Chapter Text
Everybody is still there by the time Tony crawled out, took a shower and changed his clothes. They’ll have to deep-clean the tire rack but that’s whatever.
“Wonder Woman, hello,” he says. Embarrassment is for people who haven’t stress vomited twice in an hour. “Hello everybody else. Sorry for running away. It’s how I deal with problems.”
“Nothing wrong with taking a minute to collect your thoughts,” Alfred says. How he manages to hold his own in a room full of metas is just going to remain a mystery. “If you need more time to process, the meeting can be postponed.”
“I’m verbal now and I won’t be later. I’m getting this over and done with,” he says. “Now, I apologise for being curt, but is there a safe way for me to attend Howard’s funeral?” He’s never apologised this much in his life.
“No,” Bruce says, face completely free from all expression. “The funeral is tomorrow. There is simply no way to secure the venue in time.”
“Yikes,” Tony says, falling into apathy with great relief. “Venue. Okay. So.” He yanks Jay closer. Apathy with a side of neediness, then. “So, what, then? What do you want me to do?”
Dick makes a punched-out noise, eyes red and swollen. He’s been crying. He’s the only one. Tony hasn’t once, even through his panic attack. “We don’t want you to do anything, Tony. Just—It’s—”
“I need to do something, and anything I came up with was too reckless.” It’s almost suspicious how smoothly he’s breathing. He doesn’t trust it at all. “I’m compromised. So. What should I do.”
“Justice League should take custody of you,” Bruce says, after a long moment. “We’ll move you to the base. Nobody could reach you. You can give a public statement.”
“Alright,” he agrees easily. “Sounds good. What do you want me to say?”
That was, again, the wrong thing to say. He sighs and nudges Jason. “Can you? You know?”
“Tony is overwhelmed and stressed,” Jason says promptly. “He agreed to play ball because I blackmailed him with my safety. So, a clear plan, if you please.”
“You what?!”
“I did what you didn’t have the balls to do,” Jason says, voice dripping with scorn. “He wasn’t thinking clearly and he would have walked into a trap. Well, he won’t if he knows I’ll be right there behind him.”
You gotta admire his courage. Jason isn’t one for tricks. When he manipulates you, he outright tells you, before, during and after.
“That’s—really messed up, Jaybird,” Dick says. Poor kid. He doesn’t have the emotional bandwidth to handle all this angst.
“I’ll apologise when he is alive next week,” Jason counters. “This isn’t about me. We go to the Justice League, and then what?”
For a long moment, Tony wonders if they’ll try to stop Jason from joining him. It would be a dumb fight and one they would lose, but he can’t deny he’s curious.
“Then Anthony records a statement and I negotiate with the civilian government,” Wonder Woman says. Her voice is nice, he thinks. Raspy and rolling, vaguely Greek-sounding. “Superman and Batman will be looking into things meanwhile. Once you reach your majority, I contact my good friend, Bruce Wayne, and he agrees to shelter you.”
Hah. “You know Brucie Wayne?”
“He is in a a scandalous, licentious relationship with me and several of my sisters,” she says, playing it completely straight. “It is very lurid.”
If he wasn’t as numb as he is, he’d snort. “Good catch,” he says instead. “I have it on good authority that Brucie Wayne is a snack.”
Every Bat-affiliated person in the room, barring Jason, jerks in shock and horror.
“You’re with me on this, Jaybug,” he continues, because this is easier than—Than everything else. “The shoulders and the jaw and the eyebrows?”
“Very pretty,” Jason agrees, voice muffled by the thick material of the hoodie he forced on Tony. “A bit of a wet blanket, but I can see how that’s a feature not a bug, for a bed-pet. Speaking of, do you have beds on your warrior island? Or is it just gazebos and silk pillows? I guess that would work too—”
“Jason,” Dick yelps, wholly scandalised. “You’re a baby and his son and—”
“Adopted,” Jason says, through a small, sincere yawn. “And not blind. The whole world agrees B is hot, what are you even talking about?”
Even through the flash-frozen hurricane of emotions, Tony finds it in him to smile. Jason is the best.
