one x one // orion ;; & Barnes&Rogers

[Barnes&Rogers]

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In a world where aliens stream from the sky, and whole cities are dragged into the air, the thought of superheroes is a comforting one. Good always beats evil, so when the superheroes are battling between each other, its not quite as simple. The heroes that once were praised for their actions, are now on the run, fugitives of the law, while their teammates are left to pick up the pieces.

When a new threat reaches the world, they have to join forces once more. Tensions run high, but the cost of losing is higher. Will they be able to sort through their difficulties, and let go of the past? Or will it consume them, destroying them from the inside out.

this is a 1x1 between orion ;; and myself. please do not post here, unless you are one of us.
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[orion ;;]

ᴛᴏɴʏ sᴛᴀʀᴋ
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Right up until the plane touches ground, Tony feels like this whole thing might be some strange dream. Ever since the phone he'd been keeping in his desk drawer, untouched for months because Tony could never quite find the nerve to give good old Cap a ring, had gone off, he'd been living in a sort of feverdream-like haze. In reality, it couldn't have been more than twenty-four hours ago that he'd fielded the call, it feels like years. Peter had been with him at the time, testing an upgrade to the suit, and he'd noticed the change right away. Of course he did, he's a smart kid. He'd somehow managed to convince Tony to let him come, despite every logical part of his brain telling him to keep the kid away from whatever danger had made Steve sound so panicked.

Now that they've landed, Tony realizes he's glad Peter's with him. If he were alone, flying across the ocean with plenty of time to think about how he and Cap had left things, there would be nothing to stop him from turning around and flying straight back home. This way, he's got a chatterbox barely able to sit still in his seat, talking his ear off the entire time to keep him from falling to deeply into his thoughts. They make it to the coordinates Tony had been given, and it takes all of his self-control to keep from snapping at Peter to shut up for just five minutes out of sheer stress and anxiety.

The paranoid part of him keeps the door shut just long enough for Friday to run a scan of the area, the worry of what if it's a trap refusing to go away until he knows for certain that it's safe. Tony tells himself he's only being extra-cautious for the kid, that he would rather spend more time cooped up in an already too-small cabin just to make sure that he's not throwing Peter into avoidable danger - he'd made a promise to May that they wouldn't be fighting anything, just traveling for educational purposes or something vaguely similar. He fully intends on keeping it, too. As much as Tony doesn't want to admit it, the only real reason he let Peter tag along is to act as a sort of barrier between him and Steve. If he's gifted at anything, it's diffusing the tension, and that's exactly why Tony wants him here.

Friday gives the all-clear, and Tony finds himself touching the hard, flat front of the reactor in his chest as the door opens inch by inch. It's a habit he's picked back up again, since he'd built the Bleeding Edge suit and put the reactor back in him, and it's only marginally reassuring. With nothing else left to procrastinate the reunion with, Tony swallows his doubts, does his best to assume his usual unbothered exterior, and walks down the ramp.

ʙᴜᴄᴋʏ ʙᴀʀɴᴇs
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If there's a common theme in Bucky's life recently, it's feeling like he's at least a few steps behind everyone else. Since Steve asked him to leave Wakanda to help with a mission he needed backup on, he's been hounded by the feeling that he's missing most of the story. Such is the case especially now, standing on the edge of an empty field in the early hours of the morning. Sam and Natasha are both there, huddled up with Steve a few feet away, talking in low tones. They all seem decently anxious - rather, Sam and Steve do, since Natasha doesn't really ever seem much of anything - and that's just part of the reason Bucky's more than a little lost. Steve had been saying something about Tony earlier, about how he didn't know how seeing him again was going to go, and from the way he'd been talking about it, he was acting like Bucky should remember. Except, he doesn't. Which also seems to be a really common theme, these days.

He's gathered that there was an entire fight between Steve and Tony that he was there for, but lost it thanks to cryo. It tends to do that - take the last day, give or take, before going under. Bucky's not unfamiliar with the feeling of not having a memory he definitely should have, the exact opposite, really, but it still isn't ideal. It would be easy enough to just ask Steve about it, but that would mean telling him that a decent chunk of his memory (most of his memory, but he doesn't want to admit that even to himself) is still missing, even after Shuri's best efforts to recover it. It'll come back eventually, so he's been told, so Bucky would rather just wait it out than deal with the sad puppy-dog look Steve would inevitably get if Bucky did tell him he doesn't remember much.

