Atonement

Chapter Three

The sun was impossibly bright when Tony landed in Piemonte. His uncle, a nearing 70-year-old man was waiting for him outside the airport, beside a red 1955 Lancia sporting a big smile and a sign that said ‘Antonio’.

“Zio Lorenzo,” grinned Tony as he dropped his small luggage and reached toward the older man for a hug.

“Il mio piccolo Antonio. You have grown,” observed Lorenzo with a nostalgic smile. “Very long time since your mamma brought you here.”

“I know. Mi dispiace per non aver visitato prima. A mio padre non piace che io venga qui,” Tony explained rather apologetically. It wasn’t a good enough reason, considering Howard Stark died twenty years ago, but it was all he had.

“Va bene, Antonio. You are still family, hm? You are here now.”

Tony beamed and nodded, happy to be in the one place that had never been touched by the misery that seem to follow him. The place looked almost the same it did when he was thirteen, the last time Maria Stark brought him before Howard found out and forbid her. He begged his mother several times the year after for another visit but it wasn’t until he was older that he realized Howard had taken away Maria and Tony’s passports. The man hated not having control of his omega and the disappointing omega son she bore him.

“Is that all your things, cucciolo?” Lorenzo eyed the single hand-held duffle bag Tony carried with him.

Tony shrugged and lifted the heavily padded bag to his shoulders. It was a bit heavy, considering it contained nothing but tech. “I have all that is important. I could buy clothes and all the other unnecessary stuff later. Are you sure you can still drive, though?”

Lorenzo simply raised his brow at the billionaire. “Remember who taught you to drive, Antonio. Your love for cars did not come from that Howard, yes?”

Tony laughed and waved his free hand around. “Mamma was very angry at you. I was twelve, Zio Lorenzo, and your car wasn’t exactly kid-friendly.” The car unsurprisingly was still alive and in pristine conditions.

“You are no longer twelve,” the man gestured towards the red automobile beside him. “Want to test her again?”

“Absolutely.”

--

­Driving a vintage Italian sports car in the countryside definitely had its appeal. He could go as fast as he wanted without worrying about traffic or speeding tickets. The road to the old Carbonell vineyard was almost too remote that no one actually lived within a hundred-yard perimeter surrounding the family home. It has always been that way. The whole land was his and his few cousins’ playground. They would swim on the small creek by the woods and play hide and seek among the vineyards. He was never Tony Stark in this area, always little Antonio Carbonell.

All his cousins already moved out of the property, the last one being Sofia, his Zio Lorenzo’s youngest daughter. It would only be him, his uncle, and his uncle’s omega until harvesting season in a couple of months when the whole family comes to lend a hand. Tony’s both excited and nervous about it, knowing he’ll be showing by that time. He didn’t want to disappoint his mamma’s family by getting knocked up and alone. He’s not unbonded, that’s true, but the likelihood of that occurring wasn’t farfetched.

The moment Tony caught sight of the two-story country house, his heart felt like bursting with happiness. He sped up considerably, earning him a slight reprimand from his uncle. That really didn’t deter Tony from jumping out of the car in excitement immediately after the car skid to a stop and hugging his uncle’s omega, Zio Alberto.

“Ah, mimmo, you have grown so much!” Zio Alberto cooed and kissed Tony’s forehead repeatedly. “I saw your recent press release. Your superhero-ing regularly gives me a heart attack!”

“Non scherzare su questo, mio amore,” chided the alpha seriously behind the two omegas. He leaned and kissed Alberto on the cheek. “We are old and that is not far from the truth.”

“Oh per favore, tesoro, come questo accadrà presto.”

Lorenzo huffed and muttered a series of Italian prayers under his breath as he passed by the two to enter the home. Tony giggled and wrapped his arm around Alberto’s. Though they are both almost 70, the two men are as fit as can be. They still manage the vineyard themselves and refuse to hire help to maintain the house.

“Come, mimmo, we’ll get you sorted out in your room.”

His room still looked the same as he remembers but it was obvious someone regularly comes in to clean it. There’s hardly any dust in the room—yes, even the closet. It wasn’t the largest considering he was merely a child when it was assigned to him but Tony can’t bear to part from it now that he’d seen it.

His silence must have clued the older omega because he cleared his throat and gestured towards the whole room.

“We’ll have to swap your bed with the one in the next room because I do not think you will fit in this anymore,” said Alberto, patting the tiny metal bed frame in the middle of the room. “Or you can choose another room. God knows we have an abundance of those.”

