Summary: Tony’s parents are killed by assassins when he is four. He is then taken in by the order until he is 21. He then leaves to take over Stark Industries. Then the Avengers come to live with him in the tower. Will he be able to keep his secret from them? Assassin!Tony AU. Set after The Avengers and before Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Word Count: 2585
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Still not mine. OCs and Plot are mine.
Notes: Sorry for the huge delay but better late than never right?
First | <– Previous
Pain. There was nothing but pain when Tony woke. Not even just the mild pain of the Arc Reactor every time he breathed, though that was still there. This pain was worse. This pain reminded him of that pain. That pain from long ago.
A bomb landed next to the billionaire. He might have chuckled any other time because of the writing on it. Stark Industries. He was going to be killed by a bomb with his name on it. One of his own creations. At least it was poetic. He didn't have long enough to react before it blew up, sending him flying backwards. He was still conscious though. At least for long enough to see the blood pooling on top of his bulletproof vest. Shit.
He didn't want to open his eyes. He was scared of what he'd wake up to. What if he was being ammaturely operated on again? Not that Yinsen was an ammature, he did the best he could with what he had.
Tony woke up again to an unbearable pain. His chest was being cut into. Then his ribs. Then, something cold and metal was pushed into the hole that had been created, squashing his lungs and restricting his breathing. He kept fading in and out of consciousness before he was finally knocked out with what he could only guess was chloroform.
Tony heard the beeping of a heart rate monitor increase. Great. So he was in a hospital or something like that. Damn, he hated hospitals. He heard his heart rate increase even more and then he heard his name being called. He didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't want to figure out who said his name. He just wanted the pain and the memories to go away.
He focussed on his breathing instead. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. The hold was the best bit. The pain constantly generated from his Arc Reactor wasn't as bad then; when he wasn't breathing, wasn't pushing on it.
Once the monitor was beeping steadily again he opened his eyes, which turned out not to be the best idea. The bright light in the room was effectively blinding. He focussed on the gentle beeping of the heart rate monitor while his eyes adjusted.
The first thing he saw was Bruce. He furrowed his brow in confusion, trying to work out why the scientist was there. Tony heard his heart rate increase again. Man that beeping was getting annoying. He looked at Bruce and tried to remember what had happened.
Unfortunately, his brain kept torturing him with memories of Afghanistan. That damn cave and the electrical burns on his chest that he'd get if water splashed onto the wires of his battery. He was never sure if the torturers did that accidentally or not.
"Relax Tony," Bruce said. Tony wondered if it was obvious that he was panicking.
"How long was I out?" He asked, hoping that there was no panic in his voice.
"About half a day," Bruce's told him. He sounded tired. "Give or take," the physicist added.
"Seriously?!" Tony asked as he attempted to sit up again. The pain that came from that wasn't at all pleasant.
"You probably shouldn't do that," Bruce warned him, "you have a couple of broken ribs along with pretty serious burns which surround your Arc Reactor."
"Why?" Tony asked, struggling to recall the last thing that happened. He looked around the room a bit and furrowed his brow. He wasn't in the Stark Tower medical room and nor was he in SHIELD's medical bay. Based on the lack of equipment he'd be willing to say he wasn't even in a normal hospital. That left just one place. The Order. "Why the hell are we in the Order?!" He asked, suddenly extremely aware and sitting up straight despite the pain it gave him. Bruce wasn't meant to be here. Wait. Did that mean the rest of the Avengers knew too?
"Relax Tony," Bruce said, "what do you remember?"
"We were fighting the massive doombot and then I tried to attack it," Tony said. He frowned. "Then I got hit." He unattached the heart rate monitor as he was finding the beeping increasingly annoying.
"What about after that?" Bruce asked.
"I dunno. I vaguely remember Capsicle being weird," Tony said, shifting where he sat to get slightly more comfortable. He looked down at his bandaged chest and wondered how bad the damage was. He'd definitely had worse but he could tell it was still pretty bad.
Bruce sighed. "You were hit by a missile, Steve put his shield on your chest so the others wouldn't see the Arc and then The Other Guy brought you to Stark Tower where I changed your Arc before we came here."
Tony nodded in understanding. He had a somewhat sullen expression on his face though.
"What?" Bruce asked, noticing the genius' expression.
"You and Steve both know?" Tony asked. Bruce nodded. "Who else does?"
"Well, I didn't tell anyone and Steve didn't either as far as I know."
"Good. I'd hate to have to kill you," Tony said, only half joking, as he started to get out of the bed, ignoring the pain as much as he could. He was wearing the same pants that he had been during the fight.
"Tony, you really shouldn't get up yet." Kyle said from the doorway. Tony turned to face him. The assassin was wearing his normal gear but didn't have his mask on. Tony assumed that during the hours he was asleep his team had revealed themselves to Bruce and possibly Steve, if he was still around.
"I've had worse," he said, standing up. Kyle rushed over to steady him and make him sit back down.
"I bet!" He said. "Afghanistan must have-" he suddenly stopped talking when Tony hit him. Hard. "The hell Tony?!"
Tony looked over at Bruce who was looking slightly confused and as though he was about to start saying something.
"Oh, they don't know?" Kyle asked.
"Of course they don't know. Why on earth would they know?!" Tony said.
"What happened in Afghanistan?" Bruce asked.
"I guess you'll have to ask Tony," Kyle said, shrugging. Bruce looked even more confused. "You probably shouldn't take it personally, he only told us on the way to the helicarrier thing."
Tony glared at Kyle. He really needed to learn to shut the hell up. He then leaned over and grabbed his phone from where it was on the desk.
He had a few missed calls from fury and a couple from Pepper but other than that there wasn't really anything new.
"He's awake?" Steve asked as he walked through the door, holding two cups of what Tony assumed was coffee. He was only just realising how thirsty he was.
"Please tell me one those is for me," he said. Steve handed him a mug and gave the other to Bruce. Tony took a sip of the coffee, while it wasn't perfect it wasn't too bad either. He then turned to Kyle, "go get me some civilian clothes"
"Why me?" Kyle moaned.
Tony rolled his eyes, "Because you probably aren't going to want to see me and Rogers argue about whatever we're probably going to argue about," he smirked, "you can fanboy over Capsicle more later." Steve raised an eyebrow as he watched the two assassins although he didn't say anything.
Kyle sighed theatrically before he went off, hopefully to get Tony some clothes .
Tony leaned back so his back was resting on the wall. He turned to the two Avengers and they sat in awkward silence.
"Surprise..?" Tony said, breaking the silence.
"What the heck Stark?!" Steve snapped.
"What?" Tony asked.
"You're an assassin!" Steve said.
"Well done, Captain Obvious," Tony said with a sigh.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Bruce asked. He seemed more curious than angry though.
"Because it's against the rules and because even if it wasn't, I don't trust you," Tony said.
"So what now?" Bruce asked. Tony shrugged.
"I either have to kill you, take a new identity or vouch for you," he said. "And since the first two options are never gonna happen I guess I'm going to have to actually claim to trust both you not to tell anyone." Tony sighed. "I may not trust you but you are my team, and I have to at least hope that you're not going to out me."
"SHIELD needs to know about this!" Steve said.
"No. They don't!" Tony argued, "do you know what would happen if you told them?! Especially considering that Doom only attacked us for this?" He tapped the Arc Reactor, ignoring the pain that the movement brought him.
"Tony has a point," Bruce said, "SHIELD's obviously got a security issue." Tony was glad that Bruce was there. He was probably the only Avenger who would take his side over Steve's.
"Fine. I won't tell SHIELD," the captain said after a moment's contemplation.
"But?" Tony asked, knowing that there was more coming.
"But you have to tell the rest of the team when we get back to the tower," Steve said firmly. Tony glared at him.
"No," he said firmly.
"Tony!" Steve snapped, "if they're going to be working with you then they'll need to be able to trust you!"
"Then I guess I'll just quit the Avengers!" Tony snapped back, "Iron Man was fine without you before, I'll be fine without you again!"
Steve groaned, "you can't do that!"
"Why not?!" Tony asked.
"You should both just relax!" Bruce said before Steve got a chance to respond. Tony wasn't sure if he wanted them to relax because they were starting to make him angry, which would be bad for everyone, or if he had some other reason.
"Say's the man who is apparently always angry," Tony muttered. "I knew I should never have agreed to this mission."
"Then why did you?!" Steve asked.
