Toxic Remnants
Tony POV
2nd October
Tony was in the workshop, tinkering with the final print of the exterior set of Rhodey's braces. He'd put them together and taken them a part several times now, but he wasn't happy with certain aspects when he'd run them through tests. He'd made a few changes and several parts were being refabricated to his new specifications.
He was automatically monitoring all the cameras around the workshop today as his anxiety had spiked after lunch for some unknown reason, he was finding it hard to fall into his hyperfixation too. But there was so much extra space in his mind that it didn't take up much processing space to just have them running constantly, he had been tapped into the cameras for a good hour before he consciously realised it. If anything, looking through cameras had started to become as natural as breathing to him now. It was just like an extra sense that was starting to run automatically now when he was in the workshop.
Which was how he saw Bruce and Peter making their way to him. Chatting animatedly. Well, Peter was practically vibrating but Bruce was keeping up nicely, he'd had plenty of practice dealing with him during insomnia driven engineering binges after all. They were good for each other, Peter to relax and Bruce to have more enthusiasm in his science.
There weren't many people Tony knew who had kept up with his level of parallel thinking, and Bruce and Peter were the closest, pre-extremis. Bruce's thought patterns were much more ordered, Peter fell more to his end of the spectrum. Meaning he could have 3 thought processes running concurrently and not even realise one of them was there until he looked at what he had been writing. Where you'reiin the middle of one thing, then you had to jump to write an idea down out of nowhere incase you lost it.
It had been something the kid had hidden from everyone but Tony recognised the signs. The kid had been 7 shades of relieved that there were other people that thought like that. Meeting Bruce had added to it, and Bruce had had plenty of practice dealing with him, so he could keep up with Peter at full speed too. To Peter, this was a huge deal and he was happy his science bro could give him that extra oomph, that it was normal in a way, rather than another othering experience that separated him from his peers.
Tony's mind was now a weird combination of scatter and organised. Extremis giving him greater control but all that extra space, so he still started designing things without even realising it. Sometimes it was good, other times it was absolutely ridiculous. Sometimes Extremis got involved and things got crazy.
Bruce was also utterly at ease with Peter, even after such a short period of time. But then Peter had that effect on people, he wouldn't care about the Hulk and that was the best way to win Bruce around. At least Peter wasn't poking him with pencils. That was an improvement on what he had done. Add in a peppering of enthusiasm for science, of which Peter's brand was closer to Bruce than Tony's, they both liked squishy things, and he was happy to have them together. They would do brilliant, terrifying things, if he was involved there would probably be some explosions too. Maybe even some intentional ones.
Harley still was yet to come round on the Bruce subject. He hadn't known it was possible to passively aggressively buy candy from a trip for practically everyone in the compound so that it was obvious that he hadn't bought any for Bruce, but Harley was a determined stubborn git when he wanted to be. He'd expected as much however, he'd kept things light but he had never lied to Harley, even when he'd wanted updates and after Ultron. Harley had been very angry at Bruce for running. It didn't matter how many times he explained why he did it, the kid was stubborn . Thinking of the kid, his mind flicked through the base until he located every one of his hoard, he liked to know where they were and that they were safe. Harley and Cooper were working on his potato gun… he might have to warn Bruce about that…
Bruce had worked out the problem pretty early on and had told him not to say anything. That he would win him over in time. That he would prove he wouldn't leave again.
Tony was.. Unsure. There was a fundamental truth with Bruce, that, although it hurt, was that Bruce ran. But that he was willing to put the work in with his kid, it did mean a lot to him.
But, when things got bad, he ran. He loved the man like a brother, and already with his advice, Tony was having better luck with control, finally speeding up the learning curve, (he hadn't blown anything up today), but at the same time he sort of felt like he was waiting. He was nervous to let himself get complacent, even though he could See that Bruce wanted to stay. That he truly regretted running. That he wanted a family, he wanted to be around people again. That Hulk didn't want to be lonely anymore. He could See it all and it had robbed him of what little anger he'd clung to, but it was still hard when experience had taught him caution.
All in, Tony didn't care if he got hurt from Bruce running again, that wasn't why it was hard. He cared about the kids. Peter was so excited to have him around, it would break his heart if Bruce up and vanished.
Sure, Tony wasn't expecting things to go bad anytime soon but he also hadn't expected Ultron to go the way it had.
That vision that Witch forced into his mind had ruined him. And, like it always did with him, the ruin hadn't stopped in his mind like it did with the others. It hadn't stayed with him. It had poured out and spread like rot. It had killed so many people. He tried to forget the number, but it was always there at a single thought, the names would run through his mind, the ones that had accepted his help, the ones that preferred to face financial ruin, just to refuse him. That JARVIS had been one of the names was like the knife slipping deeper through his ribs as his family turned on him. Then accepted her.
That he'd never felt JARVIS code in his mind was a physical blow that was easier to handle on some days. On some, it was like burning up inside and being doused with ice water. FRIDAY and CERBERUS managed to pull him back when that happened, reminding him of the JARVIS seed that lay at their cores.
The Witch had sliced straight to the heart of him, hit him at his weakest, exposed him and left him to the cool looks, jibes, mistrust and simmering anger of his family with sly, knowing smiles.
Since speaking to Carol about her, he'd been going over the compound security after she had arrived and was now relatively sure that the uptick in the violent nature, duration and amount of his nightmares had her hand in it, he wasn't sure why he hadn't seen it before. It was like now he was looking it was like the fog clearing.
He compared her energy signature she left to what was around now and on JARVIS' files. FRIDAY has been so young she hadn't seen it, to her, it had pretty much always been that way. Now, looking back. Tony could see her energy pooling in their bedrooms. His was affected severely, Bruce's came a fast second. But the others were also affected, but he wasn't stupid enough to hold that everything they'd said had been because of her. Mainly because Vision and Rhodey's rooms had the exact same readings as Rogers, Barton, Wilson and Natka.
He didn't know if there was still something left by her either, he still had nightmares occasionally tinged with red, but much less lately. Like an infection stubbornly holding on. He'd been meaning to ask Strange if he'd have a look but he'd successfully put it off. (He'd meant to send him the files he'd put together too. He was still dodging Matt and Carol too, everytime he decided to call he had a panic attack and put if off..) The nightmares had been decreasing since Siberia anyway. It sort of felt like it wasn't… compatible with his mind now, or he was reading too much into it.
That Rogers even made her part of the team straight after had never sat right with him. No questions asked. No apologies given. To him at least, she showed no sign of repentance for her actions, yet Roger's harped on about it.
His opinion was crap of course, being the creator of all the death and other dramatic titles she harped on about. The Merchant of Death, that name being thrown in his face after so many years , in his own damned home, it hit hard. When his headaches went from a few times a week to every day and night. When his chronic pain got worse and worse that he was so close to reaching for pain meds. When his already pretty awful nightmares had rocketed up, poisoned with red, he would be barely asleep 15 minutes and he'd wake up screaming. But Rogers had said it couldn't be Wanda, no matter what. Even when he got better sleep in the freezing server room than his bed, despite his dislike of the cold. Now he knew it was proximity to the arc reactor that powered the building. He'd amped that up now, now each and every room had power lines from the arc reactor running through the walls.
It had seemed utterly unnecessary to some. An absolute pain to devise and even worse to put into place for the parts he wasn't rebuilding, but he was compelled like a man possessed to do it after Siberia. If she came back, he could be safe in the building. The people he loved were safe. Her powers would at least be bound to the room she was in.
He shook his head as the pair entered, scolding himself for being pointlessly maudlin.
He really did hope Bruce would stay however. He was a relaxing, comforting presence, especially so when Extremis went haywire, even when a coffee pot exploded next to him, he didn't get nervous, the man didn't even jump like he did. He just casually put the fire out as if it was normal. He wondered then, was that how Bruce had felt, when he was poking him and making friends with the Hulk? Because it really did help a surprising amount.
