Chapter Text
THE RUNAWAY EX-VENGERS SET TO RETURN THIS WEEK
written by DENISE PORTER
As I’m sure all of us know, we are closing in on the second anniversary of what press and the public have called the modern day superhero Civil War. For those who have never seen the news or looked online at any point ever, let me summarize what happened:
Shit went down, and Captain America went crazy.
Not really, it was obviously more complicated than that, involving the Accords and disagreement and a battle within the Avengers over what was and was not the right thing to do. Since then, Captain America and his team is misfits have been wanted fugitives around the globe, while Tony Stark and the Avengers who stayed worked with the UN to negotiate making changes on parts that felt unfit and not all that fair. Government officials have tried to stay quiet about this ordeal, but Stark has been an open book about all things related to the Avengers and the Accords the entire time, giving public statements and updates on the progress being made, as well as things that they were still struggling with. About two and a half months ago, Stark made another statement claiming that almost all negotiations had been dealt with, and the new version of the Accords should be made public once they got the last of it ironed out.
Since then, any other news on this issue has been small and mostly insignificant, and from Stark, radio silence—until earlier today, when he held a press conference to announce that the fugitive Avengers have been pardoned, contacted and brought up to speed on the new Accords, and have agreed to sign. He also said that they would be returning come this Friday, where they will be placed on a general house arrest for an undetermined amount of time, more of a precaution until the UN feels they are trustworthy again. However, their house arrest will be held at Stark Tower, because, according to Stark, “New York seems like a beacon for trouble, and if something happens and we need them for an emergency, they’ll already be in the city.”
Public opinion about this news is up in the air. As it stands, the American people aren’t sure if the Ex-vengers can be trusted, but on the other hand, having the Avengers feels like a safety blanket being placed over the world again. My question, however, is this:
After a break up like that, how are the Avengers planning to work together and be a team again?
I don’t know about anyone else, but after that explosive of a break up, I can’t see either side being able to go back to being the way they were, but maybe they’ll surprise us. At this point, I think we’re all just hoping that, whatever goes down, it’s not as damaging as it was last time—seeing Tony Stark look a light breeze away from bursting into tears for at least three months was heartbreaking, to say the least.
Hit us up on any of our social media platforms and let us know what you think!
The thought has been there for a while now, the lingering question, the uncertainty. Ever since they heard on the news that Tony was working with the UN to negotiate the more unfair aspects of the accords, they’ve been wondering what that meant for them—if they would get to go home, what it would be like if they did. Together, Steve, Nat, Sam, and Wanda (though Wanda was usually going off on her own, meeting with Vision in unknown places and not getting back to them for weeks at a time) would ponder how it would go, imagined anything from warm hugs and tears and profuse apologies, to thrown punches and yelling and pure anger.
This was not what they expected.
As soon as the three of them step into Stark Tower, which has been cleared out of employees for the day, along with the entire block being closed off to avoid press and unwanted attention, two things happen. First, a teenage boy, looking to be around sixteen or seventeen, steps in front of them with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed into a judgmental, scrutinizing sort of half-glare, brows twitching together, then up, then together again. Before the three rogues can react, another teenager steps into the room, though this one is not nearly as defensive, has a pair of dark sunglasses on his nose and a brown box in his hands labeled kitchen stuff, his lower lip jutted out in a childish looking pout.
“Um.” Steve looks over at Nat, brows raised high. She just shrugs. “May we… help you…?”
The first teen cocks his head slightly to the side, scans over them for a moment, then abruptly turns towards the second teenager and simply states, “They look like douche bags.”
The second teen splutters, eyes hidden by the glasses, though his brows are visible when they shoot up to his hairline. “Harley, we literally just talked about this, like, an hour ago.”
“I’m just being honest,” Harley shrugs, a wide grin stretching over his features. “You know I’m right.”