So, he just stands there, mildly confused as usual, and waits for Tony to arrive. Turns out, he doesn't have to wait very long. A dark shape appears in the sky and very quickly becomes a plane, which sets Sam and Steve even more on edge than they have been since the phone call had been made the day before. The silence, which had been moderately uncomfortable before, becomes deafeningly uncomfortable as the plane lands in front of them, now standing in a line to greet its passengers.

sᴀᴍ ᴡɪʟsᴏɴ
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Sam's decided that the whole being an international war criminal on the run from pretty much every major country in the world thing really isn't all that it's cracked up to be. It's not a new revelation or anything, he would just like to re-iterate for the record: being an international war criminal on the run from pretty much every major country in the world really is not all that it's cracked up to be.

Now that that's said, he can return to what he's been doing all day: attempting, to the best of his abilities, to provide an opinion on their situation that isn't either "Tony will come back and fix everything and it will all be okay" or "He's not going to show and we're all going to die", with Steve and Nat switching roles every few hours, plus the bonus vague look of will someone please tell me what's going on? he's been getting from Bucky since they picked him up from Wakanda. Yeah, it's about as fun as it sounds.

Sure, the whole illegitimate superhero on the run from the government and also saving the world with other (actual) superheros thing was pretty cool, for a while. They did some small-time stuff, like stop a few underground arms dealers selling black-market weapons from alien tech stolen in the aftermath of the New York attack, and that was alright. Mostly, it was the three of them in a cramped hotel room or even more cramped car, trying to avoid being caught and ID'd as Captain America, Black Widow, and Falcon. Not gonna lie, that part made him feel a little bit like the Bond hero he'd always sort of wanted to be as a kid. You know, burner phones, sunglasses-hat-and-hoodie disguises that somehow work every time, disappearing from the scene of a fight right before the cops show up and leaving the bad guys to be arrested - those parts were cool.

It got tiring, fast. It wasn't long before Sam started having actual dreams about his apartment back in DC, and pretty soon after that, the exhaustion from being on the run and stuck with the same two idiots in close quarters constantly set in even faster. He uses the word idiot affectionately, of course. He's still good friends with Steve, and Nat's not bad, but they really do get on his nerves after a while. Especially now, when tensions have been running high since they finally decided to call Tony for backup with the new bad guy they're facing down. It'd started out as a normal in-and-out mission, defeat the criminals and run from the cops, and then it'd gotten complicated. The type of complicated that forced Steve to end a year-long silence and call in the person that'd tried to literally kill him, then pick up the person Tony had tried to kill Steve because of, and then drag the whole lot to a field in the middle of god-knows-where, Europe (probably), to meet Tony, and whoever else he wanted to bring along.

Yeah. It's giving him a headache, too.

[Barnes&Rogers]

Pᴇᴛᴇʀ Pᴀʀᴋᴇʀ
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One day, Peter was at school, going to class after class, eating lunch with Ned and MJ, going home to May in the evening. The next, he was sitting on a plane, heading out to meet Captain America and his team. Cocooned by his suit, he was bubbling with excitement. He still didn't quite understand how he'd managed to convince Mr. Stark to let him go with him, all the way out into the middle of nowhere, but there he was, looking out the window at the clouds as the plane descended through them. It had been over a year since the battle in Germany, over a year since Mr. Stark had first contacted him about joining the team. It had, however, only been a little over three months since he'd accepted the offer. It had meant getting to work with Tony on suit upgrades; for both of them. Peter had never been grateful for anything more in his life.

'Thank you, again, Mr. Stark,' He grinned, giddy like a young child, glancing over at Tony, 'I wonder what they'll be like now, I mean, its been months since we last them, right? Maybe Captain America will have a beard? Can you imagine him with a beard? I can't.' Perched on the edge of his seat, only held by the thin strap around his waist, he didn't wait for a response. His feet were bouncing, the movement travelling up his legs. Holding his mask between his hands, he turned away from his mentor to look back out the window, trying to spot any figures through the haze of darkness that encircled them. 'Do you think Thor will be there? Oh, what about that guy with the wings? They were awesome, Mr. Stark, did you see them?'

Any nervousness that would have been flowing through his system had been replaced with excitement the moment they'd set of on the trip out, though a small sliver of it was creeping back as he finally spotted the aforementioned group. From what he could count, there seemed to be four of them, though he was unable to distinguish between them. He was out of his seat the moment the wheels hit the ground, though when he glanced back to Tony, the man hadn't moved from his seat. Noticing the anxiety in his expression, Peter lowered himself back into his seat. Nothing was going to go wrong, right? The Captain had called them for help after all, and from how Tony talked about him, Peter knew that would've only happened if something was really wrong. There was a moment of hesitation before Peter slipped his mask over his face. While Tony knew that Spiderman was Peter, no one on Team Cap did, and no matter how much he idolised them, he wanted to keep it that way.

'Uh, Mr. Stark?' He piped up, swallowing the lump that had grown in his throat, 'I think we're here.' The ramp lowered as Friday gave the all clear, and took a deep breath, bouncing on the balls of his feet as it hit the ground. He waited for Tony to cross the threshold before he followed suit. This was it. There was no turning back now, no time for last minute nerves to take over. They were there, and so was Captain America.

