha changes pathways to not lead her to her own bed but to the one that her and James have been sharing. She pushes Skye down on the mattress before going to the other side of the bed to set up the alarm clock. None of them were likely to be thrilled when it goes off in like three hours, but three hours is still better than no hours. Not by a lot, but even just a little bit is enough.

She crawls into the bed next to Skye and the end of the night. Especially once James gets in with them, his larger arms bracketing them in his own way.

True to what Natasha saw coming, the alarm goes off way to early. Surprisingly, it isn’t her that leaps up to shut if off before the noise can travel, but Skye. Natasha blinks as she realizes that James is already completely up and in full gear. She rolls over and off the bed to put on the last of her gear as well, although she raises an eyebrow when she sees James tapping his foot.

“Important day,” he says. No need for more words at this point. They all have the memories of last night, so there’s no need to explain the anxiety any further than that simple explanation.

Natasha gives him that one. This will be the day that they’re done. They’ve torn down the red room, they’ve wiped out hydra, now it is time for them to behead the last thread. For a second her thoughts flicker to the few widows that she let deflect, the ones that weren’t indoctrinated. The ones that had looked at her in distaste as she had destroyed the rest. Then, she stops pitying herself and starts pulling herself together for the next act of the day.

Skye gets dressed quickly and promptly. She hesitates as she finishes with her gears, and she holds out a hand to James. “I know that you’ll have a bullet if I have need for one, but I think I should probably have my own bullet too, just in case.”

James pulls a pistol out from the center of his back and slaps it down on her palm. “You know how to use it?”

“Yeah,” Skye whispers softly. “You don’t go through as many criminal hacking groups without knowing how to stare unflinching into the chamber of one or how to point your own at someone else.”

“How illegal were you?” Natasha calls out from the bathroom.

“I’ve been pardoned, my dear.”

“Yeah, but if you quit the new organization, that might go away. Not because of Phil, he would never. But Phil is not actually at the top of the political food chain.”

“I was not dumb enough or desperate enough to agree to do half of the things are team did for missions without a full pardon written that allowed for a retirement at some point.”

Natasha comes out in full uniform to watch as Skye checks out the gun. She admits it is kind of hot to watch the normally behind a computer woman handle a weapon with such comfortable positioning.

James leads them out of the hotel, careful to avoid any of the cameras. He takes off down the street, and the other two follow him. He keeps up the steady pace, until her hears a shot fired right behind him. He spins to see Skye with her weapon trained up in the sky.

“Have you lost your mind?” Natasha asks with a deadly calm in her voice.

Skye doesn’t have to answer as the drone hits the ground right in front of James. She ducks down to double check the equipment before showing the hydra sigil on the back with a tilt of her head. “I think they know we’re coming, didn’t need them to have constant surveillance though.”

“Why do they know we’re coming?”

Skye narrows her eyes at James. “We’ve quite literally picked off all their allies. I think the last ones might be thinking about a last stand.”

Natasha shrugs. “Maybe we should have handed you a weapon earlier, I didn’t even catch a glimpse of the drone.”

“Neither did I. But, I did get interference on my scan for electronics and since we’re on a paved road isolated from buildings and there was nothing on the ground, I checked the direction and fired at the sky.”

James shakes his head. “There are times that I love the future and times that I hate it. How the hell are you supposed to do undercover work when there are hidden cameras in the sky that you can’t see?”

“Bring a techie along with you,” Skye suggests.

Natasha picks up at a much slower and more cautious pace towards the entrance. “How much do you want to put on them having put a guard or trap on the front door?”
Skye slips off to the side where she’s out of view of the door. Her eyes catching on the little bar code. “They rigged it to go up with an explosion. They’re in the basement level.”

James looks where she’s staring and sees the same. “Okay, so how do they get in and out? And how do we?”

Natasha catches Skye’s eyes in the correct direction. The roof can’t be rigged, or well it could, but if it was, then they weren’t going to keep their promise with ease, because the best plan would be to redivert the blast down to the basement as well as the ground level.

Skye nods once to Natasha. She also knows the benefits to admitting that if the roof is rigged then they are going to blow it to hell and back. She might make a phone call. See whether Grant would pick up. That would be the extent of her olive branch if this is the way that Hydra wanted to play this.

Both women scale the wall while James stands guard down below. If there’s an entrance up there, he’ll swing up and join them but until he has that confirmed, he’s going to be the smarter person and stay down where there’s more room to maneuver in case Hydra decides to come investigate.

The entrance hatch is hidden, that much is obvious, but there are only about four places on the roof that could hold the hatch without causing problems for integrity and accessibility. Skye takes two of them, and Natasha takes the other. Both careful to see whether there was any indication of a bomb before even thinking about crouching down to investigate how the door might open.

Natasha humans as she finds the place where concrete folds in to make a handle shape when you push down. “Found it,” she calls over the comms. Her voice nothing over a whisper to herself as she did not want anyone below her to possibly here. She’d have put at least one sacrificial lamb at the door to try to stop them from getting further in, if they spotted the bomb.

Skye leaps over the roof to stand next to her. She pulls out a tablet and does some quick scans to see if there was anything hidden that they couldn’t see, but she’s starting to realize that along with half the heroes not liking to use the technology outside of weapons available, their enemies weren’t doing a lot either.

James climbs up to the roof and stands next to them. “I’m going in first. I can take more hits than either of you.”

Skye shrugs. “I’ll stay up here to monitor and stuff like normal. Just try to keep Grant alive.”

Natasha nods to her. She waits as James throws open the hatch and jumps in. Then, she throws herself through the open hole after him with a wink.

Skye nods her head in rhythm with a song playing in her own head as she starts messing with the blueprints of the building that she can start pulling up. Minimum that she could was help them where she could.

Natasha dodges a punch thrown at her as James throttles the man at the hatch gateway. No weapons yet. As quiet as possible would be the best plan. The only issue would be if they had a comm to check on him at certain intervals. “Skye, does the man we’re fighting have a comm unit that they might want to check in through?”

“Bit busy. I’m disabling their ability to remote detonate that bomb on the door, so the three of us don’t go up in flames if they see you coming.”

James drops the hydra agent to the floor and turns to look at the bomb. “Why not just disable the bomb itself?”

“Easier to avoid detonation than it is to disarm a bomb, and unless you have hidden skills in ensuring that bombs don’t go off, I don’t want to press our luck regarding that.”
James makes a noise of understanding and gesture for Natasha to take the lead down the hallway. They both keep to the shadows, using the extensive training that they’ve got. Voices sound from ahead and both of them are forced to pause their actions.

Natasha steadies the charge on her widow bites as James reaches for one of his many knives. She relaxes her fighting position and wonders how quickly they’ll have to win the fight to be able to ensure the signal isn’t sent back to the lower floors that they’re inside.

“How comfortable in the dark are you?”

“We were trained in darkness,” James hisses barely any noise leaving him even as the words transfer over the comms.

“Good, then welcome to the darkness.” Skye clicks a few buttons and the bunker’s lights on the top floor drop.

“Christ, they still haven’t gotten the lights fixed,” one of the hydra agents complains.

Those were the last words he ever spoke, because James glides his knife into the agent’s neck before he can say anything else. He ducks under the immediate way that several of the other agents scream as they realize they aren’t alone and reach out to try to find him.

Natasha grins as the screams carry in the narrow hallway but none of them seem to have comm units. She levels both of her tasers at different voices of the screams and watches as they get carried down to the ground where James can bash their heads in with the heel of the boots.

One loan agent left, and he takes off in a run in the opposite direction. He seems to think that he has a chance if he gets far enough away from the area that they seem to know even in the dark. Too bad for him that Natasha isn’t relying on what she knows but on what she hears.

She’s on him within a minute of the chase. A poisoned dart that she keeps in a small gun with little noise shoots him in the head as she feels him slump down to the floor. She would feel worse if she hadn’t seen the crimes that these people decided weren’t a deal breaker for them.

James finds her after only a few minutes in the complete darkness. “One problem with the lack of lights. We don’t know where we’re going anymore, or who the hell we’re killing.”

“The basement lights are on,” Skye confirms softly. “Getting you to the basement is the tricky part. I need you to go forward until you feel the fork on the wall.”

Natasha reaches her hands out and carefully follows forward until the grimy rock of the building can be felt under her hands. “Got it.”

“Turn left and walk that way. ‘Try not to get into any conflicts in this area, because the door down appears to be left open for free travel between the layers.”

“The bomb?” James asks.

“I got it as deactivated as possible and have a jammer going just in case, but I’m going to get myself off the roof just in case anyway.”

“How are you getting to us in the basement if the top blows once we’re down there?”

“If the building you’re in explodes from a bomb, I think I’m going to go ahead and say are don’t get caught rule will be shot to hell, and I’ll call Dr. Stark.”

“Fair,” Natasha says. Tony might kill them all once they got home if he found out that a bomb went off around them, and not a single one of them had been smart enough to call him. Assuming that Tony managed to soothe all tensions that the bomb would have caused on the fragile system that they have with American politics right now.

James and Natasha take different sides of the walls as they start off on the path that Skye sent them towards. They begin to see the doorway in short order since that’s the only piece of light anywhere on this floor anymore. It has a hatch seal, which brings up an interesting idea. Perhaps they could close it behind them that way the bad guys couldn’t escape from their fates. That being said that also keeps them in a locked room with a bunch of soldiers with limited to no morals.

Natasha jerks her head towards the huge door to ask James his opinion.

James nods immediately. There goal was to leave no survivors. That means they don’t want anyone being able to flee. Plus, since the bomb is merely jammed and disabled, not completely out of the realm of exploding, he really doesn’t want them to runt he risk of a hydra agent getting a bold idea and coming up here to set it off manually. Too many of these soldiers have been way to happy to fall on the sword under the guise of protecting the other heads.

They sneak into the stairwell without any issues, but when Natasha goes to close the basement stair door, she blinks. There’s an electric code to be able to touch the handle and get the door closed or locked.

The door swings shut anyway. The code to lock comes as well as they watch the hatch lock completely.

“I’ve got your back even at a distance,” Skye says over the comms.

James smiles, before he draws his gun.

Natasha follows suit, and they lead the way into the basement. The first room is some kind of mesh hall like place. There are about 20 people sitting around, eating food. A quick head count tells her that Grant, the man whom they’re meant to keep alive isn’t in the room. She opens fire.

James follows Natasha’s lead in the opposite direction. Shooting them down before they can even swing their legs back up to defend themselves. No chance to stand, no chance to draw a weapon. The room is filled with dead bodies and blood running down the food stores in no time. He only feels an abstract sense of guilt for the amount of food that they’ve just wasted, a hidden reminder of what happened during the great depression and the Russian revolution when food had been scarce all over, and he wasn’t sure when his next meal would come.

Schmidt’s voice fills the speakers overhead. “Winter soldier, famed widow, we wondered when you would make it here.”

Natasha and James fill a dreaded look. While they’re confident in the fact that the code words won’t work on James anymore, and that Natasha has successfully overcome most of the tests of the red room for their widows, that doesn’t mean that the people who broke them down and reworking them wanting them here was never a good thing.
“Well, that’s delightfully creepy. Someone uploaded creepy ass hydra founder into an AI base. A lot less sophisticated than Dr. Stark’s stuff, but he’s nothing to play around with. Be careful. Right now, me and him are battling over that hatch door.”

James throws his head back with a huff and crosses over the threshold. “Yep, here to wipe your ass out.”

“Come now, winter soldier, surely you have to realize that without me you would never have had the power to tear me down like this. We are entwined together.”

“I don’t recall being dependent on you for anything.”

“Did I say dependent?”

“No, you did not, sir,” Grant says dryly stepping into the room. He takes a second to recognize the dead bodies in the room with a sad expression. “I am the last one left.”
“Dying breeds,” Schmidt’s voice confirms.

Natasha swallows roughly. “Can you confirm?”

“There’s only one heat signature in that bunker aside from yours, and I’m pretty sure that you’re right that it is Grant Ward talking to you and not the creepy AI.”

James holds out a hand to stop Natasha from charging forward. They had promised to take him alive and right now he had no weapon out. Plus, he’s got to admit that the voice from the ceiling being an AI needed to be investigated at least a little to bring back to Tony for him to deal with.

Grant smiles at James. “I knew that you were angry at my predecessors, using torture to convince you of our side. We don’t need to torture people into agreeing with us, when we’re clearly on the right side of history. That’s just ridiculous.”

It is at that moment that Natasha realizes what his trauma had made him believe. That Grant Ward was all too willing to follow the practices of hydra because he believed in the system, and that he believes their faults lie in the fact they were hurting people who were good and reasonable and would switch if they were told the real way of things. Her heart hurts for him, because that’s a delusion so far into his psyche that none of them were going to pull it from him, and Skye was going to try anyway.

“Yep,” James confirms, “that’s my problem. Not the murdering of innocent people, no wait, that’s actually a problem.”

Grant waves him off. “Of course, it is. We can’t go killing all of the citizens that we will need in the new world. That would be a whole new kind of stupid. The old leadership thought with the rising population numbers that it might encourage more to join us if we were killing the vocal non-believers, but that’s not how you win people over.”

He taps his forehead deep in thought. “There’s a quote. Some kind of quote about this. Let me think for a moment.”

Natasha closes her eyes and squeezes them shut. She’s heard someone this lost before. The retrieval of the people at the red room had proven that. If they got you as a child, and they never broke your faith. If somehow you transferred from the ideal to an individual, you’d never break free. “You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”

“That’s the one,” Grant chirps happily.

Natasha has stepped far away from James. Far enough that he can’t stop her when she raises the widow bites and knocks Grant out this time. Even as tears are running down her face. She’s not so sure that she’ll have that bullet for Skye after all. She’s already faced her demons like this and managed to kill them one by one, and that was supposed to be her last attempt.

“I do wish you wouldn’t do this,” Schmidt says.

“I don’t really care what you want,” James snaps at the voice overhead. “Skye, the room is clear, and we’ll wait until he wakes up tied down for you to have the conversation.”
“Ok, I’ll be right down.” There’s movement from Skye’s end of the receiver before Natasha crosses over to the body with a pair of cuffs. She locks him to a pipe in the room and then takes a seat on one of the chairs.

James stares at her for a moment. “Are you going to be alright?”

“No,” Natasha answers truthfully. She leans her head against the tile of the cafeteria from her seat, and she settles in to wait.

Skye enters the room and sees all of the bodies and Grant cuffed down with a look of understanding written across her face. She crosses over to the computers in the far room and starts working on the dismantling of all the hardware.

“So, you’re the girl that has been actually doing damage to my lasting systems. The computer hardware, the memory caches, all of it.” The voice is starting to get even more creepy.

“You’re the founder of hydra, yes?”

“I am.”

Skye nods her head. “I hope you know that I will take great pleasure in watching everything that you built come tumbling down to the ground around me, and that I will dance on the ashes in sheer glee once it’s all gone.”

“You do know the rumor about hydras, right?”

“You’ve got to cut them all out or they just sprout new heads to torment us in the future.”

“One is yet alive.”

“If he’s truly a hydra, he’ll be dead before the end of the day,” Skye replies as she types the last key to erase the AI that keeps tormenting them with words. She keeps on typing ignoring the other parts of the room. Or at least she does until James comes and stands next to her.

James looks between her and the computer. “You know that what he was saying to us implies that he is a true believer.”

“Yeah, I know. The likelihood of me being able to save him is low. So low that it might as well be impossible, but if I don’t try, I will run through this moment every single time something happens in my life that I would have wanted him there for. I will never spend a happy moment without wondering whether if I had given the chance, he would have been there with me to share the time. I’ve got to be sure.”

James sighs. “I know, I just wanted to know that you shouldn’t have your hopes up.”

Grant wakes up dazed while James and Skye were in the other room to find Natasha staring at him with a tilt to her head. He runs his tongue over his teeth to make sure that he’s prepared for the hardest sell in the world. The black widow turned traitor for good reason, and he knows that she still hears all of the rhetoric in her mind. “The world’s broken, you know?”

“Yeah, trust me, Agent Ward, I know all too well the ways in which the world is broken and has failed systematically to manage a decent compromise.”

“We could change the world.”

“I am changing the world,” Natasha whispers softly. She reaches over and places her hand in his and squeezes. “I am changing the world by showing them that a submissive can be a hero. I am changing the world by standing beside the man who shut off every branch of his military sector when he found out that they were being used inhumanely. I am changing the world by saying that no one should be above the law, and that laws can be reformed. I won’t change the world with bloodshed and violence.”

“That’s all the elite listen to.”

“Not all of them. Not all of them at all.”

“Can your Dr. Stark really change the way the governments work? Can he ensure that all businesses treat their employees humanely? Can he make sure that no child starves in this world? Can he promise us that there will never be another super villain created on best intentions? Because I don’t think he can.”

“Did you know Ultron was a hydra creation?” Natasha muses.

“What? No, it wasn’t. The idea was Dr. Stark’s and possibly a bit of Dr. Banner’s, although that’s heavily debated since he fled the entire planet right afterward.”

“He didn’t flee, he was forced through a wormhole that ended with him in a different galaxy to our own. As for the rest, Dr. Stark had an idea for Ultron, but it wasn’t fully made. The idea hadn’t been fleshed out, hadn’t been given the time to make use of any of the important pieces. The scarlet witch convinced him to go back to the idea after it had been scratched using mental manipulation as a member of hydra. Then the hydra’s corrupted version of the staff, possibly also tainted by the giant evil alien heading our way to kill us all, woke up inside the half body of an AI that hadn’t even gotten a code yet, and stole the code from Tony’s first creation. None of that is on Dr. Stark.”
Grant blinks. “But why would hydra want a monster that might kill the whole world?”

“It did what they wanted it to do. They wanted us to stop the monster, but they also wanted to be able to blame us for the monster in the first place. Feed mistrust and all of that. Steve Rogers even made it easier when he allowed the scarlet witch to work for us and with us.”

Grant frowns as he considers this. “Hydra wanted to dismantle the avengers. Another instance of leadership failing miserably in understanding the optimal ways to go about such things. We didn’t need a disaster to be able to push for more control for you guys. That was always going to happen in small doses. The only superhero when alone that usually bothers with civilian movements away from the danger was Iron Man.”

“More of us now that we’re not taking orders from Captain America.”

Grant nods. He twists his head to check that the others aren’t here yet. “Are you trying to tell me that you’ve managed to work the avengers into a system of hydra without it being called hydra? Because that’s ingenious of you.”

Natasha shakes her head. “No, I’m telling you that the world isn’t as messed up as you believe it is, so that when you die, you aren’t haunted by all the things you didn’t do.” Natasha turns and raises her voice. “He’s up.”

Skye ducks back into the room to stare at Grant. A half smile on her face. “Hi, partner.”

“Hey, little Skye, I figured you’d be the one who figured out what side was right in the end. You’ve come to join, haven’t you?”

Skye turns to stare at Natasha who can’t give her any hope. There’s no hope to be had. He fully believes exactly what he’s saying. He believes that this is them all turning towards Hydra by wiping out the corruption within hydra. Delusional to the end.

