Save The Date
Lunch on Wednesdays absolutely sucked.
“Dude, I’ve eaten alleyway dirt better than this pizza.” Peter tossed the slice of pizza onto his cafeteria tray, nearly knocking over a cartoon of chocolate milk in the process.
Without even looking, he caught the paper cartoon before it tipped over — his eyes never once wavering from the phone in front of him. The device was nestled right between his cafeteria tray and Ned’s, the screen lit to life for them both to see.
Taking a large bite of his sandwich, Ned watched as his friend scrolled somewhat aimlessly through his cell phone.
“You want some of my potato chips?” Ned reached over for his lunch bag, digging around inside and moving the ice pack onto the cafeteria table to locate the spare snacks. “Mom accidentally packed me double this morning. I think those extra shifts at work are starting to get to her.”
Peter turned his head to the side, his eyes barely reaching over the hair that fell in front of his forehead. He momentarily considered the offer before eagerly reaching his hand out.
“Yeah, lemme see those.”
Ned handed the snacks over and Peter didn’t waste a second in ripping the bag open, dumping half of the contents on-top of his absolutely-not-worth-this-tuition pizza before taking another bite.
The crunching that followed could’ve easily reached over the commotion that filled the cafeteria, including Carl Kimmel’s saxophone playing from across the room. Peter managed a couple more bites in that time, too distracted by the screen of Ned’s cell phone to fully taste — or properly digest — his slice of pizza.
Ned noticed.
“You know,” he started to say, reaching for the bag of potato chips and grabbing a handful for himself, “staring at my phone isn’t gunna make Harry magically text back.”
Peter didn’t seem affected by the obvious. Instead, his gaze grew more focused and intent, with his eyebrows knitting tightly together into one long piece.
“Maybe we need to say something else.” Though Peter stopped scrolling on the screen, he never looked away from it as he reached for his slice of pizza. A few potato chips fell off when he lifted it up from the tray. “Or like, rephrase what we’re saying. Instead of ‘Hey Harry, checking in, text back if you want’ we need to say something like…”
Peter took a large bite of pizza before letting it flop back onto the tray, immediately picking up Ned’s phone and running his thumbs across the touch screen.
“I dunno, like, ‘What’s up Harry, nobody's heard from you in two weeks and I know Peter said you guys can’t be friends but he’s super worried abut you and wants you to know that so text me back please.’ And maybe capitalize every letter in the word please?” Peter quickly began to type up the message. “Make it known we're really worried —”
Ned ripped the phone right out of his hands.
“Peter,” he stressed, immediately putting the phone aside and out of reach. “Just admit it. Harry ghosted us. Again.”
Peter made a face, causing the crumbs around his lips to stand out. “Ned, I’m the one that told him we can’t be friends.”
When Peter leaned over to grab the phone, Ned purposefully slid it further away — causing it to nearly slide off the table all together, where Ned immediately leaned over and reached for it before it suffered yet another crack in the screen.
“Yeah, and then he up and leaves school and doesn’t respond to literally anyone? Including Betty — he promised Betty they’d go to homecoming together and he totally bailed on her.” Ned plopped back down on the bench, stuffing the phone into his jacket pocket along the way. “It’s not just you, he did it to everyone this time.”
Peter arched a humorous eyebrow, reaching for the bag of chips until his hand was all the way inside.
“Don’t act like homecoming didn’t totally work in your favor,” he said through a smirk.
Ned lifted his chin high and haughtily.
“That was fate, Peter. The stars aligned. Me and Betty, we’re destiny.”
Peter wasn’t sure what direction his eyebrows went that time. All he knew was they danced around his forehead with an astounding amount of incredulity.
“You had one dance together at homecoming and I’m pretty sure she went and told MJ you smelt like Doritos,” Peter dryly said.
Ned had just split his lips apart for a snappy comeback when suddenly,
“She did.” MJ appeared from seemingly nowhere. “And you do.”
Ned barely held back his startled screech as MJ took a seat across from them both, and Peter did knock over his milk cartoon that time, its contents splashing across the surface of the cafeteria table.
“Crap!” Peter jumped up, swinging his leg over the bench as he quickly kicked his backpack away from the table, desperate not to ruin another bag within the same week Mr. Stark had already bought him a new one.
In his defense, he hadn’t expected to lose his last one while stopping a mugging in Central Park. One scared skunk later, and both Peter and the girl he saved fled far away from the stench that permanently ruined his JanSport book-bag.
“What are you losers talking about?” MJ began to peel away at her banana without sparing either of them a glance.
As Ned scooched further down the bench to avoid the dripping milk, Peter hastily grabbed a handful of paper-towels to clean up the mess. It only seemed to make things worse.
