The team didn't even have time to prepare themselves as they dived into the first memory.
Tony was just a little baby, about three, playing with an electronic toy car on the floor. Well, maybe not playing. He was taking the car apart. There were nails and a screwdriver on the floor, the car was in pieces. He was intending to show it to his father, thinking his father would be very proud of him. Howard Stark opened the door at the same time, looking very angry and rather disappointed. Something must have gone wrong at work, Tony thought. Howard didn't notice Tony, he was walking angrily to his lab but stepped on a nail, letting out a sharp cry of pain.
"Why did you leave these on the floor?" he shouted at Tony. "You're not even supposed to play with these, you're only a child! Go to your room before you screw up anything else!" Tony didn't go away, he wanted to take his dismantled car with him, but it was behind Howard and he couldn't reach it without moving.
"What are you standing there for? Go to your room!" roared Howard, and he slapped Tony in the cheek. Tony let a few tears escape from his eyes; he started to run to his room without even looking back at the car. Howard must have realized what he had done, he had never hit his child before, so he started running after him. "No, Tony come back, I didn't mean to do that. I'm so sorry."
Howard couldn't reach him with the nail still in his foot and Tony had already run to his room and locked the door after him. He collapsed on his bed and started crying. His cheek hurt very much, and he had made his father very angry. He turned his head and looked at the Captain America poster next to his wardrobe. "I'm going to make my father very proud. Just like you did." He smiled at the poster and unlocked his door. Howard was nowhere to be seen, but he had run into Jarvis while he was looking for his car.
"Jarvis!" he shouted in pleasure. Tony really liked Jarvis, he hugged him whenever he needed it and made delicious pancakes.
Jarvis smiled back at him until he saw the visible bruise on his face. He kneeled beside Tony and touched his face gently. "What happened to your face, Tony?" he asked with a worried look on his face.
Tony's shoulders fell immediately and he looked at the floor. "My father was angry with me because I left my stuff on the floor. He said I screw up everything." Jarvis lift Tony's face up and smiled at him sadly. "You didn't screw anything up Tony. You are the most capable and cleverest child I've ever known. I'm going to talk to your father about this. In the meantime..." he got up and took a plate of the counter. "You can eat pancakes." Tony jumped up and down and was placed on the chair by Jarvis.
The day had ended well, but his cheek still hurt and the pain had only gone away after a couple of days. Tony never saw his father in the house during that period.
The memory morphed into another one. The setting was different this time. The house was very small and decorated with modesty but also very passionately. There was a small Christmas tree next to the sofas in the living room, and a five year old Tony Stark was sitting next to it, waiting beside two gifts patiently.
A woman entered the room and smiled at Tony when she saw him. "Time isn't going to flow faster when you guard the presents, Tony. You shouldn't open them until morning."
"But I want to see what's inside them." Tony whined, but also got up and sat on one of the sofas. The doorbell rang after that, and a very beautiful woman entered the room with Jarvis, holding a gift.
"Aunt Peggy!" screamed Tony. "You got me a gift! Look, I have three of them now!" Tony got up and ran to her with his eyes full of joy. Peggy kneeled in front of him and hugged the little boy. "Of course I got you a present, sweetheart. It's Christmas, isn't it?" Tony's eyes suddenly fell and he whispered "But I didn't get you anything." Tony looked up, expecting to see Peggy looking angry or sad, but he was surprised to see that she was still smiling. "It's fine. Just promise me you won't open the presents until morning." "Why does everyone keep saying that?" whined Tony. Everyone in the room laughed and settled on the table.
The evening passed with jokes and laughter, they even sang Christmas songs with Tony. When the clock hit twelve, Peggy left, giving Tony a goodbye kiss on his cheek and Tony didn't remember when, but at some point he had fallen asleep on one of the sofas. He woke up next morning on one of the spare beds and ran up to his presents to open them. He remembered thinking that no child could be happier than him.
"I didn't say all of the memories would be sad ones, did I? The only sad thing is Tony never spending Christmas with his parents."
Tony was looking down, too scared to even look one of his teammates in the eye. He knew this was only the beginning and in the end, he didn't know if he would ever be able to look at any of his team in the eye again.
