The Triumphant Return
Tony stood with his arms crossed, Rhodey at his side, while Wanda, Nat, Sam, Steve, Clint, and Bucky Barnes all stood in the common room of the Compound.
Wanda was glaring, red dripping from her finger-tips. Steve had his arms crossed aggressively over his broad chest with Barnes, loose, on one side and Widow on the other. Sam also had his arms crossed and was glaring, and Clint was simultaneously glaring and smirking in a way that just made him looked like a deranged DC character.
“What are you doing here,” Rhodes asked, no less aggressive than the group in front of them.
“We’ve been pardoned. We’re back as Avengers,” Steve said simply, and this time Nat smirked and crossed her arms.
“Good for you,” Tony said with an odd look on his face. “Now why are you HERE?”
“We live here,” Wanda hissed. “Now get out of our way,” she added, raising her arms.
“I’m going to have to stop you there,” Tony said, holding his hand up. “I need to go over some things, first.”
Steve nodded, but he still looked like Tony was dirt under his shoe. Typical.
“So, Wanda, after Ultron, I felt guilty that you lost your brother even though you played an active part in Ultron’s creation by messing with my mind in Strucker’s bunker and then working with the robot menace afterwards. I decided to do you a solid, and began working on getting you a Visa and putting you up in the Compound with all bills and extras paid.”
“She’s an Avenger,” Clint said angrily.
“Stop. I’m speaking with Wanda now. So, Wanda. Next you decided to run around with Captain Underpants and participated in an illegal mission where you were directly responsible for the death of 12 civilians.”
“It wasn’t my fault! Steve said it wasn’t my fault!”
“Yep. It’s kind of a refrain with him,” Tony shrugged. “Anyways, I went to bat for you again. I agreed that you would have to be put under review and said you would stay in the Compound. Sure, I didn’t tell you personally, because you hate me, but I did ask Vision—whom you like—to stay with you and make sure everything was ok. He did . . . and you sent him through three floors of MY COMPOUND, causing massive damage to said compound, and then proceeded to go on ANOTHER illegal mission on Captain Underpants’s say so, dropped a mountain of cars on me in an attempt to, let’s be honest here, kill me despite everything I’ve done for your ungrateful ass. And now you want me to put you up AGAIN and pay for everything for you AGAIN. Correct?”
“You killed my parents!”
“That argument lost all credibility when you became a Nazi and killed EVERYONE ELSE’S parents . . . and kids . . . and cousins, etc. Becoming a terrorist? I want the big one? Setting an enraged Hulk loose on a civilian population? Aiding a killer robot with world destruction until you figured out—much later because you’re apparently a genius—that you are a part of the world as well? Any of this ringing a bell? Moving on. So, Black Widow.”
“Tony,” she started.
“Please don’t use the pseudo-therapist voice. You don’t have a degree in psychology; you’ve got a lifetime of training in manipulation. Not the same thing. Not even Wilson over there is qualified or he wouldn’t have ever been ok with you guys setting foot back in here with all of the associated trauma it presents for ALL PARTIES INVOLVED. He just wants a free-ride like everyone else.”
“Hey!”
“WIDOW. You’ve betrayed me not once—ie. Infiltrating and spying on my company while I was dying—not twice . . . AKA Tony Stark: not recommended . . . but three times . . . Survey says, ‘We played this wrong . . . your ego . . . yada yada yada.’ You think I’m letting you live off me again or paying for jack shit for your gas-lighting ass? I’m going to have to nope right out of that.”
“You don’t speak to her that way,” Clint said, stepping up angrily.
“WHY ARE YOU HERE,” Tony yelled, stepping into the archer’s face. “Didn’t you retire? What? Did Laura get sick of you and divorce you, so you decided ‘quick! better go live off the billionaire again!’ Well, no, you may not. You’re an ARCHER. That was never anything but insulting. Hey Rhodey, you now that guy, Thompson, in Human Resources?”
“The one we picked up from SHIELD after Widow and Captain Stupid burned everything to the ground? The Galaga guy?”
“Yep, that’s the one! He’s a great shot. Give that man a bazooka! There, problem solved. Clint, you’ve been replaced. You’re fired. Now go away,” Tony said, shewing the archer away with a flapping hand.
“Now, the dynamic duo, because again, Wilson is just a glorified shadow for all things Captain America now that the good Captain has his best buddy Barnes back and doesn’t need Wilson for the sidekick anymore.”
“Hey!”
Rhodey rolled his eyes.
“Steve, that you thought I’d pay for a place for you to live or support any other aspect of you and your work after you lied to me and used my money and equipment to hunt down the man that murdered my parents is disgusting.
Barnes, I was clearly out of line when I attacked you—but you attacked me first when I went after Steve for lying . . . because that’s SO MUCH worse than betraying two generations of a family that supported him in blind faith for years to their own cost.
Maybe you were having a PTSD moment when you defended that lying piece of shit, I don’t know. But I was having a human moment where the man whom I had just seen bash in my father’s face and choke out my mother as they both called for help was right in front of me and threatening to kill the last Stark with a rifle stolen from a Stark Jet. I think we kind of canceled each other out there for being in the wrong.
You tried to crush my reactor, and got your arm shot off for the trouble. You double-teamed the man you orphaned alongside the man that covered it up, left me in a dead suit in Siberia with no way out and no help coming, and I didn’t hunt you down like the dog you are for that. I’m thinking we’re square. I’d be fine with never seeing or speaking with you again.
So, can you tell me what possessed you to EVER think that it was ok to follow the man that betrayed me into my own home to . . . what? Say that I now have to house the both of you and support you for the rest of your lives.”
Barnes looked away uneasily.
“Either you are truly a piece of shit, or you need to start standing up to the biggest bully in the room. And . . .hint, hint, Steve . . . it’s not the 1 percenter, CCO. It’s you. Maybe the President pardoned you and said you were Avengers again, but I took over the care and feeding of the Avengers after YOU destroyed SHIELD. So, you’re ALL FIRED. Get out, and don’t come back. The President and the United States can have you, because me and the world don’t want you.”