"Because the order is my family and it would have been disrespectful not to!"
"Since when did you care about respect?!" Steve asked. Tony glared at him but didn't say anything else.
The trio of heroes sat in an uncomfortably tense silence until Kyle returned with some clothes and kicked out Bruce and Steve before leaving too so that Tony could get dressed in peace. Once he was dressed, Tony left the room to find Steve and Bruce waiting outside for him. He ignored them and started walking towards the gym.
"Where are you going?" Bruce asked from where he was standing by the door to the med ward.
"I should train," Tony replied.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Bruce asked. Tony didn't respond and just continued walking until he got to the gym.
He set up a punching bag, which took way longer than he'd like to admit thanks to the only just bearable pain in his chest. When he started throwing punches at the bag he realised that he wasn't going to be able to put as much weight into them as usual but he did eventually settle into a rhythm but wasn't able to forget the pain that every punch reminded him was there.
As he punched the bag he wondered about what would happen now. Either he'd have to actually quit the Avengers which was something he really didn't want to do. He might not have trusted the heroes but they had proved that they'd always have his back and that was something that he knew he needed, what with his self destructive tendencies. He could even see himself becoming friends with them, even Steve, but that would never happen if he left.
The other choice that Steve had given him was telling Thor, Natasha and Clint which was something he would much rather not have to do. Thor didn't seem to know how to keep a secret, though Tony could be wrong about that, the alien just didn't seem to be the kind of person who would keep secrets. Natasha and Clint did both know how to keep secrets but they were also SHIELD spies so Tony wouldn't be surprised if they told Fury.
If SHIELD ever did find out then it would leave Tony with only one option. Leave the order and the Avengers and take up a new identity. That was something that he really didn't want to do. He wouldn't be able to be Iron Man or Enjinia any more and, worse still, he'd lose all of his family and friends.
He was pulled out of his thoughts after throwing a particularly strong and angry punch that almost made him yell because of the amount of pain it caused him.
"I would say I told you so," Bruce said from where he and Steve stood in the doorway. Tony frowned. How long had they been there?
"Isn't that what you just did?" The genius asked through pained breaths as he walked over to a bench to sit down. Bruce shrugged. "Why are you here?" Tony asked.
"I wanted to talk to you," Steve said.
"I'm really not in the mood Rogers," Tony said.
"Tough," Steve said, causing Tony to groan. He really didn't want to get into another fight with the man, especially when he was hurting and just didn't have the energy to fight back. "You need to tell the others." Tony could tell that it was taking effort for the soldier to remain calm.
"No I don't."
"I'm with Steve on this one Tony," Bruce said. Tony glared at the traitor. "You don't have to tell them straight away but they have the right to know."
"And I have the right not to tell them," Tony argued though there was no real determination in his voice. He somehow knew that he was going to lose this one. Unless he did quit.
"You're tired," Bruce pointed out. "You should think about it when you've slept."
"I'm not that tired," Tony said, "I slept for half a day!"
"Obviously that wasn't enough," Steve said. Tony frowned but he knew that he wasn't going to win any arguments in the state he was in. He at least needed to wait until his chest wasn't hurting so much.
"Fine," he said reluctantly and got up to walk to his room.
Bruce tried to hand him a bottle of pills as he passed him, "you forgot to take your pain meds when you left the medical ward." He explained when Tony didn't take them from his hand.
"I don't like being handed things," Tony said. Bruce apologised and put the pills on the nearest bench so Tony could take them without them being handed to him. "Thanks," Tony said as he picked them up. At least now there was a chance he'd manage to get some sleep now since the pills would hopefully deal with the pain he was feeling.
He then walked past the two heroes and into his room where Kyle and Lucas were waiting for him. "Wheres Rebekah?" Tony asked.
"Sleeping," Lucas said quietly.
"What time is it?" Tony asked.
"About two am," Kyle said. Tony nodded.
"Well, apparently I need to sleep too," he said as he read the label on the pain medicine that Bruce had given him before taking one.
The other two men got onto their beds and Tony went into his. "Night guys," Kyle said softly. Tony ignored him and closed his eyes before eventually falling asleep.
After deciding that the name Antonia is way too feminine for when I’m having a day that isn’t purely female and the shortenings, Ant and Toni aren’t really for me I’m putting the name Wren on a kind of trial run thing to see if that works better…
Anyone wanna give me some Christmas/New Year’s prompts for Batjokes, Spideypool, Marvel Earth-616 or MCU or Rise Of The Guardians before it gets too late for me to write anything for the season?
Peter is seriously injured in battle, but refuses to go to the hospital (due to lack of money and insurance), so Wade is forced to play doctor and stitch him up.
Hey, sorry this took so long!
It was really fun to write and ended up far longer than expected though.
I hope you like it!
Stitches
Word count: 1944
Rating: T
Wade was beginning to get worried. Peter was meant to be home an hour ago and he still hadn’t shown up.
{He’s probably caught up doing Spider-Man things or something. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.} The yellow box said. He didn’t sound convinced.
“Probably,” Wade said, sounding equally as convinced as Yellow.
[Either that or he went and got himself killed.] The white box said flatly. Wade glared at where the box was floating. [I’m just saying what we’re all thinking.]
Wade sighed and got up.
{Where are we going?} Yellow asked.
“To find him,” Wade said as he geared up. He’d already been in his suit so all he had to do was put some guns in the empty holsters on his legs and put his swords on his back.
[Are you sure that’s a good idea?] White asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Wade asked back as he left through the window.
[What if he’s fine but just didn’t want to see us?]
{I wouldn’t blame him.}
“Shut up! Petey wouldn’t do that to us- to me!”
[What makes you so sure?]
“He loves me,” Wade said although he didn’t sound too sure about that anymore.
[He feels sorry for you,] White said. Wade tried to ignore him.
{He’s probably pretending,} Yellow joined in, {why would someone as perfect as him want a monster like us?}
“Shut up!” Wade yelled, startling a pigeon who had been sleeping on the building he was currently running on.
[Make us.] White dared. Wade ignored him and continued running on the rooftops looking for his Spidey, or at least any sign that he’d been around.
It took ten long minutes of the boxes tormenting him before Wade found some thugs wrapped up in webs. He smirked under his mask as he approached the tangle of men.
“What do you want?” One of them growled.
“Just thought I’d come and say hey,” Wade said.
“Fuck off!”
“Watch your language! There might be kids reading!”
“What?” the thug asked, confused.
“What?” Wade asked back.
{Ask him where Petey is!}
“I was getting to that,” Wade mumbled before giving his attention back to the thugs, “so, any of you willing to tell me where Spidey went?”
“Why would we tell you anything?” A different thug asked.
“Because I have sharp pointy things and wouldn’t hesitate to shove them into your chest,” Wade said with a grin that was obvious even with the mask on. When he got no response from any of them he drew one of his swords.
The third thug mumbled something in a rather panicked way. Wade looked over at him and noticed that his mouth had been webbed shut. The merc walked over and ripped the webbing off.
“You said something?”
“Spider-Man went that way,” the thug said, tilting his head to the left. Wade looked over to the left.
“If I find out you’re lying I guess we’ll see how long an idiot can last without his head,” He pressed the sword against the guy’s throat, hard enough to leave an indentation but not enough to break the skin.
“He’s not lying!” The first thug said. Wade sheathed his sword again before getting a roll of duct tape out of one of his pouches and taping all of their mouths shut.
[What was that for?] White asked as Wade walked in the direction that the thugs said Spidey had gone.
“They were annoying,” Wade said with a shrug.
It didn’t take long for Wade to spot the blood on the ground. He cursed loudly and started running to follow it. The little spots of blood were getting bigger and bigger the more they went on. The boxes were becoming increasingly silent until there was just one shared thought in Wade’s head.
It had better not be Peter’s blood!
“Petey!” Wade yelled when he saw the familiar red and blue suit.
“Wade?” Peter said weakly.
“What happened?! Who did this?! I need to get you to a hospital!” Wade said quickly and panicked as he scooped up his boyfriend carefully, trying not to disturb the wound to his abdomen that was covered in webbing as a makeshift bandage.
“No hospitals!” Spidey said. Wade frowned but started walking back home.
“Why?”
“No insurance,” Petey said, “plus we’re both in our suits.”
[He has a point.]
{It’s not like we can’t stitch him up.}
“That’s not the point,” Wade said to the boxes, “besides, we don’t have any pain killers stronger than paracetamol.”