Tony quickly shook his head. “No. I’ll stay here. I’m just surprised everything looks the same.”

“Ah,” intoned Alberto in understanding. “Your mamma insisted on it. We didn’t have to be persuaded, honestly. It was nice having something of you to keep all these years.”

“I’m sorry, Zio. I really didn’t mean to be distant. I just… It’s been hard…”

“No, no, Antonio. We are not angry. We wished you had visited earlier but that is in the past. You are here now, and that is what is important, right?” Alberto tapped his chin softly like he always used to do when he was a pup. At Tony’s nod, the omega smiled pleasantly. “Go clean up and head down to the kitchen after. We’ll put some food in you, Tesoro. You are so thin! We’ll call someone to help with moving the bed later.”

“Oh, I can do it. It’s not that hard moving a bed, Zio Alberto.”

The man hummed and glanced pointedly at Tony’s stomach. The billionaire suddenly felt exposed and anxious. He hadn’t told them yet. He was planning on letting them know about the baby at dinner. He wasn’t prepared for his uncle to notice.

“I… uh. Surprise?” Tony squeaked, raising both hands halfway in surrender.

“I am a mother of three, Antonio. Seven if I count you and your other cousins. I know a pregnant omega when I see one.”

Tony grimaced and let his hand fall to his stomach protectively. “It’s a long story,” he tried to explain.

“It always is with you, dear. I’ve learned not to expect anything else.”

A memory of Tony using the same exact words when he was seven flashed in his mind.

Tony was supposed to be napping alongside his cousins while the adults helped in the harvesting. Unfortunately, no one thought to lock the house while the children slept so nothing stopped Tony from sneaking out of the house. He had watched his mother and their family pick up the grapes by hand last year and immediately decided to find a way to make their work easier. Over the months he was away in America, Tony developed his proud invention of the grape picker, or the “graper” as he called it. Even as a child, Tony was never good at naming things.

The days leading to the harvesting, Tony kept sneaking out to assemble his machine in the old farmhouse knowing none of the adults had ever gone in there since they built the new one. When the actual harvesting day came, he was ready to showcase his invention. He waited until all his cousins were asleep before tiptoeing out of their playroom and sneaking towards the farmhouse. He wanted it to be a surprise, hence the secretive behavior.

Well, it was supposed to be a secret until Tony tried to start the grape picker. It was a small claw-like mechanism attached to an old toy truck that he programmed to detect grapes by its clustered shape and high water content. Boy, did he have a hard time figuring that one out. Unfortunately, he had realized the similarity between grapes and the human body too late when the claw began to charge after him.

His screams immediately alerted the adults who didn’t wait a single second before running into the old farmhouse. The sight that greeted them almost put Tony’s grandparents to their deathbeds while his aunts and uncles couldn’t decide whether to be horrified or burst into laughter. The seven-year-old was screaming for help and hanging on a beam. The graper was still trying to reach the child from the ground.

“Antonio! What is happening here?!” Maria Carbonell-Stark yelled, causing the child to pause his screaming.

Realizing the audience he had, Tony burst out crying. “Mamma! Make it stop!”

Lorenzo, being the biggest of the group, immediately picked up the machine about the size of his arm and snapped the claw off the toy truck, handing the other piece to Alberto for safekeeping. Maria quickly grabbed her son from the beam and smothered him in kisses. Now that the dangers of the claw were gone, Tony was back in his old cheeky self.

As soon as everyone was sure the child was fine. Maria stood in front of her son and gave her best frustrated-mom stare. “Anthony Carbonell-Stark, I want an explanation now!”  

Tony sighed and slumped his shoulders before raising his head and pouting at the adults. “It’s a long story.”

“Oh. The graper,” sighed adult Tony. “I’ll never live that one down, would I?”

“Oh, Tesoro, we still have the claw hanging in the farmhouse as a keepsake.” The smile on Alberto’s face was extremely gleeful. “Now, chop-chop, mimmo, your Zio Lorenzo and I are expecting you downstairs in ten minutes.”

As soon as the door closed, Tony flopped down on his childhood bed and grinned. The bed was indeed very small and could barely hold his upper body but it was just as soft and fragrant as he remembers. He laid there for another two minutes before finally changing into much more comfortable clothing. He’d have to go shopping soon because he only brought with him three pairs of underwear, two shirts, and a change of pants. He wasn’t exactly thinking of fashion when he decided to jump into his jet.

