Lay Down This Armour.

Eleven

'I hear that you have withdrawn from your daughter,' Xavier said quietly at his student. He might have come to Charles a grown man, but that meant nothing. Any person, no matter what age could be his student if he had any lessons to offer. Said student cursed under his breath.
'I have to talk to Pepper about selling me out,' he grumbled. Charles smiled.
'What bothers you, Anthony?'
Tony huffed a breath out in frustration. He always hated therapy, and Xavier had somehow managed to have successfully wiggled himself into being his therapist or something of that sort.
'I am tainted,' he offered shortly.
Charles raised his eyebrow, asking him why he thought that was. Tony continued uncomfortably.
'She does not deserve a father who can barely keep his mind focused and is in a constant state of isolation,'
'Try again, Anthony. We both know your interaction and focus is improving by bounds and leaps,'
Tony shot out of his seat and walked to the window and stared out of it to the Xavier mansion grounds. He could see Pepper, Peter and Maria surrounded by other mutant kids. He smiled a little at the image of his family. His smile died quickly enough when he started to speak.
'I have been having dreams. Sometimes I just find myself entertaining these thoughts of them lying dead at my feet. One slip up, one psychotic rage and I can easily crush them without breaking a sweat,'
'You are becoming stronger with each day, Anthony. It is not an easy task and patience is needed,'
Tony shook his head and smiled bitterly.
'You ask of me the one thing I failed to master my whole life,'
'That is not true. Your essence is to build. That stems from patience. If you did not have patience, you would not be a master at creating as you are,' he argued.
'I have not invented a single thing since I got back. Still think I am a well of patience?'
'That is only because of fear,'
'Fear of what?'
'You seem to think that everything you create or start always ends up hurting people. Am I wrong?'
'Well, now that I think about it, it was starting to become quite a record before those fuckers took me,' he said as he sat back down.
Xavier sighed. This was going to be a long session.

Two hours later, he found Pepper and Antonia still on the lawn of the grounds. The kid, seeing him approach, leapt to her feet and ran as fast as her legs could allow to him. He scooped her up and she smiled gleefully before wrapping her arms around his neck and laying her head on his shoulder. Pepper sighed. At the rate the girl was going, she would lose the function of her legs. She always climbed on to her father and refused to walk so long as he was nearby. Pepper had been trying to discourage it, but Tony indulged and enabled his daughter in everything she did. Peter and her got up and walked to them.
'How was it?' Pepper asked as she kissed him. An arm went around her waist.
'The usual. Ready to go?'
She braced herself. Here was the difficult part. She glimpsed Xavier and Hank coming towards them. Great, reinforcements, or more people to pass the blame around for what they had done.
'Yeah, about that. We are not going back to the compound. For the time being at least,'
He drew back to look at her in confusion.
'Why?'
'There might be a threat against us from the Brotherhood. Magneto apparently has his eye on you and we felt that he might try to get to you through Maria and me. The team and the X men decided that we move to one location and fortify it,' she explained, a hand running up and down his back, placating a temper fit that could potentially happen. He smiled at her, except the expression didn't reach his eyes. Crap, Pepper thought, he was not pleased.
'Hold that thought sweetheart,' he said as he zeroed in on the Professor.
'Am I hearing correctly? That a threat assessment meeting was held and a plan of action that involved uprooting my family from a secure location without me knowing was decided on?' tone deceptively jovial.
'Yes, Mr Stark. Both teams agreed on this. It was observed that you would likely not agree to move your family so long an attack was pending, which would have made you easy targets. An assessment proved that the mansion could be fortified against mutant attacks as well as house all the Avengers effectively as we prepared for the threat,'
The arm around her tightened and Pepper consciously relaxed into the hold. Any resistance and she would have a boa constrictor of an arm stilling her in place. He looked at her again and his eyes flashed. She was of half a mind to take Maria from him, but she knew he would not relinquish her.
'I do not dispute any of that. What I have a problem with is not being consulted. I do not appreciate decisions concerning me being taken out of my hands,' his calm voice intending to not alarm the bundle in his arms of the ire clear on his face.
'We understand, Mr Stark,' Hank's tone apologetic. Tony laughed mirthlessly.
'No you do not. If you ever intend to have me remotely develop a bone of trust in my body, I need to be informed about these things. I will not...' he took a deep shuddering breath,' I will not be played. Are we clear?' glaring at Xavier. The Professor merely nodded, before Tony walked away from them. Pepper decided not to follow, knowing he needed to walk off his anxiety.
'He will come around. It was necessary,' she reassured them.
'It was, but I am sure I just moved two steps backward with his therapy,' a tinge of regret in his voice.

