Chapter 9
Tony was officially the happiest man in the entire world now.
Really, he never thought he would say this but he would definitely thank Rogers for this.
Thank you, Rogers, for showing the world and him of how much of an asshole you really are, because of that Tony had his entire family and his son (who he had no idea existed) with him.
It had been less than 24 hours of him finding out Peter was his son and he had already all but pleaded with May Parker to move into the tower and it actually worked.
Of course, it wasn’t that easy but it was.
Soon after Sharon finished making breakfast, all of his family and friends came. Peter was very happy with the special chocolate chip pancakes his aunt made for him; it was really amusing to see Sherry light up like a Christmas tree at the compliment. Seems like May has a competition for the favorite aunt category but maybe Sharon is a bit more his sister than an aunt, he seriously doesn’t know. The newly dubbed Iron family (his family) was very confusing.
Even the defenders were here, Sharon had cooked quite a lot. He had struck a nice friendship from the few months he has come to know them.
He was wary at first, to approach them and talk about the proposal for the new team. He was planning on it since leaving the Avengers, that team was, to quote Bruce’s words “a chemical mixture” from the start.
His Rhodey-bear had already agreed to be part of it once he had finalized everything.
Then there was Hope, his Honey-bee, she was already pissed because her dad gave the ant-man suit to that idiot Lang instead of her. She liked Lang (now she hated him) but there was still the bitterness about her father giving his suit to a stranger rather than her. So she had all but demanded Hank to give her Aunt Jan’s Wasp suit.
Then was Carol, his space travelling Captain Marvel. Tony knew her through Rhodey in the air force. They had hit it off instantly after they met, she liked him a lot since he and Rhodes were one of the very few people who respected women in the air force. He had mourned her unfortunate death and took it really hard. Only to find out after a few years that she was apparently alive. He was really relieved and almost chewed off his godfather’s ears for not bringing him to space, how could they not go without Tony to space? And he had really liked that orange flerkin Goose, it was dangerous but it was really cute. It really liked Tony too.
So yes, she was perfect. He was planning to contact her as soon as the roster was complete. To know if she was ready to return to earth, she was perfect to be the leader of the still-unnamed team. Since she had actually completed military training and has an actual title that is not propaganda. But she got here sooner.
The next on the roster was the Defenders. Surprisingly, they got along with Tony quite well.
He had a unique but nice friend in Jessica whom he had sympathy (never pity) for. She was mind-controlled by a villain and still managed to get through the trauma and be a hero. She also basically adopted him after he gifted her with his liquor cabinet after he decided to be sober. She was also the first one to whom he confessed to the vision Maximoff showed him in the HYDRA bunker which led to ULTRON. He had to hold her back from breaking into the compound and slitting the witch’s throat.
Matt was really interesting too. The guy lost his eyesight and never let it be his weakness. Instead, he used it as his strength and helps people as a blind lawyer and as Daredevil. He also knew when Tony lied about how he was feeling, he knew when he was about to have a panic attack, seriously the guy knew literally everything. He took it upon himself to make sure that Tony was alright and worse, after Siberia he seemed to have teamed up with Pepper!
Danny, his fellow billionaire was also a really nice person to be around with. He was a lot funnier than the others and made him laugh a lot. He was really star-struck the first time he met Tony.
Luke, although is stoic and emotionally distant most of the time. Shows his caring side to his close ones, to which Tony has now apparently become a part of.
There were a lot more on the roster, like the X-men, whom Tony has to meet and discuss the accords and the amendments they have to suggest. Then Bruce’s cousin the She-Hulk Jenifer Walters. His old MIT friends whom he hadn’t seen in the last few years who now are the Fantastic Four; he would give a big lecture to Reed first about being careful about his experiments and then hug Sue.
He hadn’t had time to approach them but now that the world is not quite happy with the enhanced, it might be a good time to show a united front.
There are the two new members too, Sharon and Vision. Sharon was not going to let him go out alone now. She had made it clear and she is a far better spy than Romanoff. Vision also was not going to let him alone now, according to him he couldn’t let his father alone like last time, and if those words had warmed Tony’s heart a little bit then no one needed to know.
If all these people come together, then they might be ready for what was coming. Tony always knew since flying that damned nuke through the portal that the invasion was only the beginning. Rogers and his lot might have blamed it on his paranoia but he knew, he had seen all those ships with his own eyes. His family believed in him. The Defenders too believed in him, Jess had gone on a long rant about how Rogers was dooming the earth rather than protecting it.
If all the people on his list and maybe more people came then maybe earth had a chance against whatever was coming and maybe they could be ready, unlike last time.
Anyways; Pepper, Happy, Uncle Nick, and Agent had come back in the morning. Pepper had released a statement that he had life-threatening injuries, she even released medical files (with his permission, he didn’t care about that, as long as it burned Rogers to hell) and said that thankfully he was recovering and he would come back. He couldn’t go out in the public just yet; he had to wait until he put Ross in prison and made his new team.
While Agent and Uncle Nick found out that releasing the video was the last part of Zemo’s plan. There was a camera in the bunker which recorded the entire thing and released it for when Zemo set the time.
Why the hell would that bastard do it? Tony will never know.
Tony never wanted his mother’s murder plastered on all the news channels. He never wanted people like Ross using it for their own agenda against the enhanced. Not that Ross will be a problem after he’s done with him; he has a lot of proof against him. He just has to find Betty Ross so that she can be safe and can testify against him.
