CA3 Fanfic Ahoy

I started writing something to fix some stuff and I kind of feel like I’m making it worse. Being fair I’m writing in Tony’s POV and Tony always makes it worse.

SCROLL HARD IF YOU ARE ON AN APP, OTHERWISE, SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUT

Here are three bits of a larger work because if I posted the entire thing you guys would just be so sad. I NEED TO FIX THE FIXIT.

EXCERPT NUMBER ONE

***

UNKNOWN NUMBER

Call him.

AES

Who the fuck are you?

UNKNOWN NUMBER

It’s Wanda. Call him now.

AES

Hey. How’s life on the run? You eating okay?

SULLEN SURROGATE DAUGHTER

I’m angry with you, don’t do that. Just call him.

AES

Why?

SULLEN SURROGATE DAUGHTER

Because now is the right moment. Now will fix things.

Christ, had he ever believed shit like that.

But he picked up the phone, weary anger at Wanda nicely distracting him from the searing rage at Steve, and hit the autodial.

“Tony. Hey,” Steve’s voice said, sounding rough. Maybe he’d been asleep.

“A clamshell phone?” Tony asked. “Really?”

“Well, you know me and technology,” Steve replied. “If it’s got more than four buttons I just jab randomly until I get it right.”

“Uh huh. That’s why this phone is routing an encrypted line through twenty different nodes across the globe to bounce to you in Wakanda?” Tony asked, checking the display he’d hooked into the phone. Failure to call didn’t mean failure of any action at all; he’d studied the phone extensively.

“I knew you’d find me. I didn’t want anyone else to,” Steve said. “No listening in, nobody to posture for, just you and me. Two people in a room, more or less.”

“There’s always someone to posture for, that’s what makes life worth living,” Tony said, and heard Steve sigh.

“I should be used to that,” he said. “Why the call?”

“Why not? I assume you can afford a chat.”

“Just wondering why the universe likes to kick me in the face when I’m already on the ground,” Steve said. It sounded more raw and honest than anything Tony had heard from him, which reminded him that Steve postured just as much as he did – he just didn’t admit it.

“Could be you have a way of making even an uncaring function of physics really pissed off at you,” Tony replied. “Speaking of which, how’s your pal? Enjoying a nice vacation now that you two’ve been reunited?”

“And I was wrong, there’s the kick to the face,” Steve muttered. “He’s not your concern, Tony.”

Hot rage spiked like a headache, and Tony almost threw the phone. But dad had taught him to go for the nerve, not the throat. It hurt more and longer.

“You want a kick to the face, I can tell you how many of those German special forces died when you two busted loose in Romania. Or did you want the civilian casualties list from the chase through the Bucharest tunnels?”

The two Special Forces men who’d died had actually been victims of friendly fire, and the only death in the tunnel was an old man who’d had a heart attack. Steve didn’t know that, and didn’t need to. At least he told himself.

“Boy, the Sokovia Accords sure did their job then, didn’t they, preventing collateral damage,” Steve replied.

“They’re not meant to prevent death. They’re meant to make sure that when we throw down, a duly elected authority representing the international community agreed we should. It’s the closest we can get to the will of the people, Steve.”

“North Korea signed the Accords. I don’t remember democratic elections there recently.”

“So did Canada. The Accords were open to everyone to sign. North Korea’s not on the UN and won’t be telling us what to do, so what the fuck does it matter?”

“It matters because politics are never as easy as you make them seem, Tony, and SHIELD’s fall should have proved that to you the same way it did to me. You think your parents were murdered by chance? Hydra agents inside SHIELD were trusted enough that they knew what your father was carrying and they told someone in Hydra who gave the order. That could just as easily happen to some private council the UN appoints, and where are we then?”

Tony’s fingers curled into a fist to stop the shaking.

“What he was carrying,” he repeated, voice even.

“On the tape, he – on the tape the Winter Soldier takes something from the car,” Steve said. He sounded surprised. “You didn’t see?”

“I was busy watching your BFF murder my mom.”

He could hear Steve take a breath. “Tony, I’m trying to make this work right now, even if you can’t see that.”

“What exactly is there left to make work – ”

“Your father was carrying samples of a newly synthesized serum,” Steve said, ignoring him. “That’s what he was taking to the Pentagon. His new serum formulation. It’s where the soldiers we saw in Siberia came from. What the Winter Soldier took from the car.”

Tony uncurled his fist, pressed the heel of his hand to his eye. “He put my mother in the car with that,” he said, before he thought about it. Dad put Mom in the car with something well worth killing for. Because it was on the way to the plane to Bermuda. Just a quick errand.

“There was a decoy transport that left the SI lab at the same time,” Steve said. “He clearly thought the decoy would be attacked, not him.”

“Do you know who was the mole?”

“No. Odds are whoever it was, they were dead or purged when we took down the Helicarriers. I think I know who gave the order, though.”

“Yeah, well, you give me that name so I can kill him and I might let Barnes go if I ever see him again.”

“Tony,” Steve said, his voice dropping sadly. “You already have. It was Howard’s partner.”

Oh.

“Obadiah,” Tony said dully. When the news about Hydra’s infiltration of SHIELD had broken, he’d wondered. It didn’t seem relevant, what with Obadiah being dead and all.

“Yeah,” Steve said.

“And you were planning to tell me all this when?”

“I’ve been putting it together for a few weeks. I was going to tell you when you called.”

