Arcane Days

by Del Rion

Steve and Tony are living an ordinary, happily married life in their lovely house in a nice suburban area. As of late, Steve's dreams have been haunted by strange, geometric shapes, which he has in vain attempted to incorporate into his next artwork. Tony, on the other hand, keeps seeing a strange man with an eyepatch and a leather trench coat appearing everywhere he goes...

Story Info

Title: Arcane Days

Author: Del Rion

Fandom: The Avengers (MCU)

Timeline: Between "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and "Avengers: Age of Ultron".

Genre: Drama, sci-fi

Rating: M / FRM

Characters: Nick Fury, J.A.R.V.I.S., Steve Rogers (Captain America), Tony Stark (Iron Man). (Also: Bruce Banner (Hulk), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Pepper Potts, James "Rhodey" Rhodes (War Machine), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Thor.)

Pairings: Pepper/Tony, Steve/Tony

Summary: Steve and Tony are living an ordinary, happily married life in their lovely house in a nice suburban area. As of late, Steve's dreams have been haunted by strange, geometric shapes, which he has in vain attempted to incorporate into his next artwork. Tony, on the other hand, keeps seeing a strange man with an eyepatch and a leather trench coat appearing everywhere he goes. Are both of them going mad?
Complete.

Written for: Marvel Bang in 2021.

Inspired by: The original spark of inspiration came from a prompt ( avengerkink . livejournal . c0m / 6565 . html ?thread=12097957 ) by an anonymous poster on Avengerkink (LJ): "Steve/Tony, fake memories, angst".

Warnings: Language, mild/vague sexual content (m/m & f/m, implied sex, kissing), canon typical violence.

Disclaimer: Iron Man, Avengers, and Marvel Cinematic Universe, including characters and everything else, belong to Marvel, Marvel Studios, Jon Favreau, Shane Black, Joss Whedon, Antony & Joe Russo, Joe Johnston, Louis Leterrier, Kenneth Branagh, Alan Taylor, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and Universal Pictures. In short: I own nothing; this is pure fiction created to entertain likeminded fans for no profit whatsoever.

Beta: Mythra (mythras-fire)

Feedback: Always welcome but never mandatory. :)

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Story and status: Below you see the writing process of the story. If there is no text after the title, then it is finished and checked. Possible updates shall be marked after the title.

Arcane Days

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Arcane Days

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The tip of a pen re-traced the hexagonal shape on a sheet of paper. At this point it was merely strengthening the pre-existing lines, the pressure of the tip damaging the paper each time it traveled the same path one time too many, and as a result some of the shape was becoming slightly distorted.

Tony sighed, put the pen aside, and fisted the paper, crumbling it into a ball. He might have done all this tracing on a computer, but after so many days of doing just that, crumbling up a paper and trying to toss it into the bin he had positioned on the other side of his workshop was much more satisfactory.

His toss missed, hitting the edge of the bin and bouncing off onto the floor.

He sighed again, then glanced at the clock on the wall above the door. To his delight he realized it was just about go-home-o'clock. So, he slowly shut everything down to kill the remaining minutes, even picking up the many stray balls of crumbled drawings that had been accumulating varying distances away from their intended target during his workday, and put them straight into the bin this time. Finally, he grabbed his stuff, shut off the lights, and left the room.

As he walked down the hall, he didn't see or hear anyone – had everyone absconded early? Maybe if they were working on projects like Tony and their project leaders were like his, just because the bosses didn't actively come and hover behind his chair didn't mean he couldn't feel the pressure of 'work harder and produce results'.

Lately, Tony had been working solo. He couldn't remember the last time he went to a cafeteria to eat. They had him working on a think tank sort of thing, to come up with something new and innovative, and perhaps everyone else was tasked to do the same. That had been going on for a while.

New ideas meant new stuff, more money, more… of everything.

Innovation meant progress.

So, Tony worked in his little workshop where he had a bathroom, a small coffee maker, and just enough creature comforts to pass the time. He didn't necessarily miss his co-workers. After all, with co-workers came the Horrible List of Work-Related Torment You Don't Even Get Paid For, ascending from Mildly Annoying to Soul-suckingly Evil:

- Abysmally irrelevant and usually incorrect gossip (to try and make boring people seem even somewhat interesting)

- Mega-uninteresting stories no one ever really wants to listen to

- Pictures to go along with above-mentioned stories (of kids, pets, jet skis on beach properties, you name it)

- Emotional Vampires seeking validation for their feelings and ideas – and quite possibly the lack of stories and pictures

And the worst of the worst:

- Your 'friends at work' wanting to pick your brain – only so that they could steal an idea!

