Chapter Text
(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE. IF it's on AO3 under AnonEhouse, that's fine, that's me. Also, translation and pod-fic done by other fans on free sites is also fine.)
"Ok, we're going to look at my life from an outside perspective." Tony paused to clear a spot in the rubble of the penthouse. "Well, as outside a perspective as I can get, eh, Friday?"
"If you say so, Boss," Friday replied.
"It's not ideal, I know. I tried talking to Bruce...just as a friend. He took it as me asking for free therapy, which baffles me. Why would I think a nuclear physicist was a psychiatrist? My mistake, thinking he was a friend, not just someone with similar scientific interests.
"I considered hiring a therapist for a hot minute, but hoo boy, if word got out that Iron Man had a few screws loose it'd be back to Congress and another fight to keep the suit. And do I really need a therapist? I mean, sure I went through a lot, but I'm functional. Mostly. Everyone has nightmares. And dreams about alien invasions, right?"
"Maybe not everyone," Friday said.
"True. Maybe just the one guy who went into space and saw the fleet. They lost the shortcut, but I have a hunch the leader didn't say 'ok, I'm turning the car around and going home'."
"Wasn't Loki the leader?"
"Since when does a general ride out alone, ahead of the troops?" Tony shook his head. "Nothing about that made sense. Thor knew about it, even knew the name of the creatures, the Chitauri, but didn't even offer a guess how Loki wound up opening the door for them."
"Could you ask Thor to explain?"
Tony rubbed his throat. "Even if I knew where he was, I wouldn't. He doesn't think about problems, just grabs them by the neck."
"Isn't there anyone on your team you could confide in?" Friday asked.
"Who?" Tony said. He picked up an Iron Legionnaire's head. "As a joke I told Hill that Steve is the boss, and all I am to the team is their banker and mechanic, just to make them look good. She didn't laugh. Neither did Steve. Apparently it isn't funny if it's true."
Tony brushed dirt off the head and put down on a broken table. "Who else? Well, Pepper and I are on a break. And God, I don't blame her for finding this shit show too much.
"Rhodey? He's my best friend, but... never the guy to tell your woes. It's all 'team is good, Tony, you have to be a team player'. I tell myself that he must have had a concussion because surely my best friend since M.I.T. would have done SOMETHING, protested at least, maybe yelled 'hey, stop', when a goddamn god picked me up by the throat and scolded me like a puppy that'd pissed on the floor.
"But if it was a concussion it didn't stop Rhodey from suiting up and going out without so much as popping an Advil.
"So much for Rhodey." Tony pushed more debris around with his foot.
"Boss," Friday said, sounding very tentative. "I'm afraid I'm not able to help you."
"You're listening, Friday. That's important, having someone willing to listen. Even if I did have to build you myself." Tony picked up another piece of Iron Legionnaire. "Let's talk about the other people on 'my' team. When I asked Nat how she convinced Bruce to go all green after he'd kept his cool during the crazy robot melee, she just shrugged and said she'd pushed him. Pushed him? Off a ledge. She said he had plenty of time to change, it wasn't a problem.
"And I'm... ok, so that's the Thor solution again. I thought they had something? But I guess it wasn't the something I thought it was. Bruce is gone, by the way." Tony turned a sectional sofa right side up and sat down, turning the piece of armor over and over in his hands. "I suppose he didn't like being forced to Hulk out twice in one day."
"Ms Romanoff pushed him off another ledge?" Friday asked, tentatively.
"Oh, no, that was our... well... Steve's newest member of the not-me team. Wanda Maximoff. She and her brother were working for Hydra. That's Steve's old enemy from World War Two," Tony explained. "Hydra was in SHIELD, so Steve and Nat and this guy Wilson- you don't know him, he just... I dunno, jogged with Steve so it made sense to have him steal the EXO-7 Falcon wingsuit and blow SHIELD to hell and gone... like napalming your house because you see a cockroach... funny thing is... the cockroaches survived, but the house was toast."
"Boss?" Friday said. "I don't understand."