“Peter’s freaking out because Harry’s been MIA since he left school,” Ned answered, grabbing his lunch bag and placing it onto the floor to avoid the chocolate milk that was quickly spreading across the table. “He hasn’t answered any of my texts and no one's heard from him either.”
Ned offered Peter his spare napkins, who took them with a mumbled thanks.
“He posted on social media a few days before homecoming,” MJ mentioned, taking a bite of her banana that practically consumed it whole.
The comment earned looks from both boys. Peter even stopped cleaning for a moment, and his lips tightened into a comically tiny circle.
“I’m not obsessed with him, I’m just observant.” MJ’s jaw worked in motion as she chewed her food, completely uncaring to the expressions thrown her way.
Peter gave a tiny smile at that — MJ’s attitude always did impress him. It was her ability to care about all the right things while not giving a crap about the stuff that didn’t matter. She made life seem so easy.
He liked that about her.
With that smile still in place, he piled up his milk soaked napkins, tossing them into the trash can not far away along with the now empty bag of chips both he and Ned consumed.
MJ was talking again by the time he returned. “Besides, why wouldn’t he be MIA? He only attended our classes for like, two months.” She threw her banana peel into the trash behind Peter, literally tossing it like a basketball where it fell perfectly into the can. “What’s the big deal?”
Peter pushed his tray aside as he sat back down at the table, the pizza crust discarded and the crumbs of remaining potato chips too tiny to bother eating.
“Yeah, but why would he stand up Betty for homecoming?” Ned was the one to ask, reaching for the pizza crust and grabbing it off Peter’s tray. He wagged it at MJ as if that better solidified his point.
Instead, MJ stared at him with an expression both dull and befuddled all at the same time.
“Because by the time homecoming rolled around, he wasn’t a student here anymore?” she said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.
“He still could’ve come!” Ned argued, just the same — as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Why would he want to?” MJ’s eyebrow arched high. “His dad pulled him out. He was done here — done with us.”
“I dunno, he still could’ve said goodbye to us or…something,” Peter suddenly spoke up, pulling at his long sleeved shirt and using the fabric bunched in his fist to dry off the remaining milk on the table. He kept his head low, his brows scrunched so tightly together he was pretty sure he’d have permanent stress lines in his forehead before he even turned the legal drinking age.
He wasn’t alone. MJ threw him a look that narrowed her eyes until they were just tiny little slits.
“Didn’t you already say goodbye to him?”
The question lingered in the air far longer than Peter felt comfortable with.
MJ didn’t need him to say anything in return. She had a knack for just… knowing.
“I know neither of you wanna consider it,” she began, eyeing them both from the opposite side of the table, “but maybe that’s why he’s ignoring you guys.”
Peter didn't seem to want to consider that. He kept his head low and kept rubbing at the table, even though the milk was long since cleaned up.
Ned was mid-bite on the overly-burnt and still somehow chewy pizza crust when he exclaimed, “I didn’t do anything to him!”
MJ’s scoff could’ve easily reached over Carl Kimmel’s saxophone playing — if someone hadn’t already yelled for him to, in their words, ‘shut the fuck up, Kimmel!’, which was followed with a prompt response by Mr. Harrison lecturing both teenagers on lunch period behavior.
“You’re basically an extension of Peter,” MJ had to raise her voice a bit to be heard over the commotion happening from across the cafeteria. “You might as well have told him you didn’t wanna be friends, either.”
Peter briefly looked behind him as the rowdy activity continued. He was pretty sure it was Timothy Parsons yelling at Carl about his divorced parents, shouting something about his mom not loving him enough to teach him how to play saxophone.
“And you kinda had a crappy attitude around him, Ned,” Peter mentioned, shaking off the drama from behind them in favor of returning to his own problems.
Sometimes high-school felt so ridiculously... high-school.
“Look at what he’s done!” Ned objected, further proving Peter’s sentiment. “He ghosted you after Ben died and he’s ghosting you now — call him Casper, he’s a ghost!”
MJ nearly choked on her own snort. “Such a lame reference, Leeds.”
Ned shot his head towards her with complete, total offense taken.
“It was my favorite movie as a kid!” Just as quickly, Ned whipped over to Peter with a loud, exaggerated gasp. “We should totally watch that tonight!”
“No way!” Peter couldn’t have shook his head any harder if he tried. “We haven’t done a Star Wars marathon all year. We’re sticking with episodes three, four, and five — we line it up just right and we can get the credits of Return of the Jedi to play at exactly midnight.”
