Chapter Text
When he was placed in a holding cell his ears were still ringing with the sound of metal striking metal.
There were train wrecks that were in better shape than Tony Stark. He was hunched forward, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, holding himself in some sad attempt to stop the trembling. He covered his eyes and closed them tight, sucking in through his teeth as his heart hitched in his throat. There wasn't enough oxygen. The arc reactor was creaking, groaning, straining - caught in the jagged remains of his ribcage, stressed by the imagined constriction of his chest. He couldn't breathe.
One hand fisted against his forehead, slick with sweat, pressing in earnest to remind himself to think. To remember. He wasn't there - he was here, in prison, but that was here and not there. Anything was better than there.
Another breath, desperate and fast, but it wasn't enough. He couldn't breathe.
And then the past grabbed him by the throat and dragged him down, down, until the portal engulfed him again and the open universe unraveled before him. Flashes of light burned out the present; Tony was again staring into the darkness, witness to alien life and endless space. He was breathing, but there was no oxygen. No relief. The nuclear explosion was silent, but the force of it rocked through the suit. The armor flickered and failed and he was falling, suffocating - the lights went out. He was a man in a tin can, dying. Alone. Trapped.
Tony fell back to reality, breaking through the surface of his trauma, gasping like a drowning man. He was bent over on the floor on his hands and knees. He could see the stains on his hands where blood had leaked into the suit.
It made him sick.
"Tony."
Concern wavered in Steve Roger's voice. Tony wasn't sure it was sincere, but he couldn't fight away the flickering hope as he looked up.
"Steve..."
His hope faded. The soldier on the other side of the bars looked at him with cold composure, stiff and steady like any trained man would be. He wasn't here to listen. He wasn't here to comfort. This wasn't the same man he'd called hours ago, shaking and trembling, looking for help- I don't remember what happened, Steve, but half a block's been demolished and there's a firehouse on fire. Thor's not moving. I don't know what happened, JARVIS can't remember- Steve, Steve, you've gotta get here. Steve.
What he was here for now, Tony didn't know, but it couldn't be anything good.
He pulled himself to his feet and faced Captain America with matched resolve, holding onto the iron bars of his cell for support.
"I didn't do it."
He was done with pleading. He knew they were done listening, too.
"I saw you."
"You-"
"There's footage. We all saw you."
"God dammit, just listen-"
Then there were two hands grasping his underarmor through the bars, lifting him off his feet. An alarm sounded somewhere.
"Why?!" The word tore through Steve's throat, raw and desperate.
There was no answer Tony could give. Steve threw him across the cell, where he collided with the brick wall.
"Answer me, Stark!"
Not Tony. Tony had been a friend.
"He was an Avenger!" The bars bent around Steve's hands as he pressed them apart, flakes of cement falling from the ceiling as the iron warped where it had been bolted. He advanced. "He was your friend."
Steve hung on the word like it was a lifeline, because the crime was somehow worse because he'd been their friend. They had all fought together, lived together, but only Tony could get shit-faced with him and buy a small island on a dare. They all had their things, their moments with him. They had all loved him. Steve didn't own that.
But it should be proof of innocence. A friend was a friend. Tony didn't have many of those, and he'd burn the world before he burned them.
"Exactly, Rogers."
Steve tensed up and took a step forward, but then Natasha was there. Barton was close behind, arrow notched and loosely aimed as she touched Cap's arm. Good ol' Bruce was nowhere to be seen.
"Captain, fall back."
Tony rubbed his shoulder as he watched Agent Coulson enter the room.
"I didn't touch him." Steve shrugged Natasha off, glaring at the floor. Tony caught her gaze as she stepped aside, searching for anything that hinted at her thoughts. There might've been a question somewhere in there, even doubt, but she didn't have the time to speak for any of it as Coulson shouldered his way between the bent prison bars. His expression didn't give anything away, either.
"How's the ribcage?" he asked instead, brushing off the seriousness of the situation.
"Less sore, thank you." It was a diplomatic response, short and clipped, and then Coulson turned his attention to the Avengers around him. "Mr. Stark is currently is protective custody, Captain. Asgard expects us to hold him safely until he can be transported."
Tony blanched.
"Asgard?"
There was no response from the party at large. Steve's expression warped into something hard and apathetic, but it was tainted with shame.
Had he known? Had he come down here to tell him?
Clint lowered his bow completely. "'S'cuse me?"
Natasha pulled back, glaring at Steve like he'd grown a second head. He wouldn't look at her.
"What he said," she added, deceptively calm.
So they hadn't known. Fury had sent Steve down to be the bearer of bad news without consulting the team.
