To All Those Brave and Lovely

Tony

He thought he knew what being afraid meant, but he didn't.

He didn't really know that, not until the night he sent his daughter off to prom with a boy he cared about very much and neither of them came back, when he learned that a girl he let into his home and tried to treat like family had just been a wolf in sheep's clothing, when he was told, in no uncertain terms, that he could either give this woman what they wanted or he would watch his daughter die.

And he couldn't give them what they wanted, he knew that, even though he wanted to hold Nora in his arms and tell her that she's okay, even if it meant the whole world around them got burned down to ashes.  He would do that, if it meant that she would be safe, and Pepper would stand by him, and they would rebuild, no matter what hell it brought down on everyone else.  But Natasha was there when the offer was made and she saw it in his eyes, so suddenly it wasn't his decision anymore.

"They'll kill her,"  He told her, after he had made a lunge for his phone and she had thrown him back onto the ground, after he had struggled to his feet and told her to go to hell, to move out the way, that it was his company and he'd do what he wanted, damn it.  "They'll kill her, and I'll have to bury her, and I will never forgive you if you let that happen, do you understand that?  They are going to hurt her, and I can stop it."

But it wasn't as simple as that, because he was more than a parent, he was Iron Man, he was a hero, he was the world's last line of defense and that meant certain sacrifices, like watching everything you loved burn and still pushing on, all in the name of the greater good.  You could not trade one life for thousands, no matter how much you wanted to, and he knew that, even as Natasha had to hold him back and talk him down.  she knew it too, he could tell by the tears gathering in her eyes and slipping down her face, the first sign of honest emotion he thought he had seen from her.  "They will,"  she said, because Natasha was built on pain and sacrifice and never saw the good that can be in a lie.  "They will."

So he didn't take the call, or arrive at their meetings, or send any confidential papers that would have gotten him put in jail.  Instead, he just sits in at the end of a table filled with people and listens to what they're going to do, all of it for the good of the nation and none of it for the good of his daughter, occasionally accepting a cup of coffee that scalds his tongue or shaking Steve's arm off his shoulder. And that's where he is, when the video comes in and he watches Nora be pushed down into the water, hears her brief scream and the sudden silence, watches the water splash and her legs  kick, and when they let her come back up for air, he watches her choke and gasp and splutter for air.  It reminds him of his stay in Afghanistan, and he wonders if that is intentional.  You can save her, Mr Stark, and it echoes in his ears even after the feed cuts off.

Those are the bad parts, the ones that started the whole thing, but there are more that came over the course of the next few days.

Like when he pulled up to the front of the school, tires squealing, and MJ got to her feet and ran to him, her head bleeding and shock blanket around her shoulders falling to the ground, saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry Mr. Stark, I couldn't stop it and when he said it was okay, when he promised he would get all three of them back, she pulled back and squinted at him and said two of them, you only need to get two of them back and his heart stopped, because he thought that meant something very different than what she was trying to tell him.

Or when the police brought Peter's Aunt May to headquarters showed up and walked right over to him, her shoulders straight and that awful purse swinging from the crook of her elbow, and slapped him across the face so hard the sound seemed to cut through the room.  "You promised to keep him safe," she spits, and then she is crying, melting right before his eyes, and there is no comfort he can give her that she would actually believe.