“I can take the pain,” Peter said firmly. Wade groaned.
“Fine,” he said, “but only if you tell us- me what happened.”
“Thank you Wade!” Peter said, Wade could see the small smile under his boyfriend’s mask.
Peter smirked as he finished webbing the three thugs who had unsuccessfully tried to rob a store together.
“You can’t just leave us here!” One of them shouted at him.
“Since I have somewhere to be, I think I can,” Peter said. He turned to leave and get back home where Wade would be waiting for him. He was already at least half an hour late thanks to this group.
“What if we have places to be?”
“You should probably have thought about that before you tried to steal from a shop.”
“But-” One began to say but Peter had had enough and didn’t hesitate to web his mouth shut before swinging off.
[But we picked up the blood trail not that far from the guys he tied up,] White interrupted, suddenly making Wade aware of how quiet the boxes had been while Peter was telling them what happened.
“Shh, let him finish,” Wade mumbled.
“What are they saying?” Peter asked.
“Nothing important baby boy, continue,” Wade prompted.
Peter didn’t get to swing very far before he saw another burglary in progress. There were only two guys this time though and he didn’t think they’d take him much more than ten minutes to defeat.
The fight had been going pretty well, for Peter at least. He hadn’t, however, been expecting his spidey sense to go off mid-fight, or for one of them to pull out a knife and stab his side before he could do anything to stop it. After realising what they’d done, the people who had been trying to rob an ATM ran away.
Peter quickly webbed up the wound but didn’t do a great job at it and was still losing blood. He tried to head home, knowing that Wade would know what to do.
“And then you found me,” Peter said. Wade nodded in understanding. They were still a little while away from their shared flat since Wade was being extra careful not to disturb Peter’s wound too much and sticking to dark streets instead of jumping around the rooftops.
[I don’t like it.] White said suddenly.
{What?} Yellow asked. Wade wanted to know too.
[Someone did this to our Spidey and we’re not going to do anything to them?!]
“We can’t. We don’t know anything about them and right now, Spidey’s more important,” Wade said. As much as he’d love to hunt down and kill the dude who’d hurt Peter, he couldn’t. At least not until he knew Peter was going to be okay.
“No killing!” Peter said, obviously assuming that that was what Wade would do if he ever did find the guy.
“But-” Wade began, he couldn’t just let someone who seriously injured his boyfriend get away with it.
“Wade!” Peter interrupted. Wade groaned but didn’t argue with his injured spider.
When the pair eventually arrived at their apartment, they entered through the window that Wade had left from so that people didn’t know that Spider-Man and Deadpool lived there.
When they got in, Wade placed Peter on the bed and left to find the medical kit that he knew Peter had somewhere.
After retrieving the med kit, with a little help from the boxes, Wade returned to the bedroom to see that Peter had taken his mask off. The young man didn’t look good. Well, he always looked good but he didn’t look well. Wade shifted his gaze from Peter’s face to the wound on his abdomen. There was little he hated more than seeing his baby boy hurt.
The merc took off his gloves to reveal the scarred skin underneath. He tentatively placed a hand over the makeshift web bandage Peter had made.
“This might hurt,” he warned before carefully pulling the webbing off, trying his best to ignore the pained noises Peter was making. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to patch up a wound this bad,” he muttered to himself.
“I guess the healing factor means you don’t really have to worry about that kind of thing, huh?” Peter said. Wade could tell he was trying to hide the pain in his voice. He wasn’t doing a particularly good job.
“Exactly,” Wade said, hoping he was doing a better job than Peter at hiding the worry in his voice.
“You’ll do fine,” Peter said as Wade pulled the last bit of webbing from the wound. He began to put pressure on it to try and at least slow down the bleeding.
He grabbed an antiseptic wipe from the med kit. “Now, I’m not gonna lie, this is gonna sting like a bitch,” he said as he opened it. He took it out of the pack and hissed in pain as it came into contact with the sores on his hands.
“Were you warning me or yourself?” Peter asked, wade could hear the smirk in his voice.
“A little of both,” Wade said with a small smile. He began to clean Peter’s wound but flinched away when the younger man called out in pain.
“No, keep going!” Peter insisted.
“I dunno Petey,” Wade began. He really didn’t like causing his boyfriend more pain than he was already in.
“Please Wade,” Peter said quietly. Wade’s frown was extremely obvious under his mask. “It needs to be cleaned, Wade.”
The merc continued to clean Peter’s wound, forcing himself to keep going despite how much pain it was obviously causing Peter. He knew it would just get worse if he didn’t clean it.
He looked at the cut to see it wasn’t quite as bad as he’d thought. It was still bleeding rather steadily though.
{We should stitch it up}
[Aren’t there more things we need to do first?] White asked, he sounded concerned.
“I think just stitching it now would be okay. His healing factor should be enough to stop it getting infected,” Wade said. He hoped he was right.
“Do we even have suturing supplies?” Peter asked.
Wade digged around in the med kit doe a bit before taking out both a sterile needle and some medical thread. “Apparently we do,” he said, “how long will this even take to heal?” He was never sure how long it took people who didn’t have a healing factor like his to heal.
“I don’t know, probably a week or two,” Peter said.
“That’s ages!” Wade said as he threaded the needle. “Let’s see if I can remember how to do this…” He said as he began to stitch Petey’s wound up.
It took a while and a lot of concentration but Wade eventually finished stitching his boyfriend up. “As good as new!” He said with a small smile before bandaging Peter’s abdomen.
“Thank you Wade!” Peter said with a smile.
“That’s what boyfriend’s are for right? Patching the other one up when he get’s stabbed because he’s a superhero.” Wade said.
“Something like that,” Peter said, pulling Wade down for a kiss which the merc gladly obliged to.
To get in the spirit of Batjokes Week, the group chat has decided to hold a Batjokes “selfie” kinda thing!
What to do:
you can take pictures of yourself dressing in batman merch or joker merch
you can take pictures of yourself doing something related to batjokes (holding your drawing up to the camera, set your action figures etc etc. Whatever comes to your mind)
post your selfie on your tumblr blog and tag it as “batjokesmugshot”
When you post selfies:
Start: Aug 3rd
End: Aug 10th
If you have any questions or you need more details, please do not hesitate to contact these people:
ALEKSGILES | LADYVANDAELE | MAORUKEN | CHASEYBBY69
Send me prompts guys! Preferably Spideypool or Batjokes but pretty much anything to do with DC or Marvel would be awesome. I’m in the mood to write but have no good ideas right now.
I think I have a prompt for you! It's batjokes :3 Joker sneaks into Wayne manor and makes breakfast in bed for Bruce, and when Bruce is like "where's Alfred??" He walks in and goes "I helped Joker with the eggs. Did you know he's not that bad a guy?"
Thanks for the prompt!
Breakfast In Bed
Word Count: 504
Waking up to his boyfriend grinning at him with a tray of food was somewhat unexpected for Bruce Wayne.
“Surprise!” Joker said, a sing-song quality to his voice when he noticed that Bruce had woken up. Bruce smiled at him.
“Hey,” he said sleepily. Joker placed the tray on the bedside table and sat down on the bed where Bruce was now sitting up. The pair had a small, sleepy kiss.
“Not that I don’t like your company, but how did you even get in here?” Bruce asked. He was pretty sure that Wayne Manor’s security should have locked him out.
Joker laughed, “I used a window. You should really leave those locked Brucie, you never know what kind of maniac could break in” Bruce shook his head in slight disbelief and picked up the tray of breakfast food.
He was slightly suspicious of the fact that his boyfriend had never mentioned cooking and then suddenly decided to drop into Wayne Manor one morning just to make breakfast for him.
“What?” Joker asked, possibly seeing that Bruce was a little suspicious of him, “I didn’t poison it or anything Bats.”
“It’s not that…” Bruce said, the thought of his food being poisoned hadn’t even entered his mind until Joker brought it up. “I just didn’t think you cooked.” Joker just smirked. Bruce started eating and Joker would occasionally steal something from his plate.
About half way through the meal, a sudden thought occured to Bruce. “Where’s Alfred?!” He asked. Really hoping that the clown hadn’t done anything to his butler. As if on cue Alfred knocked on the door and came in.
“I think he’s at the door,” Joker said with a grin and a laugh, only glancing at the old man.
Bruce gulped. He hadn’t really been planning on telling Alfred about his relationship with the Joker, scared of the man’s reaction. “You’ve met J right?” He asked, trying to play it cool.