"We weren't given much choice, I'm afraid," Coulson said evenly, smoothing down the folds in his jacket. "They find the evidence insurmountable." Attention flicking up towards Tony, there wasn't much in it but a sorry sort of resignation, "I'm sorry that you had to find out this way, Mr. Stark."
"That's not an option," Natasha insisted, carefully diplomatic. "Asgard-"
"Asgard?" said a familiar, dangerous voice. Everyone's focus shifted to the entryway, where the newest party-goer stood: Bruce Banner, slowly pushing his glasses higher up his nose.
"Bruce," Steve tried.
"Keep it cool, man," Clint added helpfully, squaring his shoulders towards the door so he could take a shot if he needed to.
"-I am. But if you're handing Tony over to Asgard-"
Clint's grip on his bow tightened again as Bruce stepped over the threshold. Steve and Coulson blocked the cell's warped opening with their bodies, either to keep Tony in or Bruce out.
"Doctor Banner-"
"Don't Doctor Banner me."
Tony managed to stand up, trying to assess how well his friend was maintaining his inner zen. The atmosphere of the room was quickly escalating from code yellow to code red.
"It's all right, buddy." he tried to find his sense of humor. "I'm not afraid of some old men in dresses."
A pause. Time for Bruce to breathe, to force out a humorless laugh through a bitter smirk. Only Tony could joke at a time like this.
"This isn't over," he promised.
"I know."
"Gentlemen. Natasha." Coulson said, leaning into the opportunity of the silence, "There's nothing we can do."
A crock of bullshit. This wasn't anything at all like Loki. Fury just wanted to sweep this pretty little mess under a rug and cart him off to a place where SHIELD couldn't take the blame for whatever happened. One-eyed bastard.
"But Tony isn't Loki."
"No." Steve agreed, turning his back. "He's worse, Banner."
Twenty-three hours later Tony was transferred to Avengers Tower. Pepper was forced to shut down JARVIS to primary functions and Clint tossed a suitless Iron Man in the Hulk Tank, leaving him to rot.
Tony decided that this was for his own safety. After all, Steve had pulled apart those prison bars like he was straight out of a cartoon. But it was just added insult to injury to lock an engineer in a prison he'd designed himself.
This was Hulk Tank 2.0, safely nestled inside the security of Avengers HQ. It was located on Banner's floor, meant to give him somewhere to go if there was a sudden anger management crisis. At first Tony had been hesitant to make it. They could deal with a little Code Green no problem, he'd argued. But Banner had insisted and now it was Tony's personal little hell. With no visitors and no AI to talk to, he was worried he might go insane.
So in the small amount of time he had been left alone, Tony had managed to pry out some of the ceiling tiles to expose the grid of concealed support beams. He was doing pull-ups off one of them when the elevator across the room opened with a pleasant ping. He didn't look to see who it was, instead continuing with his distraction.
"Three cheeseburgers and a large coke, please." he dismissed.
"Tony."
Virginia Potts was standing on the other side of the glass wall, a picture-perfect ideal of purpose and calm. She had a tablet and a clipboard clutched in her hands, betraying her only tell: her knuckles were gripping white.
"Pep." He dropped down from the ceiling and a mess of words spilled out of his mouth before he could stop himself. His hands were on the glass and he was leaning towards her, desperate. "I'm telling you, Pep, it wasn't me, the suit just went, JARVIS wasn't responding, something glitched, something went wrong, the HUD went down and it wasn't me and I couldn't-"
She shook her head, placing her hand against his.
"I know it wasn't you, Tony."
His relief nearly knocked him to his knees. He exhaled hard and closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool glass. Of course she would believe him.
"All the evidence says it was." she admitted, trying to be gentle, "I've got Fury and SHIELD drowning in paperwork, but there's nothing else I can do. An interstellar incident, they keep telling me, and JARVIS' records... they..." she swallowed, "You don't have many good cards in your hand."
"Just pull the flight logs." he suggested, "There's got to be something in them. An inconsistency. A hack, maybe."
They both knew no one could hack into those suits. He was grasping at straws.
"The flight logs are normal, Tony. JARVIS has scanned everything a million times, and he's sure there's no inconsistencies. With the video feeds on top of that... everyone is convinced."
"Why aren't you?"
"Because I know you, Tony. They don't. This isn't you."
His heart swelled. If ever he had seen an angel, she was standing in front of him. Perfect, graceful, loyal Pepper.
"Then let me out." he whispered, meeting her gaze, "Remote activate Mark I and II and we..." But he trailed off, seeing the pain in her eyes. She wasn't here to spring him. She wasn't Bonny and he wasn't Clyde. "Pep..."
