If They Knew All About You

A Wanna-Be Hero

The sun was starting to set in New York City. It had been a good day for Tony. Helen's therapy was more effective than anything he had ever experienced. It had only been 4 weeks since Siberia and he had already regained full mobility in his arms and shoulders. He still got a little winded because of the limited lung capacity. The general discomfort around his sternum was something he had gotten used to a long time ago. The doctors had completely reconstructed it when he had the arc taken out of his body. It had been painful then and the process this time had been similar. The cradle sure had proven helpful, superficial scar tissue on his chest was basically non-existent. Compared to the Jackson Pollock his chest had mimicked before, the area looked like it had never even seen a scalpel let alone an arc reactor housing unit. Or a Vibranium shield. The cradle could only handle tissue though. That meant, the fusion of his own ribs and the artificial sternum Helen had woven into his chest took a little more patience, but they were getting there.

His last 4 hours had been spent on a video conference call with Pepper, a couple of board members and two project managers from the R&D labs in LA. It had been the first time in months that he had talked to Pepper in a work setting, without wanting to rip his hair or heart out. Not counting the week right after he woke up from the incident in Siberia, of course. That didn't really count. He was sick, so she had gone easy on him. Sure, the call had been all work, but it was progress. It was the kind of relationship that they were meant to have. A friendly partnership between CEO and company owner. A friendship. Maybe again at some point.

He grabbed a beer from the fridge and sank into the cushions on the couch in his living room. How was it only Monday? That whole day had felt like a week. His chest was aching and there was a numbness in his fingers. A new - well old, but newly acquired - engine block was waiting to be put back together in the workshop. Something to tinker with just to clear his mind. It was only 8:30 pm after all. Against his better judgment, he took out his phone and pulled up the app he had implemented a couple of weeks prior.

FRIDAY had been analyzing the Rogues' movements for him based on diverse data input from mentions on social media all the way to the low-level trackers that were still active on the Quinjet as well as some of Romanoff's and Rogers' equipment. The signal of the trackers was low. It was only meant to be picked up locally if they had to find one of them or even just the equipment during a fight when all other lines of communication would fail. It meant the data he received from the trackers was often corrupted and couldn't be pinned down precisely, but that also meant that Natasha hadn't picked up on the outgoing signal yet. It gave him a general idea of where they were at, or at least let him guess the general location of some of them. With the additional surveillance and social media pointers, there was one thing he could tell: they had been in North America for a few days now and just crossed the border from Canada into the USA that weekend. Tony bit his lip to stop himself from cursing out loud.

Fucking Rogers was getting closer and closer. Why could the idiot not just stay away?

It wasn't likely that they would show up in New York. Tony wouldn't put anything past Rogers but the crew was mostly out of funds. Most of them lost their equipment in the arrest in Germany. Hawkeye was of little use empty-handed and the Falcon probably hadn't grown wings in the Raft. They would need to remedy that situation before they could operate in any basic capacity. That was the only reason they would be in the states in the first place. The equipment was stored in a hangar somewhere outside of Washington D.C. operated by the government, but there was nothing Tony could do about deterring them. If he would tip off Ross then he'd basically admit that he had the technology to track the Rogues down. Ross was an asshole but not that much of an idiot that Tony could sell him a coincidental discovery of the gang. All that would do was make the asshole get approval from the UN council so he could force Tony to engage the Rogues and Tony wouldn't be able to deal with that. He couldn't face them. Not yet. What were you supposed to do if you had to look into the face of the guy who had lied about your parents' murder? The man who had protected their murderer. Who had almost killed him. Tony might never be ready for that but he sure wasn't now.