“You’re being rude, which is exactly what Mister Stark said not to do. Actually, now that I think about it, I think he said to avoid them entirely, so we should probably just go upstairs before he gets mad at us. Plus, this box is heavy and I still don’t have my full strength back, so—”
That seems to grab Harley’s attention as he quickly scrambles over to the other teen and takes the box from him, eyes wide and worried. “Why didn’t you start with that? Jesus, Peter, Dr. Cho said to take it easy, you shouldn’t have grabbed a heavy box in the first place! Does anything hurt? Headache? Ribs? Anything?”
The second teen—Peter—shakes his head with a small little smile. “Other than my entire body still feeling like a giant bruise, I’m pretty much good. Was there anything else in the car?”
“Nope.” Harley takes a step towards the elevator, gesturing with the nod of his head for Peter to follow him, both of them having apparently already forgotten the presence of the others in the room. “This was the last box from our trip. Happy got the rest of the stuff from your room upstairs, and Ned and MJ are at the apartment with May to get the last of it loaded into her car. Which—” they step into the elevator, and Harley balances the box between him and the railing to point at Peter with a very stern look on his face, “—you will not be helping to carry, unless you want a very protective boyfriend, an angry Dr. Cho, and a panicking Iron Man strapping you down to the couch until dinner. Don’t argue with me on this, Peter, or I swear to god I'll throw a full blown tantrum until you give up.”
Peter scoffs. “Harley, seriously, I’m fine, I can carry a few boxes—”
“Last night, you puked all over my bed because you stood up too fast.”
The elevator doors close before Peter’s spluttered out response can be heard. Steve stares at the closed doors in blatant confusion for what feels like a long time, trying to make sense of what just happened.
“Let’s talk rules.”
“We’ve already been debriefed on rules,” Natasha says, brows pinched together as she looks at Tony, who’s standing—not sitting—at the head of the conference table, his features steeled over and cool, hard to read. Sam, sitting to Steve’s left, says nothing. Steve just blinks, uncertain on how to react.
Tony pushes his hands off the table and crosses his arms over his chest. “The rules of the accords, yes,” he nods, professional and serious and not at all the Tony Stark they remember. “However, you’re house arrest is in my home, and I have rules for living here. If you break them, you go right back to being fugitives, because I won’t let you stay here anymore. Which, surprisingly, the UN agreed with me about, so you better listen closely."
Steve frowns. “That doesn’t sound fair.”
“Neither is me being forced to house your asses, but here we are,” Tony quips, shrugging. Then, before anyone else can speak up, he jumps right into it. “Firstly, you are not permitted above floor ninety two unless someone with a higher clearance gives you access, and even then, the access will be temporary and permission will be needed again to go back up. Second—”
“Wait a second,” Steve says, leaning forward in his seat. “How will that work? I very clearly remember the fact that out rooms are on the ninety third floor.”
Tony glares at him until he leans back again. “They were, but now they aren’t. You’re on floor ninety.”
Feeling flabbergasted, Steve shakes his head and asks, “Why were we moved?”
“Floor ninety three now belongs to the Parker’s,” Tony answers simply. “Which brings me back to my second rule: don’t fuck with my family. I don’t care if they annoy you, if they say something you don’t like, whatever. If you so much as make anyone I love feel slightly uncomfortable, you’re out.”
“I thought the Avengers were your family,” Nat speaks up.
Tony’s glare shifts to her. “The people I call family is a small list, and you two aren’t on it.”
Something about that makes something ache in Steve’s chest, but— “Two? Why just us two?”
“Because Barton turned himself in,” Tony says. “He chose his family, and we talked it out. Once he stopped trying to blindly follow you, he read the accords, helped me figure out what parts needed to be changed, and in return, I worked my ass off to make his house arrest as short as possible. Him and his family visit once a month. Lang, even though I barely know the guy, did the same. Wanda and I have been talking through Vision since this mess started, and we’ve found middle ground, which is why she didn’t come in with you and is being flown in tomorrow instead, on a Quinjet that will take her right to the roof so that she won’t have to worry about press. And you, Mister Wilson—” he looks directly at Sam, and, surprisingly, he smiles, a real, grateful smile. “When I found a way to contact you and begged you for weekly phone calls to help out Peter, you trusted me not to turn you in, and you helped him. Thank you for doing that, by the way. He’s a good kid, but he’s been through hell and he needs that help.”