Skye lets out a short breath of air. “No, Grant, I won’t join the neo-nazis going against human rights.”

Grant cuts a glance towards Natasha before shaking his head. “What human rights? The ones that say everyone has a right to live, don’t worry, the new hydra that we can build won’t try to go against those. Nor will there be torture. Those things are of the past.”

“Grant, would you come home with me?”

“Sure, little Skye. You’ve just got to get your spy friend that was once hydra herself to let me out of these cuffs.”

“Would you come home with me and face justice for your crimes? Would you reject hydra and try to reform yourself into the world as it is now?”

Grant’s smile falls from his face. “Why would you ask that of me? Haven’t you realized that hydra was misguided, but it is the only way forward? We can’t trust the masses with their own decisions. They constantly make mistakes.”

Skye can’t catch the sob that escapes from her chest. The person that she had loved is nothing but a monster. One that has convinced himself that he is better than all others. She turns to Natasha. “I can’t,” she sobs.

Natasha swallows hard. She had seen this coming. It is hard to look your monsters in the face as you hear their trauma play on repeat and know how close you could have been to becoming that if your life hadn’t been as nice as it was. Especially when your life wasn’t nice in the slightest, but it was still just minimally better than theirs.
James’ bullet soars through Grant’s head. He stands with the smoking doorway at the entrance. His position perfect to blast it between the line of Skye and Grant.

“Thank you,” Natasha whispers.

James stares at the base that they’ve now mostly dismantled. He shakes his head to clear it a few times. “It’s done. They’re gone.”

Skye shrugs. “I doubt that hydra will ever pop up again, but I’m also confident that something else will rise in their ashes. We can’t actually escape people who believe that the masses can’t be trusted.”

James reaches over and squeezes her hand hard. “But not this one.”

“Yeah,” Skye whispers, not this one.

They burn the remainders of the building after actually spending the time to diffuse the charge on the bomb. No dead bodies that should arguably have cases for. No trace evidence that suggests that the winter soldier, black widow, and a random hacker went into a hydra base and roughed it up.

Natasha now that they were done with all of their missions was able to use Tony’s card to buy them a first-class flight home on a private charter. None of them want to have to deal with other people after the hell that has been today. Almost as soon as they’re led onto the plane to wait until the pilot is ready to take off, she’s crashing in one of the chairs mostly curled up.

James on the other hand chooses to actually dig out the stack of papers that contains a kink check list. He’s been frustrated about this ever since Friday helped him get one. The internet did a good job of explaining the details that he didn’t understand from some of the options on the sheets. What the internet couldn’t help him with though are the kinks that he knows the principle of, that he once enjoyed heavily, but hasn’t come close to trying since Hydra had him. Like could he be okay with man-handling like he used to be? Who knows, but it sure as hell wasn’t him.

The third time that James sighs over that stack of papers that Skye has seen at every single one of their stops for the last few months, she loses whatever left over vestiges of hesitation that she might have on intruding. “What is so irritating within those pages?”

Natasha’s eyes shoot open at the question. Ready to cover for James if he doesn’t have the ability to answer them. She knows how hard he’s been working on trying to figure out what kinks he can allow and what he can’t after getting out from Hydra.

James turns to stare at her. “I’m trying to fill out an updated kink list since the last one I made was from the 40s and before I had a shit load of trauma from hydra. And at this point, I’ve figured out like a good 3/4ths of it, but I don’t know what to do with the rest of it. And it’s not like I don’t know what they mean, but I don’t know how they’ll affect my triggers, and I don’t want to have to do constant revisions to the thing, and so all I’m getting is more and more frustrated.”

Skye blinks. That was so not what she was expecting the answer to be. She can understand how frustrating it can be to not know your own limits and stuff. She holds out her hand for the papers.

James furrows his brow and passes the papers over to her. “What?”

Skye raises an eyebrow, and he falls silent. “There are two ways that crisis centers who get calls about this handle the situation. The easiest and healthiest option is to just mark all of them as soft limits with a note that you would like to try them with a dominant of your choice. However, given that you said constant revisions are not your thing, that likely isn’t what you’re looking for.”

He mutely shakes his head to her.

“Good, the second option involves finding a trained crisis dominant.”

Natasha snorts. “Good luck convincing him to scene with someone outside of the family. As far as I’m aware none of our dominants have undergone the extensive training, although Pepper probably could qualify if she tried.”

Skye ignores Natasha’s statement mostly. Because yes, James would want the crisis dominant to be trained but also a person that he knows and feels comfortable with. That doesn’t necessarily mean family, only because she’s pretty sure that she’s not considered family by any definition that she knows of. “Which fortunately for you, I am. So the next question is, do you trust me to handle this well and would you like to scene with me?”

Both submissives in the plane are immediately more attuned to her position and what she’s doing. That’s why she made sure to set the papers down and not have them in her lap flipping through them the whole time she was explaining. Because while that would make things easier for planning, it would put him more on the edge.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Skye closes her eyes and lets the rush of emotions that triggers in her flow over her. When she opens her eyes, she favors him with a gentle smile. “That’s good, James. Very good. I need to know some things from you before I can set up a scene like this, okay?”

James nods. “Do you need me to tell you which boxes still aren’t filled out?”

“No, I can check that for myself, if you’re alright with me reading through your kink checklist.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine, ma’am. Umm, if it’s not that, what questions do you need?”

Skye lets out a light chuckle. “How about you let me worry about that?” She pauses to consider how best she wants to start with this. The number one thing she needs to know is what level of comfort he is with his hard limits, his soft limits, and what he actually truly enjoys. Given his history, it could be that some of these issues overlap more than others would. The second thing is how he wants to tell her that they’ve hit one of those lines. That would probably be the better place to start with him. “Are you familiar with the stoplight system of safewords?”

James looks down. “Yes, ma’am, but I’m not good with them.”

Skye breathes out gently. “Can you explain why James?”

“So, during my time with Hydra I spent a lot of time begging for them to give me mercy. For them to please let me have a break or to stop a specific gesture. All of that I did verbally, including when my brain was being mind-wiped, I would safe word for a dominant that wasn’t there. It makes verbally safewording really hard. I’ve gotten better with my full red word, but it’s a lot harder for smaller things.”

“How well are you at non-verbal safe wording?”

Natasha tucks her legs up underneath her in the chair as she watches Skye walk through this scene in her mind. She’s not pushing at any boundary. She’s not ripping off bandages or giving orders about how this will go. She’s asking gently pointed questions to get to what she wants.

James pulls up his shoulders in full tension riding up his muscles. “I don’t, uh, I don’t know.”

“That’s okay,” Skye says easily. Actually that makes life a lot harder for them on several levels, but she can work with it. “Can you tell me what’s bugging you about the non-verbal safe word?”

“How will you know when I do it? Like do I have to snap loudly enough to get your attention? Because if so, then would it be my fault if you didn’t hear me and thus be my fault that I was continually triggered.”

That makes so much more sense to Skye. He doesn’t want to be blamed for his own triggers ever again. She can understand that intimately. Triggers are hell, especially when someone dares to tell you that you’re the one at fault. “No, sweetheart. It does not matter what kind of non-verbal safeword that you’re using, if I don’t notice that, that’s on me. But, let’s see if we can find one that I can easily tell at all times.”

The tension in James fades immediately. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Don’t start thanking me for things that I’m supposed to do as a crisis dominant.”

James lips quirk up into a small smile. “You’re good at this.”

“I would hope so. I would hate to know that the license goes to people who are incompetent and end up hurting the submissives that they are meant to protect. Now, James, how do you feel about dropping items to the ground?”

“Fine.”

Skye smiles at him. “Fantastic. And how do you feel about using this system for the things that you aren’t sure about on your checklist? If you need me to stop what the thing is or the thing is super bad for you, you drop this scarf down to the ground. That means that we mark it down as a hard limit, and you know that’s not something that you want others to do for you. If you are able to get through the motions, but it doesn’t feel right and doesn’t feel like something you can handle doing most of the time, you clench really tight to make your muscles tight around the scarf. That means I mark it as a soft limit, not something that you’re really good with it, but something that you might want to play with later or that you might do for a particular scene or partner on occasion. And then, if something is really good, and you’d love to do this often, you just leave it nice and dangling in your hand, no firm grip just enough to keep it there.”

James stares at the little green scarf in Skye’s hands. He nods gently. Those rules seem fine to him, and it shouldn’t trigger his issues with trying to stop someone when he’s still confident that when he says no that it might go ignored. He’s not sure he would survive someone else ignoring him when he cries out for the pain again. “And what if I need to stop the scene itself? If testing all of these gets to be too much?”

“What’s your safeword?”

“Hydra,” he mumbles.

Skye closes her eyes to stop herself from laughing out loud. Of course, that would be the perfect safeword for James given how much they represent everything that he wishes someone could stop. That being said, she really should tell Dr. Stark to make sure that his submissives choose words that they don’t desensitize themselves to the word. “Say that, and I’ll get you out of what we’re currently doing, and I’ll check in with you. Whatever you need right then, you’ll get.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

That cocky little grin of his says that he knows exactly what him giving her that title does. Something tells her that James Barnes would mark extremely high on a brat scale because he’s so used to being smacked down with the slightest infraction, that now that he’s not being punished, he’s acting in the opposite direction to see what happens. Skye happens to love when that happens, just because that gives her so much more playful ideas to do.

Natasha starts backing away from them, and Skye turns to track her. She’s not against witnessing the scene, but if she’s not a part of it, she wants to be further away from whatever they’re doing. She honestly thinks that doing this on an airplane might be the wildest idea that she’s ever heard, but she also knows how desperate James is to be done with this and be able to drop this file on Tony’s lap and be done with having to make these decisions for a day or two.

Skye continues to stare at Natasha. “James, sweetheart, how would you feel about Natasha watching with me for the scarf to mark down on your sheet, so I can focus my energy on you?”

James twists his head to find Natasha with a hopeful gaze. “If that’s alright with her, yes, please.”

Skye says nothing more waiting for the decision to be made by Natasha. This might be too much for her to be comfortable doing, or this could be something that she’s been secretly wanting for ages, and this is the first time that she thought she might have the right to ask for it.

Natasha ducks her head into a nod. “Sure, James, if you’d like.” She crosses over to stand next to Skye. This scene wouldn’t be for her, she’s more just a notetaker. Still, she’s hoping that Skye will give her some kind of guidance on what she might want during this time, because otherwise she was going to get frantic before the end.

Skye smiles up at Natasha. “James, dear, would you mind kneeling at my feet while I look through your sheet?”

James hits the ground of the plane in record time to get on his knees before he realizes how far away from Skye he is. There’s a deep flush traveling down his body as he convinces himself to crawl over to her. He settles at her feet where her hand be wrapped into his hair as she considers the checklist.

She taps Natasha’s shoulder to guide Natasha down into the chair next to her. She starts flipping through the checklist making notes on each one that is still unmarked. Some of them she’s unsurprised by their presence on the list, and others she’s quite honestly horrified with the possibilities that this opens up in her mind. Because she swears if Hydra used some of these on him, she’s going to need a second killing spree in the after life to ensure that they’re still suffering because they don’t deserve any good things. Not even once in their life.

Natasha watches as James starts going under, and she’s impressed by how Skye has managed to get him to the correct headspace even though the scene they’re doing today could be really triggering. However, she’s still very much on the edge. “What’s my job?”

Skye smiles towards Natasha. “All you’re going to do is watch the scarf and his reactions to mark it down on the sheet. I’ll be in charge of actually guiding the scene and helping him through either dropping the scarf or getting tense before moving on. I plan on warning him before I start any test on what I’m planning on doing to him, so you’ll know where to mark down on the sheet.”

Natasha nods after a pause. “Why have me do it?”

“You looked nervous about being far away from him while he was going to be doing this, but that you didn’t want to be in a true scene. Either because you don’t trust me to take you down, or because you don’t trust yourself to go down before you get home after a mission.”

“Oh,” Natasha lets her breath escape her. “Thank you.”

“Of course. I am trying to be as helpful as possible here.”

Skye turns to James and ponders some consideration. She’s very curious about his reactions to some of the things that are on his list. The first one had been degrading comments. She’s never been too big of a fan of those herself, because why would she ever want to be dating someone that she was willing to think less of. However, she knows how excited the words can make certain submissives, and she’d love to see what this does. “James, I’m going to start off verbally degrading you. Do you remember what to do if that makes you hurt?”

James drops the scarf from his hand and lets it fall to the floor in a demonstration, before reaching down to pick it up.

Skye smiles at him to let him know that was alright. For a second, she thought that just the idea of her saying the words of what she was going to do set him off on this one. That would have been a clear indication that it needed to be a hard limit regardless of potential interest. No one should be panicking at the start of a scene. “And do you remember what you’re to do when it makes you uncomfortable, but not enough to ask for it to stop?”

James tenses his fist around the scarf while maintaining eye contact, to show that he understands. Best practice is to make sure that all the motions are down in his head before she starts.

Skye almost slips and says praise. Instead, she switches gears immediately. “Does my slut think they deserve a reward for remembering such simple instructions?” Her voice is harsh, but on the inside, she wishes that these words were teasing. Best to find out whether or not degradation on a full scale is a limit. If he wants to explore a dominant bratting back, she’ll add a new segment to the checklists from Dr. Stark’s family all together.

The words wash over James, and he feels himself drop lower inside his body. Almost immediately, he almost opens his mouth to plea that he wasn’t trying to be bad, that he was just trying to express himself. The scarf is releasee from his hand before the apologies, but only by a small margin. “I’m sorry.”

Skye bends over his body to pick up his scarf and place it back into his hand. She presses herself against his back before sitting up to press her cheek into his hair. “What are you sorry for, darling? Last time I checked, I told you to drop that if you were uncomfortable.”

James shakes his head. “Response to the words, not dropping the scarf.”

Skye makes a noise of acknowledgement. “I’m glad you dropped your scarf then. Those games wouldn’t end well for you if that’s your normal response to hearing the words. Some people might like to force submissives into apologizing for nothing to plead for their mercy at all times, but let’s take it at face value that you shouldn’t become one of those people for both our sanities.”

James nods. He leans back into her. “What now?”

She taps him on the nose in amusement. “I’m thinking about what I’d like to do next. I’d like to play with the manhandling, but there are three types, and you left them all blank.”

James tilts his head to the side. “I don’t remember what all three of them were.”

“So there’s the man-handling where I move you where I want you to go, that’s the basic one. Then, there’s the slightly more complex where I hold your mouth open, your tongue down, force you to stick out your tongue for me to pinch, and other methods like that which force you to focus on me and nothing but me because I am in control of just about everything that you’re doing. And there’s the last one, which is where I move you deliberately to get you into position for something else.”

“So what’s the problem?” His brain is already fuzzy, and to him all of those seem like things that Skye should be able to do to him in order to test what kind of reaction he’ll have to them. He can’t promise what his response will be, but he’s happy to learn.

Skye exchanges a look with Natasha. “Okay, I’m going to start with the second type then.”

She doesn’t give James much time to process what she means. It wouldn’t be an easy thing to accomplish if he wasn’t at least a little surprised. She reaches over to pry his lips open, using one of her hands to hold his mouth open.

James moves with her hands easily. He has to fight to remember to keep the scarf in his grip at all with how he leans in. Her thumb presses down on the base of his mouth a silent order to keep it open or there would be consequences. His mind drops out from him as she keeps that pressure.

“Damn,” Natasha whispers mostly to herself as she checks the appropriate box. She hasn’t seen James go down that easily ever, and to think that without Skye’s quick thinking he might not have even known that this was such a good trigger for him.

Skye uses her other hand to press against James’ hair for a second. “Okay, I’m going to move you now, alright.”

James doesn’t respond at all, but he does whine when her fingers leave her mouth. He loves the little laugh that he gets for the noise. Good indication that this dominant doesn’t mind if he uses sound. He knows of several that would, but not the one that stands in front of him.

Skye wraps her hands under each arm and yanks him up to his feet. She spins him around, using only her grip on him. She has very little doubt even as he moves precisely where her hands direct that if the particular action was triggering, she would have an extremely hard time getting him to move at all. Still, the scarf remains soft in his hand, happy to be held with the lightest of pressures.

She smiles towards James after that. “Okay, now I’m going to place you in a position that has specific connotations, but I need you to know that I’m not going to do anything without warning you first, so you don’t have to worry about anything happening that you haven’t at least partially understood.”

James blinks as the words filter through his head. He’s not sure what connotations positions can have, but he’s been having a good time with Skye leading him around, so he’ll trust her to tell him what anything means. At least he does, until her hand is forcing him to bend over the edge of the chair and he clutches that scarf so tight he’s scared he’s cutting off his own circulation. Nothing about this is horrible, nothing has happened, but the only reason that he’s able to believe that is because Skye told him so.

Skye notices his grip immediately. She removes the hand that she had pressing against him, giving him free reign to move, but he doesn’t. She almost breaks to start cursing at the bastards that had convinced him that he had to fold inward like this. She reaches out to help him back into a better position. “There you go. You’re being so good for me, telling me exactly what you like and what you don’t. Don’t even need your voice, just like my perfect boy.”

James keens as the praise reaches him. He can’t remember the last time that he had someone’s affection this freely. He leans into her touch. He briefly remembers that they haven’t touched on any of the impact type things that he wasn’t sure about, nor has she tried the other types of pain that he wants to know whether he’ll be okay with. He loved pinching once. Now, he doesn’t know whether that’ll be true. He doesn’t know whether anything will be true.

Skye twitches as a smile threatens to spread across her face. So far, regardless of what limits they’ve tested, he’s remained completely calm with her. That in and of itself deserves the heaps of praise that she plans on rewarding him with as they continue through this scene. She pats his head gently.

She twists her head to stare at Natasha. There are only a few more little things on his checklist, however, she’s rather significantly concerned with all of them. Slapping had been on the list, and she’s halfway expecting him to drop the scarf before she even hits him. The next one, spanking with a hand, that one could either be really good. Then, he also has question marks next to the one regarding a more thudding spanking impact play, so things like a paddle, bath brush, or a hairbrush. Maybe a few other toys if he enjoyed it. Plus, there’s the final one, which is biting.

She reaches up and pulls James up to straddle her lap. This gives her a good position for almost all of the remaining actions, and she might even be able to keep him calmer in the scene. She leans up and kisses him.

James lets his mouth fall open under her plundering. He relaxes as her arms are the only thing keeping him up and her mouth is the only thing in his attention span that he cares to realize. His eyes slip shut, and by the time that she’s moving him away from her with a grip in his hair, he can’t even put up a remote protest for anything that she might want to do to him.

At least he can’t think of a protest until he catches a glimpse of her hand raised to slap him from the corner of his eyes, and he panics for a brief moment before he remembers that if he gets that bad he’s supposed to drop his scarf. His hand opens and he feels as the fabric passes over his skin on its way down, and he squeezes his eyes shut. Expecting the hit to come, because he hadn’t dropped the scarf early enough that she was going to be able to adjust for him.

Skye makes sure to keep her eyes trained on the scarf even as she reaches to pull her hand back to slap him. While the motion has to be genuine for it to count for the sheet doesn’t mean that she can’t telegraph her movements with as much clarity as possible. The scarf falls and she changes her intensity to make sure her hand comes up to cup his face instead. “So good, telling me when you have a problem.”