He also wanted to talk about all the things he'd put off before he ran to. Tony wasn't so sure about that. As far as he was concerned he'd hit his emotional quota for the week. Month even. Maybe the year. Although he was still meeting the first of the two therapists later. One was enhanced, the other was human, but he'd looked her up and he wondered if that was exactly true. The enhanced lady was first and he wasn't sure about it, she had good ratings but then she was an empath that could project good feelings. In other words, to him at least, that meant she could manipulate emotions. It was maybe a little too close to Wanda for his liking…
Carol had begged him to try however, pointing out that he would want her or Rhodey to see a therapist if things were reversed. He had quipped that if she got Strange to see a therapist he'd go 3 times a week. The determined look on her face made him feel slightly bad for Stephanie.
"How are my favourite science guys?"
They came to stop in front of him, he was sitting on the floor with parts all around him with tools interspersed amongst them. It was chaos but to him it made sense, lately Peter had been with him in the workshop so often he saw the kid mentally putting the things together and it made him proud at the ease he was doing it. Peter liked some mechanical projects but he tended to prefer biological themed projects with a lot of chemistry (and explosions) thrown in. Harley loved building, at least 3 of the cars at the end of the workshop belonged to the teen. The 1964 FLH Panhead Harley Davidson he'd found on ebay in a deplorable condition should be arriving soon, he wanted to give the kid some variety. The worse condition it arrived in, the more fun Harley had. Peter bounced and then flopped down next to him running his hands over parts of the braces. Peter was vibrating with excitement as he spoke.
"Great, we were watching TV and T'Challa popped up doing an interview about his hopes of integration with American companies!"
"Huh, Bagheera didn't mention anything, it go well?"
"If by well you mean he talked about how different Tony Stark was than how he suspected. How much you cared about the world and people. How much Wakanda is impressed by this Tony Stark and how if only other businessmen were like him, things would be so much easier. How Tony Stark was protecting people from his hospital bed…"
Bruce was smirking as he sat himself down on one of the stools with wheels and rolled himself over. Tony was utterly baffled. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times before just gaping. Any single part of that was excessive but put it all together and he kind of wanted to melt into the concrete, what on earth was T'Challa doing? Bruce was grinning and Peter was chuckling.
"Wow, I'm so telling Shuri this made you speechless!"
Peter whipped his phone out and snapped a picture of him.
"Don't worry, I won't show Shuri the pic. Are you going to tell her soon? She's going to wonder why you're wearing glasses all the time at some point."
Peters attention was immediately back on his phone, which was probably good because Tony still had no idea what to say about T'Challa going on TV and telling everyone he is amazing. That was, Um. He didn't know.
He was still getting his head around Wakanda not hating him because of his father's stupid purchasing of stolen vibranium and turning it into a damned Frisbee of all things.
Accepting they don't hate you and the King going on American TV to defend and talk you up.. That is world's apart and he couldn't help but wonder why?
He rubbed his hand over his goatee, trying to ignore how Bruce's eyes flicked to his left arm. 'Probably looking at the scarring .' he thought, not looking at it himself. He forgot about it sometimes, then he'd catch one in the mirror or see someone staring and his brain, because of course it did, decided to helpfully supply him with a complete catalogue of scars. At least the list of injuries was less now Extremis had healed even long standing issues.
Tony was pretty used to scars in his life, his hands had been covered in loads of little and big scars, some from when he was a child to just last year due to his propensity to shun protective gear when he got into certain moods. Not that he did it intentionally, he just forgot, or got so caught up in an idea that he could not waste the 10 seconds to locate and put the gloves on. At least now most wounds didn't really scar, only if they were serious enough they did. Which was handy because he still sucked at using safety gear.
Nothing could have prepared him for how Siberia would carve itself into his skin however. It blasted Afghanistan out of the park.
Some of the worst he thought was his left arm, the scars from the frostbite really stood out, the skin a twisted mess. There were more elsewhere, but they stood out less or were easily concealed.
Then there was his chest, which objectively was much worse than his arm, but also easier to hide. His chest had been an utter mess since Afghanistan anyway, and then he'd just compounded it getting into scrapes as Ironman, adding scars on top of scars until Siberia blew it all out of the water. He hadn't exactly been scar free in the beginning, but they were really starting to add up on him.
There were smatterings of frostbite scarring here and there that were annoyingly sensitive. Extremis had healed him fast, but it didn't clear the scars, but they were definitely less drastic than they could have been, so he guessed he should be grateful for that.
It was pretty easy to keep the scars hidden, but then there wasn't exactly many people seeing him unclothed these days anyway, which was handy. Rhodey had happened seen most, he also told him that his view of them was apparently skewed. That they weren't as bad as he made them out to be in his head, but Tony had looked in the mirror enough to know that they were.
Some he covered occasionally, like the very light ones on his face, he covered them just like he wore his glasses. On his neck, around both ears was a trail of lace like silver scars that faded to his olive skin to as it reached his cheeks. Most of it was on the left side of his face. He really wasn't up to answering questions that they'd cause, people would want to know how, when and why. His glasses handily covered some. Rhodey said you had to be up close to his face to see it. Maybe it was his enhanced vision, but to him they were really obvious. Or maybe it was because it was his face.
The frostbite scars looked kind of like old burn scars, kind of silvery and lace like. Anywhere the frost had met his skin, or freezing metal for extended periods, his limbs was where not too bad, the places that likely would have been amputated had the lesser scarring surprisingly, as Extremis fought harder to heal them. Prioritising certain areas had reduced the scarring, non important areas fared worse for scarring, which was a weird, backwards way of looking at it.
Normally he would be wearing a long sleeved shirt, but Harley had spent ages designing the delicate circuit board decals for his metal hand. Tony loved them. Then he'd sat and painstakingly continued to design all the way up to his elbow. Covering it felt.. Wrong. Even though the black was starting to fade after a few days, he'd been washing it very gently to make it last and was idly wondering if he should make it permanent. If he even could, Extremis might just heal it. Maybe if he made up the ink himself… There were some scars though that he tried to ignore completely. Especially one in particular, he hated that one...
"Peter, I think you have broken him."
He jerked back to the conversation and belatedly his mind informed him that they had still been talking whilst he'd been pointlessly cataloguing scars neither of them had seen. It didn't happen to him often, but occasionally he got a processing delay when people spoke to him and his brain was a runaway train on a completely different, utterly unrelated topic. The words just floating past him and then a minute later supplying him the information. They'd carried on talking about T'Challa and his TV interview.
"I'm just.. I don't quite know what to do with this? What did he talk about?"
"Your green energy initiative, he apparently wants to help by the way."
"Huh, if he sends me more vibranium that means I can use the lot he already sent me on fun things. I'm still making more nanites for myself, the current lot use dramatically less resources than the ones I put in place for the first arc reactors. I need to fly out and swap them so I can cannibalise the old versions.. "
"I was wondering how you'd felt safe enough to put your reactors into others hands. "
Tony grinned, hopping up and grabbing a reactor of the bench. It was in the middle of being assembled and currently lacked the signature glow, was pretty much just the base casing, but it worked for what he currently needed.
"Well any time I tried to design casing, even withvibranium, it used a lot of finite resources, and just didn't work as well as I wanted. I was constantly looking for how others could crack it, so instead I did this."
With a pulse he summoned a little cloud of nanites from the new hive in his watch he'd finished in his workshop binge after the kids went away. Peter perked up, seeing the new hive, eyes gleaming in a familiar way when something caught his focus. He grinned as the nanites surrounded the arc reactor, forming a seamless, thin, yet strong, self repairing covering around it that would inform him or FRIDAY of any tampering, including if they suddenly got cut off from the network. It all took a relatively small amount of nanites as well. He knew it was virtually impossible to crack because he'd sent a chocolate bar covered in it to Shuri to see if she could get in and she'd been unable to break the link to the nanites without resorting to items unique to Wakanda. He warned the places where the reactors were installed, if they somehow did manage to break in, the nanites would shred the arc reactor and another one would not be installed. So far no one had tried.