The ruckus that was once across the cafeteria suddenly migrated towards them, and both Peter and Ned craned their heads around to watch Mr. Harrison escort both Timothy Parsons and Carl Kimmel up the stairs; the latter dragging his saxophone behind him without much care to the damage it was taking.
Peter noticeably cringed as the instrument took a beating, each step Carl took also causing the saxophone to clank and clang against the steps. Even MJ made a face at the noise.
“What are you two dweebs doing tonight?” MJ eventually broke through the lull, her interest in the drama quickly dissipating. “Besides being dweebs.”
The genial insult had no effect on Ned, who spun back around on the cafeteria bench to face MJ with enough enthusiasm that he nearly pushed Peter right off the edge — his sticky hands were the only thing that kept him in place.
“We’re having a sleepover,” Ned eagerly answered, one centimeter short of bouncing up and down in his fit of excitement. “No school tomorrow since it’s parent-teacher conference day — and in the morning, Peter’s taking me for tux fittings with Tony Stark and the Avengers.”
“Dude!” Peter whipped towards him at high-speed.
“I’m sorry, Peter, I can’t contain my excitement,” Ned frantically shook his head, “this is literally the coolest thing to ever happen to me!”
Peter barely held back his exasperated huff as he quickly scanned the cafeteria for anyone who may have overheard Ned’s outburst. Thankfully for them, their conversation was the last thing any of their fellow classmates were interested in. Peter was pretty sure the kids one table over from them were talking about some rumor that Timothy Parsons was selling drugs.
Shaking it off, he turned his attention back to the table — specifically landing on MJ.
“You wanna come with?” Peter asked her, the question coming out smaller than he intended. He cleared his throat to add some volume to his voice, his nerves suddenly making themselves known at the worst possible moment — Parker Luck, never failed. “I’m sure Mr. Stark wouldn’t mind.” Peter swallowed, hard. “And it’d be really nice to have you there.”
“Can’t,” MJ didn’t miss a beat, the shrug that followed far too casual in comparison to Peter’s bout of nerves. “Picked up a double at the coffee shop. Trying to make up for losing hours over the weekend, what with homecoming and all.”
Peter raced to nod his head.
“Oh. Okay, yeah, right, of course. Yeah, of course.”
If Peter was aiming to look casual and not-at-all-disappointed, he missed the mark completely. If MJ noticed, well, that was up for debate — her expression remained neutral, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary for her.
The way she dropped her head low, though — that was out of the ordinary, gaining Peter’s attention almost immediately. Her index finger pushed away some of Ned’s potato chip crumbs that somehow managed to find their way onto her side of the table.
“You can come by after I close up, though. If you want,” MJ eventually said, her voice softer than before, and far more reserved. A heavy shrug rustled her jacket. “I can try and save some jelly doughnuts for you, or whatever.”
A smile began to play at the edges of Peter’s lips, growing wider by the second. In the beat that followed, he watched MJ’s finger zig-zag on the table, the red nail polish only slightly chipped — still holding a fresh coat of paint from the weekends homecoming activities.
“Yeah, yeah.” Peter cleared his throat. Not once, but twice. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”
Though MJ kept her chin close to her chest, with her face hidden behind long strands of hair, Peter could still make out the small grin that tugged at her lips.
“Cool,” MJ succinctly said.
Looking to Peter, and then looking back towards MJ, Ned followed up with a wide grin and a lengthy, drawn out,
“Cool.”
The shrill ring of the school bell stole away any awkward silence that could’ve come next.
“You’re still coming to Decathlon practice, right?” MJ stood from the cafeteria table, swinging her leg over the bench as she reached for her discarded backpack on the ground. Easily, she swung the one strap over her shoulder, right at the same time Peter gave a few nervous nods.
“Yeah, totally. Yeah, I’ll be there,” he said — stammered, swallowing hard between every two words he managed to get out.
Unlike Peter, MJ simply gave one concise nod. “Good. See you then.”
Though she already had her back turned on both boys, Peter managed to let out a somewhat squeaky, “See ya then,” as she made her way out of the cafeteria.
He was still watching her leave long after she was already gone.
“You two are totally getting married next,” Ned broke through his haze like a freshly sharpened knife, his voice somehow managing to reach over their classmates congregating to leave the cafeteria while also being nothing more than a breathy sigh of words.
If Peter whipped towards him any faster, his neck would’ve needed to be in a brace for weeks.
“Ned...we’re just kids.”
Ned, once again, lifted his chin high and haughtily.
“Anakin Skywalker was only nineteen when he married Padme."
Peter wasn’t sure his expression could grow any more wild. He decided not to find out — grabbing his cafeteria tray and making his way off the bench.
“C’mon,” he said, reaching down for his backpack as he took off for the stairs. “Let’s go.”
