AN: Hey everyone! Welcome to my first MCU Avengers fic! I had this urge to write something but I didn't know what to write so Fruityloops gave me this prompt: "How about an Avengers fanfic? The whole movie through I was waiting for Tony to feel really guilty about creating Ultron and goes out and does something stupid to stop him by himself and because he doesn't want his vision to come true, of all his friends dying because of him." And so this fic was born! It came out a little longer than I thought it would but oh well. This is my first Avengers fic and therefore my first time writing from Tony's POV so sorry if he seems a little OOC. I hope you all enjoy it!
Guilt
It was as he was lying on his back in the middle of the road with Ultron stepping on his chest that he realised that this may not have been one of his better ideas.
What was he supposed to have done though? An evil megalomaniac robot had come out of his lab, attacked his friends, trashed his penthouse and J.A.R.V.I.S was gone and all of that was his fault. So Tony had spent all night working on an algorithm that would allow him to track Ultron and when he had found him in the early hours of the morning he hadn't bothered waking the others up because hadn't he put their lives in enough danger already? Instead he got into his suit and went after Ultron by himself.
He could already hear the lecture Cap was going to give him about that.
Suddenly he was airborne, then he hit a wall with such force that he felt one of his ribs crack from the resulting impact. You knew that a hit was bad when it harmed Tony even through the suit. Tony wondered if he would survive to hear Cap's lecture outside of his imagination. It would probably be something along the lines of 'You should have waited.' or 'You should have called for back-up.' or the one he had been hearing a lot lately: 'You should have told us what you were working on.'
He couldn't though, because what if he told them and they all got killed? What if telling them was what made that awful vision come true? The vision. It was all he could see every time he closed his eyes: every one of his friends lying on a heap. Every one of them dead. Even Thor. Even the freaking Hulk. Captain America's freaking unbreakable shield dumped on the ground like trash, split completely in half. All of that at his feet. All of it his fault. He couldn't let it come true, it would be much better if he was the only one to die and the rest of the team lived. He could live with that, or die, whatever, so long as the vision didn't come true.
Tony cried out as his arm was yanked clean out of its socket. The suit's arm miraculously stayed intact and Tony counted his blessings because he knew that if the suit's arm had been ripped off his arm would have gone with it and that would have been all kinds of not fun. He lifted his other arm and fired his repulsor, hoping to blast Ultron away and give himself a chance to recover. It worked, but not for long enough. All too soon Ultron was back and impossibly hard hits started raining down on him. The suit was protecting him but it still felt like he was being abused by the terrorists that kidnapped him so long ago when he had been forced to build his first suit. He missed those days. Things had been much simpler back then: no evil robots that he created trying to kill him, no alien invasions, just simple build a suit and escape. Why couldn't it be that simple now?
Tony supposed it must be that stupid vision's fault. It was because of that vision that he had done something as unbelievably idiotic as connecting alien technology to an A.I. system. Damn it, he saw what Loki's sceptre could do back during the Chitauri invasion. He saw how it twisted people's minds, how could he have thought that he, a mere human could control it? Granted he was a mere human with an incredibly high IQ and he had the most kick ass suit in the history of kick ass suits, he was Iron Man for crying out loud, but apparently that didn't account for anything when it came to alien technology. Not one thing. He couldn't let the vision come true though and using the sceptre to bring Ultron to life had seemed like a genius idea at the time, and he was confident that it really was a genius idea because come on, he could count the number of non-genius ideas he'd ever had in his life on one hand. Buying Pepper that huge rabbit for Christmas was one of them, now he could add Ultron to that list.
Actually he could add coming after Ultron on his own to that list too since his suit's integrity was currently at 9.5% and he was pretty sure that he was definitely going to die and never get that lecture. That was okay though, he hated getting lectured by Cap. Although that didn't change the fact that this had been a truly stupid idea, but he couldn't let that vision come true and maybe if he let Ultron kill him then Ultron would leave his friends alone. 'Yeah right.' a snarky voice that sounded suspiciously like Pepper whispered in his head. Ultron was going to kill him and then he was going to go after his friends and the vision will have come true.