"They stay locked like that, even if you somehow cut them off from me or FRIDAY, they won't unlock unless I tell them."
Bruce looked impressed, running his hands over the metal, looking for some kind of seam or break.
"That's amazing. No one else can control them?"
"Well I had implants before Extremis for me to control them, but even if someone got their own implants, they wouldn't be able to control my nanites. Their own, maybe."
"How did Extremis change it?"
"Oh it was like going from 8 Meg of RAM to a Petabyte."
Tony shot Bruce a wide grin, the change had been way, way off the charts for what he'd predicted when Extremis creating a mental link to technology was just a theory. Not just in how many he could control but in how he manipulated them. Like the cameras they'd become a part of him in some way, a 6th and 7th sense. He called the nanites back to his hand, swirling in his palm before returning them to his watch. He had to remind himself occasionally not to just reach out with them.
"I'd been meaning to ask about how your suit changed to a, well, a suit. I'm guessing it was the nanites?"
"Oh! I haven't seen that yet!"
Tony rolled his eyes but stood up anyway. His t-shirt and jeans wouldn't be the most comfortable thing to have in to show Pete.
"Fine, I'll show, but then I want to hear more about what I can do for Bagheera to thank him for being weird, or something. Maybe get him to go back to normal."
He jogged off the the side room next to the Ironman suits where he kept his flight suits and quickly changed. He'd been playing with the design of the flight suits as well and whilst they still looked like his old ones, they were now way more comfortable and definitely more durable, they also offered protection against the elements. He'd practiced with many different materials and finally found one that saved him from the chafing and pinching prone to wearing the Ironman suit. Especially with the tighter fit Bleeding Edge suit from the nanites. Well, Shuri had really, as it was vibranium weave. The royals were utterly spoiling him with all this vibranium really. He had no idea what he'd done to earn such generosity or random weird TV appearances. He'd have to ask Shuri what her brother was up to.
The suit he kept with him, Extremis Mk-1, that had been moderately terrifying to discover and he had yet to really tell anyone about who wasn't under age 15, was slightly larger but still, wearing some clothes underneath the suit was never going to be comfortable. If for whatever reason he was left unable to control the nanites or if he ran out somehow, it was a back up. He had one full sized hive and a medium hive in the watch now, he was working out ways he could wear more. He was currently designing a small hive for a ring, very unlikely to be removed in a hostage situation. If they all were broken, he had the Extremis suit that he could cover himself with in seconds. It wasn't self repairing like Bleeding Edge, yet, but he had already started replacing key sections with vibranium. Considering Siberia, that shockingly had started with his chest.
He knew this was his anxiety playing out, like how he'd made suit after suit after suit before. But he'd contained the obsessive traits to two suits this time. Sure he still had a lot of other suits, some situations call for very specific suits and he still updated them, but not at his old level of obsession. He was currently running a tightrope of obsession and hyperfixation... channelling that drive into the nanites and not going off the deep end.
He padded back out to meet them and ignored Peters smirk. Mostly because Peter now had his own flight suits for the Spiderman armour. He found them far to amusing. Which reminded him, he'd recently designed a hive to make his suit self repairable, he just needed to fit and teach Peter about it. It wasn't as much as Bleeding Edge, but Peter couldn't control the nanites, so there would be two small hives in his chest with the purpose of repairing damage instead of the entire suit being crafted out of them. He needed to train KAREN for Nano-tech too.
"Right, Pete, remind me to show you the update I will be making to your suit. There will be two small hives hidden in the chest. They'll activate when KAREN reports damage and they'll repair what they can and then return to the hive, or replace what was damaged."
"That is awesome! Thank you! Thank you Mr Stark."
"Oh come on Pete, I just gave you like10 billion nanites. Surely that gets me at least 1 Tony!"
Peter squeaked, which made him grin. The smallest hives could house 5 billion nanites easily, more really but he needed a better rate of construction, plus after his latest engineering binge and he figured they were as small as he would get them. The small hive was around a quarter of the size of his watch face. He'd also coloured them to match Peters suit, so people wouldn't notice a shiny, silver, sparky cloud fixing his suit.
"Right, anyway, I'll call the armour first. I'll slow them down too."
With that he pulled from the full sized arc reactor hive and had the nanites construct the suit around him. Usually it was over in a few seconds without him sort of jumping slightly because he couldn't work out a way for the soles of the feet to form if he was standing still. It was why he'd taken to walking when it formed like when he'd met Bruce outside. It looked much better than him jumping awkwardly. Because of the slow speed he managed to get away with just lifting each foot slightly one at a time.
The suit finished and the helmet clicked into place, Bruce looked impressed and Peter was practically vibrating.
"That was so cool!"
"I have to say Tony, that is impressive. I remember when nanoparticles were just an idea you were considering and now look what you've done with them. How does it work compared to your old ideas?"
"It's made out of morphologic nanoparticle bundles that form a fibrous wetweb of vibranium, I have some made of iron and platinum too, have another idea too but that's still in the planning stages, from that… it can form anything that I know how to create."
"And as its you, that's a lot."
The helmet collapsed back into the neck and he couldn't help but grin, people tended to be impressed with his suits, but having Peter and Bruce impressed was a different ballgame. They knew why to be impressed.
"The vibranium made the difference. Vibranium and Starkanium are so similar in properties, Starkanium is somewhere between Adamantium and Vibranium. Putting then together made everything click that little bit more. I'd been stalled trying to just make a gauntlet of them, then I had some vibranium left over and decided to give it a shot. Now I've worked out how to use other materials too."
Vibranium and Starkanium were similar enough that he could actually fabricate a metal close to vibranium, but is was pretty resource intensive, required a lot more of the element that even the arc reactors that powered the entire compound to make a decent amount, which was a lot bigger than the original, or the one at Stark Tower. They used a lot of power at the compound, especially the training simulation rooms.
He sent the signal to reform the into the suit again, this time into an ordinary looking, well, ordinary for him. So expensive, tailored suit that was a much darker red than the Ironman suit normally was, a black shirt and gold tie. It felt like fabric, but like no other fabric he'd felt before. Close to T'Challa and his vibranium weave clothing but slightly different having been made from nanites. He'd gotten the idea from talking to Shuri about the Black Panther suit she was always tinkering with. It was strangely soft, kind of like silk but looked nothing like silk, well, apart from the tie. It was also pretty effective armor on its own. There weren't any offensive weapons in it, it was strictly defensive and would easily deflect bullets and knives, absorb kinetic energy and still had its sonoluminescence properties, even in its current, fabric like guise. It also felt nice to wear.
Tony stood still amused as Peter and Bruce inspected the suit, feeling the different parts, that whilst they looked like different materials, it all felt the same. Maybe at some point he could nab Bruce and show him the advanced power cells and solar converters he'd been playing with. The energy conversion rechargers would likely catch the other scientists eye. That and the additional R.T nodes? He would never be trapped in a powerless suit again.
"That is amazing Tony, no one would even know this could become the Ironman armour."
"Does it act like fabric or is it like a bulletproof vest?"
He smiled at Peter, the kid was always scared he would get hurt again, even now he was massively changed by Extremis, stronger, faster and harder to hurt. He still worried, still carried misplaced guilt from Germany. He carried all of Tony's injuries in Siberia on his shoulders, no matter how much he talked to him about it. In Peters World, if he had tied everyone up at the airport and they had been captured, Siberia never would have happened. Maybe the kid needed to see a therapist too, he made a note in his mind to talk to him about it later on his own. Maybe make a deal, if the kid goes, he'll go. He's already meeting one today, if he ends up liking her he could probably convince the kid. The other two already did. He had convinced Cooper to go too, the kid had a lot of trust issues, plus all of that family unit had been isolated for too long. Lilah bounced back easily, but she had some quirks. Coop.. If it wasn't for Harley he would have no friends in school at all. Therapy for everyone!
