And then we were two (Tony stark's daughter fic)

A cold cave, one sided conversations, and learning you were wrong

"What do you mean he's missing?!" Pepper shouted at the avengers as a whole. "How could you lose him?!"

"We didn't misplace him," Clint huffed. "He flew off with Cap and they didn't check in.."

Natasha ignored them as she walked around the room, checking monitors for any sign of the suit. Not all of the data being displayed belonged to them but she'd never cared much about such minor details. "Where's Addy?"

The room seemed to become at once silent and heavy as all eyes turned toward Pepper anxiously. "Room," she mumbled. "She's asleep. Which means you jackasses have about six hours to find Tony before you have to tell a little girl her daddy is missing. Again."

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The cave was tiny, just tall enough Tony's head skimmed the ceiling if he hunched over. Still, it was dry, small, and unoccupied and, while Steve could manage the extreme climate, Tony hadn't stopped shuddering in the past twenty minutes. "Come on Tones," he whispered coaxingly, purposely using the nickname he'd heard Rhody use so often. Tony loved Rhodes, right? Surely that would put him at ease. "Come on, it will be warmer in here, alright?"

Tony still hadn't said a word. It was somewhat easy to pretend he was pouting and just cold but...well, tony wasn't like everyone else. Even when he pouted he talked. Maybe not to the person he was pouting at but everyone else, JARVIS, even just muttering plans to himself. He hadn't spoken a word since before the crash and it was grating on Steve's nerves. Even worse, the moment Steve began pulling him toward the cave, something genuinely terrified had entered his eyes. He glanced up at Steve as the walked inside, his head tilted to fit, while Steve had to crouch.

Had Tony always been so small? Steve was suddenly struck by the realization. Back home, with the press, in his shop, even just wandering around he was larger than life. That wasn't even touching on what he was like in the suite. Tony Stark was a force, perhaps not of nature...by definition nature was natural, unchanging, unchanged. Tony, on the other hand, was ever changing. His suites, for example. Steve wasn't even sure what model he was up to. Tony wasn't as he'd been created, Tony had taken what had been given to him and changed it himself, shored it up, given it walls and defenses, protected and steeled it and made it...was it better?

Steve glanced down at him and, for the moment, he could suddenly see everything Tony hid from the world. Whether he understood or not at the moment Tony was hurting. He looked impossibly tired, small, stressed, lost. Worse than that was the hurt. Those dark brown eyes, darker in the dim light, held a lifetime of hurt that Steve hadn't really noticed before.

"I always Wanna talk to you," he admitted suddenly, utterly fed up with the silence that should never be so complete and heavy with Tony Stark in the room. "I wanna ask about...everything really. The things you make, who you are...I thought I had a handle on that when we met but...you keep surprising me.."

Tony watched him silently, like when you talk to a puppy, all rapt attention and no understanding beyond your tone of voice.

Steve kept his tone gentle. "Still bothers me you didn't tell me you had a kid...and not for that bullshit I need to be in control reason either...I hate how you do that. That joking you cover how you really feel thing..."

Still, Tony watched.

Steve was going to crush whoever did this. It had better wear off, that was all he had to say about that. "You're still shivering," he sighed and reached for him.

Tony tensed for a moment before allowing Steve to arrange him so he was sitting back against his chest, held securely against the super soldier.

"I know this isn't ideal but...I can't have you freezing, Stark..." he chuckled slightly on an old memory. "You know, one time me and Howard-"

Tony jolted, a visceral, ingrained, response, wiry limbs tensing and straining against his hold as he looked around frantically.

"Tony? Hey, easy, it's just me, remember? Just Steve..." he frowned and held him all the tighter. "Just me...you're safe..."

Steve was rapidly becoming more and more convinced he didn't know nearly as much as he thought he did.

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"So nothing on Stark and Rodgers?" Natasha demanded of Jarvis once more.

"As I said, miss Romanov, I was blocked from the system somewhere over Europe..."

"That isn't exactly helpful, Jarvis," Clint groaned. "Europe is Kinda a decent sized place..."

Bruce continued typing away on his own computer, still tracking the original energy signal. "I know where the blip went..." he muttered.

The two men glanced at Nat uncertainly. "So...?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, alright. We'll go find the kid then. That's one thing we can do for now. Jarvis, keep looking for Stark and Rodgers."

"As you wish, miss Romanov," the A.I. replied as they headed out.

Pepper stared at the screens thoughtfully. This was precisely why they didn't work. She couldn't handle him being missing all the time, and he couldn't handle standing on the sidelines. "If i can, then I must," she whispered the words he'd said to her so often, words he got from his mother. "Hurry home, mister Stark," she whispered fondly.

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Hey friends! As usual I'm really sorry for my absence! Damn Covid am I right?! My kids are home with me all day every day 24/7 every second for forever!😳😳😳 Nah I love having them with me and they're wonderful but being their teacher as we've homeschooled this year...that may just be the death of me 🤦🏽‍♀️ I'm very sorry for your wait for this update. I hope it was worth it.