So, Tony was glad he at least was able to work alone, and was instructed to steer clear of his fellow workers in order to keep his ideas 'pure' and free of influence. It suited him just fine.

He made it out of the building without seeing anyone and didn't dawdle on the way to the car. Once safely inside the vehicle, he believed he had gotten away scot-free – which was such a weird source of relief because as he had mused before, he wasn't sure when he had last seen a single co-worker.

Someone might have considered that strange or worrisome.

Tony was not a loner by any means, like some of those socially awkward nerds, but he just felt he had better ways to use his time than idle chit-chat none of the participants were truly invested in.

He started the engine then pushed the activation button on the CD player. The first track of the second disc of 'The Best Classic Rock Collection!' started, and Tony pulled out of his parking space. The CD collection had been a gift from Steve, who apparently felt that since Tony's car had a CD player, it had to be used – even though there were other move convenient ways to listen these days, like hooking the stereo up to one's phone and streaming whatever you felt like listening to at said time…

Tony appreciated the gift, especially since it featured just about all his favorites, so he didn't mind going down the retro lane and spending his relatively short commute listening to physical CDs.

After roughly half an hour – nothing was ever 'too far' in this little city of theirs, which could barely be called that – he was getting much closer to home. He didn't think groceries were needed today. Surely he would have been reminded well in time before his day ended if he needed to swing by the store. Steve knew him, Tony couldn't be trusted in this department. Whenever Tony was told to 'bring what he thought was necessary', Steve was none too pleased with the outcome.

City streets had given way to urban housing, then fully residential areas lay ahead.

Tony could admit he was perhaps distracted by the idea of being home soon, but when an African-American man clothed entirely in black just appeared in front of his car from the sidewalk, it also came as a surprise because it was a surprise! The man just stepped onto the road, turned towards Tony's oncoming car, and stopped where he was.

Tony's brake pedal hit the floor, and only the relatively low speed limit had him stopping in time. "What the hell?!" he yelled, even though the man might not see it at all. After all, he was wearing something that looked like an eyepatch, so maybe he was visually impaired. "Be careful, won't you?" Tony muttered, then waved for the man to move out of the way of his car.

The man stood his ground instead, seeming to stare inside the car – at Tony. With his eye-patch, bald head, long black leather trench coat and the overall weird vibe, it made Tony wonder if the man had escaped from someplace, or did he go walking around like this outside the Halloween season?

"Get out of the way," Tony said – mostly to himself because the man probably didn't hear him over the engine, music, and the car's body. So, he made sure to gesture enough that it would translate through the glass.

The man didn't move at first, which again made Tony wonder if he needed assistance. Finally the other seemed to realize he was in the way, stepping to the side – and then began to approach the driver-side door.

"Oh, no you don't," Tony started, accelerating and swerving away from the hand already reaching for the door handle. He got away only just, speeding away, heart pounding a little bit. The car doors were locked, he was pretty sure of that, but one sometimes heard stories of stuff like this happening…

He glanced at the rear-view mirror and saw the man standing there, looking after him – then Tony had to focus on the road, to make sure he didn't hit anything or anyone. When he glanced in the mirror again, he couldn't see the man anymore. He felt uneasy, though, and made an extra loop before heading home, as if he were trying to shake an imaginary tail. The streets were relatively empty, though. No one so much as looked up at him as he passed by, absorbed in their own lives and problems.

Finally Tony pulled up in their driveway, and for a moment he looked at the lovely two-story house. It was brownstone with some wood paneling for effect, and the slanted roof had large windows installed. After all, Steve's studio was up there, so he had all the light he could possibly need. Overall, the house was more 'European', some of the neighborhood kids calling it a 'castle' or a 'mansion' – clearly they had never seen a real one of either – but Tony liked it. The house looked strong and sturdy, and it fit in with the neighborhood just enough that no one really threw a fit about it back when they remodeled the entire thing.

Their yard was surrounded by similar strong stone, not high enough to leave their property in a shadow, but thick enough to suit the house's bulkiness. Neither of them was a huge yard person, so in front it was mostly gravel and a few ever-greens, and in the back they had a patio with some shade and chairs.

