Random Word Generators are fun. I've got two more of these sitting on my laptop somewhere; I'll post them soon, I swear. In the meantime, enjoy these Avengers!verse drabbles.
Box
It took Tony sixteen months of tinkering and admitted stupidity to get partway over the fact that he had been dead for thirty seven seconds(JARVIS had counted), and even then, he wasn't at a hundred percent. Maybe thirty three. With one leg slung uncomfortably over the big, screaming hurdle of holy shit, I was dead; I flew to another universe and then I was dead, Tony finally remembered the files of S.H.I.E.L.D. information that he'd downloaded back in 2012.
He rolled upright in his empty bed, eyes bright and far too aware for three in the morning, and scrubbed a hand over his sleep-mussed hair as he called JARVIS up. "Hey, Jar, baby, show me my S.H.I.E.L.D. box."
At first, it was all relatively normal - assassinations of dictators, collection of assets, tax deductions, etcetera, etcetera.
Encrypted files started popping up, redacted paperwork, triple password protected folders. It wasn't really an obstacle, but it raised Tony's hackles, ground his teeth.
Red tentacles curled out of those files. Scarred stumps of old throats with willowy necks growing out of them like trees from burnt stumps, hundreds of wicked gleaming eyes peered at him like they knew exactly how huge he'd failed everyone this time.
He called everyone. Everyone.
Natasha, Clint, Phil, Hill, Fury, Steve.
Nobody picked up.
He turned on the TVs, lit up every web-connected device in the house, even used the eyes on the new suit he was halfway through constructing as projectors for reliable news sites.
What he saw was not good.
After hours of waiting - of reports that Steve, of all people, was a terrorist, or that Fury was HYDRA - real news came pouring in.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was dead. Fury was dead. Steve and Tasha were probably dead. Everyone else was off the grid.
Tony's eyes ached; blinking meant closing them, and that meant seeing his team, his friends, his fucking family, with clean beveled bullet holes piercing their skulls, their throats.
He'd been the Merchant of Death. He knew what it looked like when professionals dealt it out.
Two weeks later, Maria Hill showed up for an interview under the alias Meredith Hearst, and he asked Pepper to give her the job on the spot. When she stepped out of his elevator ten minutes later (he likes tall buildings), it was very, very hard not to hug her.
Still, Tony wished he had never opened that box.
More upcoming, very shortly.