“Indeed sir, I can’t say I wasn’t a little startled at his unexpected arrival earlier this morning,” Alfred said. Bruce glared at Joker.
“I may have accidently run into him while looking for your kitchen,” Joker said, “you can’t really blame me though Bruce, it’s not easy to find your way around in this place.”
“After he… explained what he was doing here I showed him to the kitchen and helped him with the eggs,” Alfred said. “While I can’t say much about your taste in men, Master Bruce, I can say that the Joker is not quite as bad as I thought he was.”
Bruce smiled softly. He hadn’t expected Alfred to be okay with Joker. “He’s really not,” he agreed.
“Well I’m glad everyone sees how awesome I am but the food’s getting cold Brucie,” Joker whined. Bruce rolled his eyes.
“I’m sorry for interrupting, but Master Bruce, don’t forget you have an interview with Vicki Vale later today.”
“Thanks Alfred,” Bruce said. The butler nodded and left the room, letting the pair finish their breakfast in peace.
Summary: Fury all but forces the Avengers to live together in Stark tower after it’s rebuilt from the New York battle. There’s just one problem. None of them trust each other. Tony doesn’t even see himself as part of the group. Tony centric. Set before IM3.
Word Count: 3081.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I wish I owned Marvel.
Tony looked at Steve as the man slept. He knew that he should follow suit, that he needed rest, but he couldn't bear the thought of the nightmares. His mind began to wander. There wasn't much he could do to keep himself occupied in a small cave that held memories he wanted to forget. He thought about a lot of things, he wasn't expecting to get out of the cave and not sure about what he'd face if he did, even less sure about whether he'd be able to take it on without his armor. Steve was right about one thing on the Helicarrier, without Iron Man, Tony is nothing.
He also thought of Yinsen though. Of how he could have saved the man. Of how the man and his family wouldn't have been killed in the first place if it wasn't for him and his stupid weaponry. That was at least one thing Hammer had gotten right, it was Tony's firearms that killed Yinsen, along with thousands of other innocent people. It was something he was trying to make up for even though he knew that nothing he could do would ever make up for the deaths he had caused.
The other Avengers had returned to the tower as they were unsure of where to look next. Bruce, Natasha and Clint were in the lab. Thor had gone back to Asgard for some reason or another, Bruce didn't want to guess why with his limited knowledge of the realm. He was a little confused as to why the god had chosen the time when two of his team members were missing though.
"Come on, there has to be some clue!" Clint's words brought Bruce out of his thoughts about Thor.
"Cool down Clint," Natasha said, "Bruce is working on it."
"He might work better if you two stop looking over his shoulder," Bruce interjected, the assassins looked at him and he looked up, "it makes me nervous."
"Okay, Bruce is right, us pressuring him isn't going to make him find the others any sooner," Natasha said, pulling Clint towards the elevator.
"Make sure you alert us the minute, no, the second, you find anything!"
"Of course," Bruce replied before going back to looking at the scene. He sighed. With Jarvis offline there wasn't much he could do and the only person who knew how to get the AI back online was missing.
Then it struck him, maybe Pepper knew how to get him back online. The doctor called her.
"Bruce! Have you had any luck?"
"Err, no," Bruce said, "I was wondering if you could help me..?"
"I could try. What do you need help with?"
"Did Tony ever tell you how to get Jarvis back online?"
"No," Pepper said. Bruce was quiet. "But I do know where his core is if that's any help.."
"It's at least a start."
"I'll be right down," Pepper said before hanging up.
Bruce sighed. He really hoped that rebooting Jarvis would be as easy as flicking a switch or pushing a button. It could take him a while to figure out how to get him online otherwise.
Tony sighed and tried to fight the boredom that the night brought. He began to hum quietly, not one of the usual rock songs he listened to in his lab but a softer tune. It helped to keep his mind off of dark thoughts and memories although it didn't help as much as he'd have liked it to.
Tony looked up to a camera and cocked his head. Just what was Hammer doing and who was he doing it with? Whoever it was was good and dangerous. They knew far too much about him although they didn't seem to have told Hammer everything. That could have been because they themselves didn't know everything or it could have been that they didn't trust Hammer enough to tell him everything.
He sat in the darkness of the room, closing his eyes against the blue of the Arc. He was tired and wasn't sure how much longer he could hold off sleep. He didn't want to risk a nightmare but he would need all of his strength if they were to escape somehow.
Pepper opened up a complicated secret file in Tony's main computer that led to Jarvis' core before she left again. The core was complicated, the files within the first were named in binary and coding and opening a file lead to yet more binary and coding. Bruce had to admit that he had no idea what to do to get Jarvis back online and what would cause the AI to break even more.
On top of that it was rather late and he could see that he'd woken Pepper up. He sighed and decided he'd take another look in the morning but he needed to rest. He closed the main file and turned off the computer.
He returned to his floor where he went to sleep, worrying about his lost teammates. He could only hope that wherever they were they were okay.
Steve woke first. He glanced at Tony and was surprised to see that the man was sleeping. He hoped that Tony would get adequate rest although he suspected that the man would be having nightmares.
A few minutes later, Tony began to thrash. Steve wasn't sure what to do and that was when Hammer's voice filled the room.
"The great Anthony Stark has nightmares, who'd have known?" Steve knew that it wasn't a question. He was mad at Hammer. Why would the man want to emotionally bully Tony? It didn't make sense to him.
"Why are you doing this Hammer?!" He asked in the tone of voice he'd use when questioning any villain.
"I'd have thought that that would be obvious," Hammer said, "Mr. Stark over there ruined my life." Steve raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. He looked back over at Tony who was thrashing a lot more and wasn't sure if he should wake him or not. He wasn't sure how aggressive Tony would be if he was suddenly awoken from whatever nightmare he was having.
Steve looked around the room, searching for a weakness. Anything that he could use to somehow escape. There was nothing though. The dimly lit cave had nothing in it other than the bare light bulb that was hanging from the roof.
Tony suddenly woke and was hyperventilating. It took him a little while to realize that he wasn't in his nightmare and even longer to realize that he wasn't in Afghanistan. He buried his fear and panic under weak confidence.
"You're finally awake," Hammer said. Tony glared at a camera. "I wonder what else I heard was true about your time in Afghanistan."
Tony dreaded the implications of that sentence. "Who are you working with Hammer?"
"Why do you think I'm working with someone?" Hammer asked. He sounded slightly hurt.
"Maybe because you're too dumb to hack into Jarvis and there's no way that anyone as idiotic as you could know so much about Afghanistan. I mean, come on, even Rogers over here is better with technology than you."
Steve wasn't sure about how he felt about being used as an insult due to his limited knowledge of modern technology.
Hammer didn't say anything and Tony smiled softly at the small victory. "Don't think you've won Stark."
Tony's smirked. He was going to have some fun with Hammer, or try to at least. "Wasn't I always the winner here? I mean, I'm far more clever than you, not that that's saying much, and I'm also a billionaire."
"Who's trapped in who's cave here?" Hammer asked.
"I don't know, you tell me."
"What's that meant to mean?"
"Well, presumably you are in the vicinity or at least unable to do anything else while your watching us which kinda means that you're trapped too. Also, that's really creepy. You shouldn't watch people." When Hammer didn't respond Tony's smirk only grew.
"What was the point of that?" Steve asked.
"It's kinda fun to annoy him. He's a huge idiot but he thinks he's a genius. It resulted in him ruining my Expo the other year." Steve looked at him quizzically. "You didn't know about that?" Steve's face was still blank, "you really need to catch up Capsicle." Steve shrugged, he'd read Tony's file and there was nothing about Justin Hammer on it. Maybe Tony had deleted that part like he had with the majority of his file.
Steve wanted to ask what happened in Afghanistan all those years ago but he wouldn't. He didn't want to rush the genius and he wasn't even sure if he'd be able to handle the information himself. Instead he decided to ask about a name that had been on Howard's file. He hadn't seen the name on Tony's but considering , "Tony, who is Obadiah Stane?"
Tony's hands immediately went to his chest, as if to protect the Arc Reactor, "where did you hear that name?" He asked, slight panic in his voice.
"It was on your fath- Howard's file," Steve explained.
Tony sighed, he hadn't thought of going through Howard and Maria's files, mainly because he had doubted that anyone would read them. "Obie.. Stane was all I had for a long time. He was a friend, a mentor and a father to me."
