'Gilt'
Story Summary: All that glitters is not gold, and sometimes Tony's subconscious is a bitch.
Part 1: All That Glitters
'-daptable properties? Hinky. Considerably more elasticity nee-' "No Dummy- Not the- yes. There. Thankyou." '-ded. Hulk mass nothing if not considerable.' "Just put it on...oh, fine. Yes. Very good." 'Relative flexibility is shot too. Test data denotes-' "-complete waste of – god, okay! Measure the- not with the... you know what? Fine. Whatever.' '-suitable strength, but it's-' "Higher, higher, high! - watch out for the! - Thing. Thing that is now shattered. "'-not showing in the quantifiable" "You are a disaster! A complete and utter-" 'Maybe the stretch facto-' "Oh for go- how can you even have puppy dog eyes? I did not program puppy dog eyes. Stop it… Fine! It's fine. I didn't like the thing anyway. Good Dummy." 'Hmmm…coffee?' "Hmmm…Coffee?"
Working around Dummy's hindering assistance, Tony reached blindly to his left, hand searching futilely for one of several coffee mugs he knew were just out of his reach. An embarrassing minute of fruitless scrabbling later, his sleep deprived mind finally remembered that he wasn't a solely touch dependent creature, and half hooded eyes darted up to locate the cheap china holder of liquid ambrosia.
The smooth taste of caffeine burst against his taste-buds, and his tongue chased the fading flavor as he cradled the mug against his chest, the rim chipping against the hard casing of the reactor.
The much talked about and anticipated 'Hulk-Pants' were proving to be resistant to his considerable brain power, an issue in the give of the material rendering each test a failure.
If there was one thing Tony Stark couldn't stand, it was failure.
Brushing against the grain of the weave, Tony looked to his hands, dropping the half full, sort of lukewarm mug back to the bench, uncaring when it sloshed over the sides. He could feel a headache forming behind the tight pinch of his tired eyes, and in some distant part of his mind he wondered how much longer he had before Steve decided it was bedtime for all his little hell raising, trouble-making, engineering geniuses.
And God, if he was thinking that, he had to wonder why Steve wasn't down here already.
"J – Give me some background fuzz, nothing too -thanks", he finished as the low rumble of the little used TV broke over him like a welcome rain, clearing his eyes and forcing him out of his head.
Buckling back under, he tuned out the soothing white noise and irregular illumination, focusing on the inherent links of the scrap of purple material.
At least until his own name caught his attention, minutes or hours later.
The speaker was a woman wearing too much makeup and not enough clothing, presenting some old documentary; a scare tactic from directly after the most recent economic crisis, "…Stark Industries has laid off almost 200 people in the past 18 months. At the head of this corporate monster sits self-proclaimed playboy, Tony Stark. Stark, who flies via private jet, drinks $1000 bottles of wine like water and wears $10 000 once before its left in a crumpled heap on the floor of his closet. The shameless greed of this oily gold-coveting sn-"
The TV suddenly fell silent and Tony snorted a thanks to JARVIS.
So naturally, when he reached for his coffee mug again moments later, and encountered the cold, gleaming sheen of solid gold, even the liquid turned within, his first thought was:
'Well. That's disconcerting.'
He blinked, followed by a slow disbelieving raise of eyebrows and a tiny jolting shake of his head, that had Steve been present, would have seen a badly concealed, yet indulgently adoring smile in response.
That being said, had Steve been present, Tony probably wouldn't have been in a position to be hallucinating.
But Steve was not present, and his cup was still gold.
More importantly, his coffee was still gold, and while he'd admit to that tickling some unnamed fancy, it remained impractical.
Undrinkable.
And coffee he couldn't drink was like Steve he couldn't kiss.
Basically: Intolerably cruel and unusual torture.
Also unusual was the fact that he'd only been awake some 35 hours. Generally, the hallucinations didn't start till well after the 50th hour, and even then, were usually just a vague feeling of unbalance, and never anything quite so pretentious.
Not that he didn't appreciate the correlation by his subconscious in the determining of caffeine as solid gold, but Tony could totally deal with this.
Dropping the gold mug back onto the bench elicited a clanging thud though, and Tony's eyes widened at the unusual amount of authenticity his mind was giving to the whole charade.
Deciding that this hallucination was actually starting to freak him out just a little, Tony broke into a wide yawn, eyes squinting shut and mouth parting to allow the lungful of air to sweep the metaphorical cobwebs free from his mind, adding a flex of his upper back and shoulders for good measure, hands coming out to rest flat against the desk, pressing back into the stretch.
He opened his eyes.
The mug was still gold.
And beneath his splayed fingers, so was the whole workbench.
With a startled gasp he shoved back from the bench, shooting to his feet, automatically reaching to still the wheeled creeper stool as it skittered out from beneath his lurching form.
Only to watch as the black metal frame and upholstered seat blushed a dusky golden hue, hardening to solid consistency before his very eyes.