James sucks in a shaky breath as the slap never lands. He takes in several more gulps of air before anything starts coming out in an even manner. This still hurts him sometimes because the act of finding out that he can’t even let a dominant slap him if he steps out of line might be the deal breaker for several people, but at least for right now, he’s making Skye proud.

“Don’t you dare worry about your limits,” Skye warns.

“No one wants a submissive they can’t punish,” he points out softly. He understands her point. Anyone who isn’t willing to compromise and work with the limits of their partner aren’t a good fit, but at the same time, having most punishments being hard limits, is not a good fit either.

“What?” Skye pauses to glance back down at the sheets over by Natasha. “You didn’t mark punishments as a hard limit.”

“No, but all the punishments that I know of other than a simple spanking which won’t do shit to a super soldier in terms of pain are off the table because of my triggers,” he mutters.

Skye exchanges a glance with Natasha. “James, I can think of at least seven ways to punish you that don’t break any of your limits that would guarantee that you wouldn’t cross me anytime soon.”

“I can think of 13,” Natasha chimes in.

Skye twists her head. “Okay, what the fuck? Are you a switch? Nothing wrong with that, but I did not pick up on that vibe, and I really need to be on the top of my game for that one.”

“No, but I have played one before.”

“Several times,” James stares at Natasha now. He's half begging her for a promise. “And they won’t send me into a breakdown where I might hurt my dominant.”

“Nope,” she confirms.

James bites down on his tongue. This could be a selfish ask and cause them both to get upset at his clinginess when it comes to understanding what all of this means, but then again this could assuage so many of his concerns right now. “Can you name one?”

“Sure,” Skye answers easily. “One of my favorites is I make you come until rather than thanking me for letting you come, you’re sobbing me to please let you rest. To please give you a break. Just let your hormones level out for a minute, please.”

Natasha snickers in her seat.

Skye turns her gaze back once more. “Just because you’re comfortable getting two or three in a row, doesn’t mean that by the tenth, you won’t be a mess of snot and tears as you strain against every restraint, I’ve put on you to get away from my touch, and it doesn’t mean that I’ll take an ounce of mercy on you either.”

Natasha’s jaw drops downwards. She’s heard a lot of threats over the years, but she doesn’t think she’s ever been threatened to be made to come until she’s just as much of a mess as she is when the cane is applied to her backside after she’s fucked up. And the dead stare in Skye’s face tells her that she wouldn’t hesitate to follow through on those words, if she thinks that will have the desired effect on Natasha.

Skye pats James’ cheek softly as she picks up the scarf. “Do you want to drape yourself across my lap?”

James swallows hard. He knows the remaining ones just as well as Skye does, and this one he really wants to go well. He’s missed some of the comforts of before the war. Back when he’d find someone willing to turn his ass into a bright red where it could be seen by all others that he’d earned himself a good one over the lap of a dom. He twists his legs off to the side and goes right over her lap. He even dares to be a bit teasing as he shakes his ass towards her.

Skye giggles as she tucks the scarf back into his hand. This is a better response than she’s gotten for any of the other possible red lines in the sand that he might have. She runs her hand over his back for a mere moment, before raising her hand and letting it fall on his ass. She’s honestly not surprised by the way that his hips jerk automatically.
James doesn’t change anything in his posture after the first hit. There’s nothing special about that one hit, other than that it had felt distant. Like he hadn’t been the one to feel it or rather like he hadn’t been a normal human with his response. The second hit comes and rather than being a welcome addition, it feels just as separated. He tightens his fingers just a little around the scarf. So desperate for this to work. Another hit, another disappointment as he realizes that this does nothing. That the hits can’t stay on his ass for long enough to give him even a hint of the serotonin that he wants so badly. His grip tightens all the way.

Skye frowns at the way that he tightens the grip. Something about his response rings as something that is a trigger for a different reason than the rest. This isn’t something that Hydra did to make him obey. This isn't something that had left him wondering whether he could trust himself. No this has something to do with another issue, like the fact that they had transformed him into a superhuman without his consent. And these hits feel nothing like they would have before.

That is the only reason that she doesn't call it for both lines. That’s why she reaches into her bag and pulls out her wooden hairbrush and pleas to whatever gods there might be that she isn’t making the wrong call when she swings that down in place of her hand.

That’s the right call based on the way that he absolutely folds under her. His body releases tension and there’s a line of freedom that she doesn’t think that she’s gotten the privilege to see before. She swings one more time just to be sure of what she’s seeing.

James lets out a loud moan when the second strike of whatever implement she had brought with her on the trip hits his ass. This feels closer to something that he can remember. As long as he ignores that once upon a time, there’s not a chance in hell that he would have felt this much relief in someone digging out a paddle like toy to bust his ass. New him, new limits.

Skye smiles as Natasha marks that down on the sheet. She’s glad there are more than just one of them that he enjoys even after everything from his list that he wasn’t sure on. She runs her hand through James’ hair. “Would you like me to keep going for a time?”

James is about to nod in affirmation. He’d love to have a few bruises that don’t send him spiraling that also last more than a couple hours at best. That does not appear to be the kind of day that he’s going to get though. However, the plane’s overheard speaker happens to beat him to the punch.

“We will be landing now. Please fasten seatbelts.”

Natasha throws her head back as she laughs. She reaches back and helps James get into his seat and strapped in. She rolls her neck. “Let’s get home, and then we can finally let all of the hardships of the road roll off our backs.”

“What do we do?”

“Announce you as family,” James suggests.

“Make good Russian hot chocolate.”

“Movies,” Skye says finally. “Curled up on a couch with little thoughts needed.”

James gives a thumbs-up lazily from where he sits.

Once the plane lands, Natasha is the first up and out of her seat. She’s got her bag over one shoulder, and James’ on the other before either of the other two can even make it out of their seats.

James pouts at her. He might have gotten pretty far down into subspace, but he’s damn good at keeping on his feet. “I can carry my own bag.”

“Never said you couldn’t.” Natasha throws Skye’s bag up into her arms in a cradle style hold. She raises a single eyebrow at both of them. “I might need you to open doors.”

Skye scoffs softly before she helps them all get down and out of the airport in only a few minutes. Luckily no one expects the black widow to be holding every single bag for a family, looking for all the world like a housewife coming in from a large vacation. Nor does anyone ever expect the winter soldier to be under in half subspace. Plus, there’s not a single soul who knows her name or face. Or all the ones that might have learned to know her are dead in a grave somewhere.

The ride home is also simple, mostly because true to Tony’s word there’s a car waiting for them at the airport they flew into. The drive home is done by her, not because she doesn’t think Natasha could or would do it, but because she’s honestly in need of controlling the car for a moment, since the scene that she had planned went just a tiny bit off the rail with the timing of the plane.

By the time they get home, they all feel dead on their feet. James stumbles in towards the couch, barely even noticing that both Tony and Pepper are sitting in the lounge chairs nearby. “Friday, what’s the next movie on my queue list of things the future did while I was being mind controlled?”

Tony reels backwards from the blatantness of what’s being said by James. He’s always known James to work closer to the shadows regarding what comes next or even adjacent to his torture.

“I believe you wished to see Harry Potter after you finished the movie versions of Lord of the Rings and Hobbit.”

“Thank you, can you pull that up on the TV?”

The movie gets pulled up, but the play button hasn’t hit start yet.

Natasha gets in the house next. She beelines straight for the kitchen. She does at least take note of the fact that Tony and Pepper are in the main living room. “Hot cocoa?”

Pepper blinks. She knows that’s a constant for Natasha after a mission that ended in a manner that she wished that it hadn’t for one reason or another. She knows within seconds that Grant Ward wouldn’t be joining them today, which might mean that Skye would be leaving them regardless of her talents or desire to get out of the game. “Yes, please.”

Skye gets inside last. She takes the three sets of bags and tosses them onto the ground. They scatter around the couch. All of them will pick their own shit up once they're in a better mentality. One that matters for being home. Until then there’s a different set of rules to play by. “Friday, can you direct me to where some spare blankets might be?”

“I’d love to. There’s a closet with blankets in the hallway leading to the offices that has some blankets for if people get cold while doing paperwork for hours.”

Skye follows the instructions and grabs the blankets. She throws one of them over James with an air of ease as she curls up into his body with another draped over herself. The third she leaves out for Natasha to maneuver however she wishes. Her eyes start fluttering closed. The day weighing on her further and further.

“Tony, I need a favor,” Natasha calls from the kitchen.

Tony blinks once. Then, he shakes his head. “You know that you don’t have to ask whatever you want if it’s mine to give.”

“I want Skye to be a member of the family. No questions or nothing.”

James shoots up from the couch and scrambles for his back. “Seconding her motion by the way,” he mutters as he finds the sheets that Natasha had finally placed back in his bag after they had finished up the testing. He shoves the papers towards Tony with a proud little smile on his face. “I finished them by the way.”

Tony takes the paper. He places them in his lap and sighs. “Natasha, make enough for the whole family. If she’s joining, we better get everyone down here.”

Skye grumbles slightly. “Groups aren’t my thing.”

“Bullshit, darling, you’re with us,” Natasha says. She comes out with a tray full of mugs. Way more than who’s currently in the living room. “Anyone who wants to come can, but the three of us stay curled on this couch and you touch us at your own risk.”

“Relaying the message, Natasha,” Friday chimes in.

That’s the last thing that Natasha gives any thought to as she gets into the couch with the blanket draped lightly over just her feet as she tucks them further into the cushions.

Chapter Text

Morning comes groggily for Melinda. In fact nearly every morning since they had gotten to the new Avengers compound had been a task of her dedication to not falling into the hole of depression, but it doesn’t seem to be getting better. Every single day feels worse than the last. But, she refuses to be left behind. She refuses to stop being the calvary just because her brain has decided that now is a good and delightful time to have something akin to a breakdown if not a real one.

She drags herself down to the gym. The route now engrained in her brain enough that she doesn’t have to ask the computer in the walls how to get there. That rarely spares her from getting any comments.

“Have you considered getting any breakfast before you work out?” Friday asks from the speaker in the ceiling.

Melinda shakes her head softly. “I’m one of the many women, I’ve been told, that have a metabolism that hates them in the mornign when they wake up. If I ate anything, I’d be sick in the bathroom for the next several hours.”

“That can’t be healthy.”

“It is life.” Melinda enjoys the computer somedays. She sees the world through such a different light than what humans do. She never has to wonder what consequences having a body would have. She doesn’t even really have to wonder about death. She’s more or less infinite. That would be nice. To be infinite. Somewhere far away from here and completely infinite.

That’s the goal she tells herself as she lines herself up to do stretches on the floor.

Natasha raises an eyebrow as someone enters the gym long before the sun rises. With her and James in the house, it is not all that uncommon for more than one of them to be up before the light hits the sky. Even still, James doesn’t enter the gym this early. He believes that the morning should be for leisure. She twists her head and sees Melinda.

She regards Melinda closely. The way that she is doing actions without having any conscious thought. This feels as though she’s taking action and not thinking anything through. Which is something that indicates a sub drop. A long-standing sub drop possibly even with withdrawal on top of it. That’s terrifying.

“Calvary, what the hell are you doing?”

Melinda blinks at the voice that is definitely not the computer. “Umm.”

“Did you even notice that you weren’t even the only one in the gym? Christ, are you alright, May?”

Melinda shivers as she moves through her stretches without pausing for the conversation. “No, but then you are the sneakiest of every agent we’ve ever had. Perhaps, I have gotten so used to you not being able to be seen that I didn’t bother looking for you.”

Natasha stares at her. That’s the worst deflection of the asked question that she thinks she’s ever heard. Like at least most of the time she gets at least a half-assed excuse about not worrying about people in the area. That’s the excuse she heard most often in the barracks. “Melinda, you’re not doing alright.”

Melinda huffs. She wants this conversation to be over. She wants to return to the simple motions that she’s been doing on repeat practically since they got here. Those are safe and firm options that she can follow. That’s why she uses them so often because everything seems to be on the verge of collapsing around her other than that she’s standing firm where she is when she’s able to follow the routine.

Natasha inches closer. “Can you listen to me for just a minute?”

“I have been,” Melinda snaps harshly. That’s all she’s been able to do since she ended up in the room with the black widow. She hasn’t managed to come up with a way out of the conversation or away from the topic enough that she’s back to being on a solid surface, and she’s so tired.

“I need you to listen and hear me this time, Melinda.” Natasha’s not above pleading. Not when she can see all of the signs of a drop. “Please.”

Melinda closes her eyes. She regulates her breathing carefully. “I’m listening.”

“You’re dropping,” Natasha says at the same even tone. Careful not to push anything other than pure facts. “I know that Skye is a dominant on your team, within your circle of trust, I can go get her.”

Melinda isn’t even near close enough to being able to stop the flinch that covers her body. In her heart, she knows that Skye would never harm her. That Skye would not take advantage of the way that she’d place her body in her arms, but that means nothing anymore. Grant had that trust too, and he hurt her more than anyone else. They had scened less than a day before his betrayal. They had shared that carnal urge with trust as the backbone, and then he had hurt her in a way that no one else would ever be able to do so.

Natasha holds out her hands in an upward motion. “Okay, I won’t go get her. But, Melinda, you’re dropping. You need a dominant. Is there someone I can call? Someone that I can get? Literally any option other than leaving you here to deal with this on your own when you don’t have to?”

Melinda blinks her eyes open. She matches Natasha’s gaze as the pieces finally align in her head to realize that the reason she’s been focused on the routine and otherwise never leaving her room has a reason. That reason is rather simple in the long run, that reason is that her dominant had failed her, failed her to such an extent that she dropped harshly and hasn’t had any help getting restabilized and can’t find that now.

“I don’t trust her, because the reasons I would trust her are the reasons I trusted the person who got me to this state. And he betrayed me in the worst way imaginable, and I’m not okay. So, no, I don’t know who you could get. I don’t know whether anyone is going to be able to help me out of this one.”

“How about an arrogant bastard?” Tony quips as he steps into the gym. He winks towards Natasha.

Melinda twists to find herself staring at the host of their current living situation. She hadn’t expected him to come down to the gym, from what she recalls, he’s not one that usually ends up in the gym. His fighting style doesn’t require the same muscles that the rest of them since he doesn’t attack without a giant suit of iron. She swallows feeling the motion deep in her throat, unsure how to explain the reason behind her strange behavior.

“To trust that is,” Tony adds. He casts his eyes over, cataloging all the ways that she seems to be splintering apart. He’s really got to work with Friday on identifying this, so that she can alert him earlier, if there’s a problem within his home.

“Don’t know you, not really.”

“True, but last time I checked, one-night stands exist. Even one-night stands for scenes, and I’m more than happy to help, in whatever ways that I can, should you wish.”

Melinda’s eyes turn back towards Natasha for a moment. “You trust him?”

“With my life.”

Melinda shakes her head softly and leaves the gym. She’s too wired up to ever consider a new dominant. Unfortunately, the only one that she would consider is Skye, and Skye is a problem right now because of the cause of her drop.

A few days pass without issue, until one morning Melinda wakes up hours later than what she normally does, shaking head to toe covered in sweat. That’s the first time that she realizes something is truly wrong. Her body isn’t capable of holding on any further in this drop and not going down isn’t helping her any.

“Friday, is Dr. Stark here?”

“Yes, Agent May. He’s currently down in his lab working. Would you like me to pass on a message?”

“No, uh, no thank you, Friday. Could you tell me whether he allows people to go down there or whether it would be best to go ahead and wait for him to finish what he’s working on?”

“Agent May, my protocols are a little rusty when it comes to what to do when it comes to submissives that aren’t his in a drop, but I’d say a reasonable exception could be made to let you in. Especially if you’re the one asking to be let in and not just demanding it.”

Melinda slips out of her bed. “Can you lead me there, preferably without me having to run into any of the other residents?”

Friday flashes a nice light up to start the lead towards the private elevator to take her down to the lab, while also alerting others to the hallways that should be avoided for the moment. She used the excuse of the cleaning robots to ease suspicion, but Natasha had a small smile on her face that screams that she knows the truth, and so does Phil.

Friday seems to understand that both of those people within the family know the importance of secrets. They won’t share Melinda’s without good reason, and for the moment, this is the best that she can do to mitigate the dangers of Melinda heading down the workshop alone.

Melinda waits for the elevator to let her out before stepping into the lab almost as silently as possible. She doesn’t know how to start this conversation, and she’d hate to get off on the wrong foot in the middle of trying to start a scene that she’s already a bit terrified of having.

“No need to try to pretend, Melinda. I heard the elevator, and there are only a few people who Friday would allow down here when I’m on a project like this, and you’re the only one that wouldn’t speak when they first come in.” Tony spins around to face her, and he has to bite back a sigh. It’s painfully obvious that it’s a lot worse than what it was when he interrupted her in the gym with Natasha. Still, he’s not the one that needs to start this conversation.

Melinda averts her head away from his gaze. She knows what kind of mess that she looks like right now, and it’s not a good one. “My preferred way to go down is pain play. Preferably done by hand, not by implement, but today I'm not going to be choosey.”

“You’re literally always welcome to be choosey with me, as I am up for just about anything. Would you like to engage in a pain play session?”

“I would like to go down into sub space so that the drop can stop impacting me and be brought up and not betrayed and not to feel as though I’m going to be at the first hint of trouble. I don’t think I’ll be able to get the last one, I might get the other three and I’m choosing to actually hold on to that right now,” she snaps.

Melinda realizes after a beat that yelling at a dominant that isn’t hers while she’s actively asking them for a favor isn’t her smartest move. “Sorry, Dr. Stark, I’m on edge.”

“No need for apologies.” Tony rakes his eyes up and down her for a long time, longer than he would usually allow himself, but sicne she is actively asking him to play, he’s willing to push this just a tiny bit to encourage her to actually take this seriously. “Also, if we’re going to play, it’s Tony. I don’t like honorifics. And I am so not used to my title being used ever. Too many people in my business like to pretend like they don’t know I have it, or better yet that it doesn’t matter that I have it.”

Melinda bites down on her lip. She inclines her head. “Tony, then. Will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Scene with me.”

“Sure. Describe what you want from me.”

“Pardon?”

Tony gives her a half wry grin. “Yeah, tell me what you’d like me to do to you. You said you like pain play. You want me to pin you against that wall over there and bite across your neck until you’re cursing my name, barely not bleeding from your neck? Want me to rip that shirt off of you with the tiniest bit of effort possible? Want me to slap you across your face when you get the urge to buck up against my leg that I’ve slotted against my thigh? Want me to keep pushing and pushing until you manage to respond in a way that is too far in my eyes? Then drag you across that desk over there and lay on your ass with my hand until you’re so desperate that you’re willing to chase the pain from the corner of the desk to get any friction at all? How do you feel about me dragging you by the hair down to the floor, spreading you eagle across that floor and starting to tease you with my fingers and any time you chase the pleasure that I’m choosing to impart on you, I slap your thighs or your pussy to remind you that you only take what I give you? Only for me to finally let you come when I’m confident that there’s no more pain that I can pull from your body?”