"Then why do you never talk about him?"
Tony took a deep breath, "when I got back from Afghanistan I stopped weapon production. Stane didn't approve of that but it was my company so there wasn't much he could do about it. I built my Mark II Iron Man suit, then fixed some things with the Mark III and began to destroy all of the illegal Stark Industries weapons." Tony sighed, "Before this though I had replaced my Arc Reactor with a better one."
"What does this have to do with Stane?" Steve asked. Tony glared at him.
"I soon found out that it was Stane who had been illegally selling my weapons and not only that, Stane was the one who organised my capture, of course, he had wanted them just to kill me straight away but luckily for me, the Ten Rings were greedy and wanted me to make more weaponry. Anyway, Stane had made a crude copy of the Mark I but he needed a power source so he stole my Arc. I managed to get to my 'shop and put the old one in again." Tony wasn't looking at Steve but instead at the wall of the cave, "I killed him and then told the world that I was Iron Man," he turned back to Steve, "so I'm sorry if I never talk about the man who is responsible for trying to kill me on not one, but two occasions. Ironically though, I wouldn't have made the Iron Man suit if it wasn't for him."
Steve wasn't sure what to say to that but there was one thing he didn't really understand, "why is the Arc Reactor so important anyway?"
Tony sighed, he'd almost forgotten that Steve knew nothing about technology and that not many people knew about the Arc. "The Arc is essentially my heart," he said as he looked down at the metal, "it keeps me alive."
"How does it do that?"
"It powers an electromagnet that stops the shrapnel lodged in my chest from getting any closer to my actual heart."
"Why is there shrapnel in your chest?!"
"Because I was hit by a bomb that quite literally had my name on it," Tony laughed a little although there was no joy in it.
"So, you got hit by a blast of a SI bomb and now you have shrapnel in your chest that's only not killing you because of the Arc Reactor?" Steve asked, making sure he understood.
"Yep."
"How deep is it?"
"The Reactor or the shrapnel?"
Steve considered the question for a few minutes, "both."
"The Reactor stops somewhere between my lungs and the deepest bit of shrapnel is almost on my heart from what I can tell."
"Does it hurt?" Tony was surprised by the question, no one had asked him that for a long time and he hadn't been expecting Steve to care enough or even think to ask.
"I've gotten used to it."
"But does it still hurt?" Steve asked, real concern in his voice. Tony sighed.
"Do you think having a roughly three inch hole in your chest filled with a titanium cylinder pressed between your lungs to stop the shrapnel that is almost piercing your heart from going any deeper wouldn't hurt?"
"I suppose that that's a yes then."
"No shit Sherlock." Tony was feeling the titanium cylinder against his lungs and the shrapnel in his chest a lot more than he had done in a while due to thinking about them and was finding it difficult to breathe around it.
"Couldn't the doctors have taken all of the shrapnel out?"
Tony shut his eyes tightly and tried not to remember the pain of Yinsen's surgery. "He didn't have the technology to do that."
"Why not? Aren't you the smartest and richest man in America or something?"
"Something like that," Tony said, sighing, "but I wasn't in America at the time."
"Where were you?"
"Afghanistan."
At that the subject was dropped. Steve needed to take time to process what Tony had just told him and Tony needed a break, his breathing had become difficult but it was more the memories of Yinsen and the surgery that were hurting him.
Thor returned while Bruce was trying to figure out how to work out Jarvis' files. Clint went down to the lab to tell Bruce who left with him as they went to the communal floor and joined the others.
"Friend Bruce, I bring news of our comrades."
"Do you know where they are?" Bruce asked.
"Indeed I do!"
"How?" Natasha asked.
"I asked Heimdall if he could see them."
"So that's why you went to Asgard!"
"Where are they then?" Bruce asked.
"Here in New York."
"Can you be any more precise?"
"Come friends, follow me," Thor said before leaving the building via the balcony.
"You know," Clint called after him, "we don't all have magic hammers."
The next time Tony spoke about his past it was almost inaudible and he was facing away from Steve. "After my parents died, it was just me. I was left with their fortune and company so I did what any teenager would do and became addicted to the more dangerous drugs and drank way too much, I was just generally having a fun time.
"But then, when I was twenty one, I took over the company and had to make myself semi-respectable, which was hard. With Obie's help I came off the drugs although little changed with my drinking.
"I made Stark Industries great, we had weapons that were unparalleled to any other and they were just getting more powerful. The media gave me lots of titles including 'the merchant of death'which was one I'd never taken seriously until…"
"Afghanistan." Steve whispered slowly. Tony nodded and gulped.
"I was demonstrating the Jericho Missile over there and that went pretty well. Then it all went to hell when we were going back to the plane. We got bombed, by my own bombs. The people- kids- I was with were all killed, as far as I know. One had even taken a picture with me.
"I did the most stupid thing I could have done then. I got out of the car. I hid behind a rock and began texting Stane but then one of my bombs landed close to me and blew up before I could get far enough away.
"The next thing I knew, I was in surgery having my chest opened," he stopped talking as he tried to fight off a flashback, "that hurt like a bitch."
"Hold on. The surgery was done while you were awake, with no painkillers!?"
Tony nodded, "then, I must have passed out or something because the next thing I knew, I was lying on a thin mattress in a cave with a car battery attached to my chest. Yinsen explained a few things and I then I was told by the leader, Raza, to make a Jericho missile."
"You refused?"
"Of course I refused!" Tony snapped, "and so they tortured me. Waterboarded me."
Tony was suddenly there again, his head being dunked into the tank of water until he couldn't hold his breath any longer, began thrashing and had to inhale some of the water. His head was violently pulled out of the water, which splashed onto the wires of the car battery giving him painful burns. He was given no time to do anything other than take another breath before it happened again. The next time his head was pulled up, he saw the face of one of the men in the room, he was smirking and laughing at the torture. His face warped into a worried looking Steve but Tony only saw it for a second.
The next time he was pulled up, he noticed that it was Steve's face and the lips were moving. He tried to concentrate on what he was saying and heard "It's not real Tony, you're not there." Tony tried to rationalize that and everything began to fade away.
But Tony was in a cave that looked like the one from Afghanistan. He put a hand on his chest protectively and scrambled to get as far away from Steve as he could.
Then there was suddenly a loud banging coming from outside. Tony brought his knees to his chest, bowed his head and covered his ears with his hands as a poor attempt to block out the sound.
The next thing he knew, there was a lot of shouting and he was being carried in large arms, arms far too big to be human. He opened his eyes to see the Hulk's thick green skin.
"Heya big green!" He said, Hulk looked down at him.
"Tony rest!" He ordered.
"Okay, big fella, okay," Tony said, laughing a little. Now that he thought about it he was extremely tired. All of those nights with no sleep seemed to be finally catching up to him. He didn't even have time to think about the others seeing him have a nightmare before he fell asleep.
Summary: Fury all but forces the Avengers to live together in Stark tower after it’s rebuilt from the New York battle. There’s just one problem. None of them trust each other. Tony doesn’t even see himself as part of the group. Tony centric. Set before IM3.
Word Count: 2619.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Marvel isn’t mine. :(
The next time Tony decided to talk about his past was a few hours later. "He spoke about you a lot," he said with a normal voice, no fear like when he was speaking before. Steve wasn't sure if he should take that as a good thing or not.
"Yeah?" Steve asked. He glanced at Tony but continued to do sit ups.
Tony nodded. "Yep. You were the perfect Steven Rogers." Tony laughed a little. "You were also my childhood hero," he said, smiling at the memory of all the Captain America action figures and merchandise he had. He had to get his mind off of the fact that he was in a cave very similar to the one in Afghanistan somehow. Talking seemed to be working.
"I would never have guessed that the great Tony Stark would have liked Captain America," Steve said, smirking.
"Of course, that was before I found out how much of a jerk you are." Tony said. Steve glared at him and threw a rock near his head. "What was that for?! You know it's true."
"I am not a jerk." Steve said. "If anyone is, it's you."
That was mean. Tony frowned and looked away. "He compared me to you a lot, always asking me why I couldn't be more like you." He frowned at the memories. "It was like you were his first and favorite son. I was merely a bad replacement." He could feel the tears prick in his eyes but refused to let them fall. "He never stopped looking for you."
Steve wasn't sure what he should say to that. The resentment Tony had for him suddenly made sense. "I- I'm sorry.."