Sᴛᴇᴠᴇ Rᴏɢᴇʀs
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It had been a long year. Being a fugitive wasn't quite as easy the movies made it out to be. There were no alias', no fancy hotel rooms, not even a high-tech car they all fit into. There were few joys in Steve's life, after the whole "Civil War", one of which being Bucky. With only minimal use of a stolen Quinjet, visiting him in Wakanda had proved a difficult task, and Steve was quite sure his team wasn't always on board with the excursion. It was worth it, every single time. No one ever seemed to remember that they'd know each other a long, long time before any of the others had. The amount of respect Steve had for both Wakanda, and its people was beyond anything he could describe. Shuri had done an amazing job, working with Bucky, though Steve often had the sinking feeling that the man wasn't quite himself. Or, as much of himself as he led Steve to believe. T'challa never appeared to tire of Steve's constant check-ups. He seemed to understand.

While being on the run wasn't perfect, it was something that brought its benefits along with its downsides. Criminals seemed to forget that while half of the worlds heroes were not quite in line with the law, they weren't dead either. It made them clumsier, and easier to take down, and though Steve wouldn't admit it, it was quite satisfying to focus on the smaller issues. It was why he had taken on the responsibility of Captain America to begin with; to look out for the little guy. It was almost relaxing, in a strange sort of way. That was, until a few weeks before the fated phone call. A simple in and out mission gone astray. Information isn't always a good thing; it leads to actions, and subsequently consequences. Steve was learning that the hard way.

It was that mission which led Steve to find himself on one end a very tense, but much overdue phone call. He passed it off to luck that Tony was willing to meet them in the first place, and he hoped that the rest of the Avengers would be there. Not only had he missed them, they'd need them, too. That is, if Tony didn't decide to arrest them on the spot, as Natasha originally assumed he would. She hadn't been quite on board with Steve's plan when he'd told her, but didn't fight it. It was already in motion, after all. Out of everyone in their little group, Sam seemed to be the only one able to provide a neutral, level-headed view point. It was the only thing keeping him sane. Between the three of them, they had managed to argue themselves in and out of staying multiple times. It had been a few hours since they'd arrived, and between then and the actual meeting time, Natasha and Steve had argued both sides, only diffusing the arguments between themselves to argue with Sam. Steve knew they were all highly-strung, ready to snap.

The conversation turned to silence as the sound of engines reached their alert ears. Looking up into the dark sky, new shields at the ready, Steve prepared himself for the conversation ahead. If Tony decided to help them, or if he didn't, Steve was ready for a fight. He just hoped it wouldn't be Tony he was fighting.

Nᴀᴛᴀsʜᴀ Rᴏᴍᴀɴᴏꜰꜰ
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It seemed to be becoming a trend to phone Natasha while she was on a mission. First Coulson, now Steve. It was getting old, really, but she'd put a halt in her interrogation when Steve'd explained what was going on. From a legal stance, she was still very much a part of the Avengers, and very much still under the control of the UN, but off the table, well, that was a different story. A very different story. After the red room, she thought SHIELD would help her redeem herself, help her clean the blood off her slate, but she soon learned she'd just traded one corrupt organisation for another, and she had no plans to do it again. She had signed the accords, but she was no longer willing to abide by it.

Europe wouldn't have been her first choice of meeting place, nor would an open field have been anywhere on the list of suitable spaces. There would be very little cover if the plan went askew, but Steve had pushed all sense of logic out of the window as soon as his thumb had brushed the call button. It was hard to blame him. After over a year of silence from both lines, it had been a strenuous task even dialling the number into the small brick of a phone. She was never quite on board with the plan, but seeing as it was already in motion, all she could do was show up and hope there was more to the plan than she'd been informed of. Hope was not a particularly trustworthy system.

Almost as if checking in for a flight, Steve had made sure they arrived at least two hours before the arranged time. While it hadn't been a bad idea in theory, giving them time to scope out the place, it was rather useless, seeing as darkness had already set in well before they'd arrived. It, of course, gave them plenty of time to debate the pros and cons of the whole mission, swapping sides relentlessly. Any and every idea was thrown into the air, floating around them until shot down. Between Steve and Natasha, every possibility had been thought of, while Sam remained a middle-man between worst and best case scenarios.

The Stark plane landed on time, as Natasha had expected. While the engine had switched off, the door remained firmly shut. There were a few tense minutes as they watched, waited, for figures to appear. Steve raised his shields, while Natasha kept her arms at her sides, fingers itching to reach for a weapon. If it was fight they wanted, it was a fight they would get. Then the doors opened.