Melinda’s mouth has long since fallen open as she gapes. She knew that some people enjoyed a bit of pain with their pleasure. She knew that she was one of those people, but she doesn’t think that she’s ever had the pleasure of someone who knew every button to push to make this a dream come true rather than something to dread. “Yes, please.”

Tony quirks his lips into a half smile. “Not the answer that I asked for.”

Melinda scans her memory and finally lands on the fact that he wanted her to speak. Wanted her thoughts on a scene. Even though her mind is muddy from the drop and aroused as hell from that description of what he said he would do, but she could play that game if that’s the thing that Tony would ask from her. “All of what you said. All of what you said, but when you rip my shirt off, rake your nails down the sides of my ribs until I’m screaming for mercy. All of what you said, but unhook the clasps of my bra and bite and pinch at my nipples until you’re damn sure that if you touch them again, they might come off. All of what you said, but when you’re teasing my clit with your fingers, press down too hard until I’m squirming not trying to get more pleasure but trying to get away from a pressure that verged from pleasure a few too many moments before. All of what you said, but when you’ve got me in the eagle position on the floor, force me to put weight on my bruised ass and feel that heat as you allow me even a hint of something nice.”

Tony offers her a real grin this time. That’s exactly what he had asked from her. Such a good girl to do what he said once she remembered what had been asked. And without time for a full contract or even a very normal version of consent, he’s gotten her to say exactly what she wants from the scene. “Beg,” he orders.

“Make me.” The words fall from her lips as a form of defense. She’s practically begged him to take her apart in a violent show of force, she shouldn’t have to beg.

“As you wish,” Tony drawls. Then, he’s moving faster than she would ever be prepared for. For some reason most of the agents of Shield and several of his teammates before they had fought together more than once at the end of the world, didn’t realize that he could move with speed and grace. They forget that he’s an engineer working with metals that are harder, larger and tougher than most of the things even welders did. They forget that there is a human who has to keep up with the suit inside the suit.
He’s got her against the wall in a matter of seconds. He leans down until his breath is right across her lips. “Thought you’d put up much more of a fight.”

Melinda gears up to come up with some response. Something witty, something bratty, something certain to get his hands on her skin in less of a building pressure and more of a stinging pain. Instead, Tony smashes their mouths together in a kiss that would bruise her lips. He’s not gentle as he pushes his tongue through her lips almost daring her to bite down on his tongue, but again she doesn’t get a chance because her lip is between his teeth and he’s biting down. She lets out a low whimper, that she knows is going to confirm exactly what he thought when he got her to confess what she wanted.

Tony moves his leg to help him pin her against the wall, along with giving her something to rub on, because his entire plan is to ensure that she’s good and desperate by the end of this. He wouldn’t be surprised if rather than easing into subspace, she falls headfirst into it as she realizes that he’ll make good on everything he offered and everything that she asked for. God, he hopes that she doesn’t get stuck in her own head.

He reaches one hand up to tangle in her hair and push her head back into the wall. He doesn’t cushion the blow like he normally would. That way she gets that slight daze from the blow. He knows concussions as an old friend well enough to know exactly how hard to go to ensure that there’s no risk of one. Then, his mouth is against her neck. He’s sucking and biting at the skin, relishing at every curse word that leaves her mouth. He takes great pleasure in the curses that don’t turn into full words as the teeth barely not breaking the skin leads to her letting out these breathy little pants that will turn into moans before too long.

That’s when he feels it for the first time. The way that her hips jerk up just a tiny breath of movement, rubbing against his jeans. Light enough that if she hadn’t landed in slightly the wrong position that he wouldn’t have felt it. He rips his teeth from her neck to snarl at her even through her whimpers and half of a please.

Crack. Melinda’s head snaps to the side from the brunt of the slap. Her tongue flopping out to taste the blood on her lip and her head re-positioned from the hold that he has in her hair. Her air is coming shallower, and she can’t find the words to say a thing. So, she chooses a half smile instead. A half smile and to arch her body up in a silent offer to him. An offer to come back to her and do what he wants, to chase violence against her skin in some a way that allows her the beauty of not having to deal with thoughts for another several minutes.

Tony chuckles when he sees her eyes. Already glazed over and begging for more. His gut is right once again, and she’s enjoying herself to an immense level. True to his word, he returns back to her neck. There are still parts that aren’t littered in bruises. This time anytime he changes his position, he allows his teeth to scrape over the already formed bruises. That gets him choked off gasps as she realizes that he could go back. He could choose to close his teeth over the places that he’s already harmed to draw a shout from her lips. And maybe he would at a different time, but that’s not when she asked to scream, and he’s a man of his word.

He pulls back from her beck when he can’t see a single piece of skin that is her natural color. He keeps her head upright against the wall, realizing that his weight is the only thing keeping her on her feet. She’s still got that goofy smile on her face, and she’s not putting up any sort of fight at all. So, he’s all good to continue and give her exactly what it is that she asked for, which was love in the form of violence.

His free hand comes to grip at the edge of her shirt as he realizes that he needs his other hand. He lets her head drop, and she rolls it back. She doesn’t let it fall and harm his plan even as her eyes droop. She just stares at him waiting for his next move, because it is his next move. He chooses what happens next. He determines whether she gets to move on or whether she gets the same torture for a time.

Her understanding strengthens as she feels the fabric rip over her skin. The tears a reminder that Tony has the strength to take her down and keep her down, which is all that she wants from this day. She wants to feel the way that she does when there’s nothing but being pushed to the limit. She wants that desperately.

Tony throws the offending garment off to the side before considering. His plan had been to lay on some light slaps to the sides where he wouldn’t risk harming any of her organs, but where there would be memorable marks of someone slapping them with all the safe amounts of strength. However, she wants his nails. What to do? What to do?
Melinda accidentally shapes the nature of the next few minutes as she tries to find enough purchase to rock her hips more firmly against him. Try to see whether she could turn him on as much as she felt right then. Forgetting in her blissful state that Tony had promised to slap her for every single time that she did it.

Crack. Tony's hand lands across her face first, the opposite direction from the last time he did it, and this time since his hand wasn’t in her hair to keep her head from taking the full brunt of the hit, she dozes for a quick second before the grunt passes through her lips. She had forgotten how good it feels to have someone willing to slap her and not worry about retaliation. Forgot how wonderful it was to have someone there to fight for her.

Tony wonders whether he should be speaking. Telling her that she was good for taking all of this pain for him. Telling her that she could take more, that she would take more as a constant threat. He doesn’t know her preference on talking though, and right now they seem to be doing more than fine with only noises and sounds to guide them. So rather than telling her that she should probably get a bit more of a punishment for daring to try to get enough movement that she wanted leverage, he just moves his hand down over her stomach and lands a comparatively light hit.

The thing with the soft tissues that don’t have as many muscles around them is they hurt like a bitch at the slightest touch. Melinda can’t help the actual pained breath of air that leaves her as she tries to tuck down around her stomach only to be stopped by one of his hands pinning her by her shoulder. Melinda pants as she tries to regain her breath while trying so hard not to actually lean down and beg him to do it again. To do it harder. Anything, everything, just more.

Tony watches her carefully. The first reaction had been to tuck inwards to protect her organs, which is definitely something that anyone in her line of work should have an instinct for. The second reaction is the one that he’s more concerned for. Does she move towards the pain or away? This one could be further than she would prefer and he’s not going to push her into giving more than she wants to give at a time like this. No matter what she had said at the start of this scene.

Luckily for him, that reaction is to inch towards him asking for more. Not quite sure whether words are welcome or not. He’s not going to push her to speak this time. This time, he actually believes her when she uses only her body to give him cues. Perhaps because she’s in subspace after a drop and almost definitely incapable of trying to manipulate him or perhaps because she had spoken so frankly. As if her needing to scene was something to be shamed and not part of human nature.

He leans over and runs his hands over her stomach before landing a light slap right over it to watch it jiggle and to hear her little stutter of breath as she expected more pain and got none of what she anticipated coming from him. That’s as his other hand curls around her arm to yank her up to expose her side. He gets his nails over the skin, but he doesn’t rake his nails down yet. No instead he reaches up to pinch the sensitive part of her underarm.

Melinda jerks under his grasp not prepared for the pain to be that focused. She’s about to go up on her tiptoes to find out whether that alieves any of that pressure, when it’s abruptly gone from her skin entirely. She doesn’t wait long for the next sensation as there’s a harsher slap against her stomach that has her arching under him again. She’s not quite grinding against him. She doesn’t want this part of their session to end quite yet and she had been promised once she was that desperate, she was going across a desk. She wonders distantly whether he’s as good as exacting the pain on someone’s ass as he is with her neck.

Tony watches as her mind loses itself in the sensations. She’s with him when there’s pain right there for her to hold on to, but the second that he’s no longer the center of her focus, her mind runs forward. He presses his nails right up against her armpit as if he’s going to pinch again and lets out a groan as he feels the tension grow under him. He drags them down her side and she lets out a shout as she feels her skin rise up.

Melinda realizes belatedly that Tony’s using enough force on her skin that these marks won’t leave her for at least a week if not longer. He’s making sure that if after she comes up, she needs concrete proof that everything was fine, she’ll have marks. She’ll have marks no matter which part of her she needs to be connected to. She lets out a sob as she realizes that without being her dominant, he’s taking care of her better than any that she’s had before.

Tony rips his hand away from her. He releases her arm. They’d negotiated quite a lot, but not a part where she was going to be letting out sounds like that. Sounds that remind him that some people won’t stop even if there is clear distress on their submissive’s faces. The kind of people that one day he wants to bury in shallow graves to ensure they can’t use their power to hurt anyone. “Melinda, can you give me a color?”

Melinda recognizes the fact that Tony is no longer pressed up agianst her. She can even partially make out the fact that he’s asking her to give him a color for her mental state. She’s not so sure that words can even describe what she’s feeling, so instead she presses her own head against the wall as she tries to force her brain to give her a real answer.

Tony places his hands up in the air. A clear gesture of surrender and stays away. He’s not sure what’s going on in her head, and while if this was one of his subs, he’d have them in his arms the second they started panicking like that, she’s not his. Not in the ways that count anyway. “Color, Agent May?”

“Don’t call me agent when we’ve been scening.” The words manage to get their way out of her mouth. Just a gut reaction to what he had just said. Nothing else makes it out. Like the fact that she’s green but also if he could please actually hold her like he holds his submissives afterwards that would be fantastic. Like the fact that she craves more of his marks, but she’s not sure she should take the ownership that she wants from that.

“Melinda, can you give me a color?”

“We didn’t discuss aftercare,” she mutters. She’s not confident that she can continue if she can’t get comfort from him along with the pain.

Tony’s brow furrows. He’s been pretty confident that she’s been in subspace or subdrop for a quite long time. This is not a normal reaction unless she’s somewhat concerned about him just patching her issues and leaving her in the dirt. “Okay, is there something that you need from me?”

“Don’t leave me.”

“Longer conversation is definitely needed for me to understand what you need from me, and that conversation cannot happen while you are mentally compromised. I promise that I’m not going to leave you before you come up.”

Melinda freezes at those words. That feels as though he’s promising her many things that are beyond her reach at the moment. So far beyond her reach, that she’s not sure whether she should actually trust in the words that are being spoken. “Are you confident?”

Tony inches forward until he can lay a hand on her shoulder, carefully keeping away from the bruises that he’s already put on her skin. This is one of the top reasons that he hates doing scenes without a proper checklist where he doesn’t know where potential landmines would be. “I will stay, and I will as soon as you give me a good color, continue to do all of the other things that I said. That is the glory of being my submissive for the evening. All that you must do is exist.”

Melinda takes in a couple of breathes that might actually be closer to sobbing than she would like. She nods in once, twice until she’s confident that everything is at least somewhat normal. “Green, Doctor Stark.”

“Okay, if I can’t call you agent, you can’t call me doctor.”

Melinda chokes back a laugh as she knows that the scene doesn’t really have the air of humor in it. Not when she had started it by practically begging for pain, and not when she had to pause it because of her own insecurities that have only grown worse since Grant’s secrets had been revealed to the team.

Tony watches her carefully before stalking forward. His face doesn’t have a trace of mercy on it now. The agreement between them was that the scene would be rough, and while when she needed him to pause, he would be as gentle as he could get, when she said green, he had to be the kind of person that could bring pain.

His hand shoots out to grip her hair tight. He almost let his hand hit her face again, but he wants her attention to not be divided as he guides her back towards the wall. The grip forces her to move with him. Her knees almost buckle several times as he controls both of their movements, but they hold for the moment.

Only once they’re back against the wall, does he ponder his options. He has a lot more promises to keep in this scene, and a lot more noises to learn how Melinda makes. Thus, he uses his foot to kick her legs apart, almost to a stance wide enough to verge on the uncomfortable. Then, he pushes her down to rest on that leg.

Melinda’s eyes blow wide as she realizes that Tony won’t show any hesitation after her screw up of asking for more things. Even as she’s placed harshly on his leg, she can’t bring herself to wonder what will come next. Or at least she doesn’t until there’s a pressure on her stomach and it’s continuing forward as Tony pushes against her body into the wall in a way that is painful beyond belief.

“Hands,” Tony says coldly. He could have reached down and gathered them up in one of his hands and slammed them into the wall, but that’s not nearly as much fun as giving her a different pain until she returns them to the position they had been in before.

Melinda pants for breath as she raises one of her hands up to the wall. The other one is a bit harder. Her hands are the only thing that she currently has to support her weight. As much as she happens to believe that Tony won’t let her fall, it is a horribly large thing to trust.

Tony doesn’t give her much longer to decide. He leaves her stomach alone, instead going lower, lower, until he rakes his nails as hard as he can across her inner thigh, causing her to jerk her hips up and away from him. Then, he slaps her across her face for moving, just as he had promised. Cruelty written across his face, a mask that he wears well on the occasions that someone might ask him to.

Melinda lets out a gasp unable to contain the silence as the hit rakes her body. She forces that other hand up as her body drops onto Tony’s weight. It’s a struggle to be able to hold her hands up at that level without any help like this.

Tony releases her hair to be able to wrap his hand to slam them up against the wall. He cups her face with the other hand for a minute to check and make sure that her eyes are still focused if fuzzy and blurred. His hand drops to her side as he presses in until the nails are only barely not drawing blood.

Melinda arches up against Tony once his nails start moving down the side. Her skin is prickling up under the movements, and he’s going over them in designs. She wouldn’t be surprised if when they’re done with the scene that she could find proper designs written across her skin. She twists and turns and the next slap to her face is a welcome hit.

Tony watches as Melinda turns towards the hit the second the force stops holding her head in place. He lets out a dark chuckle as she tries to get like a little kiss against the offending hand. When he lets her reach the hand, her entire body slumps as she takes that moment to express the gratitude that she feels. After that, he’s done playing with that side, so he switches over to the other side.

The arc reactor doesn't have enough lines for him to do that design on her. However, the little areas of code for all of his AIs over the years will fit down the side of her ribs. That’s how he drags his nails down her side, and up and to the side. Little shouts occur when he has to go back over one of the larger lines that he’s done.

Melinda fights against his hold as the other side gets the same attention. She both loves and hates the amount of attention to detail that he’s giving her. She loves the fact that her mind is forming thoughts only detailed around the pain that he’s giving her. She’s not sure that she could even fight against the amount of pain that’s soaring through her anymore. But she also hates how the pain is spreading down her body inch by inch.

Tony stops at her hip bone and lets his fingers dip lower as a small tease of what’s to come. Only to watch in amusement as she flinches in shock and terror that he might drag those nails across her thighs. He might one day play with that fear, but for today, he’s not willing to go too far off of what has been told to him during that day in case there’s a hidden limit that he hasn’t been let in on.

He trails his hands back up until his hand is against the center of her sports bra. He’s never tried to rip such a fabric before, but he’s not planning on letting her up from that wall until he’s pushing her down and over a table. “Color on me grabbing a knife?”

Melinda blinks before realizing that her bra would pose a problem. He’s right that fabric like this won’t rip easy. It might be easily ripped by a super soldier or possibly even in a fight by weapons. “Green.”

Tony reaches over to grab a blade and inches it under the bra. He’s careful to make sure that while the cold metal is against her skin, the blade is never pointed towards her. The fabric falls apart under the cut that he makes, and the bra falls down to the floor. He takes the time to place the blade far away from them.

“New toys,” he quips before running a single finger in a circular motion around one of her nipples. He waits until that nipple is nice and hardened in shape, then he was willing to reach over to pinch that same nipple until her yelps turned into a brief scream.

Melinda has to take a second to catch her breath. “Did no one ever tell you not to break your toys?”

“I’ve heard it once or twice, but I haven’t broke you yet.” Then, he ducks his head down to take that nipple in his mouth and bite down. He’s careful not to put enough pressure to break the skin, but he definitely nips deep enough that she’s clawing against his wrist to be free from the sensations.

Eventually, he does pull back to give her a break. He’s considering himself to be a nice person for allowing that break as his finger starts circling her other nipple. Her eyes going wide as she feels that, brings him a lot of excitement. He’s pretty confident that his final action for her nipples will give him enough of a reaction to justify him spinning her around to lay burning hits against her ass.

Melinda is prepared for the order this time. There’s pleasure causing her core to throb. She wants to grind her pussy down, but she knows that will only get Tony to laugh and slap her silly for the presumption. The pinch comes second. The pinch forces her eyes to be squeezed shut to keep herself from fighting against the touch. The bite results in her forcing her nails into the palms of her hands until she draws droplets of blood.

She’s lost soon enough though, because he turns away from that nipple draws the other into his mouth and then his hand rakes nails down across her other nipple as he bites down. Her control is ripped away from her. She bucks against his hold to reach down and touch his hair to pull him away.

Tony pulls away from her only to grab her by the shoulders. “Oh, darling, I hope you know that you’ll regret that.”

Her head is down against a desk as her body is maneuvered to have her ass sticking out. It’s only then when he’s spreading her legs where her ass is violently exposed that she recalls his threat. This time she’s confident that the pain is going to be delightful.

Tony’s slaps have no purpose other than to bring color to her ass. His only goal is to make sure that even a gentle pass from his hand will bring her enough pain to make her wince. The tops of her ass aren’t really as fun to hit, mostly because that’s the time he has to focus so that the hits don’t land on bones where he can cause internal pain to her that aren’t her intentions. His favorite though is when he hits the thighs and not a thing can stop her from jerking across the desk.

Melinda curses under her breath as each hit lands. The fire burning under her skin is irritating as the hits just keep coming. Her breaths come in tiny little pants in between the constant barrage of hits. She’s grateful for the pressure of Tony’s hand on the center of her back because outside of the this that’s the only thing she can focus on.
Tony’s eyes are playing a constant vigilance game with Melinda today. She’s already proven that her and pain get along like wood and a fire, but that doesn’t mean that there will be a point of going too far, nor does it mean that he can’t hit that without ever knowing when someone loves pain as much as this. He’s got the line he’s planning on taking her to, the line that he can easily adjust to, and the emergency we’re done here line just in case she starts showing symptoms of not having a good time because he’s not that kind of asshole no matter what other people seem to think of him.

