Peachy Keen

Chapter 1

"Well, looking on the bright side, this proves Maximoff's vision was bullshit," Tony muttered to
himself as he picked bits of metal and glass out of his chest. He couldn't imagine feeling guilty over
Rogers' death, particularly not as a result of Tony 'not doing enough'. Even Fury seemed to
understand that Tony's mistakes came from trying too damn hard for other people, not for himself.
Jesus, the things he'd done for the team, and for Rogers... oh, crap. Tony had signed the Accords and
then broken them for Rogers.

Yep, that was gonna go over great. The sharks, led by Great White Ross, would be after his shiny
metallic ass. In retrospect, having Ross's favorite bar demolished wasn't such a wonderful idea. Sure,
Ross was always 'all power must be in my hands', but did Tony really need to make it personal?

There was no way for Tony to come out of this with a whole skin. It wouldn't just be Ross, it'd be
everyone who's pissed off at the Avengers, even for things Tony had no part in, because guess what?
Tony had been the public face, the one who stood up in front of the media, the one who went toe-to-
toe with legislators and the U.N. and the world. When they painted angry graffiti in Sokovia, it
wasn't Captain America's wholesome face they used, it was Iron Man.

And Tony was the only one with enough money to pay damages. He'd assumed the responsibility of
supporting the Avengers and paying for their actions since the fall of SHIELDRA. He was pretty
sure lawyering up wasn't going to be enough to get him out from under that responsibility now. Not
so long as he owned anything worth taking

Fury had the right idea. If you're dead, the bastards can't do anything to you. Tony finally reached
the emergency connection. It was a last resort because it linked up his subcutaneous implants to use
his own body to power it, a bit like a potato battery. It hurt like a son of a bitch. He activated it and
gasped against the fire lining his arms and legs. "Fry. I'm done. Institute Protocol Pass the Torch."
He clicked off the connection and lay still, panting, and trying to think. He was so, so screwed. But
at the same time, it was a relief. Sure, he knew the alien attack was coming, but it wasn't his
responsibility any longer. He'd told everyone he could, he'd practically shouted on top of soapboxes,
and all it got him was eye rolls and annoyance as if mentioning the disaster he'd seen coming from
space was a sympathy ploy. He was just a guy, that's all. He couldn't save the world by himself. Not
when the people who were supposed to support him turned on him. He closed his eyes and waited
for Vision.

"Are you certain you wish to do this?" Vision asked. He had brought a quinjet in stealth mode, and
with his habitual neatness, collected Tony, all the bits of Iron Man, Capt... his father's shield, and the
Winter Assassin's metal arm. They were over the ocean, still several hours away from New York,
when the weight in the back of the quinjet had become too much for Tony.

"Yep. Never surer," Tony replied. He should be lying down, but sitting at the controls made him feel less helpless.

Tony could smell the salt and kelp and general fishiness. It made him a little homesick for Malibu.
He pushed that regret aside, and watched as Vision tossed out all the junk metal. The shield floated
for a few seconds, until waves filled it, and then it began a swooping side to side drift downward.
Iron Man and the arm sank immediately. "They sink cars to make habitat for fish, don't they?"

"Do they?" Vision said as he closed the hatch. "How odd."

Mount Sinai Beth Israel looked different. But then, the last time Tony had been there, he'd been in a
conference room, giving advice on their new robotic surgical procedures, and not down in a sub-
basement surgical suite and post op care center, hidden and kept off the records. It probably seemed
like a paranoid thing to do, funding a hidden medical center, but at the time Tony was mainly
thinking of those heroes, like Spiderman, who needed to keep their identities secret. He could have
chosen another hospital, but his arc reactor had kept Mount Sinai going after the Chitauri invasion
when the power grid went down and their back up generators had been destroyed by random fire.