It all started, as Clint found many things often did in his life, with evil robots.

"Clint, duck!" Tony shouted over the coms to his teammate. The archer dropped to the ground just in time to avoid being shot by the robot which hovered in front of him. In no time at all he had sent three arrows speeding towards the machine's head just as a blast from behind propelled it forwards onto the sharp tips. It hovered in the air for a moment, sparking slightly from the entry and exit points, before falling out of the sky gracelessly. Clint caught sight of a flash of red and gold before the Ironman suit sped off to fight more robots.

"Good teamwork guys. But please try and use codenames whilst in battle, Ironman." Clint couldn't help but snort at the thought of Tony actually following protocol for once in his life.

"Will do, Cap. I'm sure that extra syllable won't make any difference at all when you've got a split second to react."

"Just focus on the battle, Stark." Clint could practically hear the annoyance as it rolled off of Steve.

"Oh, I see how it is. So you get to use actual names and we get stuck with-"

"Shut up Stark, focus on not getting killed." Natasha's voice silenced the verbal battle which was going on over the physical one. "Hawkeye, how many more of these things are we looking at here?"

Clint snapped back into focus at the sound of his name and glanced around the area from where he was perched on top of what he guessed was once a church but now looked more like a pile of rubble with a roof. A tall pile of rubble, mind you, that's why he'd chosen this spot.

"It's looking pretty clear from here. Just those few on the ground near you and then I think we're done for the day." He lined up a few more shots and took down three robots in quick succession, leaving them on the ground for the Hulk to finish off. He looked around for a moment before locating Natasha and Steve back to back with a ring of broken robots lying around them and checking their area off of his mental checklist.

It didn't take nearly as long to find Thor and The Hulk, just the noise alone could have informed him of where they were- almost out of sight around the side of a building. The Hulk was just finishing off the three Clint had shot as he checked their area off as well.

"It looks clear to me, guys. Ironman, do you mind taking a sweep of the area, just to make sure?"

"Sure, Birdbrain." Clint watched as Tony flew up high and made a quick lap of the area, head darting from side to side as JARIS identified any potential threats. "All good. Do you need a lift down?"

The archer knew that was aimed at him so he laughed lightly before answering sarcastically. "Nah, I was thinking of flying down."

Tony landed beside him and flipped his faceplate up so Clint could hear him clearly without the coms unit, "No need to get sarcastic, Feathers." He looped an arm around the archer's waist and lifted him carefully before flying closer to the others, "And honestly, are you sure you don't want me to build you that wingsuit? It would be pretty awesome, and then I wouldn't have to carry your lazy, ground-bound ass around all the time."

Clint ginned as his feet hit solid ground once again, the cold metal of the suit letting go of him as it continued to hover beside him. "I'm good. Anyway, I don't need to give you any more ammo for the bird jokes…"

"Well that's no fun." Tony complained with a mock-pout and Clint just laughed at him before moving to join the others. The Hulk had shrunk back down to Bruce who had (thankfully) obtained a pair of jeans from somewhere, probably Steve who had taken to carrying a small backpack under his shield. He was leaning fairly heavily on Thor's shoulder but apart from the usual tiredness seemed relatively unharmed by his recent greenness.

The others barely looked like they had even been in a fight. Steve had a minor bullet graze on him shoulder and a couple of cuts on his chest, but they were already healing and didn't seem to be bothering him at all. Natasha barely had a hair out of place, she'd only been fighting the robots on the ground which had moved at an almost painfully slow speed and so hadn't even broken a sweat taking them down, although he thought she may have lost a knife or two in the fight somewhere. And Thor… who could even tell with Thor, it was easier to just presume that he was okay unless he was actively complaining; since his current topic of conversation was what they should have for dinner Clint guessed he was probably okay.

"Those Bastards!" The sudden shout had the entire team whipping around to face the source, which appeared to be a severely ticked-off Tony crouched beside one of the broken robots. His helmet lay on the ground beside him as he glared at the inner workings of what appeared to be a robot arm.

