How Low

one

"Rogers."  Tony shook hands with the blonde supersoldier stiffly.  A press smile was plastered onto his face, but even Tony knew how empty his expression must look.  Behind Captain America were the wary presences of none other than Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the former Winter Soldier--Bucky Barnes.  Even six months later, every time Tony saw Barnes, bile rose up in his throat.  He killed my mother.  Stop being so weak, Anthony.   My mom, my mom, my mom--  Stark men are made of iron.  The wind was cool on his face as it whistled around the doorstep of Stark Tower.  (Tony had fixed that goddamn sign; had changed it back from A to Stark again.  The A brought back too many memories.)

"I see the rest of your merry band is here too," Tony said, widening his grin.  His cheek muscles didn't even tremble from the strain, because after all, Tony had grown up in the spotlight.  Putting on a facade was something he was all too familiar with.  From behind Steve's broad shoulders, he could see Natasha eyeing him.  Like...she hated him or something.  Well, she probably did anyway, which Tony figured wasn't good.  The woman was way too deadly for even an assassin.

"Fury ordered us here," Barton said suddenly, appearing next to the supersoldier.  "We're not here to socialize, Stark.  We just need a place to stay.  Bet you're pretty sad that you have to actually share space with somebody, huh?"  Tony fought the urge to shout at the archer.  He wanted to say that he was the one who persuaded the government to let the superheroes back into the States without hostility or imprisonment.  He was the one who had landed Ross in jail after fixing the Accords.  He had been the one to get all of his teammates--correction, former teammates; as well as their new recruits--out of Wakanda without the public trying to murder them or cause chaos.

Tony shrugged, his stance casual and deliberate.  "Well, you can't exactly stay with Laura now, can you?"  The female Barton had contacted Tony about two months ago, tearful but steely.  She had spoken to him about her decision to divorce her husband, and the engineer had spent many phone calls and afternoons comforting, chatting, and playing with her little ones over tea.

At that, Barton's face twisted into an ugly fury.  "What the fuck did you just say to me?" he snarled.

Tony cocked his head.  "I know your hearing aids are turned up," he said, purposely bringing up the fact that he had figured out Clint's hearing difficulties long ago.  If you studied the guy hard enough, it was pretty easy to spot the dark buds in his ears.

Steve's hand planted firmly against the archer's chest was Tony's only saving grace.  "Stand down, Clint," the man ordered, before throwing Tony a disgusted look.  "Watch yourself, Stark."

"Hey, don't treat your host like that," Tony called after him smarmily as Steve walked into the building.  "I could slip poison into your food, you know."  

Barnes was the only one who didn't look at him with hatred as each of his former teammates plus Sam and Wanda passed him by.

xxx

Tony found them an hour later, everyone standing in the kitchen except for Steve.  The blonde was standing in front of him, arm still half-stretched towards the "down" button.  "Uh," Steve said intelligently.  "Uh.  Stark."  He suddenly looked completely unsure of himself and blushed a bright red.  "Couldn't...I was gonna...do we have rooms, or..."

Tony flung his arms wide and smirked.  "How about a house tour?  Brucie would naturally be first because his floor is the lowest, but he's not here right now so I guess I'll just skip to Wanda's."

Steve seemed to have gone into shock.  "Fl-Floor?" he stammered.

"Umm, yeah," Tony said.  He gestured at himself.  "Billionaire, remember?"

This seemed to dampen the supersoldier's mood again at the reminder of Tony's obvious narcissism.  "Should've known you were only doing this to show off," the man muttered.  

Tony flinched minutely--because he had heard the same words so many times even when he tried to do good--but the Captain didn't seem to notice.  Instead, he turned to the elevator.  "We'd like to see our r--floors please."  Please.  Polite as always, Tony scoffed to himself before his mind registered on the "we".  To his surprise, the rest of Steve's group were now crowded around him, all looking suspicious.

"Okay!" Tony said brightly, clapping his hands together.  "Scarlet Witch, you first!"

A minute later found all of the Avengers standing on Wanda's floor.  Sam's eyes were blown wide and his jaw was hanging.  Natasha's eyebrows were raised minimally and Tony swallowed.  Was that a good or bad thing?  Who knew?

"So."  He turned to Wanda.  "You, do you like it?"

The woman scowled, regarding her surroundings with an icy air.  "It's...very expensive looking."  There were the slightest traces of a Russian accent in her voice, and the engineer secretly admired how quickly Wanda managed to adapt to all of the consonants and vowels in the English language.