Snatching his hand away from the gold stool, Tony stumbled backwards with a stunned yelp, catching himself on the opposite cluttered work bench. His fingers scattered odds and ends as he scrambled for purchase, both physical and mental, riots of gold spreading over wires and small tools beneath his scrabbling hands.
Sharp whistling puffs of breath rent the room, and Tony thought he could maybe hear the buzz of the perfect British accent that was Jarvis, and if he could just calm down, he might have even been able to understand.
His hands tucked up into his armpits, Tony knelt double, ragged breathing audible through his parted lips, as he hid from the utterly ridiculous, completely impossible, unbelievably disturbing nature of this particular hallucination.
A whirring sound from directly behind him broke the search for sanctuary, and he turned, already speaking, his voice a loud and desperate "NO!"
But Dummy's solid gold statue stood before him, extended claw bent at a quizzically concerned angle.
Tony couldn't look at the golden statue, couldn't face what he had done. Couldn't even think about how he was going to fix this, because that brought the terrifying possibility that he wouldn't be able to fix this.
His hands were shaking, he could feel the muted vibrations against his rib-cage, where they were still tucked up beneath his armpits. He couldn't hear over the thump of his own heart, the rush of blood in his ears.
The mug, the benches, cooling wire and screwdrivers, the stool, Dummy.
He wasn't hallucinating.
There was no way one of his mild, fatigue induced hallucinations, more a feeling of 'swimming' than visual manifestations, could cause such real terror.
He'd been attacked.
Actually, they'd been attacked.
Steve would be proud of the hard learnt distinction, if Tony ever told him. Even if it was just Tony afflicted, they were a team, a family; all for one and one for all, and all that togetherness crap.
If you hurt just one, then you'd better goddamn run.
The Avengers had been attacked.
God, he hated magic so fucking much.
As if a switch had been flicked over in his head, Tony suddenly found himself on a whole new level of manic terror, because just the thought of one of the others inflicted with this curse made his blood freeze.
Thor, with his affable personality and hands on approach to everything, touching and holding as everything swept gold beneath his fingers, amused by the novelty, and not yet understanding the tragedy.
Or Bruce, panicked and upset and angry. Hulk, not even being able to fathom, terrified and destroying and breaking.
Clint, Natasha.
Steve.
Unable to focus on the pitched drone of audio that scraped against the edge of his awareness, Tony fled the lab, turning the door-frame gold in his haste, and leaving smears of golden shine in streaks along corridor walls as he barreled around corners and tripped up stairs, smart enough to avoid the elevator, even in his almost mindless state.
A flash in his peripheral vision as he rounded an ascending staircase corner had him stilling, turning to stare at the handrail beneath his trailing hand, golden veins crawling away from the pads of his fingers to engulf the metal.
Dear god. He was Midas.
Tony didn't know if he was yelling or not, he felt like he was screaming, but that could have been in his head.
Whether it was the suspected shouting, his gasping heaves for proper breath, the thumping of his too desperate footfalls or some other serendipitous coincidence that drew the attention, Tony barely managed to stop himself from barreling over Clint as he dashed into the main foyer.
The genius came to a dead stop as Clint's gaze followed his unexpected companion's entrance into the room, and Tony breathed easier.
Clint was fine. Relaxed, calm.
They were fine. Safe and sound.
He had to get the hell away from them.
"Stay away", was all he said, before sweeping back out of the room as suddenly as he'd come, leaving Clint to stare after him with wide eyes.
Stay away.
Stay. Away.
That worked about as well as Tony would have expected it to, had he been thinking straight.
Namely, not at all, and the intentionally audible footsteps in his wake as he rounded the corner exacerbated his flustered hurry. Ducking into the kitchen, he lunged for the door.
Too late.
Clint shoved the door open as he slipped between the desperately fumbling genius and the doorframe, bare inches separating them.
Tony wasn't proud, in fact later he'd probably refuse to even acknowledge his reaction, but at Clint's forced proximity, he may have lost the plot just a little. He scrambled backwards in an ungainly crab like sidle, hands held high and wide as he shouted, "Stay away! No!"
The genius pressed back against the kitchen cabinet as Clint, concern in his gaze and reassurance in his posture, insisted on coming closer, saying soothingly, "Tony? What's wr-"
Shaking his head wildly, hands coming up in a 'warding' gesture, before being snatched back and tucked close just as fast, Tony hissed, "I said get back, not come closer, you moron!"
Clint slowed his approach, his own hands coming up in a placating manner as he attempted to calm his panicked friend, "It's just m- ah, just… just calm down, I'm sure that ev-"
As the archer approached, all Tony could see were the hands that were reaching for him, and he curled in on himself as he shouted, "Back the fuck off! Can't you see…?"
Clint's eyebrows raised in confusion and concern as his gaze swept Tony for any signs of visible danger, and finding none his worry grew, because this looked more like a flashback or panic attack than anything else.