"What is it Tony?" Clint asked as he moved to stand beside the man, partly because he knew that removing armour whilst still technically on the battlefield was a bad thing and partly because he knew that a truly angry Tony was an even worse thing. It took a lot to get Tony angry, he could do annoyed very easily (as Clint knew better than most) but he didn't really get angry.

By this point the others had gathered around and had varying degrees of interest/concern on their faces ranging from Cap's 'I hope nothing's going to blow up' face to Natasha's 'This is just going to make for mare paperwork' glare.

Tony was fiddling with the piece of machinery in front of him, occasionally murmuring something to himself (or more likely, JARVIS) about designs and blueprints and just about any synonym under the sun for the word 'bastard'.

"Tony?" Steve called cautiously, still not completely comfortable around Tony when he went into 'mad-scientist mode'. "What's wrong?"

The genius suddenly whipped around, brandishing the arm so that they could all see the delicate wiring which made up the inside of the severed limb. "This is Starktech." Clint couldn't say he was surprised, they'd been finding leftovers from Tony's gun-smashing rampage almost since the team was formed. The stuff was everywhere. But that didn't explain why Tony was this angry.

"This is unreleased, unseen Starktech! Hell, the only place these blueprints even exist is on my own personal system. I never even built a prototype of this!" Tony was visibly agitated, his face flushed as he paced back and forth and Clint couldn't blame him. If someone had managed to get a hold of the blueprints for something so unseen that Clint doubted even Pepper had seen then what else could they have?

Steve, always the leader, stepped forward in an attempt to calm the engineer, "Is there no way this could just be a coincidence? That someone else had the same idea you had?" Tony just gave him a look that suggested that The Captain's standing in Tony's mind had just dropped a few pegs. "Or was that a stupid idea?"

"It was an immensely stupid idea, Cap." Tony muttered as he hurled the severed arm somewhere into the distance. "Stark Industries was several decades ahead of all other weapons manufacturers in the world when I stopped production. And the ideas which I was feeding into the R&D department were at least half a decade old at that point. These weapons are easily twenty five to thirty years ahead of what anyone else is even dreaming about at the moment!" Tony's brow creased as he delved into his thoughts, but the noise of the rest of the team's mumblings, the shield clean-up crew and the sparking of the final few robots which they hadn't quite finished off was distracting.

He needed loud, familiar music and JARVIS and his computer.

"I need to think this through. Make sure these drones don't completely destroy the bots, I need to look at them more closely." And without another word he stepped away from the rest of the group and blasted into the air, inevitably bound for Stark tower.

Clint blinked for a moment before turning to the others, "Well, that was abrupt."

Bruce chuckled humourlessly "Indeed. I think he just needs some time to sort his head out. It gets to him when his security is pulled into question; it makes him feel less secure."

Steve nods slowly, apparently following the conversation whilst Thor just looks lost. "So if someone's hacked into Tony's system and has taken those blueprints then what else could they have done? Is the tower not secure anymore?"

Natasha shook her head uncertainly- worry lining her eyes as she absently watched the clean-up crew do their work. "I don't know Cap. But we're sure as hell going to find out."

Tony was hunched over his desk when Bruce found him several hours later. They'd been dragged into Fury's office to report on their mission and had then had to explain why one of their members was currently missing. Of course this had dragged up even more issues which they had then had to explain to Fury as best they could with what they knew. He had not been pleased.

"Found anything yet?" He asked, slipping into his own chair and sliding across the floor to rest next to his friend in the surprisingly quiet room.

Tony just shrugged, his eyes completely focussed on the screen before him as he dragged numerous boxes around typing in codes which Bruce guessed only Tony knew. After one particularly long string of numbers was tapped onto the screen Bruce found himself wondering what exactly Tony was up to. But he just left him to it, content to wait until the man was ready to talk.

