Connections

Once Tony had taken over Stark Industries, he’d had no choice but to conceal his powers. There were a number of unspoken rules throughout the company that you discovered once you became an employee, some of them extremely anti-mutant, and Howard’s views seemed to have rubbed off on a lot of the staff there. He couldn’t risk letting them find out that the man running the business was one of the people they despised.

And then, it all went wrong.

If anyone were to ask him what had happened during the three months he disappeared, he wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to tell them. Too much of it he'd left blacked-out in the back of his mind, and the rest seemed too warped to be reality.

What he could remember was the group of soldiers (too young, they were far too young), about to take a photo, and then running to their deaths, bullets shredding the Jeep they’d been in only moments before. A bomb with his name on it, blood coating him, waking up in front of a camera with terrorists shouting words in too many unknown languages to understand. The weight of metal in his chest supposedly saving his life, but feeling like it was killing him, his powers unreachable, the pain taking over his mind instead.

A mental cry for help the first week, lost hope the second when he could no longer see the point - he was in the middle of the mountains in Afghanistan, and there was no way Xavier could find him there.

And then, the Iron Man suit, the loss of Yinsen, the backlash from shutting down the weapons manufactory in SI. There was something that triggered it, he didn’t know what, but it suddenly became so much more difficult to control his powers, to hide them, and he knew it wasn’t long until someone would find out.

Pepper was the first. It was pure accident, and Tony hadn’t wanted her to find out so soon, but there was nothing he could have done.

It wasn’t long after the two of them got together. He’d been having a nightmare, he knew that much - he was definitely asleep when it all happened. It was one of the more… extreme nightmares, where he’d watched Yinsen die (again, and it had been for nothing because he hadn’t escaped). And somehow, he’d woken Pepper up, she’d seen furniture levitating around the room, because of fucking course the nightmare would trigger his powers.

When she’d got over the initial shock, she’d woken him up, and he’d seen what he was doing, stopping it only moments later. Tony had left the room almost immediately afterwards, not wanting to see her face.

(Seventy-six hours without sleep passed in the workshop before he unmuted Jarvis and he let her in.)

And fuck, had that conversation been hell. She had been annoyed, and he didn’t blame her, for him keeping his powers a secret. Tony had shown her just how many of Stark Industries’ employees had anti-mutant views, and she’d begun to understand why he hadn’t told anyone, but even so - he’d known Pepper long enough to realise she hadn’t shared their opinions.

He told her about Xavier, about the school, about his powers, shown her just how much he could do with them, and after that… it got better. She helped him make the company more mutant friendly, both for the employees and in their products, and eventually came with him to visit the mansion. Seeing the kids there just seemed to make her even more determined to help him (some of them were adorable, he had to admit).

They got through it together, that was what mattered.

After Pepper found out about his powers, he became much less careful about showing them, and he ended up using them almost constantly while he was working in the lab. His eidetic memory meant he could practically see the room around him, and so he barely had to look up when using his powers to move parts, tools and materials to him. It took next to no concentration, and relaxed him, and since no one except Pepper and Rhodey had access to the lab on a normal day, he didn’t have a reason to worry about his ‘secret’ getting out.

He'd thought so, at least.

Some point soon after the Chitauri invasion, after rebuilding the tower, the suit had been damaged in a fight. Tony had been asked by Xavier to help deal with some mutants, since they needed more people in the air fighting and there weren’t many trained people he could call on. But then, lucky him, bloody Magneto showed up and he ended up taking most of the hits from him. Because Metal Suit plus Metal Manipulator always equals disaster, and fuck you Magneto (kept him away from the others long enough, though, and he survived - so another point to the good guys. Yay.).

Which was how Tony ended up in his workshop for a solid two days studying the energy patterns he’d found residing on the armour from Magneto’s abilities and attempting to fix the damaged armour. Midway through repairing one of the gauntlets he held his hand out for a tool he knew was in a box on the other side of the room, pulling it towards him.

It didn’t arrive.

That was strange.

He turned, looking around the room for it and oh, shit.

“That’s certainly not something in your file.” Fury flipped the screwdriver he was holding in the air, before holding it out to him. He hesitated, studying the director’s face carefully before taking it off him. “You’re a mutant. A telekinetic, is it?”

Tony sighed. “Great observational skills.” Fury quirked an eyebrow.

“And you managed to keep it hidden for… how long, exactly?”

“Since I was fourteen.” He glared. “Now, why are you here, exactly? In my workshop?”

“I needed to talk to you.” Tony started to interrupt, and he continued. “Without you coming up with an excuse avoid the meeting. Found another good reason to be here, now, anyway. Who else knows?”

“Pepper, Rhodey, Xavier, the mutants at the school. You now, and… You don’t think you can keep this under wraps for the time being? Out of SHIELD’s files?”

“I might be able to do that for you.”

Tony narrowed his eyes at him slightly when he saw Fury’s small smirk. “Okay. What is it you want? You wouldn't offer without getting something out of it.”

Fury looked at him, almost as if to say of course, what did you expect? “I need you to house the other Avengers, keep them away from the press. They're being attacked by the media since the invasion, and it's putting the SHIELD base they're staying at at risk.”

He cocked his head to the side slightly, slightly confused, before nodding. “I told you that you needed better security. I did offer, you remember?” He paused, mentally planning what he’d need to do to sort out the new living arrangements, before continuing. “Sure. I’ll have the tower ready in a few days. Have the team pack their things, bring them along by the end of the week.”

Fury nodded, his face back to its usual passive expression, and turned to the door. As he left, Tony was sure he heard him mutter under his breath, “I’m becoming too generous when it comes to you, Stark."