But the video did make people open their eyes to the truth of Captain America. Maybe his mom would be happy as Rogers was being seen for who he really was.
Ok, when everyone had finished breakfast. He had dropped the bomb that is Peter was his son. As expected everyone was shocked. But they took the news exceptionally well. Everyone even compared the two and pointed out their similar traits and said that it would have been a surprise if Peter was not Tony’s son.
Straight after that was over; he had dragged Peter to May’s house. Of course, Sharon had come along, no one was comfortable with Tony going alone anywhere and they all agreed Sharon was the best choice to go with him.
May surprisingly had greeted him with a fierce hug. After that, she had huddled all three of them inside and checked Tony’s health herself to make sure he was fine. She said that she had seen the video of Siberia and that she would love to introduce Craptain Rogers’s face to her frying pan!
Oh, Tony would love to see that happen. Tony understood her concern; she was a nurse after all. She was also curious about how he was up and about after sustaining life-threatening injuries. She even lectured him about bed rest and a positive environment which had Sharon laughing silently (she knew he wouldn’t be in bed even if he couldn’t walk). He hadn’t told her the entire procedure, only that he had to have a treatment that made him enhanced (he couldn’t hide that from her, she was his kid’s aunt). She understood and didn’t pry him for more details.
Then, of course, came the hard part, him and Peter explaining to her that Peter was in fact Spiderman. She had not taken it well, as expected.
First, she had scolded Peter, cried, hugged him tightly, and told him that he would be grounded for a year if he ever came home with any injuries. She also made him promise her that the only super heroing he will do is some little robberies, helping old people cross the roads, help get cats down from trees, and less dangerous things.
Then she had started shouting at Tony, but then she understood that he had no idea that there was going to be a fight and that it would be this brutal. According to Tony, he was fighting his teammates, his friends but some people didn’t share the sentiment. After the shouting though was the crying, again, she was afraid as expected and she was actually taking it much better than anyone else would.
After she calmed down came the even harder part, him explaining to her that her nephew was Tony’s on. She was shocked. But she didn’t blame him or Mary because there was no way she could have known that Peter was not Richard’s son.
She also scolded Peter for even thinking that she would leave him. She promised him that no matter who his father was Peter would always be her nephew and if Ben was here he would have agreed with her. The moment brought tears into even his and Sharon’s eyes.
She even went as far as to say that she was glad Tony was Peter’s dad as he could make sure that Peter was not hurt. She also agreed to change Peter’s birth certificate and understood why Peter’s identity should be kept secret until he was 18. People who want to take revenge on him, people who wanted money, and a lot more would see his son as a perfect weak spot, and Tony couldn’t take the chance.
It took some convincing for her to agree to move into Stark Tower but between his, Peter’s, and Sharon’s puppy dog eyes (that all three of them had completely mastered) and pouting, she had to agree. With a lot of grumbling about how illegal it was that Stark’s (adopted and official) had to be so extremely cute.
Everything was actually happy and perfect in his life for once that he was afraid that it won’t last long.
The universe had a way to show him that his life will never be happy for long.
But maybe this time it will last.
He also had a lot of things to do about the rogues.
He was going to anonymously drop the videos of how Rogers and his merry band treated him to the public. He was going to show the world how the supposedly perfect Captain America treated a team member unfairly, how he used his money and resources to search for his parent’s murderer. That hypocrite had hurt his cousin’s feelings for him; nothing Tony does against him would be enough.
Barton and Wilson will go down with him because of the videos. Lang, honestly, he doesn’t know what to do to the guy, he broke his parole only to go to prison again and be a fugitive.
Romanoff was also going down the drain; the profile she made about him while he was suffering from palladium poisoning would criticize her at most. Although Uncle Nick used that report so that Tony couldn’t be controlled by SHIELD. Which was actually useful.
She would have also known about his mother’s murder, she was there with Rogers for the SHIELDRA incident. There was no way she would have not known.
Then there was the witch. Oh, she would go down horrible. His vengeful best friends Pepper and Hope, and SHIELD’s best hacker and Phil’s Protégé (guess?) Daisy had uncovered everything about her HYDRA past and how happily she tortured people with her powers. It also had videos showing that she was also responsible for ULTRON and that she had worked for the murder bot.
All of this FRIDAY would drop on the internet and make sure it can’t be traced back to her. They can make a statement of some curious hackers doing it.
A few months ago Tony would not have thought about it, he would have thought that they could have some chance but Rogers had proved that he wouldn’t hesitate to even kill people for what he thinks is right and his lackeys will follow him. The world had suffered for his decisions, people died, children lost their parents and parents lost their children for that man’s selfishness. Not anymore.
Also, no one said Tony Stark was against being petty.
But he wouldn’t do it now. Right now he needed to focus on making the defense and making a team for it.
But he is missing one important component in the team. He needed someone who can help to deal with magical threats, like Maximoff. Vision was there, but his magic was the mind stone and no one had any idea of how to use it properly.
He needed a witch or a wizard who uses magic for good. Tony was not comfortable around magic but it could be useful. But no one knew anyone like that; the only witch he had seen was Maximoff.
Maybe someone was out there who uses magic for good and would help protect the planet.
He really hopes there is someone.