Sam smiles back, and any residual tension leaves him in an instant. “I won’t lie,” he says, “I was kinda disappointed when he said he didn’t need those calls anymore. I miss talking to the little punk.”
“Well, you live in the same building now, and he’s excited to see you,” Tony tells him. “Just give him some time, though. We had a… pretty big scare, to say the least, a little over a week ago, and he’s still healing, so he might not be up to that quite yet. I’ll ask him about it when I go check on him, though.”
“I don’t understand,” Steve cuts in, thoroughly confused now. “What’s he talking about, Sam?”
And, oddly enough, Sam seems to get defensive at the question, lips tugged down into a little frown as he looks over at Steve. “Stark has an intern, Peter. Kid’s only sixteen, but he’s been through a lot of trauma and needed some kind of therapy or counseling, but he refused to talk to someone unless he knew they could keep it a secret. Because of my credentials and everything, Stark got in contact with me through T’Challa, and I had little counseling sessions over the phone with the kid every Wednesday for a few months."
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Nat asks. “He could have tracked us down and—”
“But I didn’t,” Tony cuts in coldly. “It wasn’t about me, and it wasn’t about you guys. It was about Peter. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to get this done and go back to my family as fast as possible.” When no one speaks up, he nods once, stuffs his hands into his front pockets, and continues. “Rule three, no fighting. Not only could this whole thing have been avoided if you assholes had just sat down and let us all talk through our opinions to find a middle ground, but I have a kid here, and another kid is currently moving in. Sure, they’re not little kids—Pete’s turning seventeen next week and Harley turned seventeen in June, so they’re able to form their own opinions, blah, blah, blah, but I’m working my ass off to set a good example for those two, and that includes better communication and not letting things escalate. Is that understood?” Again, no one speaks, but there are three silent nods. Tony sighs. “Good. Like I said, your rooms are on floor ninety, as well as a laundry room and a kitchen. Ninety one has a gym, a small lab, and other things that you can explore and use to your heart's content. Which reminds me—rule four, no weapons are allowed to leave your gym until the UN trusts you to be smart and safe with them. If you try to take something with you, or if you try to go somewhere you haven’t been authorized, Friday will warn you once. If that doesn’t stop you, she will provide a lock down wherever you are to make it so you can’t leave, and she’ll contact me, Ross, and members of the board to alert them of breaking the house rules. Above all that is the rules of the accords, obviously, but those won’t really matter until you’ve been taken off house arrest and are back on the team. Got it?”
Again, three nods, though this time Steve speaks up to say, “Thank you, Tony. For all of this.”
But Tony just shakes his head. “I didn’t do it for you, Cap. The world needs the Avengers, and that’s what you guys are, even if I don’t trust you right now, even if I don’t want you here. Now, before I leave and let you guys get settled, do any of you have any questions you want me to answer? And keep it civil.”
Instantly, Natasha lifts a hand slightly in the air, though she doesn’t wait for a response before she’s asking, “Who are the kids? Are they yours? Why are they living in the tower? And who are the Parker’s?”
“Wow.” Tony lets out some kind of chuckle, one that’s not all that genuine, but isn’t fully flat, either. “I would have preferred one question at a time, but let’s tackle this. Uh, the kids—Peter and Harley. Peter, like Sam said, is my intern, so no, not mine. Pepper and I do have legal guardianship over Harley, though, because his family lives in Tennessee and his mom wanted him to get a better education. Or, he just ran off and she let him, I think. I’m not sure the whole reason for why, but I met the kid when he was twelve, and he showed up here back in March asking for a place to stay, so we got that set up. Technically, though, also not mine, even though I do feel very parental over both of them, but not in a weird way, ‘cause they’re dating now, but that’s—yeah. Not the point. They also have two friends, Michelle and Ned, who come over a lot, so you’ll probably see them around, too. As for who the Parker’s are, they're Peter and his Aunt May, who is a nurse that we hired under Helen’s training to join the medical staff, and since Helen and her medical staff have rooms here and at the compound, we offered to just have her and Peter move in.”