Though Ned stayed close behind him, it wasn’t long after they reached the tray drop-off that he began to fall behind — lessening his steps to a single stride forward every few seconds.
“Here comes the bride…” Ned marched to the sound of his own singing, long after Peter took off into the crowds.
Natasha heard the sound of Louis Vuitton dress shoes marching through the courthouse before she ever saw the source of who they belonged to.
Without looking up from her phone, she asked, “A little late to the party, don’t you think?”
Her voice bounced off the walls of the empty corridor, the echo of her words melding together with each footstep beating against the polished floor.
Strutting towards her at a purposeful speed, Tony threw both his hands into the air with an obvious exasperation.
“It’s lunch hour in New York City, what do you expect?” Tony’s voice didn’t fare much different than Natasha’s, echoing just the same. The courthouse hallways were empty; sans for Natasha, sitting by herself on a sleek wooden bench towards the back. Not far away from them were large double doors that had been closed shut. Tony looked towards them as he went on to mention, “Traffic was atrocious, my ears are still ringing from him blowing the horn.”
As Tony gestured his thumb over his shoulder, Happy appeared from around the corner, a look of annoyance covering every inch of his face — plus some.
“Hey, that Honda Civic had plenty of time to get through that yellow light, it’s not my fault—”
“Find a vending machine.” Tony gave Happy a friendly pat on the arm with the back of his hand. “Make it quick, I’m starving.”
If Happy rolled his eyes any harder, they would’ve fallen right onto the ground, possibly making their way through the gaps that sealed both courtroom doors shut — the same ones Tony had yet to look away from.
Nonetheless, Happy obliged with the request. As reluctant as he may have seemed.
It left a silence that almost had Tony’s ears ringing, with his breathing suddenly five times louder than before, and each hypnotic feedback from Natasha’s phone sounding closer to fireworks taking off in the sky. The doors to the courtroom were far too thick and heavy to leak any sounds happening inside, but that didn’t stop Tony from trying to listen in.
“Surprised you didn’t take a suit,” Natasha suddenly said, standing up from the wooden bench as she pocketed her phone away inside her blazer jacket. The pencil skirt she wore was far too unaccommodating for storing any of her belongings, and the briefcase she carried was abandoned as she stepped away from the bench.
Tony gave that briefcase a quick glance before looking back towards the courtroom doors.
“Trust me, I was tempted,” he aggravatingly admitted, seamlessly slipping off his high-tech glasses and placing them in the front pocket of his own blazer; a different color than Natasha’s, but still his best-dressed for the occasion. “Pepper doesn’t want any unnecessary drama before the wedding and honestly, I can’t blame her.”
Tony noticeably worked his jaw to the side — still looking at the doors, now with bare eyes. “The less people who know I showed up for this, the better.”
“He’s not here,” Natasha didn’t miss a beat. “If that’s what you’re getting at.”
Tony jerked his head away from the large wooden doors at a speed that should’ve done permanent damage to his neck — more damage than he already sustained in his lifetime, anyhow.
“What the hell do you mean he’s not here?” Tony’s eyebrows didn’t just furrow together, they fused together. The confusion could’ve been seen all the way from upstate. “This is his trial.”
Natasha easily folded both arms across her chest.
“Technically it’s OsCorp’s trial,” she said, bluntly. Her heels made a crisp clicking echo as she shifted weight from one foot to the other. “Technically it’s the Weapons Procurement Liaison committee’s trial against OsCorp.”
The answer did absolutely nothing to appease Tony. If anything, his face grew even more bewildered.
“He was subpoenaed —”
“And he’s being represented.”
For what it was worth, Natasha didn’t sound any happier than Tony looked. And Tony looked about one second away from turning redder in the face than all his Iron Man suits combined.
“By who?” Tony twisted to face the courtroom entrance, then swiveled back to face Natasha. After a moment, he glanced once more at the entrance, his forehead deeply creased. He watched as two men in business attire swung the doors open in unison, allowing the noise from inside to spill out into the hallway.
When he turned back to Natasha — hoping for an answer — she merely lifted a single eyebrow. It should’ve told Tony everything he needed to know.
Unfortunately, it didn’t click for him. Not until he heard a single, distinct voice cut through the stampede of people leaving the courtroom.
“Why, Tony.” His own name carried above the chorus of chattering voices, attorneys and court staff pouring out of the judicature chamber in the handfuls. “It’s been some time.”
Tony muttered under his breath — the colorful plethora of swear words muted underneath the cacophony of a noisy crowd departing the chamber. As they all began to scatter and thin out, one remained standing.
