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James had looked up at him, half asleep and far too earnest, and had asked one, simple thing, "And then what happens?"
And Tony's throat had frozen shut, unable to answer. He'd placed James back in the top bunk and tucked him in, avoiding the kid's eyes, the way he was still waiting for an answer, the way he would always be waiting for an answer, because Tony couldn't find one. Would never be able to find one. He just didn't know what would come to be, if the kids would survive, if Ultron could ever be stopped. And so he'd left, refusing to look back at those curious blue eyes - Steve's eyes, so much like his father, so earnest and pure and forgiving, an old man staring out of a kid's body and it unnerved him - still watching, even as the door clicked shut.
The years rolled by, and Tony thought James had forgotten about that question. He told the story less and less over the years, had let the kids speak about it among themselves, had watched with a slowly thawing heart as they reenacted some of the adventures he'd told them, as they fought off alien invaders straight out of their imagination, training all the while. They were their parents' children. Strong-willed and stubborn, smart and agile, and all four had hearts as pure as he'd ever seen.
He made them weapons, modeled them after what their parents would have used. Torunn already had her sword, but he designed her armor, made it resilient and flexible, staying true to what he remembered of Asgardian styles. Azari he gave a belt, stiffened by his electricity, a weapon he didn't truly need, but it made him feel safe. Pym got his harness, modeled after Hank's notes, Jan's explanations, and as he put on the finishing touches, stared at it in his workshop, bright and yellow, the internal mechanisms cocked open in front of him, shining and glowing with a power source that would never run out he put his head in his hands and started to cry.
The best machines he'd ever made, and he was making them for children.
It took him almost an entire year to finish James' shield projector. He worked steadily on it, started with a purely physical thing but that just didn't seem to fit. Nothing seemed to be quite right. He tried a variant of Natasha's widow's bite but James looked uncomfortable, didn't quite know what to do with his arms as he went through training that day. Tony was at a loss, and didn't want to admit it. Because if he had a block here, now, where would they be? If he couldn't put a weapon in James' hands and teach him to use it... it was the same as signing his death warrant. Sending a child, unarmed into battle against Ultron?
He might as well just kill him here, now.
Two months before he finished, James came up to him after dinner, started helping him wash dishes without being asked. They worked in silence, side by side, for a good fifteen minutes, Tony washing and James drying, despite the dishwasher sitting empty and open at Tony's side. Finally, as James slowly ran his drying cloth around the curve of a bowl, he spoke. Ten years of wisdom he shouldn't have, of pain and understanding even Tony hadn't gotten until he was in his thirties and lying in a cave, his heart a tattered, useless thing in his chest.
"I think I get it," he said, voice clear and strong. Sure. And he looked up at Tony from the corner of his eye, studying him for a moment before smiling. "Yeah, I get it. So... it's okay, Tony," he put down the cup, stepped off of the chair he'd pulled over - the kid was small, so small, skinny like the pictures of Steve had been, and it worried Tony so much to see him wrestle with Azari and exchange blows with Torunn - and walked off, joining his brothers and sister and leaving Tony alone in the kitchen, hands covered in soap suds and fingers wrinkled, having no idea what just happened.
Two days, and he was watching them train. Two days since washing dishes with the red headed child that reminded him so much of his best friend, the man who'd died while telling Tony to get out - Tony just go, please, take James, the kids, go you have to keep them safe, we'll cover you, please I know yo - gone in an instant, choking on blood in the middle of a word before Ultron's voice cut in, before-
"Avengers Assemble!" it was like watching a ghost. Staring at the children laughing and scrambling in front of them, the make-shift shield Tony had been giving James to train with held up high above his head, Torunn's sword in the air next to him, a hearty "Aye!" escaping her throat, Azari crouched and glowing, crackling with energy at their side, Pym laughing and flying a figure eight between the sword and shield.
I get it. It's okay, Tony. Blue eyes, the ghost of Steve Rogers in a boy barely ten years old turned his way, a smile slight and guarded, the shine of red hair that was so Natasha it hurt, and he knew what to do. What to make.