Sam leans forward, brows furrowed. “You said there was a scare last week. What happened?”
Tony clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and something about his demeanor darkens as he glances around the room. “Well, that involves things that I’m not willing to share, but let’s just say it was a close call and we weren’t sure if Pete was gonna pull through. Sam, when you see him, you can ask for specifics, but those specifics aren’t mine to talk about, especially with people he doesn’t know nor trust.”
“You’re keeping secrets, Stark?”
The pure anger that crosses Tony’s face when he turns to look at Steve is almost stifling. “First off,” he starts, voice low and practically murderous, “you are in no fucking place to tell me about secrets, Rogers. And secondly, it’s not a secret—it’s personal information that isn’t mine to share. Have some fucking respect.”
Steve doesn’t look away, gaze unwavering, though his eyes reflect regret. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Sure you are,” Tony huffs, but he leaves it at that, scans over the three of them again before stepping back with a long, slow breath. “Rhodey will be here later today. Wanda gets here with Vision tomorrow. Barton and Lang are both planning to visit early next week, and T’Challa is flying Barnes out here next month. Your rooms are exactly the same as they were when you left, just a few floors down. Food, clothes, movies, whatever, feel free to order without asking, I don’t care. Are there any other questions?”
No one says anything.
“Good,” Tony murmurs, before spinning on his heel and walking away.
Smug.
That’s the only word to describe the look on Harley’s face as Helen stands in front of Peter, who’s wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, and gives him a long, thorough lecture. “Your abilities are working for you,” she says, hands on her hips, brows raised. “But you have to give them the chance to do their job, Peter. If you strain yourself too much, your healing won’t work as fast or as efficiently, and there’s a chance it won’t be able to heal you to a hundred percent. And despite the fact that I’ve been telling you this all week, you still keep trying to do the heavy lifting, straining your body and putting yourself at risk, and for what? To bring up some plates? Someone else can get the plates, Peter.”
Fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, Peter turns his head down to the ground, sinks his teeth into his lower lip and lets out a long, slow sigh. “I know,” he murmurs, twisting the fabric around his fingers. “I just—I hate this so much, I—I feel fine one second, like I’m back to normal, but then the next second it’s like I’m about to pass out from random pain, and it just—it sucks. I feel useless right now, okay? And I hate being useless when I could be doing something to help. Doing nothing is driving me freakin’ crazy.”
“You don’t have to do nothing,” Helen tells him, tone a little bit more gentle. “But avoid the unnecessary stuff, okay? You carried up a lot of boxes and bags today, let the others do the rest while you relax.”
“I never relax,” Peter huffs, slouching his shoulders a bit. “And when can I take these stupid glasses off? I feel like a douche bag ‘cause I have to wear them indoors.”
Reaching forward, Helen plucks the glasses off the perch of Peter’s nose. “How well can you see?”
Peter squints, and his eyes clearly struggling to see his surroundings. Still, he tries, looks around the room, before sighing in reluctant defeat. “Better than yesterday,” he tries meekly, frowning. “But still not all that well. It’s like my eyes can’t focus on anything, like when I first got bit, but ten times worse.”
“And that’s why the glasses stay on,” Helen says, sliding them back up the bridge of Peter’s nose. “Automatically adjusting for you, plus helping block out light that would be overwhelming, as well as monitoring progress in healing. At this rate, no more than another week and you should be good.”
With a dramatic sigh, Peter flops over to lay on his side on the couch, wincing slightly at the ache it causes in his… well, in his everything, really. “The Vulture was more fun than this.”
Helen frowns. “He dropped a building on you.”
“And compared to me vomiting five times a day, not being able to see without these douchey glasses, and still feeling like I’m being violently torn apart from the inside out, that building was a god damn picnic.”
