Just Steve

T W E N T Y - N I N E

"Well look who finally decided to come back."

Silence.

"How long has it been since you were here last here? Almost three weeks?"

Tony was in the middle of making a smoothie in the kitchen when the elevator doors had opened, revealing a face he had not been expecting to see.

"I'm just here for a textbook," Peter grumbled, not even bothering to look at Tony before heading down the long hallway towards his spare room.

Tony sighed, shaking his head slightly. For someone so small, there were moments where Peter managed to have as much attitude as Tony if not more. Peter had barely spoken to him the past few weeks and while he was slowly patching up things with Rogers, Peter was proving a lot more difficult to make amends with. He was a smart and compassionate kid but his stubborn streak often resulted in holding onto grudges for long periods of time. Tony hoped that once (Y/n) was back in New York and that whole mess was resolved, Peter would come around but now he wasn't even sure of that. 

Either way, he still stood by his choices and actions. He regretted the chaos that had ensued as a result of the contract but not the creation of the documents themselves. He had seen people try to take advantage of his friends too many times to not get involved when he had felt Rogers was in over his head. Not to mention (Y/n) had always been so reserved, never talking about herself or her personal life. In his experience that normally meant a person was hiding something. Maybe he had assumed too much too quickly. He had conceded that at this point, it was fairly obvious (Y/n) was not after Steve's money. Even so, he still felt like the existence of a contract was important and he was tired of having to justify himself for trying to protect his teammates. 

Tony tried to clear his thoughts, pouring the contents of his smoothie into a glass and was about to take his first sip when Nat entered the kitchen from the door that led to the tower offices.

"Do you have anything stronger?" she asked, nodding towards Tony's drink, pulling out one of the barstools and taking a seat at the counter. "I need to give myself a lobotomy after listening to Sam talk about the different ways he can use Red Wing to pick up women."

"I'd take Sam over the kid," Tony replied, opening a drawer and pulling out a metal straw. "He's still in a mood."

At that moment, Peter appeared again, textbook in hand, making a b-line for the elevators.

"Peter, hold on!" Nat called out. Peter hesitated for a moment, clearly torn between not wanting to spend any more time in the tower, and not wanting to be rude to Nat. Eventually he turned to face them, revealing a blank expression with dull and lifeless eyes.

"We haven't talked in a while, come catch up," Nat continued, pulling out the stool next to her and patting it lightly.

"Can't, m'busy," he mumbled, backing away towards the elevator.

"With what?  You going to go look for (Y/n) again?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, I'm not doing that anymore."

Silence fell over the group. Nat glanced at Tony raising an eyebrow while Peter stared blankly into the distance. It was clear to Nat that Tony had know idea Peter had stopped looking for (Y/n) or why. For a while it had seemed like that was all he had cared about, and now he had done a complete one-eighty.

"Why did you stop?" Nat asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Because she's better off without all of us," he replied shortly, shuffling his feet. "Took me a while to see it but now I get why she left, why she shouldn't come back..."