He set the systems on auto, gave JOCASTA full reign as he shut himself away in his workshop. Six weeks he was down there, checking in on the kids whenever he needed a break, promising James he was working on something, and wasn't just avoiding them. And finally, he came out, slid his tech onto the surprisingly strong, small arm of the eager redhead with eyes that terrified him, and as he watched James feel around it, as he heard the gasp and saw the shock and wonder lighting up his face, his eyes, as the shield filled the air between them, he knew he'd made the right choice. A shield, for his father. The symbol of Captain America living through technology. Through something only Tony Stark could have made. It warmed his heart as James gasped a breathless thank you and ran off, desperate to start using it, to figure out its tricks, to train and fight and finally they could reenact that story they'd been sitting on for years. His best work, in the hands of the kids left in his care. In that moment, Tony had never felt as proud.
Three years later, he wishes he were dead.
He hadn't been able to see it before, to look at the kids in front of him and really tell what it was he wanted, what he was feeling. He'd been younger, they'd been younger, and even if they'd been with him for six years, he still hadn't gotten it. He'd thought of all of them as their parents kids, that he was just the trainer, the caretaker. And God he'd give anything to look at them and still see that. To see only that.
They were getting stronger, faster. Azari could run a lap through the forest in fifteen minutes, Torunn could fly almost as fast as the Iron Man armor had, in its beginnings, Pym was smart, smarter than Hank, almost as smart as Tony had been at that age. And James? He was fast, strong, able to do flips and stay in a hand stand for an hour without getting tired. He had his father's eye for angles and trajectory and his mother's steady patience and ability to not be seen when he didn't want to be. They were turning into the warriors he'd set out for them to become. And soon enough, they would be ready to go out and fight the robots, to face down Ultron and free the world.
He never wanted that to happen.
So he kept them training, he kept them hidden, he kept them safe. He started working on alternative ways to face down Ultron, built an army of Iron Avengers, robots under his command with the mimicked powers and strengths of his old team. He told them that they weren't ready, even though they were. He kept the kids working, and he dealt with the backlash. Torunn grew depressed, having spent so long without hearing from her father, Azari and Pym kept each other company, kept each other occupied, but James? The wisdom drained from his eyes as he got older, the understand choked by Tony's controlling grasp until it withered and died. Until nothing but bitterness and annoyance was left in its place. But that was okay. James could hate him all he wanted, Tony welcomed it.
Even hatred was better than standing at his son's grave.
Because that was what they had become. His children. Four young heroes he'd found himself responsible for. He knew how they liked their toast, their favorite sandwiches, their music and what they liked to read. He knew how to calm Pym down after a nightmare of fire and metal and glowing red eyes, knew to hold him in his hands, glowing and small and quivering. Knew to lay out under the dome of stars above them, letting him curl up on his chest piece, the two green glows clashing, but neither of them cared. He knew to tell him what constellations he knew until the humming, the quivering of his wings stopped, until Pym was asleep and limp as he cradled him in his hand, knew to set him gently next to him on the pillow of his bed and catch a few hours himself.
He knew Azari wanted to be a king. He knew the call of his birthright set fire in his veins, knew the guilt and pressure the boy put on his own shoulders and never spoke about, opting instead to try and take care of the others, to be the peaceful one, the understanding one, the one who mediated and resolved conflict as a good king should. And Tony knew to come to Azari's bungalow after a fight with Torunn, with James, knew to come prepared with books and maps and to call up JOCASTA's files on Wakanda, to sit and let Azari curl on his lap, slung over his knees, watching as the wall of his room was transformed into the landscape he'd never gotten to see and remember seeing.