"Of course it is; this place is called Stark Tower for a reason."  This only made the atmosphere tenser, and Tony beckoned them to the elevator to try to release some of it.

The next floor was Natasha's.  He had wanted her floor to be right next to Clint's, but considering what he could find out about each of the Avengers' preferences, that plan hadn't worked.  Hopefully, Natasha wouldn't mind travelling a couple stories up to visit.  Inside was homey except still fit Natasha's sleek style.  Tony had tried to fashion it while making it look as dissimilar as possible from the Red Room or the bare white walls of SHIELD.  He figured he could give her that much, even if she had betrayed him during the Civil War.  He would never admit it, but he cared for her a little bit.  They had been teammates for two years, after all.  No matter what had happend after that.

It had been harder for Tony to renovate her floor than anyone else's.  With Wanda's, he hadn't known her very well, but at least he could figure out that she'd like a more Russian-y, teenagery place.  But Black Widow?  That was altogether a different case.  The woman revealed nothing.  

"So, like, I had no idea what you liked," Tony drawled in order to make it seem like he had spent less time than in reality on deciding what each Avenger's room should look like.  It was definitely a terrible idea to tell them that he had already been making plans from the time he fell back through the wormhole.  "So if you hate it, just tell me and I'll call up a few workers to knock everything down and remodel."

Natasha shook her head.  "It's fine," she said, her voice betraying no emotion whatsoever.  

Tony winked lasciviously at her.  "Glad you like it.  Okay, everyone, now we've got Sam!"

Without bothering to watch if they would follow him, he strode back into the elevator and pressed the 'up' button, trying to steady his nerves.  He only had to show them their rooms and then he would be free to retreat into his workshop or his hidey-hole, as Rhodey often called it.

Rhodey.  Thinking about his best friend reminded Tony about the fact that the colonel would never be able to walk again.  He was currently working on a fluid pair of metal legs that could be attached to Rhodey's hips, but metal wasn't the same as skin and bone and blood.  Also it made him think of Barnes' robotic fingers tightening around his mother's throat.

Tony shook his head as if to clear the thoughts before noticing that Natasha was studying him again.  It was like an x-ray of his head or something.  Tony shifted awkwardly as the elevator came to a smooth stop and he stepped out, readying himself to play the loud and confident host everyone expected him to be.

The Avengers were on Clint's room, the highest in the tower, when Sam stepped forward.  Tony was busy showing the group around, spreading his arms at the subtle olive green tones (he knew that while Clint liked green, he also hated emerald because of Loki) when the dark-skinned man said, "Why?"

The billionaire stopped short and cocked any eyebrow.  "Why what, my dearest falcon?"

"Why?" Sam asked again.  There was a conflict of emotions in his tone, a bit of hostility and suspicion but also an undertone of...something else.  Something softer.  "Why would you do this for us?  You barely even know me, Stark."

Tony shrugged.  "Why not?"  He had learned long ago that if you couldn't change a person's view about you, you might as well live up to it.  They all hated him, and would never stop hating him, so why shouldn't he get to play along?  "Like I told Rogers already--I've got the money, I've got the power, I've got the influence to make people do it for me.  It's not like I actually had to work personally on your floors or the training room or the gym or anything."

Sam opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again.  "Gym?  Training room?" he said in disbelief, shaking his head.  Great, now he's disappointed, Tony thought, and pressed back the hurt that suddenly flooded him.

"I meant, why would you take the time to look up our preferences and stuff?" Sam said.  "My floor...it's literally perfectly how I've always wanted my place to look."

"I had Pepper do it all for me," Tony lied, stuffing his hands in his pockets.  He chose not to add that not only was Pepper unaware of his renovations, but that she had dumped him as well.  "So, whatever you're thinking, it's probably wrong."

He could feel Natasha's eyes on him like laser beams, probing.  He was about to turn around, go allow them to explore while he disappeared into workshop, when Bucky moved closer to him with a hand raised.  Immediately, Tony backtracked sharply, his heart pounding in his ears.  He fought the memories clouding his vision and making his ears buzz.

Bucky had stopped and was looking at him oddly.  Tony realized that he had pressed himself against the wall and had his hands in a protective stance.  Now the smarter Avengers like Natasha would figure out that he was still having nightmares of the Civil War, not to mention the ones of Obie and Afghanistan and Ultron and Yinsen and the wormhole and his mom dying and Howard ignoring him or slapping him or drinking and, and--  "What, Barnes?" he snapped, the defensiveness rising.

