───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰ ───

The soft breeze of the warm air blew through on (Y/N)'s borrowed flannel from Laura, who insisted on having her cleaned up from the dirty suit. She, along with Steve and Tony, tried to assist the Barton family in some of the tasks around the house. Meanwhile, according to Steve, Thor flew out of the house just a few minutes after arriving, leaving to god knows where.

Clint, on the other hand, seemed occupied with his children and on repairing the front porch. He had tools set up by the floor as Cooper helped him measure the length of the wood they would be needing. (Y/N), from her spot nearby the trees, couldn't help but smile at the sight. The idea of living on a secluded farm was relaxing to her, but far away from her reach.

"Auntie (Y/N)!" A pitched voice caught her attention and she looked away from watering the plants and flowers on the garden.

Lila was running at full speed toward her, arms stretched out and pigtails blowing back by the wind. Once she reached her, Lila tugged on the sleeve of (Y/N)'s shirt and she couldn't help but laugh. Her demeanor reminded her so much of her friend Maria's daughter, Monica.

"What's wrong?" (Y/N) questioned, noticing the little girl's frown. She still seemed out of breath from her journey of the front porch to her, but opened her mouth to answer nonetheless.

"Mommy says we need the tractor, and she says you're the one strong enough to push it out of the shed," Lila explained enthusiastically.

(Y/N) frowned at this, but agreed to the task. Lila, on the other hand, was done with her duty and ran back to the porch with her father and brother. (Y/N) headed toward the huge shed by the house, missing along the way how Laura high-fived her daughter with a smile.

Once (Y/N) reached the shed, she opened the door wide enough to pass herself through and closed it behind her, ignoring the wood cracking as she did so. A few steps into the shed, she spotted the tractor and reckoned it wouldn't be an easy task to push outside. She surrounded the tractor in order to check where would she have a better grip on it, and was already lifting part of it into the air when she heard the wooden door creak once again.

"Hello, Deere," a familiar voice said and footsteps approached her. "Tell me everything. What ails you?"

(Y/N) looked up and couldn't stop the gasp leaving her lips. "Tony?"

Tony was startled too, since he jumped in his spot and dropped whatever he was doing with the tractor. (Y/N) abruptly let go of the part she was lifting and it caused the tractor to let out a groan, which both of them winced to.

Tony stared off to the door of the shed with annoyance. "Why, Ms. Barton, you little minx."

(Y/N) exhaled a huff out of her nose since Lila was obviously on this with her mom too. "That little devil."

"Look, it's been a really long day, like Eugene O'Neill long, so how's about we skip to the part where we get out of here," Tony caught her attention and was halfway through his way to the door.

(Y/N) knew the intention behind this, and although she was pissed by the execution of it, she had to thank Laura for it later. She was done with the avoiding glances or the made up excuses, so she stopped Tony before he could take another step.

"No, we need to talk."

"About what?"

"You know what."

"I know, I just want to hear you say it."

"Tony," she huffed, her patience running out. "You kissed me."

Tony cleared his throat, caught off guard by her bluntness. "Bold way to start a conversation, but I'll take it."

"You've been avoiding me like the plague ever since it happened, and I just wanna know why."

"We don't have time for this right now — "

"Yes, we do," (Y/N) cut him off. "It's way overdue. I want you to be honest with me."

"(Y/N), we don't — "

"Is it something I said — "

"It's not — "

"Did I do something wrong — ?"

"I — "

"I want to get this over with — "

"Listen to me! Okay?" He snapped in a louder voice, making her silence down. His hands were clasped together too. "I don't deserve you."

(Y/N)'s shoulders deflated. "Don't say that."

Tony seemed to be on the verge of collapse. "Its true, I'm the man who killed the Avengers."

"What?"

"I saw it," he continued, backing away from her in fear. "I didn't want to tell you, how could I? I saw them all dead, (Y/N). I saw you dead. I felt it. The whole world too. Because of me. I wasn't ready. I didn't do all I could."

"Tony, that's not going to happen," (Y/N) told him, since she didn't know how else to comfort him. She felt useless. "Not on my watch. It's just a nightmare."

"No, you don't understand. It wasn't a nightmare, it was my legacy," Tony avoided eye contact with her and stared at his shoes. "The end of the path I started us on. After I kissed you, I couldn't stop thinking of how I was going to ruin your life. Every possible outcome I had, you always end up dying because of my mistakes. I can't let that happen."

(Y/N) swallowed the lump in her throat, trying to say something to him but he wasn't finished.

"I told you this before, that I have to protect the one thing I can't live without, and that's you," Tony confessed. "It hasn't changed. So, if watching you from a distance means that you're safe, I can't risk it."