Melinda freezes the first time one of his hits comes damn close to the center of her ass where her asshole is. She hadn’t considered that a place that he might line up his hits. She should have known better. There’s a certain kind of cruel depravity that he’s unleashed on her once she asked for it and that fits in with it perfectly. Hit one across only her asshole cupped and designed to bring delicious levels of pain, leads to her eyes rolling towards the back of her head. By the fifth, her hips are rolling. The corner of this desk is not designed to be able to chase an orgasm.

Tony has to bite down on his tongue once he realizes that a more deliberate pain was what it took to have her chase an orgasm. He’s also confident that she stopped paying attention to the rules of the day. He reaches down to grip her head and raise it off the desk. “Now, now, what did I say about chasing your own pleasure?”

“Shit,” Melinda whimpers. She recalls that her orgasm will be the last thing granted to her tonight. She moves with Tony when he starts dragging her back off the desk and onto the ground. If she had been a smarter person, she would have caught her feet under her to cushion her fall, so she doesn’t go hard down on her ass. Alas, she is not a smarter person.

Tony laughs deeply as she lands on the ground. He himself goes down on the floor with a gentler action. That’s important since his knees and legs are not what they used to be by any stretch of the imagination. He pushes her out until he spreads her limbs into the furthest position still comfortable.

He places her hand over her pussy and applies pressure. He’s curious whether she’s capable of being patient enough for him to decide when she gets more right away, or whether she’s going to try her luck.

Melinda forces herself to stop from jerking into his touch. She breathes in heavily to prevent any stray thoughts. All her control goes out the window though when Tony starts rolling his wrist to give her a slow consistent movement against her clit. Then, she’s writhing along the floor.

Tony slaps her on either thigh with his other hand, harsh and sharp. He pins her down afterwards to keep her from immediately closing all of limbs into herself. That would be bad for his goals. He flicks his thumb out against her clit.

Melinda grinds her hips down to stop herself from moving upwards towards Tony’s touch. She’s hoping that moving away from his touch isn’t going to count as breaking the rules in any fashion although she’s also pretty sure that she’s not going to get her wish based on the way that she’s immediately removed from stimulation.

Tony slaps his hand down right over her pussy with a fake stern look on his face. “No moving, Melinda.”

Melinda huffs for a second then tries to force her body to relax. This would be easier to do if her neck was not covered in bruises making it a task in a half to turn her head or if her ass wasn’t stinging enough to make training hell for the next few days. Still, she’s capable of calming herself down with her mental techniques for a moment.

Tony flicks one finger into her pussy and absolutely bursts out laughing when Melinda shouts and jerks upwards. “Ah, ah, ah.” He pulls out, so his canvas for hits is still available. He lands three hits back and forth over and over. He tries to make sure to hit in such a way that each of the blows will hurt her clit more and more.

Melinda rolls her head back, and Tony makes the decision that he’s brought her more than enough to be considered good to get her back down and up again. He places two fingers in her with his thumb over her clit. He keeps going with slow strokes until she’s trembling through her orgasm over his hand.

He pets her hair as she falls asleep at his feet, and then he pulls down a pad from the desk to be able to type up whatever procedures he can think of while he’s taking care of her. His projects will rest for no man. He makes sure to type up the email to send off to Pepper regarding the weapons for Asgard that he’s finally figured out the schematics for. It had taken him forever to come up with weapons for people with different physiques and strengths.

He’s hoping that these weapons will be used well by the Asgardian people. When Thanos comes, and he will come, they will need soldiers, and the Asgardian people are like an entire army of super soldiers who have had their whole lives to train like this.

Melinda comes down from her high pretty quickly. When she opens her eyes, she’s mostly surprised to see that Tony hasn’t left her side. However, she distantly recalls that she asked him to do that. “Hello, Dr. Stark.”

“You’re welcome to call me Tony.”

“You don’t know me,” she corrects gently. “I am grateful for the help, but eventually Phil will command me to go out and do a mission, and I will be gone from here for the rest of my life.”

“Yeah, nope. Phil’s keeping all teams on the ground until the final war which could be in like a few days or a few years. The world has a tentative peace until the war is lost or won from the aliens. So, you, my little spy, are sticking around for a while.”

Melinda pauses. “That doesn’t really change that you don’t know me.”

“I know a lot of things, Melinda. Natasha and Phil talk to me about the people they care about. And I know quite a bit about you.” Tony hesitates for a second. Then adds on to his sentence, “you can be a part of the family.”

Melinda picks herself off the ground. “I’ll consider it.”

Chapter Text

Turns out considering it didn’t take much time at all. The next day, she ends up kneeling next to Pepper the morning for breakfast, because doing such a heavy scene without any planning was a bit much on her system. Melinda is surprised that no one asks her questions, but after a few well-timed glances up, she learns that Pepper is terrifying anyone from daring to speak to her about all of this to her. She’s grateful for the intervention and not having to explain for a minute at least.

Phil reaches down and squeezes her shoulder. “So, Pepper, how long do we get to keep you in the compound? I know you have a company to run.”

“I’m back to the New York office as the base for my actions as CEO. Unless Congress calls me again, I’ll be in the area and staying the night for most of this month.”

“I won’t be,” Rhodey complains. “I’ve got to hit up Chinese government officials about whether or not we can come to an agreement on a truce between the West and East on everything for severe alien threat.”

Leo glances up from his plate in confusion. “I thought that the UN voted unanimously to uphold a peace treaty in all areas of conflict until the threat was dismissed.”

“Conflicts, yes. Calling in old debts, not so much. Bothering to help keep the world’s economy from tumbling into the dust as we fight to keep public appearance from realizing how bad off we’re on, not a chance in hell.”

Pepper folds her napkin and daps at her mouth. She turns towards Tony. “PR is good.”

“Good to go or just good?”

“Good to go on what?” Melinda asks. She hadn’t really planned on speaking at this meal, but those words scream something she should know.

Tony snorts in amusement and pulls out his phone to send her a message to let her know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t verbalize it with enough of only Phil’s family not his in the room. Even if he’s pretty sure that they will follow Phil’s lead, it’s better to be safe.

Melinda fishes out her phone when it buzzes. It reads: PR has a long-standing bet on when Pepper and I will just stop dealing with stupid politicians all together and take over the world instead. Her laughter fills the room and draws eyes right to her. Instead of filling everyone on the joke, she leans her head to Pepper’s thigh. “I hope they're ready to go.”

Pepper rolls her eyes but lets her hand reach out and run through Melinda’s hair. “They could be, if Tony gave them the signal.”

Tony winks at her. “You heard the ladies, Rhodey. If China decides to be uncooperative, let me know.”

The rest of breakfast goes normal. Less normal is the fact that Melinda willingly goes into the more family-oriented room with the rest of her team. She follows Skye into the room and kind of takes up one of the armchairs.

Skye glances over. “Are you doing okay?”

“I’m doing better than I was, let’s that count for something.”

Jemma looks over towards Melinda. “You kneeled for the Pepper Potts today, and that’s only something.”

Melinda raises her eyes to the ceiling and damns the fact that half of their scientists were recruited for their brains and not for their actual talents as spies. Most people would have read the room in that she didn’t actually want to talk about what has made her have a better chance at relaxing or the fact that similar to both Phil and Skye, she now has the ability to just walk towards any member of the family and hang out.

Skye chuckles under her breath. “Your fault for kneeling in a public place.”

“I was still floaty. There’s not a chance in hell that I’m crazy enough not to kneel when I’m still under and that close to my drop. It would have been best to kneel by Tony, but he was still out when I got up, and let’s be honest, Pepper and him have enough similarities in everything that I really didn’t have an issue with kneeling next to her instead.”

“And you went to Tony Stark because?”

“Because I wasn’t about to go to you or Mack. A team falls apart once it starts doing something like that. Case in point, the fact I was in that drop in the first place.”

Leo raises his hand and waits until they’re all looking at him before speaking. “Isn’t that kind of why we should though?”

Melinda closes her eyes. “On a small scale, no. Here’s the thing, making a family like Tony Stark has, is one of the most impressive things the man has ever done. And let’s be clear, this is the man who made one of the first superheroes out of metal in a desert under torture. The man who has helped integrate the Accords across almost every nation, and who is leading the charge against the world’s largest threat in the world. We are not Tony Stark.”

Mackenzie looks up towards her. “Doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have families.”

“Skye?”

Skye fights down the urge to smile at the fact that Melinda is trusting her enough to start explaining the concepts to other members of their little family. “What Melinda is saying is that a team within Shield can’t be a family. Shield as a whole has to operate outside of that kind of bond, because trusting people to that degree allowed hydra in. No one believed that Peggy Carter, founder and former lover of Captain America, would have brought in a Hydra doctor to develop anything, let alone procedures we still use. But she did. Trusting agents as family is a mistake.”

Melinda nods. “That being said, Phil might be the director, but I doubt that he’s going to be as Shield based as he used to be. He’s got a family here, and all of them have a hundred reasons to distrust organizations like this.

“And Phil wants to be a part of that circle of trust,” Mack summarizes.

“I quit,” Skye says. She knows that doesn’t help at all. She also happens to know that the next week or so would determine how the rest of their team was going to move. Were they going to still try to rebuild, or would they start over in a program like the Avengers? She’s all for breaking away from the government, especially with all the mutant shit being tossed around.

Eyes in the room turn towards her, and Skye recalls that she hadn’t actually said that she quit in quite those words out loud yet. She had mentioned taking the job at Stark Industries. She mentioned that at this point she was one of James Barnes’ dominants, and that Natasha Romanoff sometimes came to her when she wanted a low-key scene. Time would tell on whether Natasha would come to her for a more in-depth scene or not in the future.

Skye shrugs. “You all knew when we started this that I had trust issues against the government. It shouldn’t come as all that large of a surprise that after everything I want out.”

“You literally just went on a solo mission,” Leo points out.

Skye rolls her eyes. “Oh, yes. Solo mission, my only partners were the two superhero spies.”

“Wasn’t Phil’s mission,” Melinda corrects almost at the exact same time.

Leo glares at them both. They’re deliberately ignoring the point that he’s trying to make to them. “Tomatoes, tom-”a”-toes.” He points towards Skye with a grimace. “She is working for Dr. Tony Stark as a spy. That means that regardless of whether she quit the team or not, she’s still a spy, so why don’t these rules apply?”

Skye buries her face in her hands. She’s so tired of trying to explain her goals, so tired of trying to get the others to understand that even if they were good people, they were working for an organization that wasn’t always good under a government that was rarely good, and that Tony Stark was outside of that government or could get himself that way should the need arise.

Melinda on the other hand just sighs again. “Leo, do you remember the emotions we all felt when we found out that we were working with a hydra agent?”

“Of course. That was one of the worst days of my life.”

“Almost every agent was either a Grant or one of us. Every single one of us remembers that day as the day we found out that everything that we believed in was false. For some of us, Phil is enough of a bright light for us to follow, and for some of us, following anyone like that ever again is too much. For Skye, following Phil is not good for her. She knows that the government might one day try to convince Phil to do something wrong and since they’re in charge, he might bend to their will.”

“And Dr. Stark won’t?” Leo spits out. There’s anger boiling inside him. How could they believe that a stranger would fight for them more than the people they created a family with. That’s ridiculous.

“No, he won’t,” Jemma answers. She’s a little surprised that she’s speaking. She hasn’t since they started down this line of conversation. “He’d leak what the government wanted him to do to the news. He’d move Stark Industries from the United States. He might even go straight to the United Nations and beg them to take action. He has power outside of the government that he’s cultivated for years.”

Melinda inclines her head. “Surprising, little scientist.”

“I watched his speeches before and after the iron man thing. Mostly his scientific ones, but some of the press conferences that were supposed to be more aligned to the research of Stark Industries. The man is probably the most honest man, I’ve ever heard speak on such a constant scale.”

Skye lifts her head out of her hands. “Good, there’s hope for us still.”

Jemma shakes her head. “Melinda, you’ve been to this area before, yes?”

“Yeah, this isn’t the first time I’ve ended up in the country of New York.”

“Do you know where the nearest and safest home for submissives there is? I need to go down, and I’m not about to break the rule you just gave, nor am I willing to compromise my health. So I need to find a home.”

Melinda lifts her shoulders up in a shrug. “You could do that. There’s one in the nearest city, almost entirely funded by Tony Stark. You could also go see if Tony is willing, you’re in his house, in his eyes that means regardless of your constant submission that he would help when you needed it.”

Jemma purses her lips together. “That would be another burden to add onto him when he’s done so much to help us, and that feels wrong. Very wrong.”

“He won’t see it like a burden,” Skye corrects. “He’s not a trauma dominant because of his own trauma not because he wouln’t make a damn good one. You’re no burden.” She pauses. “If you’re not up to going to him though, that’s up to you, but before the home, there’s also Pepper who is almost always here. There’s Rhodey, who is doing his physical therapy here with the new crutches that allow him to walk. If you wait until he’s around Dr. Strange might be willing to assist too.”

Jemma chuckles under her breath. “Scared of me going to a home?”

“The compound is one of the safest places for this team. We have no idea whether there’s anyone still tracking us, since we did kill all of hydra, but that might not mean all of their supporters who want to see us harmed for what we’ve done. Also, they fixed the alien voodoo in Phil’s head, but that doesn’t promise the rest of us that the alien doesn’t remember our names and is waiting for a good time to come after us in his stead.”

Jemma pushes herself up from her chair. That decides it then, she’s got to go ask a dominant for aid, and because of the line of work that she chose before she knew all that it would entail, she needs to ask it of someone within the house. “Friday, could you ask any dominants currently in resident here whether they have time in the next couple days to help me go down?”

“Of course, Ms. Simmons, but perhaps if you had a checklist filled out that I could give them when they ask, it will allow for you to get an answer faster.”

“I have a copy on my phone, but who should I address it towards?”

“Your firewalls our impressive, Skye did a lovely job on them, but I am an AI system with nothing else to do other than work through walls like these for various tasks that someone in the home asks me to do. With your permission, I can grab the copy and upload it to the document hub for all contracts and checklists currently in use in the compound.”

Jemma has to admit to herself that’s a terrifying sentence. With power like that, she’s not wrong that Tony Stark could just ignore the government. He might not even have to jump ship to a different system, he could just tear this one to shreds and install his own. She’s pretty sure that if she had found this out a year ago, she would have been panicking about the harm that could be done by this or possibly even screaming that she’s scared about what might come from it, now she thinks that this is a wise decision for a tech genius to take. “Go ahead, Friday. It’s labeled as emergency use checklist.”

A knock came at the edge of the room within a few minutes, and Jemma turns to see Pepper Potts standing at the edge of the room.

Melinda gives Pepper a wave.

Pepper smiles towards Melinda. “Jemma, I hope it’s alright that I use your first name. Any of us would be happy to take a day off this week to help you. Just let us know what you would prefer, whom you would prefer, and what day. Don’t worry about scheduling, I’ve gotten very good over the years to take care of ensuring that everyone magically has days off when they want them or need them.”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly ask someone to take off work for me. Don’t even worry about schedules, I heard that there is a home for submissives nearby, I will call and make an appointment immediately.”

Pepper arches one of her brows. “I was under the impression that you would prefer one of us to help than going there.”

“I mean that would have been ideal, but that’s not a requirement to the point that I’m incapable of just ensuring that things are taken care of in a different fashion. I am more than happy to take care of my needs by calling to the nearest home as many submissives have done for decades now.”

“Or you could just go to Tony. His schedule is whatever he feels like doing on any given day for his various different jobs. He’d probably enjoy the challenge of adding a scene into his version of a planner. It would spice things up,” Pepper teases. “Anyway, all up to you, Jemma. I just wanted to come and tell you the options in case you were concerned or thought that there was anything happening that we couldn’t deal with. I’d hate for you to think that you were alone in this situation.”

Jemma blinks as Pepper walks back out of the room. “Is she serious?”

“About you not being a burden by asking them to take a day off, yes.”

Melinda huffs out a breath of air at that answer. “If you’re asking whether there would be any resentment if you asked them to take a day to help you, the answer is no. If you’re asking whether Tony would actually have fun trying to re-work his schedule to include you, the answer is probably. I watched the man get positively gleeful after I’d woken up from our scene because with the added time crunch, he had come up with a solution for Asgardian shields.”

Jemma holds her breath for one second, then two, then three, until her breathing felt normal again and where she didn’t have to constantly offer control towards it. “Friday, could you tell me whether Dr. Stark has anything on his checklist that suggests he would enjoy a scene with a service sub?”

“Yes, Ms. Simmons. He has a history of enjoying scenes like that. It is rated four stars in his checklist with a little note off to the side that he doesn’t enjoy any service scenes where he has to force the submission at a certain point.”

“Thank you, Friday. If you would please ask him what time would work best in his schedule to scene with me in the next couple days that would be appreciated?”

Leo drops his jaw as he turns to stare at her. “Are you serious?”

“What?” Jemma stands up and taps her fingers together. “I’m clearly getting to a stage where I could use going down in a healthy manner to keep myself from feeling anxious all of the time, and Dr. Stark has the most flexible schedule along with apparently a desire to assist me. Thus, I am going to take him up on that offer to assist myself.”

“Dr. Stark wishes me to tell you that he’d love for you to come down to the lab to chat real quick, if you’re free and available,” Friday interjects.

Jemma squeezes Skye’s shoulder as she walks away. She pauses once she gets to the elevator that she’s seen so many of the other people living here use to reach Tony. “Umm, Friday, I was under the impression that none of us were allowed to enter the lab.”

“That is correct, however, it was decided that this would be a fair exception.”

Jemma nods to the empty room as she clicks the button. “Is there like an NDA that he’d like me to sign regarding not sharing anything that I see down there?”

“There are some blank forms that I could have you sign,” Friday says. “But Dr. Stark did not ask for you to do so, thus there is no requirement on you to sign anything at all.”

“In your opinion, Friday, do you think it would put him or Ms. Potts at ease should I sign it?”

“It is my belief that everyone here trusts you, Ms. Simmons. There is not a threat of you going down there and seeing anything and then selling us out. That being said, I think that you might earn a reward from Ms. Potts if you do sign it of your own accord.”

“Will you send me the document?”

Jemma’s phone dings, and she pulls it out. She quickly fills out the necessary portions of the NDA. It does require another signature, and she hesitates over the button. In the end, she sends it to both Dr. Stark and Ms. Potts, whichever one of them wishes to sign her under this oath is fine by her.

Tony tilts his head to the side as Jemma steps in the lab. He waves the tablet in his hand in front of her. “You didn’t have to do this.”

The NDA being waved in front of her is not exactly what she had seen coming when she steps into the lab. That being said, Friday hadn’t said anything about Dr. Stark’s desire on the subject, only Ms. Potts. “I thought that it might be well received.”

“No kidding, fine. You got a name you prefer to be called?”

“Sorry, sir, what?”

