Here We Go

9: Coming Home

Back up at the Tower, everyone was waiting eagerly for Steve to return. Since he was the leader of the team, things had gotten just a little bit chaotic without him.

Clint had made the mistake of showing Pietro the roadrunner cartoons. The Sokovian then decided that any time he ran past anyone, he would stop for a split second and say "beep beep." Long story short, it got extremely annoying after just two days.

Wanda and Bruce had bonded greatly and she spent lots of time with him in his lab, helping him out and using her powers to entertain him. Vision enjoyed flying around and questioning Jarvis about pretty much everything, and messing with everyone by answering questions for Jarvis and then flying out of nowhere and scaring people.

Natasha spent most of her time with Tony and Peter, watching the young child as the mechanic worked endlessly in his lab. She often went up to the roof of the tower just to sit on the ledge, looking out across the city. These little rooftop trips occurred at night, when the whole of New York City was lit up and shining brightly.

Thor had actually gone back to Asgard. He had left two days after Steve left, saying something about how he should go check on his mother and his city and also something about Loki. Tony actually didn't even notice he was gone until a day later when he was chatting with Vision at three in the morning while eating toast.

The android had been hovering in the kitchen, as he didn't need sleep, and Tony was still awake, driven completely on coffee and alcohol and pure determination to finish his current project. He was hungry though, so he ventured to the kitchen to grab some food. He was halfway through making toast when he noticed the floating Vision.

"Hey," he mumbled. Vision looked at him and nodded to show his acknowledgement.

"You haven't slept in three days Tony. I believe that is bad for human health."

"Probably. I have to finish my project though."

"Sir, he's right. You need to sleep. Captain Rogers won't be very happy when he gets back," Jarvis added.

"Your friend is correct. Steve will be upset with you if you don't take care of yourself," Vision continued.

"Fine. I'll sleep later. Just let me finish my project. I'm almost done." Tony grabbed his toast and started a cup of coffee. "So where's your hammer buddy? Haven't seen him in a while."

"Thor left yesterday afternoon. He needed to return to Asgard," the android informed him. Tony nodded and grabbed his coffee and took another bite of his toast.

"See you later. Thanks for the talk. Gotta go." Tony then slipped back into the dark hallway and made his way back to his lab with the glow of his arc reactor.

The very day after that was the day Steve was to return. Tony hadn't gotten a wink of sleep and was on the verge of passing out the whole day.

Just around noon, Jarvis announced that Steve had indeed arrived at the Tower and was starting on his way up. Tony waited excitedly on the couch, a sleeping Peter in his lap.

"Stop doing that, it's probably annoying him," Natasha insisted, swatting his shoulder. He looked up at her quizzically and she pointed to his bouncing knee. To stop himself, Tony crossed his legs and let Peter curl up on the couch next to him.

"What is taking him so long," he grumbled anxiously, staring at the elevator.

"Maybe he's taking the stairs," Nat suggested with a shrug. "He's yours, you know him best."

"Wow, thanks for that," Tony sassed. Natasha rolled her eyes and plopped down on the chair, curling up and grabbing her book. Tony opened his mouth to speak but she answered his question before he could even ask it.