Steve was also staring at the floor, he couldn't get the image of little Tony looking at the Captain America poster out of his mind. He was shocked seeing how his old friend had just hit his son like that, and shocked seeing Peggy, his long lost love, spending time with Tony. Steve hadn't even known Tony knew Peggy. They were going to have a long talk when all this was over.
"Well, I shouldn't have even interrupted the memories, containing my inner monologue was just too much and I had to make an input."
"Why are you doing this?" Bruce whispered. He knew how secretive Tony was about his childhood and personal life, if all of his secrets were laid open, Tony wouldn't even speak to them again.
"It amuses me, I guess. You see, I didn't know about my powers until recently and as I was walking by the Avengers Tower, I had the chance to take a look at all of your minds and saw that Mr. Stark wasn't who he seems to be at all. Plus, I get to test my powers on the strongest and the most broken people in the world. It's fun."
Bruce was downright furious now, wondering if he could turn into the Hulk to just smash this place and get Tony from the other room, who was refusing to look at him.
"No, I'm sorry Dr. Banner. You can't turn into the Hulk here. This is a dream state, you are actually heavily drugged at the back of a van to keep your heartbeat low."
It would be too risky anyway, Bruce thought to himself.
"I guess there's no point in waiting, I've got lots to show you."
The team was dragged into another memory.
This time Tony was about seven, sitting on the grass outside, observing a caterpillar. The house door opened and Tony turned his head to see who was coming out of the house, but quickly looked the other way when he saw his father with Obie. His father had always been distant towards him after the incident with the toy car, there were times when Tony didn't see his father for days. He would just lock himself in the lab or never come home from work. Howard loved Tony, Tony knew he did, or at least he thought so. Howard passed by Tony without even looking at him, got on his car and left as Obie sat beside Tony.
"Do you think father is ashamed to be near me?" Tony asked Obie.
"No, of course not." Obie answered quickly. "Things are a little bit busy at work, that's all." Tony was still looking at the caterpillar, refusing to meet Obie's eyes.
"Look, Tony, I have something important to tell you. You'll be going to a boarding school from now on." Tony looked up at Obie in surprise. He knew what boarding school meant. He knew that if he went to a boarding school, he would never be able to see his mother, Jarvis, Jarvis's wife Anna, Peggy or Obie occasionally.
"No, I don't want to go! I want to stay here, please!"
Obie looked at him with an expression Tony couldn't understand. "Don't worry, okay? You'll still come home during the summer holidays and Christmas. Howard and Maria thought this would be for the best."
Tony stopped whining at once and continued observing the caterpillar. He knew if his father had decided something, there would be no excuses, Tony had to do what he was saying. He also didn't want to break his mother's heart. If she's thought this would be the best for Tony, then he had to listen to her.
"Okay." Tony whispered to Obie. Obie put his hand on Tony's shoulder and spoke softly, "It's going to be very fun, you'll see."
Tony had seen his father in the living room the night before he left, Howard had looked at Tony and said, "This will be for the best, Tony. You don't have to stay here." Tony didn't understand what he had meant by that, this was his home. He was looking at Howard with a puzzled expression when Howard got up, taking a bottle of scotch with him upstairs.
Jarvis and his wife Anna had come the next day to ride with Tony and help him settle down. Maria, his mother, was nowhere to be seen. Jarvis never spoke through the whole ride, Tony had thought Jarvis was angry with him for getting sent to boarding school, he felt like this was his fault. Maybe if he hadn't screwed everything up, his father would be happy and let him stay at home.
"Boarding school isn't that bad, Tony, don't worry. You'll have new friends there." said Anna when she saw the sad look on Tony's face. The driver stopped in front of a very big white building with dark black fences and nothing but trees around it.
Anna sadly smiled at Tony. "You can get a nice education there; your father thought this would be the best for you."
"He's an asshole." said Jarvis quietly, but Tony had heard him and his mouth dropped open. He was used to hearing bad words; he heard them all the time from his father when something at work had gone wrong, but never from Jarvis.
"Edwin!" hissed Anna.