“Your name is Jemma Simmons. Do you prefer being called Ms. Simmons as Friday does since you’ve never said any other words to the contrary? Would you like me to call you Jemma? That seems a lot more friendly for a discussion about what you’d like from a dominant. You might have a nickname that you go by when you’re not out being a government spy for Shield that your colleagues don’t know that you’d like me to use.”.

“Jemma is fine, sir,” she says. She takes a look around and pauses. “I’m not sure whether you’d like me to kneel or not, sir.”

Tony blinks then shakes his head. He hadn’t realized that she was constantly calling him sir, until that moment. “Tony, please. I dislike the term sir.”

“Oh,” she furrows her brow for a second. It is certainly not proper to call a dominant by their first name without a degree of closeness that has not been afforded to them. In fact, during a scene negotiation, it wasn’t proper regardless of whether they were close or not. At least, not proper to her, she knows that other people have more fluid dynamic. “Apologies, Dr. Stark. I did not know of your aversion to the title. Would you prefer me to use Doctor Stark, master, some other term that raises you above me?”

“Is there something wrong with my name?” Tony had only done a brief cursory read over her checklist and nothing close to a contract. He had a half plan for a scene written across his mind since he had seen where her limits and likes are.

“I’m a traditional service sub, Dr. Stark. It would be inappropriate for me to use your given name.”

“Even if I decided to flip up that skirt of yours and set you down on my dick like your checklist suggests you like, you’ll not call me by my given name.”

Jemma lets out a little giggle at that thought. The idea of Dr. Stark choosing to lift her up and take her for his own pleasure is something out of one of those cheesy insert fanfics that exist for famous people. “It would not, although the image is amusing, Dr. Stark.”

Tony can’t help but laugh along with her. She’s cute, that’s for sure. And he hasn’t scened with a traditional service submissive in a hell of a long time. This could be fun. “Will you be able to pull off Dr. Stark throughout a scene, or will you slip up at some point if it’s that long?”

“If it is your will, I will find a way.”

“Now that’s a traditional response.” Tony considers it for a moment. “I’d prefer if your slipped to master and not sir should you fail at calling me Dr. Stark during a scene. And you’re always welcome to slip up and use my name. Regardless of your background that is the one that the vast majority of my submissives use and it is my number one preference, so I won’t punish you for using it.”

Jemma inclines her head. That’s a reasonable enough demand. Perhaps she would try out some of the other titles she knew throughout the scene to see whether he enjoyed them. “Dr. Stark, you told Friday to ask me to come down here, may I ask what for?”

“Mostly to converse with you. I wanted to make sure that you weren’t trying to downplay how bad off you were to help us out, because I’d hate for you to suffer. Also, because I wanted to ask with something that you have on your checklist, and my schedule.”

“I will strive to answer any question you might have, Dr. Stark.”

Tony will never get used to service subs quick and easy submission. He’s used to having to work for it, he doesn’t mind in fact. He knows that it will make them feel better and in turn will help him be a better person for the submissive in that situation. “You’re a morning person, and I am not.”

Jemma remains silent. He hasn’t reached his question yet, and he asked her for an answer. Better to stay quiet and wait rather than interpret what he might wish her to answer. If his question was will she stay up, the answer would be as he required it. If his question was will you allow me to wake you up, the answer would be as you wish me to be awake.

Tony pauses unsure how to phrase this next part. “I need to work well into the late evening tonight. I’m doing the mock design of a new weapon for soldiers to use in the upcoming battle, and I need to know that they work before I send in anything because the consequences of not doing that would be atrocious.”

Again, Jemma is silent. She understands his reasoning perfectly. She had watched his I am Ironman speech. It was the only that didn’t touch science that she had paid attention to, but she thought it was important to see his reasoning. To hear him out and give him the benefit of the doubt, people have done far crazier things after being a prisoner of war like that. Cancelling his arms department had been a reasonable decision, so being scared that even when it was so important that someone would hurt others with his technology was reasonable. But this time, her silence needed a voice. “May I speak, Dr. Stark?”

“What? Oh, of course. Sorry, I swear I’m getting to my point.”

“It’s no matter to me, Dr. Stark, when you arrive at the question. I just, I know why weapons and you have such a sore spot, and I know Dr. Stark, that is unbelievably hard. I’d like to say something one of my professors once said to me when I was still an undergraduate just entering the sciences.”

“You’re always welcome to speak your mind.” Tony almost asks why she wants to tell him this story, but he gets the feeling that silence, and waiting might get him a better answer if he’s willing to wait.

“Science is not a matter of doing things in moderation, it is about reaching to the stars and beyond to come up with answers and technology that have never been before seen. Because we have chosen to work in such a field, moderation can never be in our name. There will be consequences to those actions, and those consequences will rarely be from you. They will be other people corrupting your work and using something that was meant to save to do harm, and let me tell you, you will never be a scientist if you spend all your time worried about what might come to be. The evils done with your creation are no more yours to carry the guilt of, than anyone who has created the knife to eat meat or the person who struck the flame of the first fire. Good things come with evil ones, and all the best beliefs won’t save you.”

Tony blinks. He hadn’t considered that other scientists had gone through the same struggle he has faced his whole life, and he hadn’t really thought about the fact that he doesn’t blame anyone else for the evil that was brought about by their work. Hell, he still never put any of the blame for Ultron on Bruce despite him being an equal portion of most of the science. “That is incredibly wise.”

Jemma smiles at him. “I’m glad you think so, Dr. Stark.”

They stand there in silence for a little while, Tony trying to come up with the way he’d like to say the next words to her. “You have on your checklist that you like being woken up, specifically already being used for what your dominant wants.”

She nods that time. This seems like there is an actual question underlying the words. Like he needs to be sure that she hadn’t clicked the wrong box.

“How would you feel about going to sleep in a room not protected by your team as I don’t relish being shot, where once I’m done with my work, I can come in and start the scene?”

Jemma takes a moment to consider this. Her checklist is there to tell people where her lines generally are, so scenes like this are easy to plan out. That being said, her desire to please in that aspect is one that she rarely does with strangers. However, is Dr. Stark even remotely a stranger at this point. She’s living in his home, she’s eating off of his dime, and almost all of her friends love him enough to trust him with themselves at their most desperate. “Sure, Dr. Stark. That’d be fine, as long as you don’t judge me too harshly for whatever words come out of my mouth once I realize that I’m awake.”

Tony throws his head back and laughs. He hadn’t even considered that it might be difficult for her to adjust to the situation once waking up. A scene like this hasn’t crossed his mind in ages as almost all of his submissives need to know about the situation long before they get to the playing portion of the evening. “No judgment, cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Oh, don’t do that, Dr. Stark. It would be a shame if I went through all of my issues asking someone to help me that isn’t professionally obligated to, only to go back to the drawing board because the dominant died a horrible death.”

Tony decides right then and there, that Jemma Simmons is his kind of person. His kind of crazy, wrapped up in a ball of polite, subservient. He can definitely get behind her joining them, and Phil will be pleased that Tony’s slowly incorporating his family into his own. “Choice is yours, dear. My bedroom is open, there are playroom bedrooms that you could claim, and I’d have Friday warn others off of, and then there’s a host of unused ones on the family floor that you could get your hands on.”

“Why would I want a bedroom of my own?” The question falls from her lips before she can think to add the honorific. Too confused to remember all of her manners at once. She didn’t even get that many rights at her own home sometimes, to have a room that others couldn’t enter.

“We don’t know how long you’re staying. Phil has agreed to stay without any chance of going back until Thanos is no longer a constant threat, and even then, he’s hesitant to say that he will go back to active missions. Smart of him, since Pepper is likely to demand actual points of contact next time he goes, and he may or may not want to deal with that.”

Tony realizes as she stares at him, unblinking like someone has just turned all of her pictures around and demanded the memory for each one, that to her that wasn’t an answer at all. To her that was some kind of test question designed to mess her up. “Anyway, in case you’d feel safer in a place that is your own, one you could use a second time if that becomes necessary.”

Jemma nods, even though she doesn’t quite understand. She wonders whether Ms. Potts or Friday had told him that she doesn’t even have her own room in the Compound currently. That she hates going to sleep alone. “What if I would prefer going to sleep in a place with other submissives but where you could still reach me, Dr. Stark? Would the best place be your room?”

Tony barely avoids stammering like an idiot. He hadn’t realized that she might want the extra eyes on her, and while he still doesn’t relish the idea of a bullet entering him, he can understand. He’s asking a lot of trust for a practical stranger. Trusting Phil is not the same as trusting him, even though in the perfect world, that’s exactly how that story would have gone. “Yes, my room, and I can ask the others to come by.”

“Don’t,” she requests softly. “If they wish to come, they will come, Dr. Stark. I don’t need to interrupt anyone else’s day.” Before she walks off to the elevator. No need to be a distraction staying down here in the lab. There are plenty of things that she could do in her free time.

Tony doesn’t necessarily ask the others to come by. He does send a text in the group chat though to let them know of where Jemma will be staying and her desire for company if anyone is willing. He almost sends it to an old chat without Melinda or Skye in it before deciding that would be quite rude given their new status, even if he is slightly terrified that they will kill him one day.

Then, he’s got his head back in the game. His weapon is perfect. Or at least perfect at being a weapon. All the test runs where it was designed at a target, moving or not, hit well beyond the standard accepted rate to the point that no one could claim that he wasn’t doing a delightful return. The only issue is that he needs to check the electric shock component. He needs to know if it is turned on a human whether it would hurt the user.

Problem with that, is he chose a form of punishment that even a lower setting test would likely send him into an early grave. His heart problems hadn’t been good before Siberia, and now after everything Rogers did, they were worse. They were a lot worse. Which means he was going to have to call for help, and then he was going to have to deal with everyone’s different comments on how he shouldn’t have been doing all of this alone.

“Hey, Lokes, are you busy?”

“Never to busy for you,” Loki replies as he shimmers into existence in the lab. He rubbing at his wrist though, as if there had been something he was doing.

Tony winces. “Your wrist alright?”

“Oh, yes. I was in a heated discussion. Turns out some of the Asgardians thought that I had put the king under some kind of compulsion spell and wished to prove so via hurting me thus freeing him from the spell. Rest assured that Thor is taking care of that idiocy now, and it will be better coming from him anyway.”

Loki looks around the lab before his eyes land on the prototype gun. He whistles under his breath. “You’ve been busy.”

“Needed to be, really.”

Loki does not deny that sentence, it is rather important for the man to be on his top game with the upcoming threat. Especially a threat that has been silent for so long. Thanos must have decided that with so many stones in one location, that his best bet was ensuring complete control of the others before coming to get them. A smart idea if not for the fact that it gave far too many powerful people the time to prepare. “What do you need?”

“First, I need to know whether electric shock is harmful to you overtly. Second, how much electric shock does it take to kill one of Thanos’ creatures? Third, how willing are you to do something that Pepper would yell at you for?”

Loki utters a deep sigh. “I grew up with Thor back when his powers were first manifesting. It would take quite a bit of shock before it got to a point where it would harm me in any deep meaningful way, although I am not fond of the pain and would be averse to any of that play being added to our scenes.”

He glances towards the gun with a more curious look. “Lightning magic is one that can harm them, but it has to be in high enough quantities to fry their batteries otherwise it just gives them more power. I would think based on what I’ve seen from your tech, something that would fry one of your suits would be enough of a decent gauge that I think it could be used.”

The final question is the most alarming. Rarely if ever did Tony get others involved when he decided to do something that would incur the wrath of either Pepper or Rhodey. The fact that he called at all were rather impressive, let alone to have done so of his own free will and to get consent ahead of time regarding the action. “I’m normally not one to object to any chaos, but even still, I feel I must ask whether what you’re planning is a good idea.”

Tony turns back towards his desk to make a few quick notes on the best way to mark up the electrical output charges. He might not get it to deliberating to the aliens, but perhaps enough to make them drop a weapon and be a bit worse for wear would be a solid plus. Before he got too far, he hears the rest of Loki’s statement regarding his plan. “Might be the best idea I’ve had for a while, might be a really, really dumb one.”

“What do you need of me?”

“I need you to shoot me with the gun, so I can make sure the program designed to ensure that humans can’t be targeted is still working from the dummy runs, which aren’t possible now because the code to tell human versus something else are in place.”

“You want me to shoot you!”

Tony holds up his hand before Loki can advance with any further anger. The words dying in his throat as Jemma steps through the elevator.

Jemma freezes as she sees the god standing in front of Dr. Stark. She’s not sure how best to address what she had just heard, so she decides that not listening to any of it for the first portion would be for the best. “Hello, Dr. Stark, you missed lunch and as it verges on late into the evening, I thought it would be best for me to bring you some food.”

Tony glances down at the tablet almost expecting the time to read something other than what she had just informed him of, but alas, everything seems to be correct. It is approaching 8pm, he just asked Loki to shoot him, and his newish submissive had overheard him ask the question, which could bring in all kinds of trouble.

Jemma takes the silence as a bad start, but given what she walked in on, she’s not sure that she’s overtly surprised to being found a little surprising. “Anyway, I should head back upstairs, Dr. Stark.”

Tony catches her arm. “Listen, it’s not what you think.”

“It is not my place to think anything of the request I heard, Dr. Stark. I was interrupting what was likely an important conversation, and had I known it was ongoing I would have waited some time before bringing in the food. I erred in my judgement, Dr. Stark. Not to worry about me.”

Tony groans. That is the perfect response from a service submissive. She believes that she must misunderstand the situation, because a dominant wouldn’t be so dumb as to put themselves in danger like that. They’re supposed to be the bright ones, the ones who have a plan no matter what, and while he has a plan, he’s not so sure whether others would agree with him on it being a good or a decent one.

Loki twitches his lips up. “He’s asked me to shoot him with his new gun.”

Jemma pauses thoughts trying to align in her brain. Why would someone need to go through that? Except she does recall that he had mentioned needing consequences for what happened if someone had the nerve to use these weapons against humans, thus he’s probably at the stage where he needs to test it. “Whatever his consequence method is, will you be alright taking that pain?”

“Pardon?” Loki had anticipated a wide range of responses. Her making sure of his well-being was not one of them. “Oh, sorry, yes. This test isn’t for how bad that mechanism is, just that the AI identifying humans is working.”

Jemma jerks her head in a nod. Good, at least her dominant didn’t plan on hurting two people tonight. “Dr. Stark, I presume you have a bullet proof vest in here, just in case.”
“Yeah, I was about to put it on.”

“No need.” Her voice is like iron for the first time since she stepped foot into his presence. She will put up with many things but the reckless endangerment of her chosen dominant for the evening wasn’t one of them. “If one of us needs to be shot at, Dr. Stark, it certainly won’t be you. I just need the vest.”

Tony stares at her. “You think that there’s any chance that you’re going to convince me to let you get shot at. I’m starting to believe that shield doesn’t hire anyone with actual brain cells to their secret spy business.”

“Oh, I have plenty of brain cells, Dr. Stark. Including the really important one of, if you try to take the bullet yourself, I can call Ms. Potts before you can stop me,” she threatens. That’s a bluff. Ms. Potts is a wild card to her, and while she would try to call whether Ms. Potts would pick up is in question, and Dr. Stark could definitely wrestle a phone from her in the time it would take to call twice.

Loki lets out a deep laugh. “I assume you’d rather be shot at then, rather than taking my spot as the shooter.”

“If the goal is to identify humans, shooting at you could pose a problem. As far as I’m aware, while you are certainly humanoid, you are not human. Also, if the consequence of shooting the gun is such that Dr. Stark believed that he needed someone who humanity once thought of as a god, I don’t really want to take the place of that. I am no god.”

“Many still believe me to be a god, little mortal.”

Jemma shrugs. “Alright, well, if you’re a god, can you heal me if this goes terribly wrong?”

“Probably, although it depends on how violent Stark’s tech is.”

Tony flickers his eyes between both of them. He would very much like to start threats with some creative ways to ensure both of them cooperate his way, but he doesn’t actually know Jemma all that well. He doesn’t know exactly how she’ll react to him threatening her or whether she’d double down on her decision to call Pepper. Her calling Pepper would be the epitome of bad for him. “Vest is next to the target over there. I’d prefer if Loki shot at the target first, then you second, so I can make sure that the non-human target is still being registered as alright to fire at.”

Loki nods. “That makes sense for a regular test, and how confident are you that neither of us are going to get injured to a point that some might call vastly dangerous.”

Tony shrugs his shoulder. “If it works, you’ll feel a slight shock probably the same scale as Thor being over excited, not anything deliberate. If my tech fails, you’ll shoot her. It hits the vest, she’s going to be sore for a long time. It doesn’t hit the vest, we’re going to medical with a bullet wound.”

Jemma tugs the vest on over her head and fights with the straps for a minute. She hasn’t put one of these on since one of the training courses back before she had been certified as a field scientist. Most of the time, she’s not out in the field even with the team before the threats had been taken care of.

Loki glances towards Jemma expecting her to respond to the threat of being shot with more emotion. Or at the very least ask him to make sure not to hit her outside of the vest. She’s stone cold in the face of all of this though.

Tony taps her arm to get her attention, seeing Loki get more panicked at her reaction. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Is the alternative you doing it?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm, then regardless of what you say, Dr. Stark, it appears that I have to do this or call for assistance to stop you from doing it yourself. This is the choice that will make you happier in the situation, and since I have ulterior motives to keeping you happy, this is what I choose.”

Loki picks the gun off the desk and twirls it. “Just to be clear, you’re willing to let me, a person who you have little reason to trust, shoot at you so he will be happier with you.”

When Loki phrases it like that, Jemma has a moment of panic. He has a point regarding her reasons for trusting him, until she recalls that he’s not really her concern. She’s not the one that chose him to do the test. She’s not the one calling the shots. “What reason would I have not to?”

“Let’s just run the test, please,” Tony begs. He needs this to be done, so he can finish up the last of the work for tonight and scene with Jemma. Because he has a text on his phone saying that Pepper would like him to reward her for being proactive and caring, plus she’s doing this on the off chance that he might give her a reward and he’s definitely on board with giving her that one too.

Jemma moves to stand directly to the right of the target with a bored expression. She closes her eyes. In her opinion, if you’re going to be a test subject for something like this, best practice is to not watch what’s happening. The other scientist is going to record the results as needed, and staring at people you may need to be friends with later as they’re using use as target practice will hurt you.

Loki raises the gun and fires towards the target. The target disintegrates into a pile of ash, and he turns to Tony. “If this fails, will we make it to medical?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jemma calls out.

“What?”

“I trust Dr. Stark’s tech, and if that turns out to misplaced and we don’t make it to medical, it won’t be my problem to deal with. So shoot me.”

Loki curses under his breath. He’s known that mortals are on occasion the most infuriating creatures that he’s ever had to deal with, but this seems worse than ever before. Still, he nudges his aim to be a few inches to the left where the scope of the bullet is right over the girl. He spares one second to make sure that Tony isn’t stopping him, when that shows nothing, he pulls the trigger again.

A scream fills the room, and Jemma’s eyes jerk open. Loki is on the floor curled into a fetal position while screaming. His hand charred as he forces his fingers open enough not to hurt. She skids across the floor to make it to him. Her hand lands on top of his to help him keep them spread.