“Jason, please,” Bruce says, several degrees less Batman than even a moment ago. “Don’t talk about your father like that.”
“Truth hurts, B, I can’t help you there. Now, sorry, but I’m exhausted and Tony needs to eat. Are we going up today, or?”
The Justice League’s base is in space. Tony knew this, in the abstract, but it’s a bit shocking. He will probably freak out about it later. For now, he wants to sleep until his birthday and emerge miraculously sane and whole and not at all heartsore.
The statement, though, needs to be done.
“Hello,” he tells the camera, not at all sure how to proceed. “I am Tony Stark. Son of—Now late Howard Stark.” Jesus Christ. “I’m not dead. Obviously. I ran away from home.”
Should he—He blinks. Why not? What’s the worst that could happen? People already want to murder him for no logical reason, apparently, so why not?
“I ran away because Howard Stark was a violent, abusive monster. He spent years beating me. When things got really bad, I ran.” Hmm. “Considering that his business associates witnessed the abuse or knew of it, going to the authorities didn’t seem like a good option.” Suck it, Obie. “When I heard about his death, I went to Superman.” Sort of true. “I am with the Justice League now, for my safety. I spent my whole life dodging kidnapping attempts but it’s been tense these past few months.”
What else? Is there anything else? He stares at the impersonal camera lens.
“I wanted to go to the funeral, but it’s been explained to me that it’s not safe for me there. That people will be waiting for me there. So that sucks. I don’t have many warm and fuzzy feelings about the man who beat me up for most of my life, but I’d have liked to go. He was pretty okay when I was smaller.”
That’s it, right?
“I guess that’s it. I’ll stay here until it’s safe and then—I guess I’ll figure things out as they develop.” He gives the camera a pathetic little wave.
“Bye.”
Enough. That’s enough. Sleep.
“Is it bad?”
Jason, also interested in the answer, wiggles the top part of his head out the blanket sarcophagus he’s made in the space between Tony’s bed and the wall. Tony, wisely, didn’t think to bring it up.
“What is bad,” Wonder Woman says, sitting down in a sprawl and raising three be-ringed fingers. Theatrically, she folds the first one. “It allowed me to be loud and foreign to a lot of pompous people. This is good.” Second finger goes down. “It let me sit in a chair without crossing my legs and watch as Attorney Lang gets more outraged by my immodesty than the footage of her client witnessing a crime. This is better.” And the third. “Finally, it let me publicly accuse a lot of child abusers and their enablers of crimes even New York’s District Attorney will have to prosecute for. This is the best.”
“Gotcha,” he says, somewhere between dazed, dumbstruck and awestruck. “And that’s fun, is it?”
“Very. Unlike the rest of the League, I have no secret identity to protect, so I have a few additional weapons in my belt. I am an Ambassador for my sisters but I am the Ambassador of the Justice League, too.”
Huh.
“Isn’t it strange? Justice League deals with—Super-villains.”
Her expression sobers from earlier satisfaction. “That is a complicated question,” she says. “Whoever saves one life, saves the world. I respect this prescript. With that said, we are but seven people and the world is big. Some will deride us for prioritising one child. Some will say we are cosying up to the future head of Stark Industries.” Ouch. He hadn’t even thought of that angle. She catches his flinch and softens her expression. Well, softens inasmuch as she can. At her calmest, she looks like a well-fed jungle cat. “I do not listen to such talk and I take care to remind them that a world with a cynical Wonder Woman is a world they would not enjoy. To say nothing of a Benthamite Superman.”
“Benthamite,” Jason asks, venturing out of his lair a bit further.
Hah. “No, nope,” he says, batting him down. “No shot. No Bentham for you. No Luxemburg or Ghandi or Wollstonecraft. Especially no Tocqueville, Schumpeter or Rousseau. You, little mouse, are on a strict diet of Austin, Dickens and Shakespeare. We’ll work up to Wilde if you keep eating your protein.”
“Ah. Political theory?”
Tony gives him the hairy eyeball.