Jarvis sighed and kneeled in front of Tony. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said something like that in front of you. You'll be happy here, and we'll visit you whenever we can, okay?" Tony wrapped his hands around Jarvis, letting a few tears slide across his cheeks.
Tony woke up with the sound of the bell that day. It was snowing outside and nearly Christmas, Tony was very happy that he could finally spend some time with Jarvis, Anna and Peggy. He missed Jarvis's pancakes. The food here was good, he just didn't feel comfortable enough to eat anything here. He had gotten slimmer; all of his clothes were slightly big for him now.
Boarding school was very far from "fun". Tony knew he was special, he had always known, but he had thought the school his father sent him to would be a place with children like Tony. He was mistaken. Tony already knew how to read and write, so he got really bored when the other kids were just learning the alphabet and couldn't even hold a pencil the right way. He knew the answers the math questions the teacher asked right away, she was always asking very simple things and the others still struggled. Tony always got bullied by the others because of this. He eventually got quieter and didn't answer any of the teachers' questions anymore.
He shared his room with a kid named Charles. He always hit Tony when nobody was looking and played the victim when Tony cried and called one of the teachers. They always thought Charles was right and got angry with Tony. Even the teachers here didn't like him.
He looked outside from his window where nearly all of the kids were up and playing in the snow, some were standing to the side building snowmen. Tony wore his large coat and scarf, covered his mouth and nose. That's what Anna did when Tony was going out to play in the snow in Christmas, so that Tony wouldn't get sick. He put on his hat and ran down outside. It was their free day, there were no lessons. Maybe today he could play with the others. He loved to play in the snow.
Charles started shouting as soon as Tony stepped outside and pushed him. The ground was very slippery with ice, it made Tony fall on his back and everyone started laughing. Tony looked for a teacher, but there was nobody outside except kids. "You can't play with us." shouted Charles and a girl behind him stick her tongue out at Tony. Everyone laughed again and ran back to the garden.
Tony lied on the ground for a couple of minutes, fighting the urge not to cry. He hated this place, he wanted to go home. He finally got up and went back to his room. He had books with him. He would do what he did on every free day they had. He would read in his room until it got dark, and then cry himself to sleep, hoping Charles wouldn't hear him.
The team was once again pulled out from the memories into the small white rooms.
"By the way, for all of you that didn't know, Obie was the guy who had Tony kidnapped by the Ten Rings. But I guess that's a story for later."
Of course, Natasha thought to herself. She had read Tony's file while she was posing to be his assistant, she knew about Obadiah Stane. She just hadn't realized they have been this close since Tony was a child. No wonder why the billionaire has trust issues.
Tony started coughing very violently as the arc reactor's light flickered a few times.
"I guess the element inside the arc reactor isn't agreeing with my powers. I'm afraid you don't have much time before you go into a cardiac arrest and die, Mr. Stark. Luckily, I'll still be able to continue getting your memories even if you're dead."
With that, sounds of protest came from all of the team at once. Natasha cursed very loudly in Russian and even Thor, who hadn't spoken a word the whole time they were here, was screaming at the faceless voice to let them go.
The voice laughed again. "I find your weak attempt to convince me to let you go hilarious. Don't worry, I'll keep Mr. Stark alive as long as possible. It's going to be more fun seeing him completely break down after I'm finished, rather than just letting him die."
Pepper had called Tony three times, now was attempting to call him for the fourth time. When her fourth call to Tony went straight to voice mail, Pepper tried calling the Avengers one by one, only to see that all of their phones were closed too. Pepper had Jarvis uploaded in her phone, but when she tried to access it, it shut her out.
Pepper started to get worried now. None of the team would just close their phones and disappear and Jarvis shutting down was just impossible, knowing Tony had built the AI.
The next number Pepper had dialed was Maria Hill's.
"Hello?"
"I think something happened to the team. Something bad."
I can't believe some people actually read my story and reviewed, favorited and followed! I had written the first chapter out of boredom, I never thought people would read it, so thanks to all of you who did! This is my first fanfiction and English is not my first language. If I make any mistakes, don't hesitate to point them out. Thank you so much :)
Until next time!