Tony swore he could feel a burn at the back of his head, their eyes staring a hole straight through him with a power only his arc reactors could have.
“There’s no hell quite like a Hogarth.” Tony spun on his heels and flashed a grin larger than the courthouse. “How’s life on the homestead, Jeri? Figured those Rand trials would’ve earned you enough to put your firm into an early retirement.”
The attorney matched his grin, and then some. The sleek style of her short black hair did nothing to hide the smirk that cocked an eyebrow high up, and tugged harshly at the crowsfeet near her temples.
“You know, sometimes it’s just not all about the money,” Jeri effortlessly responded, only briefly looking to Natasha before returning a hard gaze back on Tony. “I’d say you of all people understand that well, don’t you?”
If Tony had anything he wanted to say in turn, Jeri Hogarth gave him no opportunities to do as much.
History truly did love to repeat itself.
She avoided his shoulder in passing, and Tony didn't bother watching her leave — immediately turning to face the courtroom doors the moment she walked away.
Amidst the sea of faces and almost lost amongst the crowd of bodies, he could scarcely make out a familiar face as they emerged from deep within the courtroom.
They locked eyes. Right as Rhodey gave a minuscule shake of his head. Just enough for Tony to see from afar.
It felt like shrapnel lodging in his chest all over again.
Through the collection of windows spanning the courthouse, the New York City skyline could be seen in high definition. There wasn’t a cloud in sight, and the sun beamed through the glass with enough intensity to almost break Tony’s vacant gaze.
Despite it, he looked out at seascape of skyscrapers flooding the vast urban expanse, clenching the banister of the balcony with a white-knuckled grip that took the feeling right out of his fingers.
“Unbelievable,” Tony scoffed, shaking his head along the way. “All that evidence, all those documents off their servers — the Adamantium files, the damn rock android —”
Standing not far behind him, Rhodey nodded empathetically. “I know —”
“The Chitauri weapons,” Tony kept on, “their cloning studies —”
“I know, Tony,” Rhodey took a step forward, and another after that, “I know —”
“None of it’s good enough?” Tony spun around, leaving only one hand to grip the railing. They were both sure without that grip, he would’ve stormed right into the judicature chamber and demand retrial — a mistrial, anything to get a second verdict declared.
Unfortunately, the look on Rhodey’s face told him no amount of swindling or money in the world would change the outcome. Defeat wasn’t often an expression his friend wore, but there was no denying its appearance now.
Tony wanted to make a comment about how it clashed with his Air Force dress blues. Yet he couldn’t seem to get the words past the constriction of his windpipe, his new reality lodging painfully into his throat.
“It all dates back prior to 2016,” Rhodey explained, pocketing one hand inside his pants while the other gestured in front of him, right at Tony. “When SHIELD shut down that clandestine bunker in the North Atlantic Ocean, they made an agreement with OsCorp that as long as they ceased all experiments, no legal action could be taken.”
Tony spun around so fast, he saw two Rhodey’s standing in front of him.
Both gestured an open palm his way. “And unless you want to bring Peter into this, we can’t incite the symbiote documents as evidence. It's recent, yes. But it's entirely based on Peter's DNA, the spider-bite — everything would have to be laid out on the table. You and I both know there's no amount of hate you have for Norman that would make you do that.”
A harsh sigh got trapped in Tony’s chest. He turned back around in hopes to allow its escape, only to find the pressure of the balcony railing against his sternum too forceful for any inhale or exhale of air.
It was for the best; the courthouse had a smell to it that left the acid in his stomach boiling and churning like a cauldron. Or perhaps that was the rage that started to eat away his core, causing every nerve in his body to burn with fury.
Tony gripped the railing again, somehow harder than before. Ahead of him and through the courthouse windows, and deep in the cityscape of Manhattan, he could see what used to be his building. It was hard not to, even at a distance; it was the second tallest building in New York City, after all. Once considered his baby — well, his and Pepper’s, anyway.
He barely held back a scoff at the idea of two floors of glorious R&D being used for office space. The Baxter building — that’s what it sold for. Still a beauty in the sky, but no longer what it once was.
Tony didn’t regret the sell, even if it left an empty feeling in his chest. All too similar to the gaping hole that was once there and once filled with an arc reactor.
The compound was great, he wouldn’t deny that. But it still never quite felt like home.
And home was a far away concept with troubles like OsCorp and Osborn polluting the city, edging closer to becoming a danger and a very real threat to the entire world.
They just couldn’t get the courts to see it the same way.
“So what,” Natasha, who’d been leaning quietly against the wall not far away from them, uncrossed her arms as she looked up at both men. “They’re just going to walk away with a fine and that’s it?”
Rhodey turned at the hips to look at her.