When Tony did eventually snap out of it Bruce had found himself dozing off, his face resting against the desk in front of him. A sharp poke to the side jolted him from his almost-sleep and he glanced up to see Tony staring down at him.

"Why did you do that?" He asked irritably, rubbing his side where he had been jabbed with… a pen, probably, from the small blue dot now staining his shirt.

"I'm upset. I needed something to cheer me up." Tony turned his best kicked-puppy expression on Bruce but he just shrugged it off.

"And getting me to hulk out and smash the lab would help how?"

"Well that wasn't my intention… But at least The Hulk is good for hugs." Tony stuck his tongue out at him and Bruce almost laughed at the antics which had become so common in the lab over this past year or so. But he could still see the lines of worry in his fellow scientist's eyes.

"Still not found anything?" He asked, hoping he was wrong and Tony had worked out how this had happened.

"No," Bruce's heart sank, "There's nothing there, no trail whatsoever. JARVIS hasn't even got a logged visit to the files since I hid them. Which means whoever did this can work around JARVIS…" Tony looked despondent at the thought that this person could get past one of his greatest creations.

"You'll figure it out soon, Tony." Bruce stood up and stretched before patting Tony on the shoulder reassuringly. "Thor said something about pizza, if you're interested. There's probably still some up there." He offered a hand to the other man but Tony just shook his head.

"I'll be up in a bit, I just want to take a look at something."

Bruce snorted quietly and nodded, "Okay. I'll save you some, you know how they get around food."

Tony nodded, but had already turned back to his screen. It wasn't until Bruce was nearly out of the door that Bruce heard a shouted "Thanks Brucie, you're the best!" from Tony's workspace. With a smile he slipped out of the room in search of pizza and then sleep.

It hadn't taken much for Tony to lose track of time so it wasn't surprising that midnight came and went and he still hadn't left the lab. Bruce hadn't returned so he assumed that he had gone to bed. Good thing too, even Tony could tell that he was exhausted from his earlier hulk-out.

Tony had stayed up much later than this before, but it was rare for him to do anything other than eat and then fall into bed after a fight. The sudden change in his behaviour was definitely catching up with him and he felt his eyelids beginning to droop sometime around 2am.

Which coincidentally was about the same time that his computer began typing things out by itself.

At first he thought he was hallucinating, but a quick slap to the face proved that this was real. Once that had been established he turned his attention to the words in front of him.

Hello, Mr Stark.

Tony blinked, once, twice, three times.

What was going on!

You look confused, Mr Stark. What's wrong?

"Uhh, what? JARVIS, what's happening?" He glanced around when no reply came before his eyes focussed back on the screen.

JARVIS is under my control. Don't try asking him questions, you'll confuse the poor thing.

Tony could feel anger boiling under his skin- he could take people hacking into his system, he could manage if someone stole his blueprints. But no one messed with JARVIS.

"How are you doing this? Why are you doing this?" He asked the screen through gritted teeth, resisting the urge to put his fist through it.

Well, I can't give away all my secrets can I? Where's the fun in that?

"Well then, who are you at least?"

I am you.

Tony looked confused for a moment until the words continued.

I am your past.

He was starting to get a bad feeling about this, but he submitted anyway, knowing exactly what whoever it was wanted. "What do you mean?"

I am you.

I am your past.

I am the true Merchant of Death.

A/N Hey guys, so I'm probably going to be sticking author notes at the bottom unless it's something really important so keep an eye out for them ;)

Anyway, this is my first Avengers fic and definitely not my last (I have two more in the process of being written) so if you think the characters are off at all feel free to tell me, constructive criticism really helps when you're starting up a new story :) This is going to be mostly Tony-centric but the rest of the team will definitely be involved, and I have no idea how long it's going to be... honestly I'm not completely sure on the details of the entire story yet, at the moment I'm just going with me gut.

Please review and tell me what you think of it, cookies for anyone who does :D next chapter hopefully won't take too long (you know, unless the world ends tomorrow...) so I'll speak to you guys soon x