"What for?" Tony asked. "It's not your fault." As much as I'd love to have someone to blame.
"It's not yours either," Steve said. He was finally beginning to see Tony for who he was under the layers of protective masks he wore.
Tony wished he could believe that. He really did. He didn't though, not for a second. It was his fault that he wasn't the perfect son. Maybe if he'd done sports and acted more like Captain America things would have been different. But he hadn't, and that was his own fault. He didn't respond, but after a moment of silence he got up to see if he could figure out how to get out.
"It's too quiet," he muttered some time later. He disliked silence as it meant that his thoughts seemed louder and were unable to be blocked out.
Steve nodded in agreement. "How long do you think it will be before we get out of here?"
"Well, considering how much of an idiot Hammer is, I wouldn't say it would be too long." He paused. "But the fact that Hammer is obviously not working alone makes me worried."
"Worried?"
"Yes. Whoever he's working with knows information about me that I haven't told anyone other than Jarvis. They were able to hack into and shut J down so it would make sense for them to know everything about me." Tony sighed. He was suddenly very vulnerable. "If any of this information gets out to the public then I'm as good as dead," he muttered.
"Tony.. What happened to you in Afghanistan?" Steve asked.
Flashes of images shot through Tony's mind as he went into another panic attack. Steve, again, had no idea what to do. He just repeated the words he'd said the first time until Tony came back.
After catching his breath for a moment, Tony spoke. "I don't like to talk about it," he said quietly.
"Why not?" Steve asked.
"Because whenever I think about it for too long I get either a panic attack or a flashback," Tony said with possibly a little too much hostility in his voice.
"Okay.." Steve said. Was it possible that Tony did actually have PTSD? It would make sense. He wasn't sure if it would do any good in asking but he wanted to know. "Tony, do you have PTSD?" he asked.
Tony looked away from the super soldier. "Only about Afghanistan and the wormhole," he said honestly and quite quietly for him.
Steve had been sort of expecting Afghanistan but the wormhole was not something he'd expected. "The wormhole?" he found himself asking from curiosity.
Tony closed his eyes and saw the huge expanse of space, saw how small he was, how small everything was, in comparison and just how alone he was. He felt with certainty that he was going to die. His eyes shot open from slight panic. "Yes." He said softly.
"What was so traumatic about that?" Steve asked, genuinely confused. He didn't see how space could be traumatic in any way.
Tony looked at him. Someone really needed to teach Steve to think before he spoke. 'Other than the fact that everyone in the world thought I was going to die, including me. Pepper not answering her phone and the suit going completely offline leaving me to look at just how big the universe really is for a split second in complete silence before my Arc Reactor went offline and I passed out? Nothing.' He thought to himself, his breathing becoming more erratic as he remembered.
Usually at this point Jarvis would be advising him to take deep breaths but Jarvis wasn't there to help him. Fortunately, as idiotic as he could be, Steve was there. "Tony," he said. "Calm down. Panicking isn't going to help us get out of here."
Tony attempted to block Steve out. He knew that panicking wasn't going to help. He was trying his hardest not to panic but Steve mentioning panicking was making him more inclined to panic.
"Just.. Breathe," Steve instructed. "Take some deep breathes.. In… and out…" He demonstrated a deep breath for Tony, who did begin to relax as he took control of his breathing.
Tony didn't say anything. Steve didn't either. He knew that it was his fault that Tony almost had another panic attack but he still didn't see how space could be so terrible. It seemed like the sort of thing Tony would love to see.
Maybe under different circumstances.
Back at the Tower the others were wondering what had happened to Steve, Tony and Jarvis.
"Tony would never shut Jarvis down," Bruce said. "Something has to be wrong."
"I agree," Thor said. "We should try to find friends Tony and Steve."
"They're Avengers. They can take care of themselves," Clint said, not looking away from the TV. "Besides, I'm sure they're fine. Tony probably shut the computer down for repairs or something."
"'The computer' has a name. Jarvis," Bruce said. "And he wouldn't do that without telling us."
Natasha looked at the team. She could see that Bruce at least was truly worried. "Look, Bruce knows Tony best and if he says that this in uncharacteristic then it's uncharacteristic." Bruce looked at her thankfully. "Were there any signs of a struggle in the lab?" she asked.
"I can't get down there without the codes or Jarvis," Bruce told her.
"Let me guess," Clint said, "Tony is the only person with the codes?"
"Actually, no," Pepper said as she entered the room. "I have them too."
"How convenient," Clint said under his breath. Natasha glared at him.
"Can you let us into the lab then?" Bruce asked Pepper. She nodded and they all went to the elevator, some more reluctantly than others.
"I'm sure that everything's okay," Clint groaned, receiving a glare from everyone else.
"I hope you're right," Natasha said. "For your sake."
Pepper punched a code into a panel on the elevator and it began to go down. The elevator journey was tense, the only noise being Clint's occasional complaint.
When they got to the bottom they weren't surprised to see that all the lights were off. Pepper quickly turned on the lights and they found that the door separating the lab from the small room where the elevator was was open.
Pepper cautiously entered the lab. There were obvious signs of a scuffle. Glass was shattered on the floor where beakers had been knocked over and there was a small amount of blood on the floor.
Bruce quickly took a blood sample and put it under a microscope.
"You were saying..?" Natasha asked Clint.
"So, I was wrong," he said. "What happened here?"
"Looks like Tony was knocked out pretty easily but then Steve entered the lab for some reason and he tried to fight but was also knocked out after bleeding a little."
"How do you know it's Steve's blood?" Clint asked.
"Steve's blood has the Super Soldier serum in it," Bruce said. "Something I am quite familiar with."
Pepper was quite obviously scared for Tony so Bruce tried to comfort her. "He'll be fine," he said. "We'll find them." She looked at him gratefully.
"Who would want to take son of Stark?" Thor asked.
"Does he have any enemies?" Natasha asked.
Pepper thought for a moment. "None that could get him," she told them.
"Are you sure?" Clint asked.
"Well, there is Justin Hammer.." she said. "But he's in prison and even if he got out there is no way he'd be able to override Jarvis."
"Until we know for certain, he's the main suspect then," Natasha said. "It may be that he's working with someone else."
"What prison is he in? We should check if he's still there," Bruce said.
Pepper told them and they all made their way there in uniform, other than Bruce, who just went in his normal clothes. He took Steve's shield with him, though. He knew that the Captain would want it when they found them. Pepper stayed at the tower despite her wanting to go with them. They had all told her that it would be too dangerous.
They went into one of Tony's private jets. Clint was piloting.
When they got to the prison, they were greeted by the warden, who was surprised to see them but took them to Hammer's cell when requested. He was gone.
"I don't know how this could have happened," the warden said nervously.
"Did anyone ever visit him?" Natasha asked.
"Not that I can recall," the warden said. He seemed to think for a moment before talking again. "Although there was one visit about a week ago."
"Who was it?" Natasha asked.
"I can't remember. They only stayed for a minute before leaving anyway," the warden told her.
"Do you keep records of the visitors?" Bruce asked. The warden nodded. "Where are they?"
They were led through the halls and into a server room. The guard who was stationed there went onto the computers and brought up the visitation logs.
"There's nothing here about someone visiting Hammer," he told the warden and the Avengers.
"Are you sure?" Bruce asked. The guard nodded. "Can you see if anyone has hacked into the system?"
"I'm really not good enough at computing to know how to do that, sir," the guard said. Bruce nodded in understanding.
"Unless we get SHIELD involved, we're not going to know who visited Hammer," he told the others.
"Can't you see if anyone hacked it?" Clint asked.
"Tony is the one who can do things with technology. Not me," Bruce told Clint.
"But you're smart," Clint said.
"I'm a physicist," Bruce told him.
"You two shut up," Natasha said. "Thank you for the help," she said to the warden and the guard before leading the others out of the prison.
"So, either no one visited Hammer and he escaped by himself, or someone is working hard to cover their tracks," she said once they were in the jet, heading back to the tower.
"Who is this son of Hammer?" Thor asked.
"I have no idea, I think Tony put him in prison for something to do with robots a year or two back," Bruce said.
"So why would someone want to break him out?" Clint asked.
"A mutual hatred to Tony maybe?" Natasha asked.
"It's possible," Bruce said.
Tony sighed. He couldn't figure out any way out and all he could find to be happy about was that Hammer hadn't replaced the Arc Reactor with a car battery. He touched the glowing bit of technology in his chest under his shirt, remembering making the very first one with Yinsen.