“Jeri’s good,” he said, his frown tugging roughly at his face. “Real good. She got Rand Enterprises out of more legal trouble in the last decade than all of Tony’s attorney's put together. The committee did their best, but without any adducing evidence since 2016, a fine was the most we could manage.”
Natasha didn’t seem to accept that as an answer.
“They can’t be immune from litigation just because SHIELD agreed to stay quiet —”
“In 1994, a truck full of Rand chemicals spilt on the road and doused a kid, Nat. Completely blinding him.” Rhodey turned fully to face her. “A child. Jeri took on that case and they barely paid a cent to the family.”
Tony no longer had a problem with cutting off his air supply as he leaned over the balcony, the banister pressing painfully into his ribs.
“Rhodey’s not lying. She’s good,” he muttered, looking off to the side with no interest of what he saw. “Damn good.”
It’d been a while since Tony had to encounter the Prada-Wearing Python of the legal sphere —Jeri Hogarth, the most sought after attorney across the east coast. In the past, she’d been known to take on most of the lawsuits Stark Industries dealt with — her talents were heavily in demand, and her name was well versed as an attorney.
And she was a pain in the ass.
Dropping the weapons manufacturing portion of Stark Industries turned out to be a blessing in more ways than one. It meant less law suits for the company, and no further encounters with a woman who sought out to make his life a living hell. Not that she wouldn’t be the first, and Tony was sure she wouldn’t be the last.
But for Jeri, it was always about the money. Sometimes the case absolutely meant nothing to her, so long as she could win.
A thought suddenly struck Tony. Right as he spun back around, forging his grip on the railing entirely.
“Why Hogarth?” he asked, waving his head down the hallway that led off the balcony. “Why represent Osborn, where is he?”
Rhodey met Tony’s look of frustration with his own.
“Vacation,” he answered tersely.
Tony shot both eyebrows up his forehead. “Vacation?”
Rhodey nodded — just once. “His motion for an absence was granted. According to Jeri, he and his son are currently soaking up the sun on the beaches of Hawaii.”
Tony decided rage just didn’t properly do his sentiments justice. No, this was far worse, far more evoking. No different than creating a new element, he’d seemed to create a new emotion as well. An investors curse, one might figure.
“The bastard literally gets Parker killed and he’s off sipping Piña Coladas with the sand between his toes.” Tony shook his head, turning his back on his friend and at a distance, Natasha, if only to gain a moment of privacy. He leaned over the balcony with a hard, exasperated sigh. “This couldn’t get anymore perfect.”
Briefly closing his eyes, Tony scrubbed at the side of his temple with two fingers — trying to will away the headache that had been approaching since...well, all year. Ever since he saw those documents hidden under the sea, ever since he started to peel away the layers of the onion that was OsCorp — the dangers that came with an unhinged scientist like Norman Osborn.
Tony wasn’t sure he’d gotten a good nights rest since. He wasn’t sure he would sleep well again until Norman was put behind prison bars.
Or better yet, worse.
“Rhodey?” Natasha’s voice sliced right through the moment of silence. As Tony craned his neck to face her, he noticed her brows pulled tightly together with a caution that didn’t suit her well. “What is it?”
Rhodey paused to throw her a look, his contemplation obvious in the suspension that followed.
Hesitantly, he turned to Tony. “Why don’t we take this discussion elsewhere —”
Tony twisted at the hips to face him.
“Uh-uh, I know what that means,” he interrupted, a rigid finger pointing right at Rhodey. “That’s code for bad news.” That same finger went to snap twice. “Spill it, now.”
Rhodey sighed. “Tones —”
“You can’t keep me waiting,” Tony argued, pushing himself off the railing as he stepped forward and closer to Rhodey. “Waiting stresses me out — I have a bad heart, I can’t take that.”
Natasha stepped closer herself, approaching the two with her eyebrow lifted high.
“I’m pretty sure after everything that’s happened this year, you can handle more stress than you think,” she said, her smirk only growing at the look of annoyance Tony shot her.
When silence came in the form of a long response, Natasha’s smirk slowly faded, and her face quickly fell flat.
“Rhodey?” Her voice grew dry and hoarse at the edges, a crack splintering Rhodey’s name in the middle.
Rhodey ran his tongue over his teeth, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he looked over the balcony and through the same windows that had once taken Tony’s attention.
When he looked back, he looked right at Tony. “Turns out a few weeks ago, OsCorp signed a contract with the Department of Defense for a joint venture of their weapons division.”
Tony changed his mind. Now he created a new emotion. And if he could bottle this rage into an arc reactor, it’d power all of New York City by itself.
