Chapter Text
Tony sat leaning forward on the conference table, eyes down, hands cupping his mouth (mostly to hide his grimace.
“I think we can all agree that we simply wouldn’t have won without her. If it means that we have to step up and take a few hits to repay that favor . . . Well, right is right,” Steve shrugged.
“Does Cho agree,” Tony looked up finally and moved his hands, looking Steve in the eye for the first time.
“Tony, Cho is med-staff,” Steve scoffed. “She has nothing to do with team decisions.”
“Will she work with or for the woman who kidnapped and terrorized her, Steve? That is worth discussing. Cho is revolutionary in her field and saved Clint’s arm and his marksmanship with her cradle before any of this shit even went down. Are you saying that her expertise isn’t worth it because she’s not on the front lines? Her trauma’s not worth it,” he added with a glance to Falcon who sat frowning before glancing back at Steve.
“What about Wanda’s trauma? She lost her only remaining family in this little battle—a battle primarily caused by you, Tony.” Steve’s face was blank and his eyes cold as he looked at Tony.
“I’d like a moment with the original members and Maria right now, if I may,” Tony asked still staring down Steve as they fought for dominance over the issue of Wanda Maximoff.
There was some shuffling around as the others all stood and began leaving the room. Rhodey placed his hand briefly on Tony’s shoulder and Sam glanced at Steve once more with a loaded look (“Do you want me to beat him up?”) before swaggering out after Rhodey. Clint was leaning back with his feet kicked up on the table, but his arms were crossed over his chest aggressively. Natasha watched . . . and waited.
“I’m going to say this once, and I wanted to say it in front of all of you without our newest recruits to protect any team dynamics in the future.” He looked around the table, his mouth set in a grim line. “What happened with Ultron was tragic. I will feel guilty over this for the rest of my life, but where it counts—this was out of mine OR BRUCE’S hands. Note that I added Bruce. We worked on Ultron together in all of its stages to prepare for the eventuality of a Chitauri-like invasion. An invasion the size of which “Doing it together”,” he mocked, rolling his eyes,” will have little to no impact. The presence of the portal AND a nuke that we had not even planned for were the only things that won the day for us, Steve. And you all know it.” This time he looked at Thor and Nat.
“I don’t see what this has to do with the events of Ultron,” Nat smirked, but her eyes were just as cold.
“Then let me tell you. Bruce worked with me because safety protocols called for it. I have more experience in AI than any scientist IN THE WORLD, and nothing has ever gone wrong. You ALL lived in the tower with Jarvis, MY SON! I know you know this, but it is convenient to put the blame for what you don’t understand on someone or something that you do. So, let’s clear this up.”
With that Tony turned to Thor.
“The key element that impacted the birth of the entity that called itself Ultron was not my program, it was the scepter as it interacted with that program without mine or Bruce’s knowledge or interference after an extreme surge of electricity that disrupted my servers, Mr. God of Lightning. Furthermore, you and Steve both gave me permission to study the scepter with the understanding that we might need that information. That is what Bruce and I were doing—just like we did when we used the Tesseract’s statistics to look for the scepter on the helicarrier. You can’t just pick and choose when your scientists’ studies are worth it once something has gone wrong. That’s a convenient memory you have there, Thor.
And you might recall that I’ve spoken of an impending war FOR YEARS NOW, and was blown off. If you are wondering why I didn’t keep you up to date on the daily work towards defensive systems to protect from that eventuality—well there you have it.
Instead of trying to understand or even positing ideas that might help—and NO, WE’LL DO IT TOGETHER, is NOT A PLAN—you chose to look away because it interrupted your many valuable missions against a threat that counter-terrorism works against consistently to good effect. Excuse me if I felt the need to address the much larger elephant in the solar system.”
“Tony,” Steve started.
“No! I’m not done. I pulled your asses out of the fire when SHIELD fell, and I have continued to do that for you as a member of this team, but when I needed you,” he huffed, looked away and looked back. “You mocked and ignored. When he got mad,” he added, pointing aggressively at Thor, “because an unknown factor caused Ultron and held a mere mortal up by his very mortal throat, none of you said a word. None.” Here he looked at Steve specifically. “Thank you, Captain. I feel so valued.”
“Tony, you have to understand,” Natasha began, in that soothing yet ever so patronizing voice of hers.
“I’m going to stop you there. No, I don’t. I understand perfectly well. You see, I’ve run teams and businesses for years. I know what expendable looks like. And Cap here completely reinforced it when he took Maximoff’s stance on Vision five minutes after she switched sides—you know, when she realized Ultron wanted to destroy all of humanity and not just me and you.”
