Chapter Text
This is the best time. Just before the press conference. Tony can practically taste the energy- real live superheroes! In New York! And now they want to talk!
Yeah, sure, maybe Fury had looked like his eyepatch was going to burst into flames when Tony had sort of accidentally on purpose leaked the story to Christine Everhart, but even he had to admit that the public were hungry for news. The crowds outside right now in home-made Avengers gear are practically frothing at the mouth. (Tony is particularly taken with the one kid who'd drawn on a sharpie goatee)
"This isn't gonna work." Cap mutters, shifting from one foot to the other. He's twitching with his shield, and Tony caught him taping cue cards on the back earlier. He hadn't been able to stop laughing for a good two minutes.
"It will be like a royal address!" Thor assures Steve, clapping one huge hand on his back. Bruce, who understandably is not being identified to the public at large, laughs and tries to hide it with a cough.
Clint doesn't bother to hide his laughter at all, and even Natasha smirks. SHIELD agents get a free pass too, apparently.
Tony diplomatically ignores them and walks out to the podium and a host of flashing bulbs. Until very recently, when he'd thought of the future, he'd thought of the Iron Man suit, or the arc reactor (the big one, the one he's going to make available to everyone one day). In the last few days, though, he's thought more in terms of the team. Of the world that came so close to disaster, and how fragile everything suddenly seems.
"Ladies and gentlemen."
Tony's stood at the doorway of something like this before: a moment where the future opens up, wide and bright, and all you need to do is say the right words.
"Let me show you the future."