“They what?” he barked, the words easily echoing the courthouse. “Why didn’t you know about this?”
On any other average day, Rhodey may have expressed his frustration at Tony’s, for lack of better terms, passionate outburst while in a quite prestigious New York City courthouse. Instead, though, he seemed to mirror his friend’s aggravation — all the way down to the scowl that plastered across his face.
“Trust me, I asked the same question.” Rhodey grounded his teeth, forcing the words out through a fixed jaw. “Higher authorities kept it out of my hands.”
The realization hit Tony like a sledgehammer. Or Thor’s hammer, more accurately.
“Let me take a wild guess,” he drawled out. “Ross.”
The name rolled off his tongue with nauseating ease. Surprising, considering the taste it left in his mouth afterward.
Rhodey merely nodded.
“He slipped out right before you got here,” Rhodey went on to say, pocketing both hands inside his dress blue pants — his posture noticeably slumping. “He’s been in charge of the whole project, and seems to have gone all-in with his cards since the Accords were repealed. He even testified against OsCorp’s wrong doings from 2016, citing the SHIELD agreement as the basis for rendering the documents inadmissible as evidence.”
Tony wasn’t sure the last time he’d been this confused — downright baffled was more like it. His brows formed a tight V as the multitude of questions ran circles in his head, struggling to find the answer to an equation that made no sense.
“What the hell does he want with OsCorp and their weapons?” he spoke that confusion aloud.
“You ask me? Power,” Rhodey answered, sparing no ounce of gravity from his tone. “From everything they said in there, it sounds to me like they’re about to start a campaign against us. Against you. Against all the Avengers, Tony, against anyone working outside of government authority.”
Natasha firmly shook her head. “We don’t work outside of government authority, we’re under SHIELD command —”
“Yeah, and their justification is no one individual should have more power combined than all of the US Army,” Rhodey tossed back, twisting sharply to face her. “We just happen to have a whole team of that living under one roof.”
Once again, Natasha didn’t seem to accept that as an answer.
“Are you saying they’re going to try and reinstate the Accords?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest until the sleek blazer she wore bunched tightly at the seams.
Rhodey shook his head.
“Worse,” he answered, turning to look at Tony. The stress in his eyes stood out more than the mechanical leg braces that kept him walking. “OsCorp’s plan is to level the playing field. Load up the D.O.D with anything and everything that could take down anyone who crosses their path. Rogers, Wanda — Vision. You name it, they want to be able to stop it.”
“They want to create super-soldiers,” Natasha quickly concluded.
“They didn’t outright say it,” Rhodey began, pausing for a second that felt like two lifetimes lived over. “But I don’t think they’d be here defending OsCorp’s experiments if they weren’t planning to start participating in them.”
Despite Rhodey’s piercing stare on him, Tony found his gaze looking elsewhere; locked onto the polished floors of the courthouse. His fingers tapped against the side of his thigh as the thoughts came rushing in like a tidal wave, so fast they threatened to drown him worse than the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.
“They mention anything about Oz?” Tony abruptly asked, looking up at Rhodey just the same.
“Not directly,” Rhodey answered, going on to cock an eyebrow high up his forehead. “I’m thinking the same thing, though.”
Tony tried to curse. Yet he couldn’t get the swear words out of his mouth, not as he felt like someone was trying to bury him alive under the weight of his own crushing thoughts. They came fast, and six at a time. And absolutely none of them were good.
“Ross would piss his pants giddy as a schoolgirl if he got his hands on the next super-soldier serum,” Tony let one of those thoughts loose, turning around and walking the few steps back to the balcony railing.
“That’s pleasant imagery,” Natasha dryly muttered, both her and Rhodey watching as Tony turned his back on them, his hands noticeably gripping the banister once more.
He leaned over, just far enough to keep his face out of view. The way he ground his teeth added years onto his already exhausted features.
This was bad. As if Osborn going full on Strucker with his very illegal and very dangerous experiments wasn’t enough of a threat — now they had Ross and the US military seeking out OsCorp’s technology. Weapons. Things that could very well rival Tony’s heyday with Stark Industries.
Scratch that, things were bad. This was things going from bad to worse.
And to think, he woke up this morning feeling optimistic — excited for what was to come from today’s trial. Only to find out Fury and Friends had screwed them from the start, keeping secrets from the team they had created — just like the good old days.
Another thought struck Tony. One of the many, but this one sticking in place.
“What about those declassified documents from the KGB?” he turned around to ask Natasha, going on to snap his fingers a few times as he spoke. “The ones that were released after SHIELD’s initial collapse — the ones that detailed the Soviet super-serum trials?” A pause followed what came next. “You think that would be enough to caution the D.O.D not to start messing around with Captain America knock-offs?”