They had a garage that could have fit two vehicles, but most of the time Tony used it as his home workshop – and Steve had long ago opted not to want a car of his own: he liked to bike everywhere he could. Tony had promised to update him to a motorcycle, or at least an electric bicycle, but Steve liked the workout of pedaling from place to place. If he needed anything more lugged around, he used Tony's car.

Tony turned the engine off and got out of the car, walking to the front door and letting himself in. He could smell chicken in the air, fresh from the oven, and after taking his shoes and jacket off, he found Steve in the kitchen, salad arranged on two big plates, soon followed by a chicken breast each, the rest going to cool in a Tupperware dish for later.

"Right on time," Steve smiled at him, and Tony nodded.

"Productive day?" Tony asked the other on his way to wash his hands – and maybe get changed, though he might eat first. It wasn't as if he had done much more than play on the computer today and then play basketball with his failed ideas after he transferred to pen and paper.

"Mm, not really," Steve shook his head. "Go wash up."

Tony obediently did as he was told, washing his hands and rinsing his face a bit, then joined the other man in the kitchen. Apparently he was deemed 'clean enough' this time, because after putting their plates on the table, Steve turned and framed Tony's face with his hands, pulling him into a kiss.

"Even this kiss feels uninspired," Tony lamented once they pulled apart, and Steve raised one eyebrow at him.

"Another dud of a day?" he guessed.

"It's not easy, trying to come up with something new," Tony told him. "Especially when you're actively trying to chase that idea down – without even knowing what it is!" he added with some frustration in his voice.

They sat down and Steve gave him that patient smile of his. "You'll come up with something. And if not, maybe someone else will and you'll work together on that."

Tony gave him a scathing look. "Really?"

Steve chuckled. "You would hate that, especially if it wasn't your idea," he said, knowing how Tony ticked.

"Especially," Tony agreed.

"Science is about teamwork, isn't it?" Steve pressed. "You're… surprisingly successful for someone who isn't a team player."

"Luckily I'm just so much smarter than everyone else," Tony huffed.

"And so modest about it," Steve muttered as he sipped from his glass of water.

"Luckily it doesn't bother you that much," Tony gave him what he assumed was a charming smile. "You cook me dinner almost every day, clean up around here, give me the sweetest blow jo–"

"Okay," Steve cut him off, "that's enough."

"I love you," Tony added, his smile… feeling more genuine suddenly. Sweeter. Normally he didn't think people even noticed such a simple expression, but Steve did. Steve was so damn perceptive. Or maybe because…

"I love you, too, husband," Steve replied. "Now eat."

Tony was hungry, and while he often hankered for more comfort food types of meals, Steve kept him honest most of the time. Certainly it kept them both healthier, too. It was fortunate Steve had some interest in nutrition, because Tony was often better kept away from the kitchen. Chemistry had never been his thing, exactly, but he did like experiments and he would only follow instructions so far before he wanted to start winging it.

There was a reason why he was forbidden from baking in their home, for instance.

Anything more complicated than boiling pasta and chopping vegetables, and Steve's eye started twitching a bit.

"A crazy person jumped in front of my car today," Tony told him then, to steer the conversation away from what appeared to be another unproductive day 'in the office'.

"How do you know he was crazy?" Steve asked, already poking holes in Tony's story.

"Well, he deliberately got in front of the car in the middle of the street, he wouldn't move afterwards, and he was wearing an eye-patch," Tony listed.

"Perhaps he couldn't see properly," Steve suggested.

"Well, I did think of that – and maybe he couldn't hear, either, because when I told him to get out of the way, he tried to grab my door instead."

Steve blinked. "Maybe he wanted to ask you for help…?" He sounded a bit less certain.

"Maybe," Tony shrugged. "I didn't stay to find out."

"Was he old?"

"No, not really," Tony thought back. "Older than us, but not old enough for me to get worried. He was dressed all in black, wearing this long leather trench coat."

"In this heat?" Steve asked.

"It's not that hot, but… it was a weird choice of wardrobe, for sure." Tony was beginning to wonder if he should have stopped to ask if the man needed assistance, after all. Maybe he had indeed escaped from someplace and was lost and confused. "Well, nothing we can do about it now. Perhaps he pulled that stunt on someone else, too, and they called the cops to collect him."

"If they didn't run him over," Steve frowned.

"Honey, please do not suggest we go driving around in the car, looking for the man."