Tony noticed that Clint was watching the by-play intensely. And Thor had yet to speak up, even against Tony’s complaints about him. Instead he was watching with a thoughtful look on his face.
“Cap, once again, allowed a threat against a soft, squishy human when he threw his vibranium shield at me while I was outside of the armor.” He looked at Steve intensely. “If I had not made the advances I did during the incident with the Mandarin—which you did NOT know about—I would be dead right now, Cap. And you would be a murderer. Not protecting the innocent, but for taking the word of an ex-hydra agent that volunteered for human experimentation out for revenge over a teammate that has worked with you for years.”
“In the name of protecting their country. JUST LIKE ME!” Steve yelled, jaw tense.
“WRONG! Sokovia was involved in a civil war when my weapons were used, not a war of occupation. And there was no war when they volunteered for Hydra several years later. This was a ploy for revenge, and let’s be frank here, Cap, if you invite her onto this team, it’s a parting of the ways. I will not protect and house someone that wants nothing more than revenge on me for something that I was only loosely involved in, AND will go to the lengths that she has to get it. There is no moral, ethical reason for her to take the steps she has in this situation that will EVER be acceptable. That you think there is, well, it’s frankly terrifying.
“He makes a good point,” Clint finally said, slamming his feet down on the floor.
“You wanted her to join,” Steve said incredulously.
“I felt bad for her, but she does have it out for Tony, and I hadn’t considered that Ultron might really have been out of his hands, Cap.”
“You thought I did this on purpose,” Tony said, just as incredulous now.
“It went online in the tower,” he shrugged.
“Jarvis is dead! Sacrificed to win the day. You think I planned this?” And everyone could hear the crack in his voice this time. Thor looked apologetic and sad, and even Steve looked as if he was thinking of the tower’s AI with real grief.
“The fact of the matter is that Wanda Maximoff is powerful, Tony. Too powerful to be out on her own. We have a chance to make a positive change in her life here,” Natasha said finally, ever the pragmatist.
“That’s SHIELD’s manifesto, Natalia. No. Your argument relies on true reform. And you won’t be able to tell if Maximoff has reformed because you are suggesting that she has absolutely no repercussions for the choices she has made for years now—not just during her time with Ultron, but during her time with Hydra. Ultron just demonstrated that her allegiance is as questionable as yours. There has to be some sort of consequence for reform.”
“A monitor,” Maria supplied. “We construct a monitor that withholds her quite frankly frightening powers when she is off-mission. If she’s sincere about reform, she’ll accept it.
“Fair. I’ll work with her in that case, but SHIELD—and don’t pretend, Hill—will house her, fund her, and make all arrangements for her Visa. I’m not stepping up to make her problems go away.”
“Come on, Tony,” Steve sat back, disgusted. “We’re already talking about keeping her powers locked up. Isn’t that enough. She’s a kid!”
“She’s the reason that Jarvis, MY KID, is dead. No!”
“You did that,” Steve said, sitting forward. “I’m just as sad about Jarvis, but YOU did it.”
“Why do you think it was the Witch,” Thor asked suddenly.
“You guys all described your visions to the team. I had a vision in Strucker’s bunker just before I took the scepter. All of you were dead and the Chitauri were over-running the earth. Steve had just enough breath left to blame me and say it was my fault because I didn’t do more to stop it.”
Steve looked shocked.
“I would never, Tony.”
“You’ve been blaming me for days now. Can it,” Tony said with a roll of his eyes. “I’m pretty sure now that it was Maximoff. Her brother was there, so she probably was too. I had scrapped Ultron’s programming, but felt so much terror at the thought of another invasion that I revisited the idea with Bruce and rushed through processes that I normally wouldn’t. I would likely have complete quarantines in place for any tests on the scepter, for example. As I said, I know better. At the same time, the scepter was there, and we all know what its effects can be. I wasn’t at my best—and part of that was probably her and her witchy mind powers. I note that she’s said nothing about that,” he added, looking significantly at Steve. “One questionable ally is enough for me,” he said with a final dig at Natasha. She simply scoffed.
“A fair assumption. We should ask the Witch about it and then, should she give an appropriate answer, we should make the deal. I cannot remain on Midgard forever. You need more powerful allies.”
“That’s a plan then,” Clint said.
“It’s not fair to keep her out of the compound. She needs a home, a family.” Steve looked at Clint and Natasha with wide, wet eyes that really just made Tony hate him a bit more.
“Then you can move in with her, Big Brother, but not on my dime,” Tony muttered, rising from the table.
“Nat did her time when she switched sides, Cap. No one wanted to work with her for years. Seems a fair trade for getting out of the trouble she’s in.” Clint stood, clapped Cap on the back, and walked out of the room.