"Yup, bullet proof, stab proof, absorbs kinetic energy. Not sure about magic, the nanites from the large hives live around the arc reactor core, the the ones I use for the suit do anyway, and they definitely pick up some properties, they feel different to me. So if they do pick up the same properties, maybe it will be like when Loki's glow stick of destiny failed to work on me? I've been meaning to ask Stephy but I'm going to wait till he's less mad at me. I figure he'd enjoy throwing spells at me a little too much right now. "
Tony stretched his spine, it was a bit sore, probably from sitting hunched on the floor, he enjoyed hearing it pop as he got the bots to return Rhodey's bracers to their case.
"Alright, why don't you tell me more about Bagheera whilst we get going."
"Going?"
"To Neds."
At Peters confusion he couldn't help but chuckle and silently wonder when he had before the responsible adult that actually remembered things.
"Remember you organised with Ned to sleep over and head to school with you tomorrow, we're meant to collect him at 10am."
"Oh no. I forgot! My room is a mess, nothing is ready oh no.."
"Pete, Pete. Calm. Breathe with me. There we go. You're a teenage boy, you are genetically predisposed to live in chaos. I'm sure we can clear enough to put the pop up bed I finished tweaking when you were away."
"I can't believe I forgot!"
"Hmm, have you been trying to forget?"
"Why would I.. Oh. I decided to tell him didn't I?"
Bruce was looking at Tony with a small smile on his face as he spent 10 minutes trying to calm Peter down, he sent some of the bots to Peter's room to tidy up and put his things away. He was generally quite neat, but he left books… everywhere. Always open like he'd been reading and stopped in the middle of the page to move to something else. He sent the bots with a stack of bookmarks he'd ordered, so he wouldn't lose his place in any of the books too. They found 1 in the lampshade of all places. But then the ceiling was just another floor to Peter.
When Peter had eventually stopped hyperventilating, Tony lifted his arm to his face, letting a small swirl of nanites form into a mirrored red pair of sunglasses. At least he didn't need to get changed to go and meet Ned.
"How about to make you feel better, you pick the car."
Peter squealed and made a beeline for his favourite car. Harley thought it was a travesty that Peter didn't pick his favourite for any of the 'normal' reasons. It wasn't because there were so few of them, the price, the speed, the engine or the tech. It was because the doors opened up. It also meant that Peter was missing a huge flaw with that car. He didn't even turn because he knew where he was headed, so he just called out.
"Pete. That one has two seats."
The noise he made was amusing but Tony didn't say anything because that would be mean. Instead he made sympathetic noises and told Pete they could go for a ride together at some point soon.
"Pick one that Ned will be able to get in and no I'm not driving with you sat in on his lap or vice versa."
The world weary sigh of a forlorn teenager was still amusing to him but his face was schooled to not let it show. Bruce was trying not to crack up laughing at him being all serious. So he stuck his tongue out at the man.
Peter started walking the full length of the garage attached to the workshop and Tony started making a smoothie. This could take a while, especially when he saw Peter had taken out his phone, which meant he was considering the other cars underneath them too. He tended to keep his and the kids favourites, and the brand new ones up here with the project cars close to the workshop, but there was an empty few bays where he could bring up any car for a tune up. He also knew that Peter was going to pick the Ghost, the kid had a thing for Rolls Royce, he thought they were fancy which was adorable. They hadn't been Tony's usual picks but when he found that out he accidentally bought several when he'd not slept in 3 days as a surprise for the kid, and promptly pretended he'd always had them, just in storage. Peter, bless his little heart, had believed him.
He'd already snagged the keys and had them in his pocket when he fished his smoothie whilst chatting to Bruce, Peter proudly announced his choice just as Bruce was heading over to his lab. He grinned and made his way over and hope Peter would have some idea about what he should do about this interview. Another thing on his list of 'What the Actual Feck?'
Tony was equally confused about what to do about that as he was the letter and doodle from Barnes. Nope, the letter and phoenix was still the most confusing thing of the moment. Peter had been nosy and seen it, of course he commented that because of the colours it was an Iron Phoenix. He also noted the feathers looked sharper so they could even be metal. Tony thought Peter was reading way too much into this. It was definitely not helping him work out what to do next.
People were sending him things and going on TV about him and being nice. It had the knock on affect Tony gets any time someone does something nice. He wanted to make them things. T'Challa that was fine, although what the hell can you make the king of vibranium land? But the impulse to make Barnes something was weird and probably not good.
He doubted the super soldier would want anything from him, he might be happy to get help with BARF, but that was probably just desperation to be healed. The fight in Siberia was never that far from his mind generally left him feeling guilt and anger. That anger was now firmly directed at Rogers. His mistrust had robbed him of the ability to react in a more level headed manner.
Plus, on top of everything he was practically making him hide out in Wakanda when the guy had been living alone in Bucharest before they'd kicked the hornets nest. Clearing Barnes of his crimes under Hydra would be easy, even everything post Hydra would be a snap. The Hydra brainwashing went deep, it forced him to run when someone was trying to capture him. Forced him to fight when someone attacked him. Barnes was fighting it and he'd obviously damaged it somehow, but it wasn't erased. The only reason there weren't issues in Wakanda was that he'd warned them to never trap the man. Even superficially.
So no, he wasn't going to make this already awkward situation worse by sending him things. Plus Shuri could make anything for him anyway. He'd just throw himself into helping with the words and clear his mind. I mean, if you give a guy you probably don't trust the keys to your brain, you have to be desperate, right? He had to practically force his train of thoughts to driving and off of Barnes. His mind was annoyingly running off on tangents today.
When they pulled up to Ned's, the boy was standing next to a bike, jaw practically on the floor staring at the car in utter disbelief.
"Underoos. When you asked Ned to stay over, did you mention where?"
"Um, come to think of it, no?"
Tony shot him a huge grin and before he could say anything to stop him, he stepped out of the car. Any composure Ned had managed to get back was lost as he strolled over to the kid, hand out. Peter had his hands over his eyes, shaking his head. Tony was pretty sure even his ears were red.
"Hello there Ned, were looking forward to you staying at the compound tonight."
Ned shook his hand, staring at Tony like he was trying to work out what was happening right now. His voice jumped up a few octaves and Tony had to admit it was amusing. He also wanted to get a look at the kids colours before he got into the car and drove, so there was a real reason for it, he wasn't just trying to embarrass Peter. The kid was nice, definitely intelligent too. He was pleased to see that what he'd heard from Peter was true and he had a feeling that this one would be loyal.
"You.. Your Tony Stark. The Tony Stark. Ironman. Oh my god. The compound?! Where the Avengers live!?"
"Yup, that's me, come on, hop in, you won't need your bike."
Tony left him there floundering, and outright grinned at a mortified Peter. He tilted his head to the kid and he got the message, jumping out of the car so he could bundle his friend into the backseat and sit with him, maybe answer some of the poor kids questions. They quickly vanished to put his bike back and eventually got in the car. Ned was caught between amazed and terrified.
"Why didn't you tell me you knew Tony Stark?! I was expecting you to turn up on a bike to go to your Aunts. Not in a freaking Rolls Royce! Or to the Avengers Compound. Oh my god."
"Well I told you I had an internship at Stark Industries."
"You're killing me here! Kelly in the year above has an internship at SI and she isn't driving around in amazing cars with Tony Stark!"
It was getting so hard NOT to laugh that Tony decided to focus on driving instead.
"So have you eaten Ned, Because me and Pete skipped breakfast and I'm starving."
They hadn't, but he was getting peckish and that meant Peter would be too and they could even eat a normal amount.
"Ah, Yes? Food would be nice Mr Stark.."