Tony was expecting a lot of different reactions. He was expecting a slap to knock him some sense, a dramatic storm off that would leave him alone in the shed, or just plain silence that spoke disappointment. What he was not expecting, whatsoever, was that (Y/N) gave him a smile. And not an intimidating one or a mocking one, it was genuine. Like she was somehow endeared by her words or a weight was lifted off her shoulders.

"I figured it out," she firstly said, but that didn't clear Tony's questions. She took a step forward, and her intoxicating smell made him swallow his nerves down. "I figured out why did it bother me so much to know why you've been avoiding me."

Tony tilted his head. "Care to enlighten me, Vaughn?"

"You're my weakness," (Y/N) confessed, one step closer to him. "My powers aren't anything without you, all my strength leaves when I'm with you. You made me feel like I was human again without even noticing it."

(Y/N) lifted her head up when she heard the smallest attempt to hide a chuckle, and she saw Tony looking at her with a weird look on his face.

"I didn't know you had a way with words."

"Oh, just shut up and kiss me."

"Yes, ma'am."

(Y/N) tugged on his flannel and brought him even closer than before, his chest touching hers. His lips brushed against hers in a kiss, and she could feel the way he tilted his way to the side to deepen it further, to kiss her harder. Who would've thought, huh? Who would've guessed she'd find her way back to her best friend and kissed him after all this time.

Much to Tony's dismay, (Y/N) pulled back to grab some air. God, was she a sight for sore eyes, he thought. Everything about her radiated power, and he couldn't believe she was standing right in front of him right now.

(Y/N) grabbed the back of his head to press his forehead against hers, and whispered her words so he could be able to hear them. "Nothing is going to happen to us, I promise."

"I sure hope you're right, (Y/N)."

───✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰ ───

More surprises came as night fell upon the farm. Turns out Maria had called Fury and got him to meet the team here, catching almost everyone by surprise. In all honesty, for (Y/N), she thought it would've been unusual for him to not make an appearance.

Laura and Clint had made dinner for their family and the team, so they were all gathered up in the living and dinning room of the house. (Y/N) was helping Cooper in finishing a puzzle on the table along with Laura, and Lila ran up to Natasha to hand her a handmade drawing of a butterfly.

"Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself some time," Fury spoke up from the kitchen, washing a glass to fix himself a cup of iced tea. "My contacts all say he's building something. The amount of vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's just one thing."

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve asked from his spot leaning against the wall.

"Oh, he's easy to track. He's everywhere," Fury responded. "The guy is multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit. It still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans, though."

Tony kept throwing darts at the board but hadn't managed to have a clean shot. "Is he still going after launch codes?"

"Yes, he is," Fury was now making himself a sandwich, and (Y/N) drew his attention so he could make one for her too. "But he's not making any headway."

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare." Tony bragged, and (Y/N) couldn't contain her curiosity.

"You did what?!"

Tony just flashed her a smug grin.

Fury didn't seem at all amused. "Well, I contacted our friends at the Nexus about that."

"Nexus?"

"It's the world Internet hub in Oslo," Bruce spoke up for the first time in the conversation. "Every byte of data flows through there. Fastest access on Earth."

"So, what did they say?" Clint asked, grabbing a dart.

"He's fixated on the missiles," Fury began. "But the codes are constantly being changed."

"By whom?" Tony barely got his sentence out before he dodged a dart flying by his face and pierced itself directly on the middle of the board.

"Parties unknown."

"Do we have an ally?" Natasha questioned from the table.

"Ultron's got an enemy," Fury told her, finishing the sandwiches. "That's not the same thing. Still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is."

"I might need to visit Oslo," Tony announced, giving up on the darts. "Find our unknown."

Natasha stretched herself back to look at Fury. "Well, this is good times, boss, but I was kind of hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that."

"I do. I have you," he gestured to the group. "Back in the day, I had eyes everywhere. Ears everywhere else. You kids had all the tech you could dream up. Here we all are, back on Earth, with nothing but our wit and our will to save the world. Ultron says the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission. And whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction."

"All this, laid in a grave," he looked around the six members of his team in the house. "So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard."

He walked away from the kitchen and sat on the table, handing (Y/N) the sandwich he'd made for her. She flashed him a smile of gratitude and he just brushed it away with a small one of his own.

"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk," Natasha teased from her spot.

"You know what, Romanoff?"

Natasha smirked in reply. Fury didn't think it was time to joke around, so he decided to shift the subject again. "So, what does he want?"

Steve looked at him. "To become better. Better than us. He keeps building bodies."

"Person bodies," Tony corrected. "The human form is inefficient. Biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it."

"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed."

"They don't need to be protected," Bruce said, eyes on the drawing. "They need to evolve. Ultron's going to evolve."

"How?"

"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?"

so um, that happened. please comment your opinions on this chapter, don't be shy.

also, what kind of moments would you like me to write for tony and y/n? im up for your requests. comment them here !!

-see you soon, bex