He took the sight of his room once more and brought his palm protectively on his tummy. The childhood he had in this room was exactly the childhood he wished for his pup.

--

The atmosphere inside the tower was sullen since the day Tony Stark left. While Pepper’s assurance that their genius was safe had given them some sort of relief, they were still aching to have their teammate back.

Bruce had taken to keeping Tony’s seat in their shared lab occupied with a pair of sunglasses the engineer left. Clint made sure to make two cups of coffee every morning incase Tony suddenly comes back. Natasha refused to grab her favorite pastry because it reminded her that she used to buy them for her and Tony. Thor stopped using the phone Tony built for him because the funny cat pictures stopped coming. Sam and Bucky hadn’t known the resident billionaire for long but they too have noticed the long periods of silence that Tony used to fill with endless ramblings.

But Steve. Steve had all but moved into Tony’s lab. He hadn’t been in their room since the morning after Tony left. He couldn’t go back knowing that might never be their room again. But this, this lab will always exist. He had taken the role of caring for the robots to a tee. He kept them company, made sure they were oiled and charged regularly and gave them simple tasks to keep them occupied. It was Tony’s wish that they be taken care of and that’s exactly what Steve plans to do with the rest of his godforsaken sorry life.

It took him a second to regret the words that came out of his mouth that night everything fell apart. He had just found out that Bucky had a panic attack and didn’t tell him because he was busy herding his bondmate out of the lab and into bed. The impulsive decision to ask Tony for a break because he was guilty he wasn’t there to support his long-lost best friend had destroyed everything he had built since waking up in the future. He loved Tony. He loves Tony. He will love him even in the afterlife. He was stupid, stupid, stupid for ever wanting a break from his soulmate. He hadn’t wanted it. Hadn’t needed it then. Won’t ever need it in his life. But that moment of insanity caused him everything.

He apologized to Bucky. He needed to, especially when Clint and Bruce made it clear they think he had something to do with it. He steeled himself and faced the team with courage he didn’t have and apologized for causing so much trouble. He assured the team there was nothing going on between him and Bucky, and that nothing ever will because he and Bucky were Blood Brothers, a special form of bond between two platonic friends. It didn’t stop Bruce from staring disappointedly at him but it stopped them from antagonizing him and Bucky both.

He may have deserved it but Bucky never did.

JARVIS doesn’t talk to him as much as he used to. He couldn’t even fault the A.I. for it. But it was better than the treatment he got the first few days. At least JARVIS stopped threatening him with annihilation every hour.

He made himself comfortable in a shitty nest tucked in one corner of the lab. He was never good at making one like Tony did. The only good thing about the garbage of a nest he made was the lingering scent attached on the sheets and the clothing he had piled up. It was his luck, whatever few he had left in his life, that Tony had not bothered dumping his clothes into the laundry chute. But even if the man did, Steve would have gladly sniffed his way through the dirty laundry for even a single shirt that contained his bondmate’s scent.

It was starting to lose its sweet aroma, putting Steve into a panic. Had it not been for JARVIS activating a protocol in the case that Steve goes into rut while Tony’s absent, Steve might have just destroyed the tower in search of Tony’s scent mark. He hoped that wherever Tony was, JARVIS could give him the same. Being away from a bonded mate under such awful conditions wouldn’t be easy, especially for an omega. If Steve was feeling this bad, he was afraid of what Tony is experiencing.

Still, even though Steve would have gladly spent the rest of his life living inside the lab, the world kept turning and turning. They were soon called for a mission and he had to place Steve Rogers on the back burner while Captain America deal with the armed terrorist attack in Bolivia.

"I want Widow and Falcon to facilitate evacuation. Hawkeye, look for the leader. I want him removed immediately. Thor, Iro.. you and I will stay on ground and keep the fighting on the highways. Bruce, you're on medic but keep an ear out in case this calls for a Code Green. Are we clear?" Captain America's voice was hard and resonating as he gave his orders— never mind that he almost slipped up mentioning Iron Man. No one was stupid enough to comment on it.

As soon as he received affirmations from the team, they quickly spun into action. The Avengers don't often get called in for local human terrorism attacks outside the US but SHIELD has a reason to believe that the attack in Bolivia is strongly connected to several attacks all over South and Central America in the past couple of years. Their weapons were clearly too advanced for them to be as small-scale as they want the world to believe.