"Ah kid, you're killing me now. Call me Tony or I'll feel ancient."
"Um, OK! Food would be awesome Tony. Thank you!"
He gave Peter a pointed smirk in the rear view mirror as the kid called him Tony.
"You can't call him that!"
"Pete, I love you and everything, but if freaking Ironman tells me to call him Tony, I'm gonna call him Tony."
At Peters exasperated sigh he couldn't stop the chuckle that time as he headed to the breakfast cafe all the Avengers frequented.
"I think I'm going to like you kid."
The place they were heading to did lunch, but it also did amazing all day breakfasts that were to die for. They'd all gotten hooked so much Tony had offered some revamps, so he could up security and make it a safe, press free location. It had resulted in the place having better security than most airports, the owners who had been on the verge of losing the place and their home, were now comfortably putting 3 kids through college. The New Avengers frequented the place often.
It had originally been a good place the Avengers could eat in peace, but with the upped security it had quickly before a go to for business meetings and the like. Plus he occasionally just went alone for their omelettes. They were so good.
By the time they pulled up Ned had regained his voice and was furiously whispering with Peter that he should have told him earlier and that no one would ever believe him this happened to them, this was obviously the coolest thing to happen at their school ever and no one would believe him.
It was way to much fun shocking Peter's friends. When he eventually turned up in the school for a very serious reason he just didn't know yet, it was going to be hilarious. Walking past the 'Please Wait Here' sign he waved to the staff behind the bar and made their way to the seats reserved for them at the back. They were mostly kept empty unless the place was extremely busy, today it wasn't so they were safe. The running Ned-Commentary was highly amusing.
"Go wild you two, anything we don't eat we can take home, Bruce or Rhodey will scavenge any leftovers."
"The Hulk or Warmachine could eat my leftovers.."
Peter shot him a look but he just smiled innocently back. Peter was totally not buying it, but he loved the omelettes here as well and couldn't keep up his annoyance. Plus it was Peter, the kid couldn't be annoyed for more than a few minutes or the world might actually end.
Returning to the compound, inundated with food and through the workshop was also a good way to get Ned utterly wrapped up in everything, Tony had worked out that the best way for Peter to tell him and have everything go smoothly would be if he was already utterly wowed by everything else, that it might be normal that your best friend is Spiderman. Either way it would be better than him blurting, squeaking, mid conversation at Dinner with May. Peter had set thar bar low.
Which was why he eventually left the pair building something Star Wars related out of lego in the apartment. He wasn't sure which one, Peter had a huge stack of them in his room they'd not gotten to yet. The looks Peter got when Ned realised Peter's room was in his apartment actually had him laughing. He passed Harley and Cooper on the way back from the Residential zone, the kids torn between playing with the newbie or checking on the braces progress, he sent them on up, 3 parts were being fabricated to replace ones he wasn't happy, as such, not that interesting for the teens. Hopefully FRIDAY would record it when Peter finally told him.
He eventually fired off a text to T'Challa to thank him for everything he had done out of plain not knowing what else to do, he'd ask Shuri what on earth to do to thank the man and possibly ask why on earth he was doing it? Because he'd be damned if he had a sodding clue what T'Challa was up to with the Accords Council let alone this.
Checking his email showed that Pepper was over the moon, the man who recently announced that Wakanda has vibranium, was now singing his praises on TV! She was probably sending him a gift basket of muffins right now, the board was apparently more likely to go with his ideas that they didn't approve of because of it to. Giving away green energy suddenly had become something they could get behind and he'd be the bigger man and not rub it in their faces how they'd valued the move stupid.
Well, not much . He wasn't perfect after all.
He forcibly stopped himself dragging his feet when he realised his appointment with Therapist number 1 was coming up. Carol was there for the original meet and greets to see how he felt about them. Also likely to make sure he didn't pass out meeting someone new.
Tony didn't actually hold out much hope for this one, it wasn't that she was a mutant, that would never bother him, it wasn't even that her abilities were mental based. He was set to meet Charles at some point their calendars didn't crash and he wasn't phased at that even though the man could read his mind. The man was respected, so even though he could see if in his head, he obviously knew how to keep a secret, plus it wasn't exactly the first telepath he'd met and he'd been told more than once that he was a walking headache to telepaths. But with this therapist… It was the fact that she didn't just feel people's emotions but she could affect them too. That he was not so fond off. He knew all about it, she was one of the shield agents he'd hired after the fall and she was a great therapist. Whilst some people might be okay with that, after Wanda, just the idea of someone pushing him to feel something left his skin crawling.
Carol would be there however and he suspected that Carol would have told her this. So if she kept her feelings to herself, having someone get a read on him didn't bother him so much, he'd be doing similar with his abilities after all. His mind however just wouldn't settle, it was running in 10 different directions, some panicking about Wanda, about being influenced, his usual fear of facing a therapists that he knew was pretty unfounded in this case as she was unlikely to go to the press or his enemies. That need in him to yell that he was fine, spin on his heel and storm away vs the promise he had made Carol were fighting. The fact he knew Carol was right. He'd been stapling himself back together for so long, he knew he needed some help, somewhere, he wasn't stupid. When you need help, the smart thing to do is to go to the expert. That didn't make doing it easier. Not with his experiences.
He crossed to the MedHQ buildin, that generally was for the more human residents of the compound, the med bays for the Avengers were in a different building entirely. Rooms for therapy however were all in this building. He stepped into the brightly coloured room and couldn't help the suspicion flare up inside him even as he tried to force it down. Later, he could probably accept that the therapist had probably just reacted to his whirlwind surge of emotions and his brain trying to think too much… that whilst this might be normal for him it might not be for her, even in her job.
But all he felt and saw was a wave of something come towards him, a surge of colour. He threw his hands up, utterly pointlessly, to protect himself from something that wasn't even physical. It was like a flood of calming in colour that then slammed into the firewalls in place in his mind. He held his breath as it crashed like sea water on the rocks, watching for a break as he utterly froze. The therapist froze too, most likely because he doubted that in response to her calm she was expecting the cold fury that built inside him, he'd never seen something build up inside him before, and it was weird , it was black, shifting and rolling like waves in a bad storm at sea, with arcs of blue crackling dangerously around it, that he then instinctively shoved right back at her, flowing out of him like a wave. He didn't know how, he just reacted, analysed what she did and returned fire, all of this happened in a fraction of a second of him entering the room.
They both ended up blinking at each other, her eyes gone tight and he knew that she was scared of him. Not just scared, terrified. The anger hadn't manipulated her, not like she could, but she'd felt the cold, calculating rage. The rage when he lost the fire and everything becomes cold, numb and static. Where his intellect sharpens into a sharp, lethal point. She felt it and it terrified her.
He could see it painted all around her. That she'd seen and felt terrible things working with SHIELD. But she'd never felt anything like that before, had never experienced anything like that before. Great. Carol just looked really confused.
That was what snapped something in him. He'd been waiting for someone to be scared of him since he told Carol, and sure, this wasn't exactly the best circumstances but his brain didn't care. It was just the proof to him that he'd been waiting for. Hilariously, it was because of something he'd carried his whole life that had her seeing him as something to be feared, not his recent changes. He backed up, calmly, turned on his heel, and left without saying a word. Leaving a very confused Carol and a trembling empath.
He walked down the corridor, heading for the window at the end, his suit morphing into the Ironman suit and he just about heard Carol calling his name as he shot out of the window fast enough that the glass fractured in his wake.
The next thing he knows he was stood in front of 177A Bleecker Street and he's not exactly sure how he got there. The door opened with a very happy Wong, he wasn't sure if he had knocked, but you know. Wizards . So who knows. He looked at Wong in confusion, there was no colours.
"Tony, come in, come in! We've missed you here."