Tony walked deeper into the mansion grounds. Walking the anger off seemed not to help. He knew he needed to calm down or he would potentially break the face of whoever would be unfortunate enough to annoy him. His daughter squirmed in his arms and pulled her head back from his shoulder to look at him.
'You are upset,' it was not a question.
'I am, pumpkin, but you don't have to worry about it, okay,' his lips forming a small smile. He hoped it wasn't as pathetic as he thought it was. Maria put her tiny hand on his cheek. She was frowning.
'Count to ten,' she commanded.
'Why?' he let out a surprised chuckle.
'Mummy always says it when Asha is upset at uncle Clint,'
'Does she do it?' he asked.
'No, but I want you to do it so you can stop being upset at mummy,'
'Anything for you, baby girl,' as he nuzzled her nose. He counted slowly up to the number ten. 'Are you happy now, princess,' he asked her. She giggled.
'You are being silly. It was to make you happy, daddy,'
He smiled genuinely at her.
'I am happy whenever I am with you, princess,' planting a kiss on her forehead. She wrapped her arms around his neck and settled her head against his shoulder.
'Give me a few minutes and we will go back to mummy, okay?'
He felt a nod against his shoulder. He ran his hand down her hair as he stared at the setting sun.

He noticed the Avengers jet as he walked to the mansion and his black mood returned with a vengeance. He felt bad for Maria's efforts to calm him wasting away. He moved through the corridors towards the conference room were both teams would be. He pushed the doors open and all the chatter inside stopped.
'Oh, by all accounts don't let me stop you. Carry on,'
'We don't take orders from you,bub,' Logan growled.
'If you would pay attention to anything other than your raging testosterone, you would notice it was not an order, mutt,'
A growl was heard. Eyes flashed blue in response. A toddler slept blissfully unawares in her father's arms.
'Tony, Maria is in your arms. You will upset her,' Pepper chastised. Wanda got up.
'I can take her,'
Big mistake.
'Put your hands on my daughter. I dare you,' he snarled. She immediately sat down, her hands suddenly a fascinating sight for her.
'That was out of line, Tony. She was just trying to help,' Steve voiced.
Tony gave him a toothy grin.
'One moment, Cap and I will have a response for you. Bear with me,'
He opened the doors and spotted Jubilee across the halls and called her. She came running to him.
'Can you watch over Maria, sweetheart. Just for a few hours,' he smiled. The teenager, who idolised the man immensely, beamed at the offered responsibility.
'Ofcourse Mr Stark,' as she took the toddler.
'Thank you, sweetheart,' as he closed the door again. As he turned to the assembled teams, the smile died a swift death.
'Fuck you, Rogers. Do not speak of what is out of line to me concerning my family. Who touches my child is not your concern, especially if me and that person are working through our issues, which do not concern you,' as he walked up to him.
'She is a kid, Tony,'
'Three years later and you still have the gall to use that argument. Peter is a kid, not Wanda. And even if she is, the day she decided to become an Avenger, she lost the right to use that line. Stop fucking coddling her Cap,'
'She did nothing to warrant this,'
Tony laughed as he stared at Wanda.
'You did not tell your precious protector?'
Clint stood up, knowing were this was headed.
'Tony please. This is not the time,'
'Ohh, but this is the perfect time,' he leered in a way that reminded the Avengers of how Thor used to say Tony reminded him of Loki. His eyes were filled with a chaotic mischief.
'Did you ever wonder why I created Ultron? Of course you did not. I am not denying responsibility for him, but I had a nudge in that direction. If you ever want a case study of what destruction I can conjure after my mind has been messed with, Ultron is the first,'
'When...' Steve started.
'Did I encounter Wanda? I went in alone to retrieve the scepter, remember. I did not find the Baron von Fucker, but I had the pleasure of being the first to get a taste of the Sabrina's mind fuckery,'
'You didn't say anything!'
'No, you don't do that Rogers. I tried explaining, but you would not listen. All of you were just content with thinking I had gone over the bend. That was pretty clear when you all sat as Thor literally hefted me into the air by my throat as if he was strangling Doom. I have always contorted my spine to accomodate you people since we met. I have given my tears, sweat and blood for you people, but you gave me fuck all, but distrust and judgement. I. Do. Not. Trust. You. Lot. So next time, don't talk to me about my kid ever again and remember that its not the X men I have to tolerate on a day to day basis, its you. So when I say you really should involve me or tell me about meetings involving me, I highly recommend you listen,' he snarled.
'Sorry for not telling you about the meeting, Tony. We thought it was the best course of action and clearly it wasn't,' Natasha apologised. Tony did not pick up any hint of insincerity. Her steady gaze held his in a way that showed she meant what she said. He felt himself start to deflate. He nodded and sat down.
'Lets get this shit fest on the road,' he muttered.
He missed Pepper nod in gratitude at Natasha.

The meeting lasted all of three lomg hours. They had mapped out all the logistics of the joint training and the fortification of the mansion's security. All was planned. They now all had jobs to do.