“Sometimes I forget how much of a dramatic asshole you can be,” Harley says, snickering as he steps forward, though there’s a little glimmer of a lot of things in his eyes, something a little fond, a lot worried, but he just smiles a cute little smile and nudges Peter’s arm lightly. “Sit up a sec, I’m gonna sit down and use my title as a worried boyfriend as an excuse to not have to carry more boxes.”
The glasses are too tinted to see, but it’s not hard to assume that Peter is directing a teasing for of half-assed glare Harley’s way as he lazily pushes himself into a sitting position, gives just enough space for Harley to sit down before he lets himself fall back into place, his head resting against Harley’s thighs, his knees curling up into his own chest until the blanket that he has draped over him. “Should’ve known you were just dating me for the convenient laziness,” he murmurs, suddenly much too tired for a joking tone.
Harley snorts anyway, lets his fingers run through Peter’s hair. “Oh, yeah, that’s definitely all it is,” he drawls sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Totally not because you’re probably my soulmate or anything like that.”
Peter huffs, presses his forehead against Harley’s stomach, but he’s smiling slightly. “Obviously.”
“Go to sleep, you little shit,” Harley says, a fond little grin on his face as he looks down at Peter. “I’ll wake you up in time for dinner, assuming I don’t also pass the fuck out before then.”
“Hmph.” Peter adjusts the blanket so that it somewhat covers the rest of Harley’s lap, yet somehow doesn’t cover up Peter’s face. “I sleep, you sleep.”
Harley rolls his eyes again. “Okay, fine. May will probably wake us up, then.”
“Fine by me,” Peter mumbles, then promptly lets out the tiniest little snore humanly possible. By this point, Helen has already left the room, shaking her head with a small smile, though neither of them can exactly pinpoint her departure. Harley giggles lightly at the snore, but falls asleep shortly after.
Tony comes in, tense and upset and clearly in need of a movie night to relax, only to immediately soften into a happy little smile at the sight he sees.
May and Pepper are sitting in the hand me down sofa that Tony helped the Parker’s buy for their floor, to help fill the living room that’s about twice as big as their old one, both of them balancing a plate of pizza in their laps. MJ and Ned are sitting on the floor, each with their own pizza as well, and Happy is zonked out in one of the two recliners that Tony also convinced May to let him help pay for. On the smaller sofa, the one that came from the Parker’s apartment (that Tony is planning to convince May to let him replace with something newer and less dingy at some point), Peter and Harley are fast asleep, Harley sort of slouched over on his side, cheek pressed to Peter’s blanket covered hip, while Peter’s head rests in Harley’s lap, both of them letting out soft little snores, the sound frankly adorable in comparison to the occasional loud rumble of a snore that Happy releases every minute or so.
“You started the pizza party without me?” Tony asks, voice soft and joking and definitely happy to see most of the people he really cares about lounging around, relaxes and content and safe. “Rude.”
“We saved you some of your favorite, Mister Stark, sir!” Ned happily chirps, grinning from ear to ear, and it’s a nice change, seeing how he’s still excitable about being around Tony, being in the Stark Tower in the first place, but Peter and Harley have been bringing Ned and MJ over pretty much every day since coming back from Tennessee nearly a month ago, and they’ve both been glued to Peter’s side almost as much as Tony, May and Harley have been since the whole almost dying thing last week, so he’s definitely become a bit more adjusted to Tony's presence and has toned down his excitement by now.
Tony smiles warmly, swipes up his plate and settles himself at the end of the sofa that Pepper and May are sitting on, Pepper instantly leaning into him when he does so. “Thanks, kid,” he tells Ned, smiles a little wider at the way the kid beams in response, then turns his attention to the TV, which is playing some movie he doesn’t recognize at a lower volume, clearly to avoid waking the sleeping people in the room.
Next to Ned, MJ leans over, the ends of her lips tugging up into some kind of little smile, and she murmurs something quietly, something only Ned can hear, and whatever it is has to be funny, because Ned claps his hand over his mouth to stop from snorting to loudly. He murmurs something back, and when MJ leans away, she’s wearing one of her full sized grins that she only has around her friends.