Jemma takes in a breath of air to help guide Loki through the pain. “What do you need?”

“He said it would be a small shock,” Loki whispers.

Tony stares in horror. It should have been a small shock. When he tested it against a fruit, it hadn’t even broken through any sensors.

Jemma stares at the gun, at the program on screen and lets out a small chuckle. “It would have been had Tony’s requests been at the forefront of the AI’s decision making, but it wasn’t. It saw a human in danger, that it went against directive, and that you weren’t likely to stop with the marking chosen and marked it up.”

“Shit,” Tony says. That is a good idea in theory for what he wants them to do, but it could lead down a dangerous road. AIs not listening to their directives is bad, however this one isn’t breaking a directive only the priority of them.

Loki lets loose his own laughter. “Stark’s tech is outsmarting even him.”

“Yes, well, Dr. Stark is working on quite groundbreaking technology, and since the purpose of this was a test, I think the AI got confused.”

“Tests are often confusing to us,” Friday confirms from one of the speakers in the room.

Tony shushes everyone. “Loki, do you need anything to help? I am dreadfully sorry about this.”

“Sorry enough to allow me to go to Pepper with my injured hand and allow her to pamper me even though it will mean telling her why I got like this.”

Tony’s face falls automatically. “Loki, if you’d prefer her comfort, you’re always welcome to seek her out. Regardless of whether I wanted to keep her in the dark at some point. Actually Friday,” Tony gets cut off with a wave of Loki’s hand silencing him.

Loki has a smile on his face although there is still the hint of pain underneath that façade. His hand does not look like it is in a good place at all, and he’s been like this for a bit of time now. “Actually, I’d prefer Strange. He’s the only other person with magic and after being harmed I often wish to unleash magic, and he’s the one able to help with that best.”

Loki inclines his head towards Jemma wishing her to know that there is no true harm done as he teleports out of the room and towards Strange. He’s confident the man will humor him for a bit of time, and possibly even tell him off for allowing Tony to risk his safety like this. He would possibly even enjoy that particular lecture today.

Jemma watches as Loki’s form leaves the room before she starts tugging off her vest. “Your code held up admirably, Dr. Stark.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t your command it overruled.”

Tony furrows his brow and looks back at the code on the screen. He hasn’t actually bothered to look for the error himself, having trusted Jemma’s explanation, but now that he’s looking. There’s a lot of conflicting codes on the screen that he’s not sure what to do with.

Jemma sighs as she registers his confusion. The father of AI, he definitely is, but it is clear that he hasn’t dealt with code like this for quite some time. She highlights a section about a third of the way down the screen and then another at the very bottom. “It’s priority is the protection of humans, seconded only by ensuring that humans on the blasting side of the gun are protected over the back of the gun. The only directive it has outside of its mission statement is to listen to input codes from creator, which is you. When you typed in the code to lower the shock settings, it took that as a test from a human, when a human didn’t pick up the gun, it didn’t believe it to be a test any longer, so it chose to fall back on priority.”

Tony pauses. “You know, you’re a genius in your own right, Jemma Simmons.”

“Yes, Dr. Stark, I suppose I am. But I don’t want to be known like you do. I don’t want to be dragged before congress because I decided to build something the world had never seen before and got caught doing something they’d prefer only be in the hands of government. I’d prefer if alien armies didn’t call to me by name. And I’d prefer that terrorist organizations didn’t try to recruit me for human rights violations.”

Jemma averts her gaze. “I’ve already failed two of those, and I’d prefer not to fail the third.”

“How many scientists do you know the names of from Stark Industries?”

“Upwards of three dozen, Dr. Stark.”

Tony nods. “And how many of them have Congress called before them?”

“Just you,” she answers. She recalls a time shortly after the weapons division shut down that there had been talk of pulling another scientist in, but that CEO Pepper Potts had slammed them so hard down with press and legal charges that they were forced to pull back that decision or risk facing even worse levels of publicity.

“You could put in an application. I’d make sure it received priority review.”

“Dr. Stark, I am a Shield agent.”

“Do you want to be?” Tony holds up a hand to stop her from immediately coming to the defense and her team and Phil and perhaps even the government. “Ever since your team arrived, I’ve noticed a few things. And one of them is, not a one of you has ever considered that the hydra thing is allowed to be your last straw.”

“What?”

“You’re allowed to come out and say that this is it for you. That the fact that people chose to try to recruit you for one of the evilest organizations that you’ve ever known is too much for you to handle in the same capacity that you did. I’ve offered it to Skye, who has taken me up on it. Melinda has been an agent for so long that she can’t imagine not going on missions, but even she’s starting to want to go towards more of a UN deal with the Avengers or another entity that’s not the US government after this shit storm. I’ve still got to offer it to your friend Leo or Mackenzie, because let me be clear, none of this is okay. Jemma, what happened to you is not okay. Even if you are a hired spy, even if you are under their payroll, even if you signed up for crazy shit, you never should have had to deal with the government being infiltrated by a terrorist organization and the fallout of that.”

Jemma takes a moment to allow that to wash over her. “But I can’t leave them. If I leave them, I will have drops every single day asking myself whether they’re alive, whether they’re dead, whether they’re okay or whether they’ve been harmed to the point that none of it matter and whether it was all my fault because I wasn’t there when everything went down. Do you know how bad it would be to know that I could have, should have done something?”

Tony drops his mouth open as he gapes at her. “Who the hell said anything about leaving? You’re welcome in my home for as long as you wish to stay in it.”

“Even if I’m no longer in Phil’s team and don’t need the protection.”

Tony hesitates this time. Because he hadn’t honestly thought about that for a while. Sure, he had thought about Phil’s reasoning for bringing htem here and why he offered them sanctuary, but that’s not why they stayed. Or at least that’s not why he assumed they had stayed. “No, I figured that you were here because you wanted to stick close to your family. You can stay for them alone, and I’ll be fine with that.”

Jemma barely holds in her scoff. Barely stops from telling him that since Grant happened, they haven’t been a family, just a broken collection of toys to be pulled out and used when needed. But that’s not what any of them need. They need each other, and they need that strength, and they need to never go through it again. “Which application?”

“Friday, send her the advanced scientist application.”

“Already in her inbox. As is the guided packet for what to expect should you become an SI employee, including benefits, bonuses, and the complementary gift box inventory.”

Jemma pauses as she heads out towards the elevator. All she had wanted to do was bring her dominant a meal before a scene, and now she’s gotten shot at, helped a god deal with a level of electrocution cable of humbling him, and gotten a job recruiting speech, and she’s not even sure whether she accomplished what she wanted in the first place. “Eat your food, Dr. Stark. I’ll see you when you’re ready.”

“It’s Tony, when you’re ready.”

Jemma presses the button at the elevator. “Maybe on a day you haven’t convinced me to reevaluate how to live my life, Dr. Stark.”

She leaves without another word. She knows that if she asks more questions or allows him to say anything else, she’s going to have an entire breakdown at some point. The day had pushed way too far past the limits that she’s placed for herself on these things. “Friday, will Dr. Stark be mad if I curl up on his bed without doing the application tonight?”

“No, Ms. Simmons.”

“Jemma, call me Jemma.”

“Yes, Jemma. Tony won’t be angry at you for needing a break. He won’t be upset that you don’t immediately lunge at his opportunity. And you can tell me if you want me to cancel the scene that you’ve planned.”

“No, no. I need the scene.”

“As you wish, Jemma.”

The voice falls silent, and Jemma realizes that she’s at the suite that can be loosely called a bedroom if one wished to call it that. She’s never been here before and she’s taking a nap. She’s taking a nap, which she’ll be woken up by her dominant for a scene from.

There’s movement from the bed and a metal arm sticks out of the cover followed by a mop of brown hair as a man pouts at her. “I heard you might want company cuddling in a bed, feel free to tell me to fuck off though.”

Jemma startles only for a second. She then scurries to the bed and allows the man to cover in the fluffy blanket as her eyes doze off. She rolls towards him until she can feel his body heat. “Yeah, the day’s gotten a lot crazier since then though.”

“Oh, do you want me to go?”

“Please don’t.”

James hesitates. “Not until Tony gets here then. I’ll stay, I was just reading something on my phone anyhow, and I doubt that it won’t wait until later.”

“The light won’t bother me.”

James wraps his flesh hand around her shoulder as he guides her into a more comfortable position against his chest. The light won’t bother her, but not being the center of attention might. He’s not a dominant, he’s not her dominant either, but what he is, is a person with compassion. And her day has been too much for her and the scene isn’t quite ready yet, so he’ll stay up where she knows someone is watching. And he’ll hope that helps her at least a little bit with everything.

Tony sits in his lab as he checks over the code. He knows that everything went about as smoothly as new technology ever goes, and still, he feels as though he shouldn’t send this in. This could backfire, the AI could stop working correctly. The guns could be used to target things they weren’t designed to and cause irreplicable harm. The aliens could land tomorrow only for them to find out that the type of weapon he made is now useless on them, and all he’s done is create a mess for humans to deal with.

Jemma’s words ring in the back of his head. Not the ones about his code. Those ones are easily proven. They’re stone-cold facts and they were damn well on point. But the ones about how science isn’t something that can be contained. And the idea that he’s not at fault for what others do with the gifts of technology he gave them.

He’d never considered not owning up to his mistakes. But the longer he thinks about them, he wonders about the decision to call them mistakes. He can certainly see why someone would call them his. He made the technology. Therefore, he put the ability to do them in their hands. At the same time, for what feels like the first time in his life, he’s realizing that he didn’t ask them tp pull the trigger on innocent people or use them for terrorist decisions. He made them for the US government on the understanding that they would be used for the good of protecting people.

Those that violated that promise are at more fault than him. Those that pulled the trigger even more responsible. Why was it that he was carrying all of that blame? It wasn’t his cross to bear. None of it was on him. Sure, if the primary way that he made money was because of the weapons’ sale, maybe they would say something along the lines of he’s lining his pockets with the death of others, but as noticed by the fact cutting off the weapons division barely made a dent in SI’s profit margins the first year and none in subsequent years, even that was disproven.

He was never a bad person, he realizes suddenly. The world had pushed that label onto him. Claimed that being iron man was his redemption, but it wasn’t. It is him choosing to fight for the world that he believes in, but it is not his redemption, because he was not in need of saving. He has the largest net worth in the world beating out Bezos by a small margin, and he actually donates most of his expendable income or funnels it into pet projects around the world. He funds most of the expansions of his company out of his pocket not the companies so that employees don’t go without during periods of expansion.

He sits at the table and hits send on the blueprints. For the first time feeling as though a weight has been lifted from his body as he can actually say this with a straight face. He will arm the world for the upcoming fight against aliens, and if they use that against one another, he’s not the one that will get the shit. The media might try, but this time he will have a response. He refuses to be guilty for others ever again.

He glances at the clock at the corner of his screen and winces. It’s already midnight. Jemma would have to be exhausted if she hadn’t actually fallen asleep and most of what he wants to do with her requires energy. He’s halfway debating whether he could just wake her up by setting her in a tub, washing her off and convincing her to come back to bed with him. Orders sprinkled in to relax her.

Yeah, that sounds a lot better than waking her up by actually trying to fuck her. He’s not in the mood for sex, and while she has no issues with it from the sound of their earlier conversation, they don’t need it to have a scene. He picks himself up and heads for the elevator.

That doesn’t quite answer his desire to give her rewards though. He’ll have to come up with something. Maybe bubble bath for the water, because everyone in his opinion has to love bubble bath, especially when someone else is the one bathing them so all they have to do is play around in the water. And then, he could do a massage afterwards.

Tony nods to himself as he steps in, only to find James standing up from his bed. He stares in confusion for a moment until James reaches close enough to be in whispering range.
“She didn’t want to be alone. You told all of us that. I had no problems staying in your bed with a tablet used for reading for a day rather than being in a different room, so I waited for her.”

“You’re a sweetheart,” Tony replies, leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek. He walks by the bed and runs a hand through Jemma’s hand to give her just a brief point of contact as he steps by her.

She leans into the touch, suspecting that James was telling her he was going to the bathroom. She mumbles under her breath something about come back soon or something like that, since she’s not sure how many words actually made it out of her mouth. She kind of twists on herself as she curls under the blankets to get the most warmth.

Tony slips into the bathroom to start the warm water. He gets the tub filled to the point where most of her body would be submerged. He wonders slightly how long into the bath it would take before she realized that it wasn’t a dream, and she was in fact awake. He would put money on a decently long time based on how tired she was.

He gets back to the bedroom and crouches over her, so his arms can cradle under her where he can pick her up. She goes easily into his arms, searching for his body heat, and he has to give a little laugh at that. Unfortunately for him, she’s still in clothes which means that he’s got to get her out of them. Never an easy thing when it comes to a sleeping person.

Jemma startles when she realizes that she’s being braced against a wall and not against a soft bed. If Dr. Stark had planned on taking her sexually, he should have just taken her pants off on the bed. Would have been better on both of their bones. “Dr. Stark?”

“Hmm, do you need something, sweet one?”

Jemma hums under her breath. If this is all that he wants from her, to lean against a wall as he does whatever comes next, she guesses it can’t hurt. Heck, this isn’t a position that comes anywhere close to being a yellow or a red in regard to her limits. It might at a different time depending on situations, but right now, this was perfect to her.

Tony slips off her clothes with practiced ease. The process made so much simpler by the fact that he only has to tap a body part, and she raises it for him. Eyes closed against a wall, and still she’s perfectly obedient to slightest hint of a command. One day, he hopes that she’ll want to scene again, and he can find out what she’s like warming a cock. Because she must be attuned to answering even the slight demands of that as well.

Once, the last of her clothes are gone, he pulls back up and presses little kisses against each of her eyelids, then her nose and finally both her cheeks. “Perfect, darling.”

“Thank you, Dr. Stark.” She rolls her head back to bare her neck. “Do you need anything from me?”

“Only for you to stay this relaxed the whole time.”

“Of course, Dr. Stark.” Her body goes even further limp against the wall. All pretenses of her trying to stand on her own feet gone. If her dominant wants her compliant, she will be compliant. That is one of the easiest things to do in the world.

Tony scoops her up. He walks calmly over to the water and lowers her in. He’s expecting a bit of a return of tension once her body enters the water, because with her eyes closed like this, there’s no way that she actually knew what was coming towards her at any point.

Jemma’s legs hit the water, and she rolls her head up towards him as she lets her body sink under the waves of the water. After a weird sensation against her skin, she opens her eyes just a small slit to notice the bubbles before allowing them closed again.

“Hair first or last?” Tony asks. He’s happy to do them in either order. In fact, he’s quite happy to do them in whichever order she’d prefer, he just needs to know.

“Hmm, your preference, Dr. Stark.”

He runs a hand up through her hair again. He pulls softly to lower her head into the water. She doesn’t scrunch up her face like most do when they’re not sure where the water level is. Even when he goes a bit too low and her chin has little bubbles from the surface licking at her skin, she doesn’t react. Her hair soaks, and she doesn’t offer any complaint.

He raises her back up and props her against the back as he starts to lather his hands in shampoo. He’s cautious as he gets close to the edges of her face with the shampoo, he’d hate to ruin her experience by getting some in her eyes or mouth. However, he can’t remember the last time he just cared for someone like this.

Jemma leans towards the hands that are tugging through strands of her hair with a hint of citrus. She rolls into the touch, her hips just barely moving to keep herself above the water with how he’s moving her.

Tony hums out a melody as he keeps going on her hair. A simple song that he’s pretty sure is connected to his mother’s Italian heritage. He dunks her head back under the waves to start rinsing the soap out. Very careful to make sure that nothing close to the soap enters her face.

Jemma’s ears are under the water disrupting the sound of the music that she had started getting accustomed to. Still the muffled noise is an appreciated bonus, as she always enjoyed the slightly impeded senses. She’s not a big fan of them being removed all together, but just a bit of difficulty is a fun time.

Tony pulls her back up and props her up. He reaches over to grab a good loofa to spread soap across her. His first assumption would be that she’s paying attention to what he’s doing but a glance up at her head shows that her eyes are still mostly closed. “If you’ve got no objections, I’m going to start washing you.”

“As you wish, Dr. Stark,” Jemma mumbles. She moves her limbs to be less at her side and allow enough room for him to move her around and get the sides of her body.

Her left foot and leg is lifted out of the warmth of the water. Only the cold lasts for a brief second before she gets a warm liquid soapy surrounding her. The little soap dropping off of her in small driblets. She manages to pull her eyes open further. She smiles towards Tony. “You’re taking care of me.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Thank you, Dr. Stark.”

Tony chuckles as he sets that leg back down under the water. He reaches over to grab the other leg and raises it. He takes time to make sure that he’s washing all of the different portions of her skin. He’s got plenty of time to do this. His body often doesn’t start looking towards going to bed until close to three in the morning, and Jemma seems to be in the mood to allow him whatever he would like, anything that he would like at all.

Jemma blinks a couple of times as his hands slip over her thighs with the loofa, and he doesn’t seem to spend any more time there. She has to fight back the urge to ask questions. She’s used to dominants wanting her in that way, and really only in that way since her contract says she likes it.

Tony notices her confusion and offers her a quick return smile. “I don’t want sex tonight, if that’s alright with you.” If that’s something she needs to go all the way down, he’ll come up with a creative solution as he usually does, but he’s anticipating her being alright with the plan.

Jemma almost opens her mouth to say if that’s his preference than she has no objection to it, but then it dawns on her that he’s actually asking for her opinion. He’s not trying to trick her, he’s not testing her obedience, he just wants to know her thoughts. “That’s more than fine, Dr. Stark.”

He leans forward to pepper a smattering of kisses against her face. “One of these days, I will convince you to call me something sweeter.”

“I see an ulterior motive there, master,” Jemma teases.

“Oh, she’s got brattiness now.”

Jemma tips her head back as she laughs. “Never, Dr. Stark. I do however, have a list of names, I’m willing to call people as a service submissive, and I love to know the reactions I can get from them.”

“A true scientist,” Tony says. He hesitates for a mere second. She seems more awake than she had for quite a while, but he doesn’t want to ask her to do too much right after she’s started to get awake. He knows how startled he would be in this situation, and he’d hate to send her into any headspace that wasn’t quite as fun as the one currently in front of him. He loves the person he’s got in front of him.

Jemma notices the stare on her. She’s not sure what’s going on in his head, but it is amusing that he seems to think as he’s pampering her that there might be something that she’s not willing to do. “Ask, my king.”

Tony drops the loofa in shock and is wrapped up in the beautiful laughter that travels across his skin as she realizes what her words caused. He pinches her leg as he reaches into the bubbly and soapy water to retrieve the loofa with a mock glare on his face. “Oh, you’re trouble, aren’t you?”

“Pray tell that I’m not trouble to you,” Jemma replies. “But more seriously, Dr. Stark, ask for what you wish for. I will tell you if I feel it is beyond my capabilities I promise.”

He almost feels like telling her that he doesn’t believe that for a second. That she’d push herself right up to her breaking point if she thought that it would make someone happy. Still, if she’s confident, then he can ask. The worst that happens is she forces herself to do something, and he punishes her for it. Lord knows, he’s used to that with some of his submissives. “I need you to lift your hips so I can do your lower body before continuing up you.”