Tony trailed off, realizing that Clint probably couldn't see, and knowing that there was no way the archer would back off until he knew the reason, Tony lunged for the nearest item, brandishing a suddenly golden knife.
"See! Get out!" and as he watched, Clint's eyes widened slightly, his hands moving from placating to defensive, and the archer took a step backward, his keen gaze taking in Tony's feverish movements, wide eyes and the serrated blade waving haphazardly in the air between them.
Clint fled, and Tony lunged, closing the door behind him, the slam searing its way into his mind with the help of the golden stain spreading over the shiny silver metalwork.
Stepping back, Tony slumped against the bench, dropping the knife with a clutter as he focused on breathing, not noticing that he was almost shaking with relief – he was alone, but they were safe.
Tony hadn't even had time to calm his racing heart or even attempt to assess the situation, when the shouting started, the thuds of desperate fists against metal echoed through the room, and Tony bit his lip, because-
Stay away.
After less than a minute of unanswered demands like "Open the goddamn door, Stark!" and refused pleas to "Let us in, Tony!", it took Steve and Thor less than thirty seconds to have the door off its slider, and out of the way.
And then they were in the kitchen with him and not staying away.
Worse than Clint's gradual direct approach was suddenly being surrounded with nowhere to turn, nowhere to run. The kitchen bench was hard at his back, Bruce was in his immediate vision and flashes of varying shades of blond, red and brown in his peripheral told of the rest of his team.
Bruce was talking, but Tony couldn't hear him, because he kept coming closer and Tony was going to turn him to gold, why the hell had Clint!– and then Bruce was gone, and Tony couldn't turn his head to follow, because Steve was right in front of him.
Dummy's perfectly screwed coding and completely useless flawlessness was a gilded image, weighing heavily in the back of his mind, and Tony curled further in on himself, pulling as far away from Steve as he could get, because he couldn't- not them. Not him.
90% of the time Tony didn't even realise he was doing it, and he knew it was a telling habit that he really should break. But this time, when his fingers came up to tap a disjointed rhythm born of fear and anxiety…this time, well, Tony noticed.
Tiny tendrils of creeping gold snarled across the smooth surface, a heavy coolness quickly becoming a burning warmth, as reassuring silver became gilded terror and blue light was engulfed and gone.
The absence of the soft whirring sound that had permeated and accompanied his every moment since that fateful day, that absence, was what truly broke him.
The booming sound of his thumping heart and the rush of blood in his ears was suddenly gone, replaced with cloying silence, as all colour drained away from Tony's face, and could he already feel the shrapnel inching closer?
Pinpricks of light burst bright against the encroaching darkness, his gaze blurring and focusing intermediately, his mind a blank cavern of terror and shock.
Tony stared down at his fingers still tapping against the solid gold arc reactor.
He couldn't move, couldn't hear the concern and growing panic of his team mates, couldn't drag his focus from his imminent death, and then his mind screamed something at him, something important, more important that the coming pain, and Tony snapped back to some semblance of reality just in time to see Steve's hands reaching for his.
Tony threw caution to the wind, and lunged for the door, knowing that if somehow he could just get passed two assassins, one hulk, one thunder god and Steve…
And then Steve was grabbing his arms, a little too hard, but he could understand why, what with the way Tony was struggling like some wild hellcat because Steve was grabbing his arms, and his hands were so close – and then he wasn't struggling, because Steve had him shoved up against the wall.
Steve's upper body strength easily pinned Tony to the wall, the super soldier leaning in close and looming and Tony's wide eyed vision narrowed to so familiar blue with such clarity that he had no choice but to listen to the words that were spilling desperately from Steve's lips, "-ony! Breathe! You have to brea-"
Tony didn't even remember when he'd stopped, but with the attention drawn to it, all he could feel was an aching burn where oxygen should have been.
Breathe. Okay yes, priority one, start breathing again.
Panic blown brown eyes slipped closed as Tony sucked in heaving breath after heaving breath, rigid against the wall, pinned half beneath his lover.
Each breath was drawn in an exhaled against Steve's soothing litany of unheard words, and in the instant between one and the next, Tony didn't have time to react as Steve's hands slid down his arms and over his wrists, engulfing Tony's own.
The breath, honest to god, seized in his throat, and Tony fell silent, unable to open his eyes, because if he couldn't see it happening...
He was sure he could feel the overly warm skin on his becoming cold and hard and golden…
But Steve was still talking.
And he just had to see, had to know.
His eyes opened, brown immediately drawn to worried blue, and Steve was still there, perfect and warm and alive.
Then Tony looked down.
Steve's skin was rippling beneath his fingers, creamy flesh roiling against invading gold as it crept up strong, defenseless arms.
A/N - Let me know what you think...also, Golden Steve anyone?
Okay - so, I'm working on the ending to this as I upload part one, so expect it soon, barring an real life drama's.
As always - feel encouraged to point out errors and such, as I always appreciate help making my work better.