“Okay, okay. Calm down. I remember. No Russians ‘till I’ve fallen in and out of love, no Frankfurt school ‘till I stop bitching about therapy and no political theory ‘till I finish school and start working in my field, whatever that ends up being.”
Tony lets himself relax a little and turns to Wonder Woman. “And don’t let him weasel around it,” he says, because she’s looking like exactly the type of cool aunt that would sneak contraband for brownie points. “He’s never seen a printed word he didn’t take seriously, and I’m not having a bi-weekly revelation of truth and God and a higher purpose, you got me?”
“Crystal clear,” she says, lips set in a serious line that doesn’t fool him for a second. “Now, if you would pardon the digression, I wanted to discuss your birthday. Which ceremonies do you observe?”
“I don’t. Observe them, I mean. But, it’s not for a while yet,” he says, frowning.
“It’s tomorrow,” Jason faux-whispers, as bratty as he can be. That was a sweet gesture. Tony is well-aware that losing time is not a fun symptom of whatever is going on.
“Oh.” He blinks a couple of times. “Jay and I never really bothered with them,” he says. “I like the idea of celebrating every day he is in my life, not just the day he was born. But Batman gave me a gift last year, so. I don’t know if that counts as tradition?”
“Tony doesn’t value material possessions,” Jason adds. “And over-the-top gestures make him uncomfortable. So, you know. Anything low-key.” He pauses for a moment, probably considering his audience. “Ask Alfie about what low-key means,” he adds.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” she says, nodding. “I will leave to your convalescing.”
Not for the first time, he wonders what is it that motivated the unyielding woman to come to America of all places and stay. It has to suck, at least a little bit. She gave up on a lot of opportunities. Experiences she will probably never get to have. Some jobs eat through your time, yeah. Superhero or a banker or a trucker, sometimes there is no time. That said—
“I’m so glad you didn’t decide to be a superhero,” he says, out of the blue. “They all look lonely.”
“I had noticed,” Jason says, burrowing back into his blanket hole. “I respect their determination, but damn. Talk about workaholics.”
Yeah.
B looks—Haggard. So does Dick. Even Alfred looks drained.
Tony shares a disturbed look with Jason. He’s never seen Alfred even mildly ruffled. “Hey, guys. Is everything—Is everything okay?”
“The investigation uncovered a—” B shuts his mouth with a click. “Today is for celebrating. We can discuss this more tomorrow if you want.”
If he wants? Tony made his stance on staying out of this mess crystal clear, he thought. “Sure,” he says. “Let’s go to break room three. It’s the cosiest one.”
Ordinarily, he’s pretty sure that bullying Bruce and Dick into forgetting the dumb birthday and taking a nice, long nap would be more difficult. It’s a sign of how overworked they are that they let themselves be cosseted with only token protests.
“It’s my birthday and it’s what I want,” he’d said, putting his hands on his hips. “It’s how it works. Now, B, take the damn boots off and Dick—Okay, good, you’re already ready. To the sofas, shoo, shoo. Jaybug, source us some blankets, why don’t you? Alfred, if you move a muscle, I will cry. My birthday, my rules. Shush.”
“They what?!”
Bruce looks, bizarrely, guilty. “I’m sorry. I wanted to spare you this, but—It’s expanded past Batman’s reach. It’s expanded past Justice League reach. We are getting in touch with Xavier’s and Magneto’s people, just to get through intel gathering without raising any eyebrows.”
Jason tries to wiggle free, with no success. Tony’s arms tighten around him on reflex. “Sorry, Jay. I need a minute. HYDRA is still a thing and my dad worked for them. I need a fucking minute.”
“We still don’t know everything,” Bruce says. “We don’t even know the majority. But SHIELD is, possibly, a rebranded HYDRA. It’s a possibility, that’s all.”
Hah. “Your doomer predictions have a disgusting tendency to be accurate. Do you think Howard ran cover for actual, no-shit Nazis?”