"Well, I was going to suggest you drive, and I go around on my bike," Steve corrected.

"He's long gone. It was in the busier area, someone else will have run into him." Or over him…

"Well, maybe next time don't get scared so easily and ask if they need help," Steve told him.

"What if he had a gun? Maybe he was trying to rob me!"

"When is the last time something like that happened in this city?" Steve asked with a laugh.

"I shall have that carved into my headstone," Tony shook his head, angrily stabbing his fork into a cherry tomato. "'My husband believed I would never become a statistic'," Tony visualized it perfectly, along with his bereaved partner dressed in black, a veil over his face as his shoulders were hunched in shame and regret of being so trusting of people.

Steve just rolled his eyes.

They finished eating and out of solidarity, Tony rinsed the dishes before placing them in the dishwasher for later.

Steve grabbed them each a beer from the fridge and they went to sit on the back patio, each in their favorite chairs, watching as the sky's color began to change along with the setting sun. Steve liked doing stuff like this. Well, he was an artist at heart. What could be more inspirational than the world changing, be it the seasons or the sky above them as the hours passed? At least, that's what Tony figured.

"We have a good life, right?" Steve mused, swinging himself slightly in the spacious wicker chair that was his usual spot.

Tony was reclining in the gravity chair that was pretty much shaped to his body at this point. He nodded. "Yes, I think we do," he agreed and glanced at his husband. Steve looked back, and both of them smiled, then looked up at the sky again, sipping their drinks.

Nope, it wasn't a bad life at all.

---

The next morning, after Tony had gone to work, Steve idled in the kitchen for a while, doing the dishes by hand despite the machine underneath the counter next to him, wiping down surfaces, and wondering if there might be food-related things he could prepare in advance. They still had chicken from yesterday that would last them another two dinners, unless he disrupted that plan by eating some of it for lunch.

In the end Steve sighed. He knew he was just avoiding going upstairs.

So, he made himself a huge mug of tea, grabbed his water bottle, and went up the stairs with both.

His studio was a loft the size of the entire house, and with windows on all walls, it was flooded with natural light almost throughout the day. After settings his drinks down safely away from all his work and tools, he adjusted the blinds a bit, then stared at the untouched canvas in front of him.

It had been like that for weeks, it felt like, though it had only been days since his last attempt to put his thoughts on a canvas.

Steve knew he should just move on, but there was this… He kept having this dream, over and over. By now he knew what it was each time it started at night, but as soon as he woke up the details began to drain from his mind. As he attempted to recapture the image later, it eluded him like a magnet with a similar charge.

Even when he had brought a sketch pad to his bedside and attempted to draw the shape immediately upon waking up, waking Tony up in the process, he had gotten no closer to it.

Tony had suggested he was forcing it and that's why he it eluded him.

Steve kind of agreed at this point.

Tony was the one who usually obsessed about a project and couldn't move on, but even he had said maybe Steve just needed to do something else in the meantime; that might prompt this other thing to come forward.

Normally that was exactly what Steve would have done. Besides, this geometric shape that haunted his dreams wasn't even the kind of art he ever drew or painted. He was much more of a realism type of person. Yes, he could appreciate abstract art, but it was not something he ever produced.

The dream pestered him, as if seared into his brain. He wished he knew how to pull it out.

So, once again he tried sitting down with a sketch pad, drawing idle lines on it, trying to trigger something that seemed familiar.

By the time his tea was done and his water bottle drained, and he had needed to go to the bathroom several times to deal with the inevitable aftermath of their combined effects, a few hours had passed and Steve was no closer to realizing his mystery design.

He sighed, staring at the blank canvas that seemed to mock him.

Frowning, he turned the page on the sketch pad in his lap, beginning to draw something that was more his speed. He envisioned the sky from last night, the clouds on the sky, the beams of light, the occasional bird flying through the air…

As clearly as he saw that natural picture unfolding, it felt wrong to not be focusing on the image haunting him, to a point he just didn't want to keep filling the blanks on the paper, to bring to life the scene reimagined from last night.

With another frustrated sigh he closed the sketch pad and tossed it to the side along with his pencil. He stared at the paint canvas some more, watching shadows moving across it as clouds passed in the sky even now, blocking the sunlight coming in through the windows. He tilted his head, watching it, trying to draw inspiration from that – to chase down the elusive dream, grasp it, and bring it to reality so that he could move on.