With Torunn, it was easy to know when she was upset. The sky darkened before it was scheduled, and clouds that were normally absent inside the dome started to form. Electricity went a little haywire and there was always a forlorn rumbling from above them. He knew to climb the waterfall just to the side of their bungalows, knew the exact path to follow to get behind the fall of water, to follow the cave back until he found her, curled up on herself, leaning against her sword. And he knew to simply crouch next to her, to place a hand on her shoulder and say that even if her father isn't here now, it doesn't mean he isn't watching, isn't aching that he can't leave and come to comfort her himself. But in the meantime, he's here for her. If she needs to talk, if she needs anything. And he knew to brace himself as she threw her arms around him, to pat her gently between the shoulder blades as she cried into his shoulder.
James he had lost the day he told them they couldn't go outside and fight. He'd known it, and he'd been prepared for it. But he still tried, he still fought. He did was what necessary to keep the peace, and he knew he was still a good kid, knew he still cared about all of them, so he offered the only thing he could do. He offered James someone to hate, to take out his aggression on. If it meant keeping him safe, keeping him alive and here and not six feet under the ground with his broken shield projector on display in Ultron's trophy room, then he could more than live with being despised.
He should have known it would never last, he should have known it was too good to be true. He'd always been prepared for this to happen, knew it had to, but he'd thought he was going to be okay for a few more years. Until the kids were older, until he'd had more time with them.
He looked into their faces, as the sirens blared and the lights turned red, he looked at each of them and he saw fear, uncertainty. And he knew he'd made the right choice. They were too young. He'd been protecting them. But none of that mattered any more.
He remembered, somehow, during the pain seeming to rip through his muscles, crumble bone and leave him coughing up blood, choking on it, Ultron's hands steady as the current jolted through him again and again and again. He remembered the look on their faces when he told them to run, to take Vision's head and leave. He remembered the rage and fear clenched tight in his chest as the robot he and Hank had made to help mankind raised its hand and took aim at his family, his kids. He remembered the relief when the quinjet cleared the dome, the sickening horror at seeing the footage of his kids fighting their way to him, in the middle of enemy territory. But of course they would, he raised them to be like their parents. He hadn't raised them to be smart.
He'd raised them to protect what was important to them, no matter what.
Years down the road, watching time fold in on itself, collapsing and reversing, trapping them in a loop time and time again. With the Hulk at his side and his kids at his heels, he tapped a pencil against paper and let his mind wander. Back to those days, when his kids were young and heroic, when they'd saved the world and really believed it. When James raised his dad's shield high in the air and Torunn was gleaming with the golden armor her father had given her. With Hawkeye on their side and finally starting to relax, with Pym's bright smile and Azari's confidence finally blossoming. What he wouldn't give for the simplicity of those days. To bring back the wonder and drive his kids had back then.
Now, they were old. Tired. Having to work with someone he knew they were itching to defeat, to leave in a bloody pulp somewhere he'd never bother them again. He knew, because he felt it too. Carved deep in old, tired bones was a hatred of the man they had relied on to fix this, to help them. And fix it they had. Finally, they were looking at a horizon Tony never thought they would see. The future. And his mind was drawn back to a five year old child balanced on his knee, leaning in the crook of his arm. To chubby fingers curled in his shirt and wide blue eyes staring up at him. A small but sure voice asking And then what happens?
James had found that answer long before Tony had, he'd realized it for years. But there and then, staring out of the mouth of the cave and watching time move on when it should have repeated, he found himself understanding for the first time what his kids had always seen. The future. A future where everything would be okay, where they could all live. Where they could restore the world and bring humanity back to what it was before he and Hank had wanted to improve it.
So he turned, he faced his kids, he looked each one in the eye and he settled on James, on the tired face and those bright blue eyes, the small curve of a smile that wasn't really there at all. His mother's smile.
"This is what happens."
A minute later, James stands with his siblings, his family at his back, his shield clutched in his hands and dripping with the blood of the man at his feet. Azari says something, but James can't look away, can't do anything but stare at the crumpled body before him.
"I wasn't listening."
He wipes a hand across his brow, smearing the spatter of Tony's blood across his skin before turning, shouldering the shield and taking a step forward.
"Let's get out of here."
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WHY.
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/SOBBING
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WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT
NO
FUCK YOU
NO
(Really though, this is amazing.)
(But fuck you.)