Home isn't just a place

Chapter One

Steve opened his mouth to refute that but thought better of it at the last second. Instead he merely shook his head, offered a goodbye and promptly left the kitchen. Tony scowled at the place where the super soldier had just been standing.

"Coward." he muttered under his breath. He'd been hoping that Steve would ask about what that phrase meant or at the very least disagree with him so that Tony could prove him wrong and delay his meeting by another half hour.

But instead Steve decided to bite his tongue and leave Tony to rush out of the tower to make it to the airport in time to see Fury's disapproving glare.

"You're late." he said, gesturing for Tony to follow him onto the helicarrier.

"Maybe you're just incredibly early." Tony said with an impish grin. Fury just glared harder.

"Shut up and sit down Stark." he said. Tony stuck his tongue out at Fury when his back was turned only to freeze when he said, "I saw that."

"How?!" Tony cried. "You only have one eye!"

Fury breathed in deeply. "I am a goddamn super spy. I can tell when a bratty kid decides to stick his tongue out at me behind my back."

Tony just sunk into the chair and crossed his arms defensibly. "I'm not a kid." he muttered under his breath. Fury just raised an eyebrow. "What's this meeting about?"

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" Fury asked. Tony opened his mouth to say bad news when Fury cut him off. "That was a joke. The good news first." Tony just glared as Fury turned around to show a screen rising up from the floor.

"Barnes is doing well in his healing," Fury said. "He is almost completely free of conditioning."

"That's the good news?" Tony asked. "Then what's the bad?"

"Hydra is being quite the pain lately." Fury said. Tony scoffed.

"When aren't they?"

Fury glared. "They seem to be exceptionally pissed that their favorite doctor was killed under questionable circumstances."

Tony froze. His hands clenched at his sides as he forced himself to remain impassive. "Oh?" he said in a disinterested tone. "And?"

"And they're punishing us by being more obvious about their evil-doing." Fury said.

"Sounds to me like they're helping us," Tony said. "Isn't that what we wanted? For them to be easy to catch?"

"Not when there's too much for us to catch," Fury sighed. "We don't have enough manpower to go to every single suspected Hydra case."

"So what do you want me to do about it?" Tony asked with a raised eyebrow. Fury leveled him with a glare.

"This is your mess, so I want you to fix it."

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"So good to see you 2176." the Doctor said with a twisted smile. "I missed you so much, you know. Are you ready to have some fun?"

"How...h-how are you here?" Peter stuttered, looking at him with wide, terrified eyes.

"Oh Peter," the Doctor said, shaking his head at Peter and leveling him with a condescending smile. "You didn't really think I left, did you?"

"Please..." Peter said softly.

"It's time for your punishment 2176."

Peter shot up with a scream, his heart pounding against his chest. Peter instantly curled in on himself, tears working their way into his eyes. His body shook and he wrapped his arms around his knees and held himself even tighter.