Alas, he didn't encounter a moment of brilliance.

Perhaps he needed to tackle this in a different way. He thought of Tony's process, and with a decisive nod to himself he took his tea mug and water bottle, delivering them down to the kitchen, putting one in the sink and refilling the other. He then went to change in their bedroom, grabbed his wallet and keys, put them in a backpack, and went to the garage.

Steve took his helmet off its shelf and put it on, then unlocked and grabbed his bike, not bothering to open the garage door but simply carrying the bike through the house and out the front door, closing up and then going to the driveway to mount up.

He headed out, and as was his habit, he took a route that was slightly different from any he had taken lately. Steve enjoyed a change of scenery and seeing new things each time he headed out to his destination. Occasionally he would greet people – all of them strangers to him – and felt invigorated by the fresh air and the wind-resistance on the bike.

It didn't take him long to reach the library even with the detour, and he locked up his bike in the appointed area, stuffed his helmet in his bag, then went inside. He greeted the young librarian who was sorting out some books near the entrance, then went to one of the library computers, searching the selection with the keywords he had been coming up with during the bike ride. He wrote down a dozen options on a piece of paper, and once he was satisfied with his list, he went to find the books.

He took his time, looking at each when he found them on the shelves, replacing most of them after cursory glance. All of them had to do with shapes, from the standpoints of either design, history, or art. One in particular that Steve leafed through was promising: it explored geometric shapes and how they affected our everyday lives – from mathematics to physics and even engineering.

There was a self-checkout option the library had added recently, but Steve much preferred interacting with other people, so he had his books scanned by another librarian, then put them carefully in his backpack and headed home. Perhaps this approach would be helpful to his problem: these books had a lot of pictures and perhaps some of them would jog his memory and connect with the elusive dream that was driving him crazy.

Once he managed to get that image out and purge himself of it, perhaps he could resume his usual creativity, which never vexed him like this.

It seemed ridiculous he was even obsessed with an art piece that was so different from his usual medium. Why wouldn't it leave him alone? Yes, it was possible this distraction had nothing to do with his dream, but rather was connected to some other emotional or psychological block. If so, Steve had no idea what it might be.

Everything was the same in his life. He was generally very happy. There had been no upheaval and he didn't feel trapped or bored. Creativity came easily to him, be it a project big or small. Feeling this stuck over one thing was not like him, so he was quite keen on solving the puzzle.

At home, he made himself some herbal tea, then took his stack of books into the living room and began going through them. For whatever reason, he saved the most promising for last. Maybe it was the least interesting to him, topic-wise? Also, it had sounded a bit like one of those conspiracy books, drawing conclusions and connections between things that truly had nothing to do with each other.

Tony liked stuff like that more, even though he would call them idiotic in the next breath. Steve's husband liked experimenting even when he had a suspicion said experiment was going to end in failure. But until there was absolute proof, anything was possible in that small window, like Schrodinger's cat.

Well, it probably didn't work like that. Tony would give him a long-winded, tech-heavy explanation, and as much as Steve loved him, he couldn't always fake interest until the end of Tony's presentation. He certainly wouldn't understand most of it, because Tony wasn't that good at dumbing it down. Or, Tony didn't want to because he knew Steve genuinely wasn't interested in the first place.

Steve was immersed in his reading when Tony got home. He had already dismissed two books, not finding anything that seemed to connect to his dream shape. His eyes were tracking the pages for useful information as his fingers turned them at a steady pace. Next, he would get to the most promising book, and it was as if it were calling to him, teasing him with the answers.

Why he hadn't started with that one…

Steve felt like he could have, but he had wanted to leaf through the less promising candidates, just in case he found the answer there in a more easily digestible form.

"Speed-reading?" Tony asked as he walked in.

"Just… looking for inspiration," Steve replied, then looked up. "How was your day?"

"Maybe I should start leafing through books, too," Tony said in lieu of a real answer – which probably translated to 'no success'.

"Are you hungry?" Steve asked. "I got so engrossed with this I didn't pay attention to the time."

"I can heat up dinner for us," Tony promised, coming over and dropping a kiss on Steve's temple. He hovered, then, perhaps checking out what he was reading. "I was kind of expecting art history or something."

"Well, those two I already went through were more on that topic," Steve said. "This is about design, and so far, I haven't found what I'm looking for."

"And what is that?" Tony asked, moving into the kitchen, pulling containers out of the fridge.