As he entered it was only the HUD changing for the new location that made him realise the suit was still on him, as was his helmet. He hadn't even noticed, which was weird, even with how natural the tech felt around him these days. He definitely wasn't feeling right, he felt slightly not here, and Wong seemed to pick up on it quickly so Tony slammed it down, smiling and allowing the suit to change back to the red suit. Thankfully the display of tech stunned Wong from his question as Stephen came forward, a frown on his face.
"We weren't expecting you today."
"Stephen, are you utterly incapable of manners?"
Tony let a laugh slip at that and finally looked at Wong again. He was kind of similar to Stephy but also extremely not. What is it with wizards and being weird headache inducing people? Luckily Tony was just this side of numbed and freaked out by what just happened that it didn't over run him, he just got a sense a shining gold and humming power around him. Then he made the mistake of looking around.
Tony had been here before. Obviously. Many times. He'd visited Wong on his own several times when Stephy was off dimension hopping too. Or whatever it actually was when he was out. He knew the building was odd. But that was magic. So he ignored it.
Now he couldn't and he found himself flat against the door looking around and it was freaking weird, eyes wide trying to take it in. So much was just out of the corner of his eye, no matter where he turned. It was hard to even pinpoint what was weird because it looked the same as it had every time he came, but it was like everything has just shifted to the side. There were flashes of colour sparking in places where there were no people. They flashed in and out. He'd never seen that before. It was like something was inlaid into the wall but it wasn't just that. That was weird, but not what had him pinned against the door, not hearing Stephen and Wong talking to him.
The house felt.. Heavy. The compound had a familiar warm hum that he attributed to the arc reactor, no other buildings 'felt' of anything but this one did. It didn't help that he felt both numb and hypersensitive from his encounter with the therapist.
"Stephy. You're house is fucking weird."
Wong froze, staring at Tony with a strange expression on his face whilst shooting irritated looked at Stephy. He could See that Stephy hadn't told Wong about his augmentations. Before he could say anything however he got a sense that he'd insulted it… And it was now upset.. The building. He'd upset a freaking building.
"Um, I'm sorry, it's not a bad weird, your just unique and I hadn't expected it?"
Oh thanks the gods that sense went away. It was lighter now, still weird, but not upset. He had a feeling out of all the gods Loki was somewhere laughing at him. Man of Science chatting to a sodding magic building trying to make it feel better.
"Did you just talk to the Sanctum? "
"I think I upset it. Its OK now."
"Alright, I have no idea what you two have gotten yourself into but let's get Tony sat down before he falls down."
That was how he'd ended up sitting in the kitchen around the table he'd sat at so many times wondering just what was going on with his life. Wong seemed utterly unphased that he'd come in, insulted and apologised to the building. Fucking magic. Get involved, even a little bit, and suddenly weird is normal. He blamed Stephy for this.
He gratefully accepted the coffee that Wong sat in front of him. Smiling when he realised it was utterly full of the cinnamon syrup he had bought him. It was so sweet it coated your mouth but it was what he needed. He automatically flicked his had towards his head and the nanite forming the glasses returned to his watch. It wasn't until Wong's 'Huh' that he realised what he'd done.
"Weird day. Not thinking straight."
"I'll assume someone will fill me in on this story soon? I'll also assume it has something to do with why you haven't been around in so long."
Tony just nodded, amused at Wong's easy acceptance and disapproval at him not visiting, he was curious but that was all. Wong was awesome, well, he was awesome to him. Wong and Stephy bickered like an old married couple.
"Carol wanted me to see a therapist."
"That clears things up so much."
Stephy rolled his eyes only to get another glare from Wong, who then gave him a nice smile to continue, which of course had Stephy glaring at Wong. Tony was starting to feel more himself now. Thanks to their banter and the influx of sugar. Extremis was returning his body to normal and that's when he realised that even through something weird had happened, he might of had a panic attack of some kind, he was pretty sure he hadn't fried anything. Maybe Bruce's extremely boring meditation exercises were useful?
"She was an Empath. Tried to calm me down, or something, I don't know, I'd just walked in the room and woosh, she hurled... something at me, like a flood of blinding colour and I think I lashed out the same way. I don't know how though."
He tried to imagine colours in his mind like he had then, but nothing came to him, even if he did, he doubted he'd know what to do with it, let alone push it out at someone. Plus, he didn't want either of his friends to fear him like that therapist did.
"Why did you lash out?"
Tony hunched at that, he wasn't fully there yet and didn't realise how obvious the move was until he saw Stephy's eyes widen, he forced his back straight. He was not hunching because of her . He did however shudder slightly when he said her name. Stephy was silent as Wong questioned him, his eyes going hard in rage that crackled around him in red and black arcs, so similar to how his had in the arc reactor blue. He found it soothing in a weird way, that it wasn't just him who carried anger that was sharp and analytical.
"Reminded me of Wanda."
"The Scarlet Witch?"
"Yeah, I uh, recently come across some information. She put this vision, this nightmare, forced it into my head. Pushed me towards certain events that I'd believed were my fault."
Wong looked immediately alarmed at that, repulsed even, he nearly panicked until he Saw that he was repulsed at the mental magic abuse. The reaction was a lot more severe than he had expected, causing him to frown somewhat in confusion.
"Roger's had her powers listed as telekinesis.."
Tony just scoffed, rubbing his head and holding back the need to hit his head what he thought of what the damned witch had forced on him.
"Because forcing worst fears and nightmares onto people isn't exactly Avengers friendly. It's what pushed my hand with Ultron."
"I'm not surprised an empath would trigger such a response in you after that."
"Thanks Stephy, pretty sure I terrified her though. Can.. Can you see if the witch left anything in my head?"
"Of course."
"I'm going to close my eyes, I have a feeling seeing more magic right now might actually make me pass out."
All this weirdness and crap is almost worth it for the look of utter shock on Stephy's face so he flashed the wizard a grateful smile.
Stephen POV
Stephen had not expected Tony to turn up, he knew Tony was at the door long before he saw him, he felt a raging storm of confusion covered with a blanket of disassociation, so he had quickly made his way to the door, Tony was stood with Wong, when he finally shed the suit, he definitely didn't look right. His reaction to the Sanctum would definitely be something they could explore later, for now he was dodging Wong's pointed looks, that man always seemed to know when he wasn't telling him something.
The last thing he had ever expected was Tony asking him to go into his mind . Especially after the incredibly small mention of what Wanda did. He didn't say much. But it had been enough.
He just hadn't realised that Tony trusted him that much.
That in a moment of panic he had fled to the Sanctum. Oh he'd known Tony had come to see it, and them, as a sanctuary after Ultron, but it was still pretty serious matter that this was where he'd come when he was in a panic. Stress, worry, panic and self loathing practically flowed off him. Stephen however seriously questioned putting Tony with an empath therapist, who then tried to calm him, out of everyone. Especially if Carol had known about Wanda, but even if they didn't know. He hadn't known the Witch had gotten her claws into Tony and he still would not have recommended an empath therapist. People with Tony's life experiences would not do well with any perceived manipulation. Just from the brief, tiny bits of information he'd heard about Wanda, even calm from an empath could potentially be perceived as an outright attack. Which it obviously had and Tony had reacted accordingly.
Tony turned to face him and he leaned forward, his fingers an inch from his head. From the way Tony twitched it was obvious that he felt him start the spell he needed, seemingly even with his eyes closed Tony could feel the second the golden disks shimmered to life. He ignored Wong's raised eyebrow and closed his own eyes, concentrating on scanning lightly through Tony's mind for something off.
What looked like a wall of golden code immediately blocked his path, which had been a shock to say the least. His mind was completely encased.
'Tony, I can't actually look if you don't let me in.'
'Huh, I thought the great Sorcerer Supreme would just be able to get through..'
'Well I don't want to break your pretty little code wall now do I.'
What he didn't say was that he wasn't sure he could. He had no idea where to start with… that. Any other person and he could potentially slip past people's mental defences with ease to scan for interference or tampering.