“How was it?” Pepper asks, a bit quiet to keep from drawing everyone’s attention to them, but Tony doesn’t really mind the rest of them overhearing—these people, plus Rhodey and Helen, are the people he trusts wholeheartedly, without a doubt in his mind, without any hesitance in his soul.
So, at a normal volume (though still just a little quiet, because he doesn’t wanna wake up Happy, Harley, or Peter), he answers, “It was okay. Sam is on my good list, for sure. He seemed really worried when I mentioned Peter having a scare last week, so hopefully Pete will be up to seeing him soon. Romanov and Rogers are… confused, I think, and I don’t really know how I’m supposed to trust them, but it’s a work in progress, right?” He shrugs, lets out a sigh and scrubs a hand over his features tiredly. “Whatever. Rhodey should be here within the hour, Wanda and Vision get here tomorrow, Scott and Clint are both bringing their families to visit, too, but not until next week. I think, after Wanda gets here, I’ll set up an official dinner with everyone, just to get everybody acquainted with each other, you know?”
“I think that could be extremely beneficial to everyone,” Pepper nods. “Especially considering just how much has changed since they lived here before. A lot of things are so different now.”
May clears her throat a bit, drawing their attention, and says, “Would they… I mean, you told them to be nice, right? Because I—I mean, it’s not that I don’t trust you, I absolutely do, especially when it comes to Peter’s safety, but thinking back on how bruised up Peter was after Germany, I just… I get anxious.”
Tony nods a bit, giving her a warm, understanding smile. “I told them that if they make anyone even the slightest bit uncomfortable or step a toe out of line, they’re getting kicked out,” he informs her. “Trust me, when it comes to having them back here, my number one priority is you, Peter, Harley, and Pepper. One move that might even imply putting anyone in this room in danger, and their asses are out of here.”
The look on May’s face is one of adoring gratitude as she glances between Tony and Pepper, shaking her head slightly in some kind of awe-filled shock. “This is still so bizarre,” she murmurs, shaking her head slightly. “I just… I can’t believe how incredible you’ve been to Peter and I. Seriously, thank you.”
“Please, don’t thank us,” Pepper is quick to say. Tony nods, about to reply, when—
“What the fuck?”
Looking over, it becomes clear that, while the three of them were talking, Ned and MJ made themselves busy finding random objects and items to balance on Harley and Peter’s sleeping forms. Harley is the one that’s awake now, blinking heavily at the remote that’s somehow balanced on the bridge of his nose, though it falls onto his chest when he lifts his head to squint around the room, parts his lips, most likely to ask another question or something, only to freeze when he sees the remaining pizza sitting in the open boxes on the coffee table. Instantly, he reaches over, shakes Peter’s shoulder lightly until he lets out a sleepy hum that goes up at the end, some kind of unspoken question.
Harley brushes away a pen tucked behind Peter’s ear and says, “Babe, there’s pizza.”
A short pause, and then Peter looks over his shoulder, the special sunglasses on his face askew, hair an absolute sleep-caused mess, and he rasps out, “P’zza? Where—?”
“Here,” MJ says, holding up the plate with the slices of pizza they set aside for Peter. Ned does the same with Harley’s plate. “Sit up first, you morons. You’ll choke if you try to eat it like that.”
“Y’er the best,” Peter sleepily slurs, trying to push himself up into a sitting position, which Harley quickly helps him with when he visibly winces. Once they’re both sitting properly (though they’re still leaning heavily against each other, shoulders pressed together), they accept their plates and instantly start to practically inhale their pizza, eyes half lidded and stifling yawns.
Tony shakes his head and smiles, scans over the room—Happy is still passed out, Ned is now trying to ramble on to Harley and Peter, who are both clearly still half asleep and don’t seem to be processing anything he’s saying, MJ has a notebook opened in front of her, pen dancing across the page as she doodles in it, and both May and Pepper have already turned their attention back to the TV to watch whatever the hell is on there. Soon, Rhodey will be here, and Helen is probably either in her room, in the med bay, or on her way to the compound, and that—this—this is his family. This is his everything.
And he’ll be damned if he lets a few Rogues fuck with any of them.