"I will show you when I find it," Steve replied. He looked at another page, then frowned and noted the page number, closing the book. He would remember where he had stopped. His hand rose to rub his eyes, then he picked himself off the couch and joined Tony in the kitchen.

"Couldn't trust me to do this?" Tony asked.

"I realized I'm quite hungry," Steve smiled. Tony had pulled out two plates and was dishing out both their portions to put in the microwave. Steve moved to chop up some green stuff for a fresh salad, as well as pulling leftover steamed vegetables from the fridge to join their protein in the microwave. "Go wash up while I finish this up," Steve urged Tony, who agreed without a fight.

"So, you went to the library today?" Tony asked Steve when he returned to find the table ready for them, food and all. Steve was efficient when he got hungry – and honestly, he was hungry a lot. It was as if his metabolism had a stomach of its own, and was often found running low on fuel.

"Yes. I might as well have taken a longer route since the weather was nice… You know, you could bike to work, too," Steve said to Tony then.

"I'm sure I could, but I won't," Tony said in that charming smile of his.

Steve let it go. Every now and then he brought it up as an option. Tony didn't even have a bike of his own. It wasn't a mode of transportation he enjoyed, clearly. Steve had hinted what a nice time they could have going on bike rides together, but Tony wasn't so easily convinced. Besides, their city wasn't that biker friendly, according to Tony. Steve guessed he might be right because Tony's work was farther away than any of the errands Steve had to run for his own work or activities.

After eating they went to sit in the living room this time, deciding to watch a movie.

Lying together on the couch was always nice. Steve tried to find a film that they might both like until Tony just took the remote from him and picked one. Unless there was a film or program Tony specifically wanted to see, he tended to go for something Steve liked – as he did tonight. Tony was more likely to drift off during it anyway, exhausted from a day at work. Tonight was no exception.

When Steve realized Tony was asleep, he smiled and shifted ever so slightly, holding the other in his arms. He continued to watch the film, and when it was over, he moved just enough to wake Tony up.

Tony always had that tousle in his hair and an adorably unfocused look on his face until he was fully alert.

"Time for bed," Steve whispered to him and dropped a gentle kiss on his lips before grabbing their drinks and snacks to take them to the kitchen. Tony switched everything off in the living room, then they headed to the bedroom to get ready for bed.

Tony was yawning throughout it all, and Steve always found it endearing. Like a big kid, trying to stay up past his bedtime.

Someone might have considered Tony's work as an office job and claimed that he wasn't really doing anything warranting such exhaustion. However, Tony used his brain a lot – especially when he wasn't actively building something. Steve could see how much energy that took, and most nights he knew Tony was drained.

Having a simple conversation and then watching a movie was the perfect ending for his husband's day, and Steve certainly didn't mind. He wasn't looking to have a rousing debate about some topic that Tony would eventually take so far beyond the original starting point that Steve would be the one who was mentally exhausted.

Besides, Steve was using quite enough brain power trying to get past his own creative block.

Crawling into bed beside Tony, he hoped that perhaps tomorrow he would make some headway into it.

"A better day tomorrow?" he murmured to Tony.

"Here, here," Tony whispered, already on his way back to sleep – but he did throw an arm onto Steve's hip, at least for the time being. He tended to roll onto his side, claiming his own space on the bed. Steve was the same, so it worked out very well on their large mattress.

With a deep sigh, Steve closed his eyes, almost feeling like daring the dream to make itself known once again. He had to start remembering more of it eventually, right?

---

Tony finished another workday without a spark of invention. He escaped to his car unnoticed, then drove by a grocery store that Steve liked – the one with a better selection of healthier options. It wasn't one of those super fancy stores where you had to pay for 'premium' this and 'deluxe' that, but even Tony could appreciate locally sourced items and short ingredient lists.

After he had grabbed the things on the list Steve had given him, as well as a few of his own favorites, he went back to his car and started towards home.

While still within city center limits, it seemed there was some kind of an incident at an intersection, creating queues to pass it safely. Tony idled, listening to his music, slowly creeping towards the intersection – then suddenly his eyes landed on one of the people gawking at whatever was happening, standing on the sidewalk.

The crazy guy with the eyepatch and trench coat was there.

No one seemed to find him odd, too transfixed on the accident or whatever. Tony couldn't even see what was happening up ahead. Just about everyone was looking at it, focused on the screens of their phones, recording it – all except for Eye Patch: he was looking straight at Tony.