That had taken time and a lot of resources and Tony hadn't even been sure that it was going to work. Not that he was complaining that it had.
It still hurt him every time he breathed and he couldn't take extremely deep breaths as it was pressed right against his lungs. He had gotten used to the pain a long time ago though and barely noticed it anymore.
He was finding it increasingly difficult to take his mind off of Afghanistan so he began to talk to Steve again, not really caring if the man was paying attention.
"He sent me off to boarding school when I was eight," he said, lying with his back on the cold stone floor with his eyes closed. "I was happy, it meant I could get away from him." He paused. "I never saw Jarvis again after that, though."
"Isn't Jarvis your AI?" Steve asked. Tony opened his eyes and sat up.
"Edwin Jarvis was my butler and my only friend," he said. "Jarvis is named after him."
"Oh.." Steve said. "What happened after you went to boarding school?"
"I went on to study at MIT, made Dummy and got my first degree by the time I was 17," Tony said. "Of course, that still wasn't enough to make Howard proud of me." Tony stopped talking.
Steve waited for him to talk again in silence.
"And then they died," Tony said. "I was told that it was instant and neither of them felt any pain when they.. Moved on. I was angry. I wanted him to suffer. I didn't want her to die though, she'd done nothing wrong." Tony felt the tears roll down his cheeks. "That's when I invested in my first pair of sunglasses. The press thought I wore them to hide my tears and I guess they were partly right. I didn't want them to see the tears I shed over Maria. The main reason I wore them was so they wouldn't see the lack of feeling in my eyes when I spoke about Howard at the funeral though." He lay down again and closed his eyes. "Back then I wasn't good at making a fake feeling go to my eyes too."
"What killed them?" Steve asked as he thought about the last sentence Tony had said. He could fake a feeling so well now that it even showed in his eyes?!
"Car crash," Tony said, a slightly bored tone to his voice. "A drunk driver hit them. He died on impact."
Steve didn't ask any more questions and Tony didn't say anything else.
About an hour later, the third meal of the day was delivered through a hatch on the door. Tony ignored it, like he had done with the previous two. Steve would have ignored it but his super metabolism meant that he needed to at least three times a day, especially considering the size and amount of nutrients in the meals they were getting.
"You should eat," he told Tony.
"I'm not hungry," Tony said. Steve knew he wasn't going to be able to get the stubborn genius to eat, so he didn't try again.
After he ate, he could tell it was getting pretty late from his internal clock, and decided to call it a night. He hoped that Tony would do the same.
As promised, I’m going to start writing again, just some one shots for the moment but I guess I’m actually back now.
I’m not updating my multi-chaptered fics for a couple of reasons, the main one being that I have some extreme writers block and just don’t know what I want to do with either of them now.
If you have any oneshot prompts for me then it’d be awesome to send them into my ask as I don’t have all that many good ideas in my head right now.
Thanks again for following me everyone and I hope you like the stories that I’ll start posting guys.
So I haven’t been very active on this blog recently thanks to the fact that I’ve had some serious writers block these past months and really haven’t been able to bring myself to finish either story or write a new chapter for them.
I randomly decided to actually check this blog though and was kind of surprised to see how many followers I’d gotten in my absence. Not that I’m complaining.
Anyway, to celebrate the 50 follower mark, when we reach it, I’m going to start posting again. I may not post new chapters for my two multi-chap fics Enjinia and Trust Issues but I will definitely write and post some one shots as there are a few plot ideas I have which I think may work somewhat well.
Other than that, please send me prompts, preferably for The Avengers, Batman or ROTG and I’ll probably write them. :)
hey so im sure many of you have seen the selfie week going around by aFpE.
unfortunately, aFpE is kind of horrible(some explanation here and here and here and many other places on tumblr.) xana and i (and many other lgbt people) were very uncomfortable participating in a selfie thing set up by her and have made one by two people who support the entire community!
so, heres the run down!
JUNE 2ND- gay men!
JUNE 3RD- lesbians!
JUNE 8TH- trans men
JUNE 10TH- trans women!
JUNE 12TH- intersex people!
JUNE 15TH- aroace umbrella! (this includes demi, grey, etc.)
JUNE 19TH- bisexual/biromantic!
JUNE 21ST- pansexual/panromantic!
JUNE 23RD- nonbinary people!
JUNE 25TH- not yet been featured? show your stuff! we’re very sorry abt the limited number of days, that’s why we included this day!
JUNE 27TH- remembrance! this is a day to remember members of our community who are no longer with us. please tag posts carefully.
JUNE 29TH-30TH- these days is to talk about your experience. whether its your coming out story, your experience with being closeted, or how you came/are coming to terms with your identity!
we would very much appreciate your help in spreading this so it can get out to as many people as possible! thanks!!
Summary: Fury all but forces the Avengers to live together in Stark tower after it’s rebuilt from the New York battle. There’s just one problem. None of them trust each other. Tony doesn’t even see himself as part of the group. Tony centric. Set before IM3.
Word Count: 2630.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Last I checked, Marvel wasn't mine.
First | <-- Previous
The week had been slow. After the whole flashback incident the Avengers were staying even further away from Tony than usual. Not that he complained. He liked the peace of being alone in his lab with just the bots for company. It reminded him of how everything was before the Avengers came to live with him.
He was listening to some extremely loud AC/DC while working on a suit when the music suddenly stopped. He put down the part of the armor he was working on.
"Jarvis?" He asked. When he got no response he began to panic slightly. "Jarvis?!" He asked again.
"I'm sorry." A man's voice said. He recognized that voice. "But your little AI friend is offline." Justin Hammer. How the hell did Hammer manage to shut down Jarvis?! He had to be working for or with someone but who in their right mind would work with an idiot like Hammer?
"What do you want Hammer?!" He asked, masking panic with boredom.
"Oh, not much." Hammer said. "Just your.. Cooperation." Tony stared at him.
"Why on earth would I 'cooperate'?" He asked. It was obvious that Hammer believed to have something that would force Tony into submission and Tony really wanted to know what it was.
"Because." Hammer said. "If you don't then I will have no choice but to kill all of your little friends one by one until you do." Tony tensed. If he didn't cooperate then that would technically be more blood on his hands. The Avengers weren't going to be easy to take down but it definitely wouldn't be impossible. "Maybe I'll start with your CEO."
Tony couldn't help it. He saw red and punched Hammer in the face before he could say anything more. The punch didn't appear to do anything although Hammer did tentatively touch his nose where Tony had hit it. Hammer then laughed. It was a shallow and cold laugh with no actual humor in it.
The laugh irritated Tony but he didn't have any time to react to it before he was hit around the head with a metal pipe, instantly knocking him out.
Just at that moment Steve entered the lab. He had realized that something had to be wrong since Jarvis was never offline. His eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness and he saw Tony, unconscious, being carried by a pretty big guy. Another man who looked pretty wimpy was also in the room, seemingly bossing the other around and they were heading towards Steve. Towards the only exit.
Steve knew he had to do something. He couldn't let them take Tony away, no matter how much he disliked the genius. He didn't have his shield on him and so couldn't use that to defeat the men but he was very good in hand to hand combat so he decided to go down that route.
He ran towards and punched the man who was carrying Tony. The man had no reaction and his skin felt like a solid wall of metal against Steve's fist. That may have been because it was metal. How had Steve not noticed that the thing carrying Tony was a robot. He silently cursed before the robot hit him.
It wasn't enough to knock the super soldier out but it was certainly enough to give him a concussion. He was hit again, this time with more power and he did get knocked out because of it.
When Steve woke he found himself to be in a small cave-like room with a single door and no windows, lit only by a hanging light bulb. He looked around and saw Tony, still unconscious and looking surprisingly peaceful.
He was surprised by the fact that they were not chained or tied down to prevent their movement but was not about to complain about it.
He was wandering around the room, getting to grips with the size and trying to figure out why they were there when Tony suddenly began to have a panic attack. Steve was very unsure of what he was supposed to do in this situation.
He walked over to the smaller man. "Tony.." He said cautiously. "Tony, it's okay.. You're okay…" It was pretty obvious that he had no idea what he was doing although his voice did seem to be getting through to Tony.