'Also do you mind if I tell Wong about what's happened? He's going to be insufferable otherwise.'
He had never heard of someone having a sodding firewall in his brain. Wong would definitely be interested in that. Suddenly the code shifted, letting the smallest crack open up.
'Sure, I trust your judgement Stephanie.'
He rolled his eyes at the name, but couldn't help smiling at that when another set of code shifted around him to allow him access as he approached it. Generally, unless you were a sorcerer, you couldn't see where a person was in your mind, so he didn't know how Tony did that. This happened 4 more times in subsequent walls, each closing behind him. The security was impressive to say the least. Each wall was vastly different, the last was so complex, layered and in multiple languages that made him slightly nauseated as it moved too fast to get a read on. It was incredibly surreal seeing such defences in someone's mind, generally defenses were taught to use an element to defend their mind. Wong used air for example, and he wasn't convinced that he did it just to confuse him, as even now he couldn't imagine air proving a feasible defence. He favoured metal for his defense. He'd seen many different types since he started his training. So these shifting changing walls of code were very strange.
When he was through, he didn't know if it was on purpose, or if it was because Tony was obsessing over the event as Tony had a habit of doing, but the memory of what happened with the empath was suddenly there, the code walls disappeared and he was stood next to Tony as he opened the door. He could actually see the colours Tony spoke about around people, he saw the surge towards him of bright colours and he stepped back from the shock. Tony's mind probably told him what the colours meant but to him it was just a surge of blue and green. For most people, when an empath sends emotions like that, there is nothing to see, a terrifying wave of mixed colours slamming into your face was probably not what she intended. Generally this meeting was doomed to failure with clashing abilities and Tony's Trauma.
That the wave broke apart on Tony's code wall without a scrap getting through was extremely impressive, shielding against telepathy was hard, shielding against empaths was nigh impossible even for many Masters, especially if it was a mutant ability. However, from what he could see, it just wasn't compatible with Tony's mind now. Extremis had more of an effect in Tony's mind than he had mentioned. Maybe more than he even realised, Tony had always seen his mind as a computer in some ways, so the change might not be as pronounced to him.
As he'd seen a few peoples minds, during training and a few months ago when he'd been called to help in the Xenthar dimension as the resident Sorcerer had found three people with what looked like surgical mental incisions on their psyche. Turned out to be a young sorcerer who had been trying to 'help' her friends, hadn't realised that what she had done was fundamentally wrong. Things had ended surprisingly well. Either way, he was now generally quite familiar with a variety of mind scapes. This was nothing like any of them.
The amount of space and processes running in the background was utterly staggering and if he had to search everything he'd be here for a year, maybe more. He needed a scent to chase.
'You're going to want to hit me for this..'
'You want to see the vision don't you?'
'Not want, need . I never met her, I don't know what her magic feels like, the vision might still have traces of her magic if she was sloppy.'
He almost feels Tony sigh around him as imagines flicker to life around him, full surround sound, which again was very different, usually he'd just view the memories. Tony seems to be dumping him into them with a split screen in his mind of Tony's mindscape. He got distracted from the content of the vision at first however when the sheer amount of magical residue flares around him. Red threads cut from their source but still twisting and moving. Searching and grasping. Trying to latch on to anything they can but finding little purchase in Tony's changed mind it seemed. They scrape and scratch at anything they can, damage flaring to life in blue sparks anytime a thread hits something in his mind. The bright, brilliant arc reactor blue that is everywhere dulls in spots where the red connects but at the same time, the red darkens and looks burnt. Doing as much damage to each other.
It turns his stomach looking at it, this kind of mind violation, it's much worse that what Tony explained. It's so much worse than any hints he'd gotten about the witches power. She's gone over to straight up mind rape. Not caring, or maybe even intentionally inflicting wanton damage as she ripped open his mind and forced it to conjure his worst fear and trap him in it. He can feel emotions attached to it, rage, but also a sick, twisted satisfaction. It's nauseating. It's different than his last case, he'd seen how damage could be wrought unintentionally, even with good, positive thoughts attached. This… she wanted suffering.
The vision plays out, the Chitari laying waste to the world, Tony left alone to weather the accusing eyes of his dead friends. Why didn't he save them? Why didn't he do more? With Tony's personality Stephen isn't shocked he built and built after this. Building is Tony's response to trauma. He steadies himself to pull as some of the red out of Tony's mind, stashing it into a pocket dimension for later analysis.
Touching the red threads feels awful. He isn't here, but his very essence is and the red threads have been slowly starving to death in Tony's new, incompatible mind. Him however? His mind is very compatible.
He can't believe a person could be so inexperienced and sloppy to leave so much evidence behind, yet also be able to trigger such specific visions and to leave traces behind that are capable of operating independently , without the witches input, to keep harming the person they were planted in. He can feel the power from the mind stone, twisted by Hydra and how its trying to reach out, desperate to reconnect to its source, but Tony's firewalls were utterly cutting it off from Wanda. She'd not been here just once, that's for sure. There are countless incisions he can see. He mentally records evidence that he can show others, because this.. This is just severely wrong and he is heavily concerned at the mind of a person who could do this to another human being yet remain sane. How she trained is another disturbing fact he doesn't want to know, but it's his job to.
It's slow, uncomfortable and nauseating work, but the blue around him arcs towards him occasionally like crackling electricity. Unlike the red threads that are cold and painful, the blue is warm and quite energising as he works. Tony's mind offering him power that feels a lot like traces of the space stone. He doesn't know if Tony is actively doing it, or if his mind is seeing him help and acting independently. Either way, it encourages him to keep going, even when he probably should have pulled away by now. Wong was going to yell at him.
He tries to remove the vision itself, but it's been here too long, is too entrenched. At least if he removes all of the threads there is a chance that it will finally fade into memory instead of staying fresh like it has been. It won't stop it ever featuring in a nightmare again, but he hoped it would help. He nearly turns to leave but decides to check she didn't do more . The chances of Tony returning to do this again are slim to none.
She's been in his mind more than once after all, he doubts she stuck to this vision. Now he has her magic signature, he can hunt . Focusing on it, Tony's mind moves past him extremely fast, so fast he can barely get a glimpse of the amount of things Tony is thinking about at the same time. Which is absolutely strange in itself, he knew the man was a genius, Tony even said himself that his mind thinks of several different things at once, but hearing that and seeing it are quite different things.
Not that he'd ever tell the man, but his brain is annoyingly impressive at multitasking, if he had an eidetic memory like himself, rather than Tony's ability to literally forget what he's doing, as he was doing, he would be terrifyingly competent. He comes across more red in several more locations, attached to an assortment of horrifying nightmares he wished he'd never seen. He can't help seeing some however, no matter how hard he tries.
Howard's sneering face.
Flashes of dark rooms.
Doors slamming shut.
Waking up, hands moving inside his chest in a cave.
"He's my best friend."
Stane, looming over him, ripping out his heart.
Snow falling, in Siberia he presumes.
Black space, then the Chitari, then falling.
"Stark Men are made of Iron."
Again hearing and seeing are very different. He and Tony had discussed nightmares many times, usually heavily drunk. He knew Tony had a lot, but there are more than he thought. He tries his hardest to not look after the first ones scraped across his mind, just seeing blurs. Only focusing on the threads that look to only be attached to nightmares. Tony would like him rooting through his nightmares about as much as he'd like Tony in his.
Unlike the vision, this magic is different. It's purpose is to seek out nightmares, enhance them, make them mix together, cross over. Up the violence level. He's not sure how Tony stayed sane whilst she was forcing her magic into his mind. Then he's also not sure how he's stayed sane and collected so many nightmares, he's only seen snippets of a fraction of them and it's more than enough for him. He suspects if Tony saw his nightmares however he'd say the same.