"Shit," Tony swore quietly. He knew it was ridiculous. There he was, safely in his vehicle. He had even made a point of checking the doors were locked. The man was so far away that he probably couldn't even see inside Tony's car, yet the way his one visible eye was staring straight at him was super creepy.

Could it be he was indeed some town nut job Tony had never heard about? Was that why everyone was paying zero attention to him? Because the man did stand out from the crowd, no matter how subdued the colors he was wearing.

Then, the man started to walk towards him in long, purposeful strides. His eye remained fixed on Tony's car.

"Yeah, I'm not doing this," Tony told himself and made a quick U-turn which made the cars around him honk angrily as he forced his way to the opposite lane and away from the scene – away from the creepy guy. Tony watched him from the rearview mirror, getting smaller, then Tony turned a corner. He drove an embarrassing amount of blocks before turning towards home again. He told himself it was to avoid congestion from the accident.

Once he got home safely, he decided not to tell Steve about this. His husband clearly had to see this creep before he believed he was not a harmless or confused individual in need of help.

Steve was in the kitchen preparing dinner, and after dropping off the groceries and a distracted kiss on his cheek, Tony went to the bedroom to wash up, then returned. "Do you need help with anything?" he asked Steve.

"No, just sit down and relax for a minute," Steve replied. He was good at sensing whenever Tony was on edge, and today definitely was one of those days.

He found Steve's stack of library books still in their living room and sat down to browse the titles, then grabbed the one on top. It was image-heavy, clearly put together for visual impact, but Tony found it quite engaging. After all, many of the diagrams, microscopic photographs, and photos in general were mathematically pleasing to his eye.

One might think they were really complex – which they in some cases were – and downright chaotic, but nature was fairly orderly. Yes, you could cause all kinds of reactions mixing stuff up in chemistry and such, but all those principles were based on solid science, which Tony liked. Sometimes the mechanics weren't entirely clear yet, but everything had a reason and a purpose for being the way it was.

He was looking at a very detailed image of a microchip when Steve appeared by his side.

"Did you find your inspiration yet?" Tony asked him, not looking away from the page.

"No. But I'll keep perusing this book. I think some of the shapes are… familiar. They don't speak to me yet, but I'm sure something will click eventually," Steve said. Tony knew he was tired of this, chasing down a ghost of a dream. It didn't help that Steve had tried to move on from it to other things – and failed.

Tony knew what it was like, getting an idea and needing to chase it all the way down the rabbit hole. Sometimes the idea wasn't viable, but not investigating it further would have bothered him more than knowing he had 'wasted' all that time.

"This isn't exactly your usual style," Tony noted, not for the first time. "These shapes are more my speed."

"Don't I know it," Steve grunted. "Alright, let's eat. I want to wind down tonight. No more of this."

Tony agreed, closing the book and placing it back on top of the pile.

"I assume you didn't have much luck either?" Steve asked as they sat down at the table. He had gotten them both beers to go with the dinner, which was saying something. Though, to make it more classy, he had poured them into glasses. At other times Steve had no issue drinking straight from a can or a bottle, but their mealtime together was special. Tony never saw any reason to complain.

"Nope," Tony replied. "I'm starting to feel like I need to do something out of the usual, to get myself going."

Steve chuckled. "I know how much you hate doing that."

"I know, right?" Tony rolled his eyes. "I spent the hour before my lunch break searching for ideas online. Exercising, being outdoors, meditation… those are not where I find inspiration."

"They didn't suggest arts?" Steve asked.

Tony hadn't brought them up because he wanted to throw no shade on his husband's work. "Well, they did… But I feel like that's too close to my usual process – drawing and painting are very visual, and something like pottery would just remind me of putting a model together."

"Maybe if you get really desperate," was all Steve said. He knew Tony wasn't into art. He had once tried to get Tony into making Christmas cards by hand – just once.

After their dinner – mashed potatoes, pieces of meat in gravy and plenty of veggies – Tony rinsed the dishes, put them in the dishwasher, then grabbed them fresh cans of beer and led the way out to the back patio. Again, they took their preferred seats, just sipping their drinks, looking at the sky or listening to the neighbors, not talking a whole lot.

Many couples would want to cuddle up and talk endlessly – and some nights they did just that. But this comfortable silence? Tony appreciated it.

As it started to get dark, their solar-powered lights turned on all around their yard. It also meant it was time to head to bed.