Before long the genius was relatively okay again. He hid the fear and panic he felt from being in the room that was so similar to the cave and replaced it with confidence. He tried to ignore his surroundings, he didn't need any reminders of his three months in hell. He wasn't sure why Steve was there but he didn't really care if he was being honest.
He looked around and spotted three cameras.
"That's right. Smile!".
He studied one and was able to determine that it had a microphone built into it as well as the camera. Good.
"Hammer." He said to a camera with confidence in his voice that he was lacking in his mind. "What do you want?!"
"Ah, so you're finally awake." Justin Hammer's voice said through speakers that Tony had failed to notice.
"Who is that?" Steve asked Tony.
"An idiot." Tony responded before bringing his attention back to the camera. "You didn't answer my question."
"I don't want anything from you Mr. Stark." Hammer said.
"Then why bring us here?" Tony asked. Part of him feared the answer he would get. If Hammer didn't want him to make technology for him then why go to the trouble of kidnapping him?
"I merely wanted you to be out of the picture." Hammer told him. "And I had heard a rumor about your time in Afghanistan and wanted to test if it was true or not. Considering that panic attack you had earlier I am going to guess that it was."
Tony took a deep breath. This was bad. "What good will it do to remind me of that?" He asked.
Hammer laughed. "It will be fun to break you." He said. "Now, I must excuse myself. There are things I have to do." And then the room went quiet.
Steve looked at Tony. "What did he mean?" He asked. "About Afghanistan?" Tony glared at Steve for a moment.
"I was held in Afghanistan for three months by a terrorist organisation that called themselves the Ten Rings." He said.
"Why?" Steve asked. He knew he shouldn't have but he was curious and this was the most that Tony had ever said to any of them about his experience.
"It was just ransom." He said. It was what he always told people if they were insensitive enough to ask. He really hoped that Steve wouldn't push any more, he wasn't sure how much he could take.
"But they didn't send a ransom video or letter to anyone." Steve said, he received another glare from Tony. "What really happened to you?"
Tony shut his eyes tightly, trying not to think about it. "That's my story and I'm sticking to it." He said through clenched teeth. Steve got the hint and dropped the subject.
That night Tony didn't sleep. He knew that if he did his memories and nightmares would be worse than they ever were before. He watched Steve sleep, envying the peaceful look on his face. He wondered what Captain America dreams of. Maybe the 1940s and the people he used to know or maybe it was just random things.
He couldn't help himself think back to Yinsen and his death.
"Don't waste your life."
He felt tears run down his cheeks. He had tried so hard not to waste his life after that. He had stopped making weapons and even became Iron Man. He still couldn't help but feel that he had failed Yinsen. Looking back at it he knew that it should have been him who died. God knows he deserved it.
He wasn't sure how long he cried for over the memory of Yinsen's death but he wasn't by the time Steve woke.
Steve noticed Tony's red, bloodshot eyes and he knew that the man had been crying. "What's wrong?" He asked. Tony turned away.
"Just thinking of an old friend." He said, his voice shaking slightly.
"That would be a Mr. Ho Yinsen if my sources are correct." Hammer's voice said through the speakers. "Killed by your own weapons." Tony clenched his jaw.
"Shut up!" He shouted, throwing a rock at a camera. The lens cracked. He could tell that wherever Hammer was he was smirking.
"Who is Ho Yinsen?" Steve asked curiously.
"You mean Tony hasn't told you?" Hammer asked. "Tut tut Stark, I thought you were meant to trust the Captain." He paused, expecting a response but getting none. "Yinsen was held in the same cave as Tony. Before he was killed by Stark Industries firearms that is."
"What is he talking about?" Steve asked Tony while looking at the camera. "You've never mentioned this guy before." He didn't get a response so turned to look at Tony. To his surprise the man was sitting, leaning on a wall hugging his knees. His head was bowed. "Tony?" Steve asked softly.
When Hammer didn't speak any more Steve assumed he had left. He walked over to Tony and sat next to him. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.
He closed his eyes and leant his head against the wall. As he did he thought about his life. He had lost so much but his spirit had never broken. Even in the twenty first century where he wasn't sure of what was going on he knew he still had a place in the world. He was wanted in the world. Seen as a hero in fact. He smiled lightly and opened his eyes.
He turned his head and stared at Tony. The genius had been through a lot and Steve respected him for how strong he was. He could never tell him that though. It was clear that Tony despised Steve and the genius would probably just mock Steve if he told him.
He still couldn't believe that Howard had abused him. Howard wasn't like that. He was a kind man and a futurist. What reason would he have to harm his own child? Perhaps he believed that Tony deserved it but in Steve's opinion no one deserved abuse. Even an arrogant, self centered genius.
He wanted to know what had happened to Tony all those years ago in Afghanistan but he couldn't ask. It was obvious that whatever had happened had damaged him. Steve would even go as far as to say broken him but a part of him believed that Tony was already broken long before that. Another believed that he wasn't at all and that he was lying about Howard but what did Tony have to gain from lying about his father. He obviously didn't want attention from it, he got enough of that as it was.
He turned his head away again. He wanted to comfort the genius but he couldn't. Tony would assume it was patronization and that was the last thing he wanted. He didn't want Tony to hate him. He didn't know what he did to cause the man to have so much anger towards him. Sure, on the helicarrier they had fought but Tony had started that. Maybe Steve shouldn't have said what he had but there was an equal amount of hateful and insulting comments on Tony's side too. Steve sighed heavily.
After a few hours of nothingness Tony looked up and turned to face his childhood hero. He cleared his throat softly and Steve faced him. It was like he was seeing Tony for the first time. The man didn't look like his usual self. He looked glum and depressed. His eyes seemed almost void of emotion, any that was in them reflected the look on his face. He smiled weakly at Steve before looking away again.
"It wasn't for ransom." He said softly. Steve had expected as much but the fact that Tony was actually talking about it surprised him somewhat. He stayed silent, knowing that if he pushed Tony to talk about it he wouldn't. "Jarvis has always told me I should tell someone about my life. Other than him." He closed his eyes, causing tears to spill.
"Tony.." Steve said. "You don-"
"I do." Tony said firmly. "I.. I have to do this." He sighed. He had to tell someone and he knew he couldn't tell someone who was actually likely to care. He needed to tell someone who wouldn't give a shit. Someone who hated him but also wouldn't tell anyone else. Good old Captain Rogers seemed like the perfect candidate. Sure, he'd probably use it against him some time in the future but for once the futurist couldn't bring himself to care about the future. This also seemed as good a time as any. As long as he kept his voice too quiet for the microphones to pick up.
"Take your time then." Steve said. "Don't tell me everything at once. Neither of us would be able to handle that."
Tony smiled weakly at the logic in the Captain's words. "Okay." He said. The smile vanished from his face as he began. "I guess it started when I was four." His voice was uneasy. "That was when I built my first circuit board and when Howard started to see that I was taking after him." He paused. "I guess none of this would have happened if I was normal but I just had to be a genius."
Steve wanted to tell Tony that it wasn't his fault. That he shouldn't blame himself for his father's actions but before he could Tony continued.
"He kept trying to get me to be smarter, to do things that I couldn't do." He squeezed his eyes shut at the memory. "When I couldn't do it he would insult me, hit me sometimes." He felt the tears on his cheeks. "Howard.. Howard was a drunk. He was also always preoccupied and didn't have time to be a father to a useless idiot like me." His voice quivered on the last part and he fell silent again. His head in his knees.
Steve took in what he had just been told. Howard was a drunk. Not only that but he physically abused Tony as well as emotionally. Steve was angry at the man who had once been his friend though. Nothing should make him so preoccupied that he couldn't spend time with his son. Nothing. He also couldn't help but think that Tony was maybe quoting from Howard directly in the last sentence he had said.
What Tony needed right now was a friend. He may not realize it but Steve did. He tentatively put an arm around Tony's shoulders. "It's okay." He said softly. "We're going to get out of this. You don't have to tell me any more."
Tony looked up and shook his head. "I'm not telling you this because I think I'm not going to get out." He said. "I'm telling you it because I have to tell someone and you happen to be trapped with me and unable to leave if you don't like what I'm saying." He smirked, his face returning to an expression that was normal for him. "You can always ignore me though."
Steve looked at Tony and removed his arm. "Maybe I'll do just that." He said before he began to do some push ups. If he was going to be trapped in a room with someone who couldn't decide if they wanted to open up or shut him out indefinitely then he may as well keep in shape.
gummygunk
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
jbbartram-illu
theartofmadeline