She has definitely had some training. No one just knows how to implant worst fears. No one just knows how to locate nightmares like this and attach magic to them them in such specific ways. She's definitely sloppy, but he can read her intent which was to not get caught but to drive Tony insane or to suicide. Attempting to cast such subtle magic with utter brute force strength leaves a mess. Recklessly causing damage to the mind all around. His stomach lurches again thinking how she must have practiced this skill and it would be his job to find out.
He deals with some awful things in his new job, but finding people willing to manipulate people's minds like this was actually much rarer than he would have thought it was, but that was before he understood it better. Before he understood what it entailed. If an item like the mind stone is used, it's slightly different, but to use one's own magic, or one's own psionic force, which is what the Witch seems to have access too, its much different. It's a blade that cuts two ways. How far you go is utterly dependent on how far you're willing to cut yourself up. She had gone further than he'd thought possible.
No one at the Kamar-Taj is going to believe him that the mind he took this evidence from is alive, let alone sane. Explaining why would be revealing secrets that he didn't think Tony was ready to impart with.
By the time he is finally happy that he has every single piece of red thread, he's exhausted. Tony's mind is actually healing around him, slowly but surely. The bright blue arcing like bolts of electricity over patches that had been drained so badly they'd turned black. The arcs knit together over the gaps, creating patches in some areas, healing in others. He wonders if this is Extremis, or Tony's element derived from the space stone. Or both, working in tandem in a way he hadn't thought possible. He would have thought such damage was permanent. It should be permanent. He feels a tug is his chest reminding him that he can't stay here wasting time, as fascinating as this might be.
This time at the wall of code, a section lights up as he nears it, recognising him and allowing him to pass and he shakes his head. Not only has Tony turned his brain into a sodding supercomputer, surrounded it with firewalls, but he can apparently set permission to allow him to pass. Only Tony Stark could manage something as ridiculous as this.
As he pulls back into his body the first thing he feels is pain, nausea and utter exhaustion.
Then he gets scolded.
"You stayed in there far too long."
He felt a trickle from his nose and quickly finds blood. Seeing paper in a bin it seems Wong had been cleaning up both of them and they'd lost quite a bit of blood. And a glance at the clock had 6 hours gone.
"I messaged Jim to say he was here and safe. He'll be unconscious for a bit. Did you do everything you needed? It looked painful."
"It was. The mind stone isn't pleasant on its own. That woman has somehow corrupted it further. Sheer brute force to make up for lack of skill. Red threads left clinging to memories and nightmares lashing out, leaching and killing everything around it."
They both shuddered, Wong looking extremely concerned at that.
"Don't worry, he's healing, even parts drained to black."
Wong didn't get surprised by much, so seeing his eyebrows shoot up was satisfying enough that he almost didn't mind the migraine building in his mind.
"When he wakes up, you two are going to explain this to me."
With that Wong busied himself making Tony comfortable and he just slumps. That had been much more taxing than he'd suspected and watching the colour already return to Tony's face makes him both happy and want to kick him because his migraine is worsening.
It only takes 20 minutes for Tony to wake up, much to Wong's shock. Not Stephens. He obviously isn't 100% just yet but he seems to feel better enough to explain to Wong about Extremis and his augmentations. Wong doesn't mention that the tesseract is an Infinity stone just yet, although he sees him make almost the same observation that he did. He has no idea how to even have that conversation.
Tony POV
4th October
Tony surfaced from the code he had immersed himself into with a deep breath. The level of data he now had access to was enough to use up a considerable amount of space in his mind, it had also taken nearly a day just to send the data from one session and play it back, watching how the algorithm worked with Barnes brain was, quite frankly, fascinating. He was still feeling a little tender after Stephy went rooting in his brain, but he'd slept for 4 hours straight on one night. Not nightmare free, but it was.. Less. He felt like he had a ton of new energy and was using it to completely focus on work and avoid any talk of therapists, for at least a little while.
He still didn't know the reason why they were having problems however, even with his newly scrubbed brain. Maybe it was because of Hydra's methods of brainwashing, maybe it was that chair that made him nauseated just thinking about it, heck, maybe Barnes just had a strange brain structure, maybe it was the serum. The serum was strange in itself and he had little data on how it affects the mind, and Barnes had a mutated serum at that. Natkas was mutated again and developed from Barnes, so he couldn't even ask her. He also didn't know if she'd approve of him helping Barnes, he might be harder to hurt now but Natka was still scary and was invested in his health.
He didn't know what it was but watching Barnes brain adapt over and over in each session to both work with and fight the algorithm at the same time was equal parts fascinating as it was absolutely infuriating. If it wasn't his job to make the algorithm work, he could easily just watch his brain change, adapt and thwart his attempts, and he had, for an embarrassingly long time. But it was fascinating. So instead of just watching on the screen, he'd jumped in head first to see and experience what he could do to up the percentage of disassociation.
After several runs through he knew what wouldn't work.
Creating an algorithm and letting it run.
Which was the plan .
The whole way the glasses were meant to work, and it didn't .
He didn't know why. Which was getting annoying but it was also amazing. After a while he couldn't just watch and action the algorithm. He had an idea.
That idea had him swimming in the code, being directly involved, making minute changes things started to change drastically. That touch of human intuition and his pattern recognition skills apparently made quite the difference. He was using a session where they had tested it on a code word and it had been an abject failure, Barnes had ran through it 4 times before Shuri had refused to let him torture himself anymore. Which was a good call, he could have watched it 500 times and wouldn't have breached 14%. He himself tried nearly 30 different algorithms he wrote for the code specifically and barely hit 20% disassociation.
However effectively using himself as a constantly changing algorithm worked amazingly and hit over 98%. Friday tapped out at 36%. Which had led him to believe it was something that required the human intuition for some reason, FRIDAY was good, amazing even. But she couldn't make some of the intuitive leaps people could, or as FRIDAY claimed, utterly unconnected leaps that made no logical sense. As much as he could crow about his victory however… it was useless.
With the Binary to Wakandan uplink at it is, the delay was better, but it would render this method useless. It would be like playing a game with severe lag against someone with none. Plus, even with Barnes strange amount of trust in him, he highly doubted the super soldier would want Tony online whilst he was in a session. More than that, editing the algorithm running on the headset as the session ran. That was a huge ask and Tony couldn't bring himself to do it.
At least it had given him some ideas, maybe if he can run through several sessions that Shuri sends him, he could immerse himself each time she finally work out how Barnes brain was working. That way he could write an adaptive program instead. It might even be able to run alone, although he highly doubted that.
He and Shuri would need to keep improving the code integration, there was just too much data to send back and forth they needed it to work much faster than it currently was. At this rate, sending little hard drives back and forth in drones would be sodding quicker. Squinting at the calendar he starts sorting projects in his head. If he focuses and pushes back some other projects, he might be able to have it up and running by Saturday. Shuri would either be impressed, enthusiastic or considering how much of her time had been sucked into her current project that had been keeping her up, utterly unimpressed with his overly enthusiastic ideas. Luckily for her, most of the work was on his end, she just had to action it if he did it right.
Clearing everything Tony brings up the current Wakanda uplink files, stretching he made himself comfortable.
'Fry, I'm going to be unavailable for a while, don't let anyone but Level 6 people in the workshop, no matter what permissions they have.'
'Sure thing Da. I'll set alarms for you to surface routinely, you don't feel your body when you go as deep as your planning.'
Tony smiled, sending a brush off code against her knowing that she'd look after him.
With that, he rested his hands on the desk in front of him, not that he needed contact with the hard drive, he was wirelessly linked to everything in his workshop. But when he was diving in like this, physical contact with the drive he was working in sped everything up and increased the scope of his abilities.
His fingers brushing the metal, with the hum that he feels down to his bones, he can't help but grin and feel a thrill go through his as his right eye flashes completely gold and code flows from his mind around him. Weaving a pathway between them that's much more to his liking.
Added image reference for Tony's Suit from Marvel Fandom Wiki! (Where I spend too much time..)