Natasha threw him a look.
“Being reminded that other countries have tried, and succeeded, in replicating Erskine’s formula?” She cocked her head to the side, staring Tony down along the way. “If anything, I think it would encourage them to push forward with it. And it’s not like we can use Dmitri as evidence to prove why it’s a bad idea.”
The sound of revulsion that emitted from Tony’s throat was audible in the hush of the courthouse.
That name was scar tissue he didn’t think would ever dissolve.
“Mhm,” he mumbled, the noise like gravel against stone. “And may he rot with the fishes.”
Dmitri by himself was a dangerous enough threat, but there was no denying that Klum made things all the worse. Somebody who was that psychotic given mutated abilities — and he was just one of the many OsCorp bred to life. Tony had no doubt that between their experiments on humans, to their experiments so unhinged they would up creating monsters like Venom…the last thing they needed was Ross using the Oz Formula to create his own army of super-soldiers.
The man just couldn’t leave the damn concept alone, could he?
“You’d think Ross would’ve learned a lesson already with Emil Blonsky,” Tony spoke aloud more than anything else, a sigh finally exhausting from his lungs in one loud heave.
Still, Rhodey responded, “I think Blonsky was just the start. And if Oz winds up being what Norman wants it to be —”
“But it can’t,” Natasha interrupted, turning inward to face him. “We know that formula is ineffective without a...certain spider’s blood.”
At hearing that, Tony noticeably twisted around to face her.
She gave him a grim look in response. Saying more wordlessly than anything that could’ve come from her mouth.
“All the more reason to stop this before it gets too far,” Rhodey went on to say. He looked to them both, even as they only stared at each other. “If they start giving this formula to the army as it is, based off what those scientists said in Wakanda...it won’t create the next invincible Captain America. It could be something worse than what the symbiote created. And you guys were the ones to go toe-to-toe with that thing — you tell me. You really wanna deal with a thing like that again?”
There was an opportunity for Tony to say something. Anything, really.
Instead, he fell quiet.
They all did.
Ambient noise from the courthouse filled the space in-between, the shuffle of feet down the hallway combined with the echo of voices talking far away. Doors opened and closed, and at a far distance the hum of central air conditioning flowed through the ceilings. But it was the only noise heard.
That, and Tony could make out each beat of his own pulse, hammering relentlessly in his ears.
It spoke the exhaustion he was too tired to acknowledge himself.
He was tired. Tired of a broken legal system playing games with him, tired of fighting an uphill battle that kept knocking him down — after everything that happened this year, the weight had finally begun to take its toll.
Tony was tired.
“What now?” he sighed the words, the only way the question was ever going to be spoken.
Rhodey noticed that heaviness. He forced a tug of a grin that wasn’t fully natural, but the attempt was genuine nonetheless.
“What now is you need to focus on your wedding, man,” Rhodey said, earnestly. “The committee will stay on the case, I’ve already got a guy working to substantiate a halt of activities between OsCorp and the D.O.D. We’ll handle it.”
Tony tried to nod — his head felt too heavy for anything past a tiny jerk. The small promise of reassurance did little to assuage his stress.
The tension must have been palpable, because not a moment after Tony turned back to the balcony railing, Rhodey took a few steps forward to break the distance — looking him on with an intensity in his gaze that matched the crisp, polished lines of his Air Force dress blues.
“But Tony?” he went on to say, waiting until Tony turned back around before he spoke again — ensuring their eyes were locked with what came next. “If we’re going to keep doing this, if you really think we can get OsCorp to quit the game entirely…you need to get a lawyer. A really good lawyer.”
The sound of footsteps approaching and the crinkling of plastic along with it came in lieu of any response from Tony.
Rhodey was the only one to look down the hallway at the noise — Natasha kept a fixated gaze on Tony, even as he returned to the balcony railing with his back facing them both. His hand moved to rest against the scars on his chest; hidden beneath an expensive button down shirt and covered with a loosely buttoned blazer jacket.
The motion did little to comfort him, but his hand gravitated to the spot regardless. Old habits die hard, he supposed.
With an assortment of vending machine snacks in both his hands, Happy approached the three standing quietly on the balcony — only stopping once sensing something was off.
“What I’d miss?” he asked, looking around for someone to fill him in. Outside of the large huff of air Tony blew through his cheeks, silence was the only answer he got.
Looking down at the bags of candy and chips in his hands, Happy gestured them forward.
“Reese's or Milky Way?” When no one answered, Happy looked down again, mentioning, “I also have M&M’s…”
After a short span of silence, Natasha reached her hand out.
“I’ll take the M&M’s.”