Okay maybe this vision thing was messing with his head. It was after all what led directly to 2 of his dumbest ideas. It occurred to him as Ultron once again smashed his body into the ground with bone jarring force that maybe he shouldn't base his decisions on a random vision that he had while infiltrating a Hydra base. For all he knew they could have drugged him with some hallucinogen to make him see something like that. The Chitauri whale thing had also come to life and flown away in his vision, hadn't it? The whole thing had seemed so real though…
He couldn't concentrate on that now though. He needed to focus on fighting back against Ultron. He couldn't let him win. Unfortunately it seemed like he was about to. The suit was now at one percent and Ultron was busy ripping the chest piece off. Within seconds Tony's body was exposed to the slight chill of the early morning air he shivered as Ultron reached in and pulled him out by his throat and held him up. What, was it 'National Choke Stark Day' or something? This was the second time this was happening within 24 hours! Although he was more confident that Thor wouldn't kill him than he was about Ultron.
He tried to say something - he wasn't sure what he was trying to say, maybe a snarky 'Is that the best you can do?' or a reasonable 'Let's talk about this.' or possibly even a plea of 'Please, please don't kill me!' – but all that came out was a weird gurgling sound as the air he needed to form whatever words he was going to say couldn't escape past the adamantium fingers crushing his windpipe.
Ultron smiled coldly in response, "Goodbye, dad." spitting the word 'dad' out as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.
Tony vaguely wondered if Ultron could taste as his vision started to go dark. He had just decided that he probably couldn't when a circular blur of blue and red whirled into his line of sight and bounced off Ultron's head.
Ultron obviously hadn't been expecting that and dropped Tony in surprise. Tony hit the ground with a painful thud and spent the next few minutes focusing on sucking air into his burning lungs. He wasn't sure who long he lay there but the next thing he knew the star-spangled Capsicle himself had scooped Tony up into his arms bridal style and started running somewhere with him.
Tony desperately wanted to complain. To protest against being carried away like a baby, but his injuries screamed at him with every step and all he could really do was concentrate on not allowing the pain to make him actually cry like a baby.
He must have blacked out at some point because the next thing he knew he was back at the tower and Dr Cho was hovering around him, checking the machinery and monitors around him and making notes on her clipboard and Cap was sitting in a chair next to the bed he was in and glaring at him with some weird mixture of relief, concern and downright annoyance on his face.
Tony couldn't suppress a sigh, "You gonna lecture me about how stupid I was now or later when the rest of the team is here to hear it?"
Cap scowled at Tony and then glanced up at Dr Cho, "Is he alright?" he asked, concern evident in his tone of voice.
"He's fine." She answers, "He'll be back on his feet by the end of the day. Feel free to lecture him to your heart's delight."
Wow, even Dr Cho was mad at him, he thought as she walked out of the room. He guessed he deserved it.
Cap looked back at Tony and suddenly only the annoyance was plain on his face. He took a breath and Tony braced himself for the imminent lecture.
The lecture was exactly as Tony expected it would be; Cap launched right into how stupid it was to go after Ultron on his own. He should have woken the others up. He should have called for backup. He should have told them what he was doing in the first place. Everything Tony had expected really, so he tuned most of it out, figuring that since he'd heard the lecture one in his imagination he didn't really need to hear it again.
"You're supposed to be a genius, Stark. How could you be so stupid?"
It's the absolute bewildered tone of voice that Steve voiced that question in that Tony couldn't tune out for some reason and it caused him to snap.
"Because I couldn't let the vision come true, damn it!"
Steve stared at him in shock and Tony mentally kicked himself because that totally made him sound like he belonged in a mental hospital.
"What vision?" Steve asked after a few moments of stunned silence.
Tony noted that Steve didn't sound like he thought Tony was crazy yet so he took a deep breath and told him. He told him about the vision, how it'd been affecting his decisions, everything, and by the end of it Tony felt as if Ultron had only just let go of his throat and he could actually breathe properly again.
Steve regarded him with something new in his eyes, Tony couldn't decide if it was pity, confusion or just plain 'Tony's totally lost it' but he found that he didn't care and he was okay with that.
Finally Steve reached up and griped Tony's hand in his - Tony had to resist the urge to make a snarky comment – and looked him in the eye and said with absolute determination and confidence, "Your vision will not come true, Tony. As long as we all work together as a team, it will never happen."
And Tony believed him.