“I—Can’t discount the possibility,” he sighs. “But that is, for now, not important. We have no idea how deep the corruption goes. Until we do, you can’t—” His lips tighten, face freezing into that creepy ninja stillness that can happen when he’s stressed. “I don’t know if I can keep you safe. We already put out a public statement that Wonder Woman asked her friend Bruce Wayne to shelter you until things calm down. They will know where to look, now.”
“How big is this mess, B,” Jason asks, sounding much more contained than Tony had expected, considering. “What are we talking?”
“Big,” Bruce says. “Bigger than any case I worked. I can’t discount the President, much less his cabinet. The army could be compromised. Academia. They had seventy years to infiltrate every facet of our government. Other governments, too. That’s why I need Xavier.”
“Jesus,” Tony says, numb. “Jesus. And to think, it all started from me bitching about Howard’s friends.”
“A blessing,” Bruce sighs. “It gives us cover. We need a reason to snoop, and investigating your claims of abuse gives us that. An organisation like that has—fail-safes. Contingencies. We can’t trigger any alarms”
Tony sort of wants to laugh forever. “Well, something good came out of this, hey?” Jesus. “So, okay, I’m just unclear on one thing. Why would they be gunning for me at all? If they’re trying to lay low and everything?”
“It’s because of Howard, right,” Jason says, still somehow calm. “They needed his resources. His tech. Since he isn’t in the picture, and you’re going after the guys they would have used, they need Tony.”
“It’s a possibility.” Tony’s really starting to resent those words. “Things are already changing. Battle lines are re-drawn. Gotham is taking centre stage in the conflict. We are—Re-evaluating.”
Wait. Hold on. “Re-evaluating what?” He yanks Jason even closer; it’s a sign of how rattled he is that Jason doesn’t bite him in retaliation. “B? Re-evaluating what?”
“HYDRA hasn’t spread into Gotham, as far as I can tell,” Bruce says slowly. “Our villains are territorial. Joker alone has kept most of them out. But, that was before, when we were a contained, isolated province of chaos. Now that we’re looking into Stark Industries—We won’t be.”
“No ambiguity, B,” Jason says. “What are you talking about?”
“Batman is a secret because nobody cared to look into it too much.” God. What? What? “My cover won’t survive a deep probe. I think—We think it’s better to pre-empt them.”
Jason’s breath hitches and Tony is right there with him. Is Bruce—
“I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching,” Bruce continues. “You—You both. You are—” A flash of frustration slitters across his face. “I’m not explaining this right.”
“You’re not explaining it at all,” Jason says. “Cause it sounds like you plan to go—Public. With who you are. With who Batman is.”
“Would that be so bad?” Bruce shrugs, making the movement so much more emotive than it should be. “Justice League has become a respected institution. Nobody will suggest throwing me in jail. I will make Lucius the CEO, which will insulate Wayne Tech from my baggage. Dick and I spoke about it already. Batman—Batman was never supposed to be a long-term solution.”
“B—” Tony’s mind spins. “You can’t make a decision this big because of me.”
“Can,” Bruce shrugs again. “Jason is my son. They are coming after my son. If me going public is going to give him a measure of safety, then that’s what I’ll do.” He cocks his head, eyes lightning. “Only reason I kept a secret identity was to protect my family. Why do you think I wouldn’t do the reverse?”
“Because you need to protect yourself, dingus.” He’s going to hyperventilate. “You’re not a meta, B. You’re a squishy human. When Batman was an urban legend, you could fight on your terms. Now they’ll be gunning for you—”
“They will figure it out regardless,” Bruce says. “There is enough footage of Batman and not many people who could have financed his gear. It will come out. I might as well take control of the framing.”
Fuck. Fuck.
“I’m going to wrap you in armour,” he says. “No more shitty kevlar and capes. It’s going to be bullet-proof titanium. Fuck, B—This is—”
“I would probably have done something like this anyway,” Bruce says. “You taught me a lot about self-care and self-respect. What kind of a father would I be to Jason, if I lived a less honourable life than he will?”
“Bulletproof titanium that can fly,” Tony shrieks. “Repulsers and parachutes and an AI pilot—Fuck, Jay, we have so much work to do to keep this maniac alive—”