Her lips pursed into a thin line. She looked down and away, trying to compose herself. He felt the overwhelming urge to reach out and wrap her in his arms, as if that would fill the craters inside them.
"I'm trying." she promised, "I'm trying, but... it doesn't look good."
He shook his head, looking up to her.
"I'll figure this out." It was a promise.
"You always do." She smiled weakly. "I'm here to help you get things in order." Her admission was quiet, heartbroken, and she finally his gaze again. "Bruce says..."
"Forget him."
Tony took a deep breath, shoulders slumping in defeat. Sliding to the floor, he sat, legs crossed and a hand scratching at the stubble of his beard. He looked like shit. They hadn't let him shave (which was a crime in and of itself) and his signature goatee had grown out. He tried not to think about the fact that he was still wearing his under armor, which was stained with splatters of Thor's blood. No one had given him anything else to change into. Maybe they needed to see the blood to remember his guilt.
Pepper followed suit, folding her legs underneath herself and placing the clipboard on her lap. She exhaled and gathered her hair up into a bun, clipping it into place.
"It's only just in case." she promised.
Like that made it any better.
"Just... let's get it over with." Tony resigned himself to the task. "What do I need to sign?"
They talked for hours to settle out his affairs. Tony didn't have any children (that he knew about), so Pepper was going to get it all - the company, his houses, his robots, his suits, and JARVIS. Everything. She could either burn it all or keep it; he didn't care. The only thing they signed away to someone else was Avengers HQ, formerly known as Stark Tower, to Steve. He would get that, along with a small chunk of money. Though, "small money" to Tony was subjective. He told himself he was funding the protection of the Earth, not the asshole soldier who wouldn't believe him.
When it was all done, Pepper gave the paperwork to a robotic arm that dropped down from the ceiling. It would transfer their work inside the cell. Tony took all of it in steady hands and ignored his pet peeve, but his eyes were on his once-secretary.
"I'm sor-"
She shook her head, staring him dead in the eye.
"Don't you dare."
He smiled a little and looked down to the clipboard.
"Yeah, I don't like goodbyes either."
A pen sat on top of the paperwork, waiting, but she had left him a more important gift. Hidden halfway through the stack was a inconspicuous little ear piece.
Pepper was an angel. A gift from God. The Eve to his Adam, or maybe the Steve to his Bucky.
One sly sweep of his hand later, he had it tucked away in a pocket while he pretended to double-check their work. He would have kissed her if not for the glass.
"There."
He signed the last page and buried the pen underneath it all. The cap peeked out the side of the papers and he shoved his hands in his pockets, letting the robotic arm return all the paperwork to the new CEO of Stark Industries.
"Thank you, Mr. Stark."
Despite her formality, her eyes were only sad. Again she placed her hand to the glass and Tony mirrored the action.
"If you die, Tony, I swear to God I'll kill you." she vowed.
He couldn't help his smile.
"You just take care of the kids, Pep. I'll be all right. Always am."
They both took a deep breath of finality, hands falling from the glass. Pepper gave him a false smile and Tony faked one back.
"Thanks. For everything."
If Tony had started thanking people, things really were bleak.
Two days later they carted him off to New Mexico. An angry brunette slapped him when they got there and Steve dragged him to some designated place in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, refusing to look at him the entire time.
Tony didn't waste his breath trying to convince them that he was innocent. He was quiet until he and Steve stopped at the Bifrost point, Captain America's grip far too tight on his upper arm.
Bruce hung back by the quinjet and watched, cleaning his glasses abnormally often. Pepper was with him, in attendance even though Steve had been against it. She had told him he could kiss her star-spangled ass when he had protested and Tony remembered why she was his favorite CEO. Ever.
"Just make sure they get my arc reactor back to Pepper, Rogers." Tony murmured when they came to a stop, his eyes on the open sky above.
Steve gave him a sidelong glance, silence stretching for a long moment. But he eventually gave a stiff nod and there was a flash of sadness in his baby-blue eyes.
Well, maybe ol' Rogers did care about him after all.
When the Bifrost beamed him up Tony forgot all about the grief he had seen in Steve's eyes. Jarred and confused after interstellar travel, it was a miracle he remembered what the goddamn behemoth of a man had told him when he arrived. Heimdall had welcomed him to Asgard, then said some foreboding words about death before a small infantry of Warriors showed up.
Guards in gaudy gold outfits hauled off the one and only Tony Stark down a rainbow bridge as he wondered how much damage he could do with the pen he had knicked off Pepper.