Chapter Text
After Afghanistan and Iron Man, SHIELD gave Tony a choice. He could out himself as Iron Man, or claim it was a bodyguard, and hide his face from the world.
Agent Agent had never said anything, but Tony had hacked SHIELD's servers and knew they wanted him to go the bodyguard route. Yes to Iron Man and no to Tony Stark, and all that.
That, as well as keeping Pepper safe, made him go with the bodyguard cover, and flimsy as he thought it was, no one questioned it.
Of course, why would they? Tony Stark was no superhero.
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After Afghanistan, Tony hadn't escaped unscathed. The Iron Man suit wasn't cosmetic - not all of it, anyway. There was the arc reactor in his chest, of course, but the suit did in fact make it easier to breathe, and assisted in his movements, giving Iron Man an easy, if slightly robotic, gait which Tony Stark had to work harder to fake.
And then there were the scars.
The only reason Tony Stark was still the public's unmarked playboy was due to some very advanced engineering by Stark himself.
The facial-disguising masks had instantly been bought out by SHIELD when he'd decided to produce the technology for them, but the one he had was a higher quality than those he sent them. To an extremely keen eye, knowing what to look for, theirs were detectable. His was not. Even once the Avengers were formed and he had to keep the disguiser on permanently when not in the suit, Natasha and Barton, the two best spies SHIELD had ever had, hadn't been able to detect his mask.
It'd been harder to produce something similar to the face disguiser for his arms and hands which could keep up the illusion even when holding things, but eventually he succeeded. The disguisers couldn't do anything about tactile touch, however, and Tony had never been more relieved to already have a history of being unwilling to be handed things.
Now that evolved into not being touched.
He had a contract with one very discreet escort service which he used to make sure Tony Stark always still had someone on his arm, but his date was always under the strictest instructions to avoid any and all skin-to-skin contact, and would even occasionally help intercept anyone else trying to get too close to Tony.
And of course, all of them were paid handsomely enough to swear under oath that yes, they'd had intercourse with Mr. Stark, and he'd lived up to his reputation, thank you your honor.
Tony had been a little nervous about the Avengers finding out, so he'd had to set a few ground rules when he invited them into new Avengers Tower.
"Hey, if it isn't my favorite group of superheroes," Tony said, ignoring the slightly irritated looks he got in return. Those were commonplace for Tony Stark.
"I'm sure Iron Man passed on the offer, but you're all welcome to stay here. You each have your own floor, and there's a gym on another floor, a lab for Dr. Banner on another, this is the communal kitchen and common area, and you've all got smaller kitchens on your floors too. If you need anything, let me know, or buy it yourself. These," he threw small envelopes at each Avenger, "are your access cards for the building. If you'll put your thumbs on the back of the card - yes like that - JARVIS now has your biosignatures, and no one can use those cards except you all. And there are your new credit cards, use them, there's no limit, although I've been warned about you," Tony pointed at Barton, who half-stepped back for a moment, slightly startled by being singled out during the speed talking, "and if you start buying suspicious things for pranking me, JARVIS will block the purchase. You've been warned. Now, any questions?"
The four Avengers present (Thor had returned to Asgard but had a floor in case he came back later) stared for a moment, caught for the first time in a Stark speech. Steve was looking at his black credit card with a slightly appalled look, while Barton seemed to be trying not to leer at his.
"Good. Then, just a few house rules, and I'll let JARVIS show you to your apartments. Which, right, introductions. Avengers, meet JARVIS, he's my AI," Tony said, and paused for a moment when Captain America looked confused.
“Please to meet you,” JARVIS said politely.
The four of them jumped, Natasha and Barton’s hands twitched towards their weapons.
"AI, like Artificial Intelligence?" Steve asked.
Tony winced internally.
"Right, you were a Capsicle for seventy years, sorry. Yes, J's an AI. No, Barton, he isn't going to go Skynet," he added, seeing the look on the agent's face which he recognized as his I'm-holding-in-a-joke face. "Don't worry about the reference," he added back to the Captain, "he runs the house, and Iron Man's armor, and he's in all your phones. Oh, right."
He tossed them each a new StarkPhone in a new model that wouldn't be on the market for six months. Plus Avengers add-ons and higher security settings than would appear on the open market for several more years.
"Phones. JARVIS is in them, just ask him if you can't figure out how to use them. There's a tutorial in there too, for the technologically-deprived among us," he said, specifically not looking at the Captain. "Battery lasts two months without a charge, we're working on that, and they're bullet-proof, water-proof, fire-proof, et cetera, but don't microwave them," Tony looked at Barton again, and a slightly guilty expression crossed his face. "Yeah, I know you thought of it."
"Mr. Stark," the Captain cut in, only to be headed off my Tony frantically waving his arms in front of him.
"No, no no no no no. No. Dear Old Dad," he said quickly, but the scorn was apparent in his voice and the Captain flinched slightly at it, "was Mr. Stark. Call me Tony. Besides, you're, like, ninety. You can't call me Mr. Stark." He mock-shuddered.
The Captain sighed slightly.
"Fine, Tony, this is...too much. You're housing us, and giving us phones, and - "
Tony waved him off.
"I'm a billionaire, and sure, a lot of that goes to charity now, but I spent most of my life building weapons which ended up blowing up plenty of innocents. I've got blood on my hands, more than any of you, even our resident spies-slash-master assassins over there. Building Iron Man and housing the Avengers is the best thing I've done with my life. So take the damn cards and the phones."
All four Avengers looked slightly flabbergasted by his rushed outburst, and he rewound quickly, wringing his hands.
"Right, so that's over. Let's not do that again. J, where was I? Oh right. Couple house rules. One, Iron Man lives here too, but you might not see him around all the time. Yes, I know who he is, but his identity is a secret to everyone else. I won't tell you who he is. If you want to know, you'll have to ask him, but he probably won't tell you. As long as you live here, you can't try to find out who he is by spying on him or whatever it is you spies do. It's his choice." Tony swallowed, glancing away for a moment.
"Second, no one goes in my workshop without me or Iron Man present. If nothing else, you're all liable to blow something up in there. JARVIS' security settings will attack anyone in there without permission, so, you've been warned." Tony shrugged, serious but trying not to show it.
"And the last thing," he added, his face going stiff for a moment, "I really don't like being touched. I know Fury gave you all my file, you know at least a little of what happened, so, yeah. Don't touch me. That's not a joke, if you do, I can't have you under my roof. I'm not going to pull landlord status on you guys, but it's my home too and just - don't," he trailed off, holding himself stiffly and avoiding looking at their eyes.
After a moment, the Captain nodded.
"Thanks, Mr. St- Tony. We'll follow your rules. And call me Steve," he added. For a moment, his hand raised slightly and it looked like he was going to offer a handshake, then he thought better of it and lowered his hand.
The other three nodded their agreement.
"Good," Tony said, and tried to hide his relief. "Then, J will show you to your floors, and I've got to get back to my workshop. I'll send Iron Man around later."
He left via the second elevator which sped directly down to his workshop, and let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.
"Hey, J?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Maybe this will work out okay," he said.