"I said, thank you, Stark," the former Winter Soldier repeated.  His voice was low, and surprisingly mellow, a little rough like thick salted chocolate.

"Huh?" Tony said intelligently, then muttered, "Oh.  Oh.  Okay, well, it's not like it took up much of my time anyway."

"Yeah, because you made Pepper do all of your dirty work," Clint spat.

"I--" Tony was about to say, no, I did, before remembering what he'd told them.  Well, it was his fault for saying that.  He still wouldn't admit he'd cared so much about the renovations even if to prevent Clint from attacking him.  Like Howard had told him many times as a kid: "Don't let them know you care.  Caring is a weakness, man's worst downfall.  Caring leaves too many loopholes, and you, Anthony, cannot have loopholes.  You will not disappoint me again.  Understand?"

"It disgusts me, Stark," the archer continued, "how you can be so disgustingly calm about using your girlfriend like that.  You are a disgusting human being.  How can you treat people like that?  No wonder nobody likes you.  Potts must be really tolerant to stay around you this long.  God knows no one else would.  I'm just surprised Potts hasn't ditched your sorry ass."

Tony choked back the sob thickening in his throat.  It had only been a month since Pepper's departure, and didn't that just prove the truth of Clint's statement.  He had thought that Pepper was the one, had checked out several of the top-notch wedding ring stores, had already had his eye on a several-million-dollars-worth ruby and gold band that reminded him both of her hair and his Iron Man half...only for her to tearfully break up with him in their penthouse one day, saying that she just couldn't take not knowing whether or not her boyfriend would be coming home alive anymore.  That she wanted, no, needed a man that would be able to take care of their children every single day, no matter how much she loved him.

Tony preferred to think that if he really had been loved that much, Pepper would have fought against her logic and stayed with him anyway.

Wounded, Tony snatched up the last thing he could think to say.  "Like Laura ditched yours?"

Clint threw himself at Tony and slammed the billionaire against the wall.  Bam!  His skull cracked against the wall as Clint pulled his fist back, breathing hard.  The archer's knuckles slammed into his cheekbone again, sending his world spinning.  Black spots danced in front of his vision for a few seconds before fading.

"Clint!  That's enough!" he heard Steve's voice echo somewhere, sounding far, far away.  The weight against him was suddenly lifted, and Tony could breathe again.  He tried to fight the flashbacks as he heard footsteps moving away.

"Stop, stop!" Tony cried out as the familiar rough hands moved over his body, prying.  "Ty, please..."

He felt the fingers massage his crotch before tightening, and he felt the tears trickling over his cheeks.  "No, stop..."

"Don't worry, Tony, I'll make your first time good for you."  Tiberius Stone leered over his body, lust etched in every plane of his face.  "Shh, don't worry..."

Tony had managed to knock Ty out with the lamp as soon as the teen had accidentally loosened his grip on Tony's wrists, but even now, the flashback burned with pain, seared into his mind as if it were happening at that very moment.  Tony whimpered, vaguely aware of his cheek pressed against the floor, before he was thrown into the next flashback.

Hands were holding him down, fingers knotting into his hair, forcing his head underwater.  Tony struggled until a kick to his ribs made him swallow a bunch of water.  He felt himself losing consciousness like when Clint slammed his head back into the wall, and his body spasmed.  Finally, the hands yanked his chin back through the surface, and he sucked in air.

"DO IT!  MAKE THE MISSILE, AND THIS PAIN WILL END," a heavily accented voice growled in his ear.  "MAKE THE MISSILE."

Tony knew he should have just done it, obliged, but he knew that he wasn't worth anything.  It didn't matter if he died.  This had been before his idea of Iron Man...but what no one knew was that he had been planning to die all along.  His survival?  Unexpected.  Being trapped in an obscure cave by terrorists, a car battery in his chest, while being their main concern didn't leave very good odds of life.  To be honest, Tony had never given much concern to dying.  If he died, at least his company would be left in Obie's responsible hands.  Well, how wrong he had been about his only real father figure besides Jarvis.  

He never hesitated as he replied, "No."  And then the water swallowed up his world again, and he was screaming bubbles that no one could hear.

When Tony came back to himself, he was curled up on the floor, tear tracks on his face.  Nobody was around, and he realized that the footsteps he'd heard earlier were probably Clint and the rest of the group leaving.  If he was honest with himself, he didn't know how he felt.  Of course, he was incredibly relieved that none of them had been there to witness his panic attack--it would just be more evidence of his weakness--but there was also a strange kind of sadness digging at his ribcage.  Almost as if he still cared about wanting someone to love him.