Jemma braces her arms on either edge of the bathtub and hoists her body out of the water with a bend in her back that stretches out her muscles in a pleasurable manner. “And here I thought you needed me to take care of you, based on how hesitant you were, Dr. Stark.”

He starts running the loofa over the parts of her going under the water first. He wants to say that he did more if her body gives out in this position. He had thought she’d do something like stand, not prop herself up where her body still wasn’t holding a traditional position. His mistake.

He catches what she said as he switches to the front of her body and chokes on his own breath. “Okay, seriously, who taught you how to drive a man insane, I either need to send him a gift basket or a bullet.”

“You could put flowers on a grave. My father was a service submissive to my momma. I took after him, because I loved the dynamic that they raised me on.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony whispers as he taps her legs, and she lowers herself back under the water. He knows the pain of losing parents all too well. That’s what got them into this mess with everyone right now. If his parents were alive, more than likely some of the issues that they’ve had recently wouldn’t be issues that they had to fight over.

“Don’t be,” she tells him. “They died happy, in love, and proud of their daughter. What more can we ask for of death, than to die happy with those we love around us and the future in the capable hands that we raised?”

“You want children?” He’s shocked. Honestly, he doesn’t know anyone who wants children in the world as it is. There are threats of aliens behind every path forward. There are superheroes without restrictions trying to claim governments should be torn down because individuals are better. There are laws trying to be passed to hurt those that are different. He can’t imagine someone wanting to bring life into the world when it’s like this.

“Yes, Dr. Stark. I want children. I want to raise them to fight the same battles that I do. I want to raise them to talk to aliens instead of shooting first, in the hopes that one of these days we won’t be fighting an endless battle, and instead we’d be sitting together coming up with a better alliance. I want to raise them to look at mutants and say human. I want to raise them to see someone breaking the law and not see a propaganda machine and see a criminal.”

Tony stares at her. “You still believe we can make that world.”

“What’s stopping us?”

He laughs and trails the loofa up her stomach. There’s a bubbling sense of hope building in him that he hasn’t had in years. “I think you’re incredibly good for me.”

“Well thank god, Dr. Stark. I was afraid you’d get bored of me.”

Tony keeps his hands in a steady movement and a constant laugh out of his mouth. “Okay, Ms. Futurist, who’s the father in these dreams of yours?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Still haven’t found the man of my dreams yet. Still haven’t found a dominant who’s okay with the fact that I’m in love with my best friend and a fellow submissive and won’t sign a contract without him with me.”

Tony should stop the words coming from his mouth. He should communicate with the others. He should ask more questions, but he doesn’t. The whole family had voted to keep Phil’s people with them for as long as possible. Phil has already tied his horse to them, and that means Pepper is on board, and he deserves to have more science people next to him. He pokes her on the nose. “You’ve found them.”

“I have?” She tilts her head back and giggles. “You have Friday check out my history and think you know the one for me.”

“Mmmhmmm, something like that. I think right now, they’re thinking about how pretty you look with bubbles dripping off your body as you relax in the kitchen. I think that they’re wondering what kind of noises you make when they grind their hands into your muscles to force you to relax and how well you follow orders on your knees.”

And his words slam into her chest like a boiling dream. He’s talking about himself. He’s offering her something that she’s only ever dreamed of. A dominant who trusts her, a dominant who believes in her decision to fight for a better future than the life that they live in now. That’s been her dream to do alongside Leo since she was 15.

Tony realizes the second that his words hit her in the way that means she knows exactly what he’s talking about because her body doesn’t exactly tense, but it goes rock hard still. Almost as if she doesn’t believe that what he’s saying is the truth. He hums as he picks up an arm and starts the lathering process all over again.

Jemma moves with him on reflex. If a dominant moves you in a specific position, than that’s the way that you’re going to move. No need to question anything. No need to ask any questions, you just move as they tell you to move. That’s how all of this works.

Tony doesn’t press her for a verbal answer. He’s just given her a shock of a lifetime he’s willing to bet. He can tell that she’s probably got all kinds of questions for him, and all of them deserve a more valid answer than anything that he could give her at this time. He can’t tell her that Leo will want to scene with him. He can’t tell her that the others will welcome her right away. All he can answer for is himself, and he wants her to be with him.

Jemma snaps back to herself as Tony guides her under the water. “Then, I suppose, you would be my top choice, Dr. Stark. Or Colonel Rhodes, as you’re both dominants which is what I know has the best chance of a healthy pregnancy.”

Tony glances at her face. “I’d prefer you not be pregnant until we know that Thanos is dead. I’d hate to leave you a single parent, because an alien killed me dead.” This is probably the closest he’s ever come to not immediately saying no to the idea of having a child, and he’d like to believe that she knew that. That she understood what a crazy thing she’s asking of him.

Jemma takes a second. “And a contract.”

“Hmm?”

“I won’t be pregnant without a formal contract. I know that since you’re in a relationship with many people including other dominants, a marriage contract is out, but still a proper contract is a requirement.”

“Friday?”

“Already sent your contract for submissives in the house to Jemma after getting the others dominant to agree to offer it to her.”

Jemma pauses. “The others said yes?”

“Rhodey said ‘the girl has a good head on her shoulders, if Tony likes her, that’s fine by me, just tell her to come see me soon after signing so I can get to know her.’ Pepper said, ‘I like her already, I’d like her more if she came and submitted to me for having the stupidity to go along with one of Tony’s damn ideas to test on family members.’ Dr. Strange said, ‘that’s the crazy bitch that let Loki shoot her on her first day submitting to a member of the family, tell her hell yes, only someone our kind of mad would do that.’ Laura barely turned towards the camera to say, ‘she’s one of Phil’s, so she was always mine in everything but a contract.’ And T’challa also got called since he is a switch with several members of the family willing to submit to him, and he said, ‘if the others want her, put my name on the contract too, although warn her I’m not always around.’”

Tony tugs on her hair. “Of course, they said yes, you deserve what you ask for.”

Jemma smiles and relaxes. “Thank you, Dr. Stark. Friday, please give my thanks to the others.”

Tony shakes his head in amusement as he finishes her bath. Then, he offers her his arm. “Use me to help you stand, I don’t want you cracking your head on the porcelain.”

Jemma reaches up and uses his arm as he directs. So far, his orders have been spacious and very reliant on her own safety and his ability to do his pampering rather than something that she has to do for him. Honestly, that’s a breath of relief from what she’s used to. She enjoys being a service sub, but she loves to be free to just submit.

Tony urges her to step out of the tub where he can pick up one of his fluffiest towels to wrap around her. He dabs at all of the areas that are wet on her body with careful precision. He then settles it over her shoulders. “Are you warm enough?”

Jemma takes a second to take note of her body. After being in the warm water for so long, her body is slightly shaking. However, she herself doesn’t feel cold, just her body. “I should be fine after a few minutes to acclimate to the air and not water temperature.”

Tony nods. “Good, I was hoping I could convince you to kneel in front of me while I caught up on a few scientific papers that I have been meaning to read for a while so I can relax before the last part of our scene.”

“If you’d like, Dr. Stark.”

Tony leads her over to an armchair that has a kneeling cushion installed right in front of it. He takes a seat and watches Jemma. He’s curious on how easily this kind of submission comes to her. She has all the right words, and she runs really well on silent orders, but these, these he hasn’t tested.

Jemma sinks down to her knees. She takes a small second to get her legs and feet in the correct position, before she tucks down into a formal kneeling pose. Eyes trained on the ground, not even looking towards the feet of the dominant. Spine uncovered and rigid in position. Toes pointed and un-relaxed in a position that allows her to roll onto her feet if an order came to get or retrieve something. She swallows around her spit as she lowers her mindset to hold this for hours if needed.

“Can you hold this for a full half hour?”

“Yes, Dr. Stark.”

Tony almost feels like requesting her to change positions so he can know that she’s not straining herself. However, this might be the position that she’s most confident in. Instead, he pulls up the set of papers that he wants to go over tonight. He starts reading them out loud.

Jemma is surprised when instead of slipping into her mindset, the paper is being read to her. Instead of just being expected to exist, Tony is allowing her a chance to learn more science as well. She appreciates this greatly as she allows the words to enter her mind. There is soreness in her muscles as he finishes the first paper, but it is easy to ignore when she’s being offered such great rewards for being a silent obedient presence.

Tony ends up reading and annotating three papers before he felt like enough time had passed that he’d like to get her back into his bed. He sets the tablet with his papers to be read still pulled up just in case he’s unable to sleep later. He taps her head to get her attention. “I want you to go up to the bed. Your hands gripped in the bed frame and your legs spread out. Face down.”

Jemma hesitates only long enough to make sure that she can roll her muscles, so they don’t seize. She gets up and heads to the bed. She drops the towel since that would prove practically impossible to keep on while getting into the position Tony wants.

Tony’s eyes track her movements as she places her legs first to be sure that the spread is comfortable before reaching up to grip her hands around the bed frame. He had anticipated her asking him to explain as it honestly happens to be a very sexual position, but he supposes this is either proof of trust or ability to roll with incredible changes.

He approaches her gently and touches her gently on the edge of her thigh before he jumps up to the bed to settle on her thighs with his legs in a straddling position. He’s grateful that he chose to keep his sweatpants on when he was helping her in the bath because otherwise, he’s not sure that he could avoid the sexual connotations.

Jemma has to fight against the urge to roll her hips as he settles over them. She’s not sure how this plays into his statement of no sex, at the same time, she’s not going to push for anything that he doesn’t want. His hands land on her shoulders and start pressing in, and she groans.

Tony laughs as Jemma lets out obscene noises the second his hands start pushing at muscle groups. He keeps his hands pulling and prodding at the muscles until they give under his direction. He moves on until her body is close to mush. Then, he leans over to whisper in her ear. “How are you doing?”

“Feel real good, Dr. Stark.”

“Are you floating?”

“Hmm, been for a while, Dr. Stark. Surprised you didn’t notice.”

Tony pauses at that. He’s surprised too, but her floating and her in complete control aren’t all that different. That’s how delightful she is. He rolls over to bring her into a cuddling position. “Up to you on whether you want to sleep off the floating or whether you want to stay up and just feel out the floating.”

“Sleep please, Dr. Stark.”

Tony lets her curl up as close to him as possible. He grins to the ceiling. He’s got a pretty submissive who wants to read his contract in his lap, and he’s got another person to hang out in his labs now that he’s allowed to trust with secrets. Bruce still counts, but he spends most of his time in New Asgard now. As the future consort, his time is not only his any longer and science in his opinion takes the back burner to repairing an entire people. A good man his submissive is.

Chapter Text

Loki appears at the footsteps of the sanctum, knowing better than to enter a wizard’s domain without permission. Plus, he really could use the dominant to be his dominant not just a concerned person, so he needs a small minute to debate what he wants to say when he asks Stephen to let him in.

Loki does not get the time he anticipated to make a decision regarding what he wants to say as Stephen steps out and takes a long look at him. Loki debates going down to his knees, but a wave of pain from his hand keeps him from hitting the floor entirely as he instead lets out a huge breath as he fights to regain control of his breathing.

Stephen steps forward next to him and reaches out to cup that hand. His hands are gentle as they raise them up and Stephen helps him into the sanctum, ignoring all curious stares, even that of Wong. He holds Loki carefully, aware that injured like this and willing to come here is a huge step for the god.

Between the two of them, they get to a private room within the sanctum in no time. Stephen cradling the injury carefully. “Loki, what happened?”

“Stark miscalculated.”

“Tony did this,” Stephen barely keeps his tone at something softer than a scream, and even then, only manages it because Loki is currently answering questions. He doesn’t want to spook the god into leaving or worse staying but refusing to answer until Stephen ends up hurting him for information.

Loki averts his eyes. “He, umm, he had those weapons he was making. You know the ones that will allow humans and others to fight, but won’t allow them to hurt one another.”

“Yes, I recall his goals on that front.”

Loki pauses and starts fidgeting where he stands. He knows that he should have asked Tony for more details. He should have had him have medical on staff. Or he should have called Pepper and had her tell him no. But, he wanted Tony to be happy with him so he put himself in danger and now he’s hurt, and he’s leaning into Stephen, and he feels like the guilt might crush him.

Stephen takes in the fidgeting god and sighs. Answers will have to wait. “I’m going to try a spell to fix your hand, alright?”

“Yes, sir.”

Stephen reaches out with his free hand then to stroke through Loki’s hair. He tugs gently on the ends until Loki’s tension is a bit less than it had been. “You need me to be in charge?”

“Please.”

Stephen steps back so he can use his hands to cast the spell. He doesn’t expend much energy thinking about this spell since it is one that they have to use on new sorcerers all the time when they screw up a spell. That means while he’s casting his mind is wondering what he should do with Loki.

There’s a guilt in his eyes that needs to be addressed. However, Stephen also needs to make sure it is clear based on what’s happening that Loki is not at fault for something that Tony asked him to do. If Tony had taken responsibility, had said that it should be okay, then Loki wouldn’t be in trouble.

Loki watches as his hand stops going numb, and he can stretch out his fingers again. He collapses forward to lean onto Stephen. “I’m sorry.”

Stephen goes back to leisurely petting Loki’s hair, moving them backwards until they hit the bed. He lowers them down and continues the relaxing motion. “What happened, Loki?”

“He needed someone to shoot at a human, prove that the code was working. He wasn’t willing to hand them over until he knew that they couldn’t hurt people with his technology. He was hoping I would agree to, since I have advanced healing, so the tiny voltage he set it to wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Okay.”

“Something went wrong. The voltage got upped when the gun realized that I was the opposite of human. My hand got damaged in the process, although the good news is that his technology works.”

Stephen curses under his breath. Tony never follows decent lab safety, so that’s mostly unsurprising. The fact that Loki went along with it, shows a certain laissez-faire attitude to being hurt if it makes one of them happy. However, that also can’t be all that surprising to any of them given that he’s had issues with being valued his whole life, so being trusted is one of the best rewards to hand to him. Not to mention that Loki doesn’t value himself all that highly in the first place as noted by the punishment he had stood witness to. Loki wouldn’t have safeworded himself regardless of the fact that the level of punishment had gone beyond reasonable a while before. He doesn’t know anything about this Jemma Simmons who let a god shoot her with an untested gun, but he does recall her connection to Phil making Pepper the best point of contact.

“Loki, I need to make a quick call to Pepper. Will you be alright?”

“With you calling another one of my dominants, of course.” Loki furrows his brow. “Have I screwed up enough that I need another council to witness the punishment?” That strikes a bit of fear in him because while he knows that getting himself injured breaks a few rules of being a submissive, he hadn’t thought it would rank on the same scale of genocide, but then that one wasn’t really about being a submissive, so maybe there’s a different scale.

“Nope, but someone has to inform a dominant that’s not Tony Stark that there was another submissive in the equation that might need assistance.”

“Oh,” Loki whispers. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that Ms. Simmons might need assistance. Mostly because regardless of what was said down in that lab, she had been the expression of calm. She hadn’t allowed Tony a word against her plan to put herself into the bullet proof vest. She hadn’t panicked when he hit the floor, screaming in agony. She had just patched him up, called Tony down from his panic, and checked their work on the science behind what happened to make sure that it was nothing to be overly concerned about.

Stephen digs out the phone and dials Pepper’s number. She picks up before the second ring even finished. “Stephen, you don’t often call.”

“Wish I could claim that this phone call would be a fun one. Tony did something stupid.”

“On what scale? If you’re referring to taking in another one of Phil’s team members as a submissive, I’m pretty sure we’re in the middle of combining two families, and we all kind of just need to stop being surprised when it happens.”

“No, although it is good to hear that she’s one of yours now. Tony convinced her and Loki to participate in a science experiment to ensure the working function of his guns. Loki was injured, she was not, but she might be in a bad headspace when she realizes that his harm is partially on her acquisition to Tony’s request.”

Pepper sighs. “I wish I could say that this is a surprise to me, but I’ve known Tony for far too long. Is Loki alright?”

“Yeah, he came to me.”

“I wouldn’t worry about Jemma too much. She’s a different kind of person than either of us, and she would tell us if we did something that hurt her including what just happened. That being said, I will give her some shit for not calling me when she knew that Tony wasn’t following smart science practices.”

“Really?”

Pepper laughs. “Sorry, Phil just informed me that I could punish her for it, but she’ll probably look at me and inform me that until I have a doctorate in a science field, I don’t know enough about laboratory situations to make a judgement on the situation.”

“Why is that sparking laughter and not a desire to sigh and curse?”

“She’s a service submissive. In order to be willing to stand up to me, she’ll have to fight her entire personality, and I’m deadly interested in how that goes.”

Stephen’s lips curve up into a smile. “Let me know too.”

“Of course, good luck with Loki.”

Loki watches as Stephen pockets the phone and briefly spares a moment to say an apology inside his head to apologize to Jemma for throwing her under the bus. He hadn’t really thought it through about the fact that if he told Stephen the full story, she might also be caught in the crosshairs. She hadn’t been in any danger, but all the same, whether dominants would see it that way, may be in question.

Stephen steps back towards Loki and retunes his hand to petting the long strokes of hair. “Would you like to hear something amusing?”

“Sure.”

“I’m having trouble even being angry at you. See I know all about being stupid for someone you love, and I know how persuasive Tony can be regarding his technology. If you hadn’t helped him, there’s a good chance that it would have gone worse for someone.”

Loki gulps. He hadn’t considered that by helping Tony, he was preventing trouble from rising for others. “Yeah?”

“Oh yes, I can see the wisdom of that choice. Here’s my problem though. You have the guiltiest expression on your face, which tells me that all the reasons that you could have had to do this don’t apply. You didn’t do this because you wanted to help others. You didn’t do this because you thought that by assisting Tony, he wouldn’t put himself in danger. No, you did this because he asked and there was a chance ever so small that by doing this you could absolve more of your issues.”

Loki squeezes his eyes shut to block out the thoughts that crowded in. That no matter how many times he put himself in harm’s way. No matter how many times he fought for his people, he would never deserve the kind of absolution. He was trying, and surely that has to be enough. He believes that has to be enough.

Stephen sighs. “Loki, have you done any new actions that are deplorable?”

“What?” Loki exclaims. His eyes flying open as he practically throws himself down to the floor in front of Stephen. “No, sir, I swear. I swear that I am actually trying my best to be the kind of person that I’d like to be. I haven’t done anything other than a few pranks on the more conservative troops of Thor’s army, but he’s given me free reign to do so, until they treat as my status as a prince deserves.”

“I believe you,” Stephen reassures immediately. He doesn’t want Loki spiraling so far down in his own thoughts that he doesn’t realize what’s being said to him at all. Which at this point seems like it could very well end up happening. “I believe you, but I have another question.”

“Any answer you require of me,” Loki swears.

“Thank you. Why do you believe you need punished?”

“Because I’ve done bad things, horrible things. Crimes that shouldn’t be forgiven by the highest councils in the land, let alone a small knit family forgiving them and allowing me a place in their home. I gave up my right to that a long time ago.”