"Yeah." Tony put the piece of armor down next to the head and sighed. "I don't understand it either. Anyway, Wilson doesn't have anything to do with this. He showed up at the party, so I was thinking about him, but he said he doesn't plan to be an Avenger. I mean, not that it mattered what I thought about it. Clint made Wanda an Avenger... because... reasons? She didn't want to die with the rest of the world, so she turned against Ultron? And then her brother took bullets meant for Clint, so I guess he felt he owed her something." Tony got up and went over to the remnants of the bar. After kicking debris around, he found an unbroken water bottle and went back to the sofa with it.
"All this talking makes me thirsty." Tony drank most of the bottle before recapping it and putting it on the table. "You know another funny thing? I financed Helen Cho's Cradle, the thing that saved Clint's life after Wanda's brother attacked him. Did Clint even say 'thanks' to me or more importantly, her? No, he did not. Did he even think that Helen might be a teeny bit upset that the woman who worked with Ultron, who killed some of Helen's co-workers, and mind controlled her, let's not forget, that's Wanda's power, too, was not only forgiven all, but rewarded with Avengers' membership?
"Comes with free room and board, courtesy of yours truly. At the Compound my father built and I upgraded to give 'my' team a home. Of course, Wanda hates me for some... I don't know, tragic backstory where I figure as the devil. She openly, very clearly, said that she wanted me dead. Steve pointed out very kindly that Iron Man had only been helping out until the scepter was found, as a favor to Thor, and now that's done, wouldn't it be best if I just kept on paying for everything, but didn't show up because Wanda is a traumatized child."
Tony got up again and went over to the bar. More searching turned up an unbroken bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade. He scowled, but opened it and drank some anyway. "So, that and the fact that approximately five minutes after Wanda decided to turn in her Hydra badge for an Avengers' t-shirt, she told Steve that I was creating another monster because you know she's so pure of heart she could see into my rotten soul. So... Steve tried to kill me with the shield my father made, the shield Steve took over my father's objections... luckily my armor was a little faster to reach me. So, yay no harm done. Vision emerged and picked up Thor's hammer, which is apparently proof of worthiness.
"Maybe worthiness, but not common sense because Vision thinks Wanda is a sweet and loving innocent angel and he adores her... I just threw up in my mouth a little. Clint's retired, by the way, so maybe his last act as an Avenger was a fun-loving prank, to see how long it takes before we realize he was joking. She's a disaster waiting to happen. You remember I said she triggered the Hulk?"
"Yes," Friday said. "I'm... still trying to organize the sequence of events."
"Good luck with that. So, anyway, she triggered the Hulk after she'd mind-whammied the rest of us, and could have just walked off, because Bruce was waiting for a Code Green in the Quinjet. He was not doing a damn thing she could consider a threat. I guess it was just for shits and giggles that she wound him up and threw the Hulk at Johannesburg. I called Veronica and tried to stop him. At least I did manage to keep him from killing anyone, and I even bought a vacant building to trash so no one lost their home. It was after that Bruce vanished without so much as a 'see you later'.
"I'm not really broken up about that. He worked with me, of his own free will, on the Ultron program- not the distorted abomination that stole the name- and stood there along with everyone else when Thor played 'pick up the puny human by the neck and blame him for Ultron'. Didn't upset Bruce enough to bring out the Hulk. Hell, he agreed with Thor, conveniently forgot his part in it, and that we weren't even NEAR an interface. And then... when I asked for his help to make Vision Bruce said he didn't trust me, and that it was all my fault."
"It doesn't sound like you have a team, Boss," Friday said. "Why are you supporting them?"
"Because..." Tony blinked. "You know, I'm not sure. I thought I was being clever, because they didn't want me, but I made myself indispensable... but that's not true. All Steve wants is my resources and my absence. I'm supposed to be working on a visa for Wanda. Which Steve thinks is just a matter of tossing money at someone. Money, which he sneers at, but has no hesitation in considering it his due. In fact, all of them seem to think my money was dishonorably gained, and they're doing me a favor by accepting it to purify my sin of being a legal arms manufacturer providing my country's armed forces with weapons.
"Huh. Do I REALLY want to risk my reputation trying to get a visa for an acknowledged Hydra terrorist? There's no place on the form for 'she didn't know it was Hydra, and she's sorry now for all the people she killed and tortured, and fucked with their minds."
Tony drank the rest of the water bottle. "Friday, call the Compound. I want to talk to Steve."