“Are you literally actually unaware that a phone line goes both ways?”

“You wouldn’t have listened before. You’re barely listening now. Today was not my best day, Tony, sorry I’m not the guy you or your father thought I was.”

His voice cracked on the end of the last word.

Well. Good.

“How are the kids?” Tony asked.

“Fine,” Steve said, after a pause. “Wanda’s just started at a university here. Clint misses his family. He says they Skype.”

“Do you know what Skype is?”

“I assume it’s some form of video game,” Steve said, exaggerated dignity in his voice, and Tony almost laughed a little.

“And Barnes?” he asked, slipping the knife in instead.

“He asked me to kill him today,” Steve said.

Wow, that was a sharper knife than he knew.

“The universe putting you on the ground,” Tony observed.

“We’ve been keeping him under, keeping him frozen. He doesn’t trust himself with Hydra triggers still in him. The scientists here say clearing out his programming’s going to take time, if they can even work out how. He doesn’t trust them, either; they run all these tests whenever he’s thawed out, it reminds him of…anyway, what is there for him once he’s cleared? We’re both international criminals.” Steve’s voice sounded agonized. “What is there for either of us?”

“Yeah, it sure is rough facing the consequences of your actions,” Tony said.

There was a click as Steve hung up on him.

***

SULLEN SURROGATE DAUGHTER

Well, you fucked up that chance.

AES

Thanks, Wanda. Don’t you have a kegger to attend?

SULLEN SURROGATE DAUGHTER

I have American Colonialist Socioeconomics 302 in twenty minutes.

I’m from Sokovia so they decided they could put me straight into the advanced course.

Ouch.

***

UNKNOWN NUMBER

Wanda says you fucked up.

AES

Okay, which one of you is this? Clint?

UNKNOWN NUMBER

Clint’s still way too pissed to text you.

AES

Sam.

BIRD COSTUME

You were supposed to reach out. With an olive branch, not a hand grenade.

AES

Why should I?

BIRD COSTUME

Because right now you have all the power, dumbass.

AES

Yeah it sure felt that way when I was seventeen and his boyfriend murdered my parents.

***

EXCERPT NUMBER TWO

Perhaps he could convince Peter to come up for a weekend training at some point. The kid had a ton of natural talent but he was easily distracted and could use some lessons in focus from someone who had been there.

“Focus, from you,” Rhodey said.

“Yeah the point is,” Tony replied, stabbing his dessert with his fork for emphasis, “I used to be easily distracted and now I am capable of great focus and you just won’t admit it because you remember how much fun MIT was.”

“If you can focus on something for more than ten minutes I will give you ten dollars,” Rhodey said.

“I wouldn’t know what to do with a ten dollar bill. I suppose I could use it to insulate my Black AmEx,” Tony replied. “I’m very focused.”

“Today you forgot you were talking to me in the middle of a sentence,” Vision said.

“I’m also very tired,” Tony pointed out. “That’s it, I’m leaving you two to pretend you’re better people than me, I’m going to bed.”

“Tell Peter when you’re done confusing him I can teach him about actual discipline,” Rhodey called after him.

“Also say hello from me!” Vision added, because he was still working on the finer points of banter.

***

EXCERPT NUMBER THREE

UNKNOWN NUMBER

I’m still pissed at you.

AES

Let me guess, this is therapeutic.

ANGRIEST BIRD

Cathartic, maybe.

AES

Ten dollar word from you, Barton.

How’s Natasha?

ANGRIEST BIRD

She’s not with you?

AES

She’s not with me, I assumed she was with you.

ANGRIEST BIRD

Why would she be here with us?

AES

You don’t know.

Your new bestest buddy tattled on her to Ross. If she comes back here she’ll be arrested.

ANGRIEST BIRD

How long have you known she was in the wind?

AES

I DIDN’T KNOW SHE WAS IN THE WIND, I THOUGHT SHE WAS WITH YOU.

Everyone else is.

***

That merited a call on the clamshell. Tony let it go to voicemail, then called back.

“Clint says Natasha’s in the wind,” Steve said.

“No hello, no annoyed sighs? You seem kinda freaked out about her for someone who’s seen just how well she can take care of herself,” Tony replied.

“Ross is after her.”

“Ross can barely find his ass with both hands most days or he wouldn’t keep calling me. She was in more danger when she was chaperoning you around as a fugitive from Hydra.”

“I want to know where she is.”

“Then I suggest you ask the guy who narc’d on her to Ross to help you find her,” Tony said. “I’m not sure what you think I can do about it. If she doesn’t want to be found she won’t be found.”

“Could you at least act like you care about her?” Steve asked, and Tony might have seen a little red.

“Yeah, I tried giving a damn about all of you,” he said. “Look where that got me. Kind of you to give me the Avengers when most of the team’s there with you.”

“They wouldn’t be if they weren’t fugitives.”

Tony bit back on his immediate retort of They broke the law! because that was – there was an interesting subtext there.

They wouldn’t be if they weren’t fugitives. Which meant – that maybe they wanted to come back.

And that would be nice, but…wasn’t actually that likely. Those bridges had burned. Tony knew what it was like to cut someone off behind you, knew what it was like to say something you couldn’t take back and lose a person forever. People talked a good game about family but people didn’t stick around. At least, not for him. So if they wanted to come back, it wasn’t for him.

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. “But thank you for the lie, it’s a kindness.”

“Tony, you don’t – ” Steve began, but Tony snapped the phone shut.