Fighting had given Steve the opportunity to vent out his frustrations. If he was too ruthless in his punches, he wasn't really called out on it. Between him and Thor, they were able to take down half the terrorists. Natasha and Sam were efficient in the evacuation of civilians, making it easier for Steve to not worry about anything aside from hitting the terrorists where he knew would physically hurt the most. He attacked and attacked without caring to defend himself against the bullets or the weird light that comes out of the big guns. By the time Clint found the base and drop the leader on Phil's hands, Steve had managed to decommission most of the group.

"What the fuck were you thinking?!" Natasha snapped right in front of him even before Steve was able to get one word out. "You may be stronger than the rest of us, Steve but you are not immortal! You could have died out there if not for Thor watching your six. You promised Tony you'd stop being so goddamn reckless!"

"HE'S NOT FUCKING HERE, OKAY?! TONY'S NOT HERE SO LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!"

The whole quinjet turned quiet, just as Steve once again broke down in front of the team. He hadn't meant to curse or shout but the reminder that his Tony wasn't there to be the one to reprimand him had affected him more then he thought.

Steve dropped his body on the seat and buried his face in his palms, shaking as tears refused to stop. "He's not here, okay? He's not here..."

"Steve," Natasha spoke again but this time, it wasn't in anger or disappointment. "You're right. Tony's not here. But you promised him you'd be more careful. You have to keep that."

Still shaking, Steve simply nodded. He will. He'll try to be better. Be the Alpha that Tony Stark deserves. Maybe, just maybe, when Tony comes back, he'll give him another chance.

"Good. Now, let Bruce take care of that bullethole on your leg. Once we get back home, you're going straight to the infirmary," instructed the redhead.

Bruce promptly proceeded to fish the bullet out of Steve before the serum heals it over. Steve barely even flinched at the pain. "She's right you know," said the elusive scientist. "You have to be more careful out there, Steve. Regardless of what happened between you and Tony recently, you shouldn't be putting yourself in danger. You're our friend, Steve. Tony's already vanished from the face of the earth. We don't want you to disappear on us, too."

“I don’t feel much of a friend recently,” whispered Steve. “It’s just… we haven’t had this big of a fight before, you know? Me and Tony. We were always bickering and driving each other crazy but nothing like this. I didn’t even have the chance to explain or grovel in the morning like we both usually do whenever one of us infuriated the other. This feels awfully like it’s final and it fucking hurts, Bruce. It fucking hurts like shit.”

The fact that Steve cussed thrice in a row without anyone teasing him for his language wasn’t lost on the Super-soldier. More so, the fact that he broke down crying twice in front of them and no one dared to make fun of him gave him a bit of sense of relief. The last thing he wanted after everything that happened was for anyone to point out his weakness.

“Have you ever wondered why Tony was so adamant I stay in the tower when I tried to go back to India a few months after New York?”

Bruce’s unexpected question startled Steve and he quickly shook his head when his brain processed the words.

“It’s because he wanted me to help him and Cho develop a painkiller that could knock you out, Steve. You were badly injured on a mission and they had to operate on you while you were awake and lucid. Tony had to watch them cut you up while you scream in pain. He begged me and Cho to help you.”

Steve did flinch at the memory of the surgery. He still remembers that quite well. They were following intel on a couple of HYDRA activities and went to do a quick search. It ended up being a trap and Steve got blown up by a badly made IED. While his nano suit kept him protected from most shrapnel, it wasn’t enough to protect him from the huge block of concrete that fell over him. He was told later on that Tony dug through the rubble frantically searching for him and promptly flew him to the hospital. The internal injuries he received were too dangerous to leave for his body to naturally heal so they had to perform major surgery on his abdomen while he was awake because no anesthesia was strong enough to put Captain America to sleep.

“But we weren’t, uhm. We haven’t begun dating until another two months after that,” Steve pointed out confusedly.

Bruce nodded like he knew exactly what Steve would say. “He has always loved you. Even before you two began fooling around, he was already head over heels in love with you. It was sickening if it weren’t so adorable. Whatever this is—whatever happened between the two of you, nothing would ever make him stop loving you, as I know it wouldn’t stop you from loving him.”

Steve blinked at Bruce, mind still boggling at the intensity of the words coming from the scientist. But before he could formulate an appropriate response, Bruce continued, “So when he comes back, make sure you tell him that, okay, Steve? Tell him how you really feel and prove to him that you’re not going to leave him for a dumb reason like irrational guilt over something that was in no way your fault.”

“How can you all be so sure he’s coming back? What if he doesn’t, Bruce?”

“Oh, he will. You’re here, aren’t you?”