Tony snacked on a few tortilla chips while Steve did his usual wipe-down routine in the kitchen, then they went to the bedroom, doing one version of their usual pre-bedtime routine. This one included Steve pausing behind Tony, hand ever so slightly ghosting over his rear, and then he would smile at him in the mirror.

Signal received, Tony thought, and soon followed Steve into bed. He rolled past him onto his side of the mattress, then turned back towards him. Steve feigned that he wasn't expecting it, or for Tony to move closer still, bending over to kiss him, first slow, then deeper.

Maybe they were both in that weird age where their jobs weighed too heavily on them or whatever, but Tony's younger self would have been horrified he wasn't having sex multiple times a day.

Well, whatever his younger self would have counted as 'sex'.

Almost stealthily caressing Steve's body, and eventually pushing his hand down to touch him inside the underwear he was wearing despite obviously giving Tony the green light for sexy times earlier? It was just how they rolled.

Steve hummed happily, sliding his right hand over Tony's as if he needed guidance. Knowing that he didn't, Steve soon moved his hand to tease the small of Tony's back above the line of his own underwear, until taking a bolder stance and sliding his fingers down to grip his ass.

They kept kissing throughout the first stage of touching, then pulling down the restrictive clothing. Steve's hand moved from Tony's backside to his front, and as their hands got busy where it mattered, breathing took precedence over kissing. They pressed their foreheads together, chasing after their release.

Steve was always quieter, like he was afraid of letting the neighbors know what they were doing. Tony believed in communication in bed, and while not disturbingly loud, he was more willing to vocalize his pleasure – as long as it wasn't dirty talk; Steve had some weird thing about it really grating on his nerves, as if it were insincere in some way.

As if Tony could ever spout false flattery at his gorgeous husband… What a ludicrous idea. However, it was a small thing to keep in mind, and it turned Steve on way more whenever Tony let out those involuntary sounds in response to something Steve was doing. Genuine feedback and all that.

When Steve was pushed over the edge – or pulled, if you were being literal about the movement of Tony's hand at that particular moment – there was such a look of surprise on Steve's face. It always took Tony aback a bit, and he expected it not to be there the next time. It was a blink-and-miss kind of moment, and Steve would always kiss Tony afterward, redoubling his own efforts in case Tony hadn't come already. If not, Tony was close just like tonight, and it barely took a minute to make for a pair of messy hands between their bodies.

Steve was always the one to bounce up, and Tony would turn to watch his husband's body go and come from the bathroom, getting a damp cloth to clean up the mess, then going back to wash his hands. Tony was usually compelled to get up at that point and do the same, and then they would return to bed, cuddle up, and go to sleep.

It was another kind of routine that didn't vary too much from the script. The stuff in the middle changed a bit, but it often began and ended the same. Steve especially seemed to like that, and why should Tony not provide him with something that made him happy?

After a decidedly uneventful sleep – wherein Steve complained at breakfast he had once again been visited by his persistent 'muse' – Tony headed to work, feeling great. Maybe today would be the day he got a fresh idea that blossomed into a great discovery.

Hours later, staring at the wall of his too-bleak workshop, Tony was debating whether he should get a few spray cans and do something about that. In other words, there was no new discovery on the horizon. As hours ticked by, idle doodles were sent flying across the room – this time as paper airplanes aimed at the garbage can – and Tony had definitely lost the momentum he'd had when he got out of bed in the morning.

He wanted to leave work early, but his bosses had been positively ignoring him lately and he didn't want to change that. So, he ate lunch, drank way too much coffee, snuck over to a hallway vending machine for ingredients for a sugar overload, and finally at the stroke of half past four, he was rushing for the door so fast his chair was still spinning in place when he stepped out with his bag.

Tony made a beeline for the front door and the parking lot, ready to go home and forget about yet another unproductive day.

Once again he made his exit without seeing any of his coworkers, which made him suspicious whether he might be the only one at work. There were other cars still parked near his, though, so maybe the others were simply making use of the flexible hours that were at their disposal. Perhaps Tony should as well, to see if his brain was better stimulated by coming in earlier – or later.

He was four parking spaces away from his car when he noticed another person walking across the open space from the opposite direction. Not just that, but his eyes immediately were drawn to the black trench coat flowing behind him, and the superlatively purposeful stride that took the man with the eyepatch to Tony's vehicle before its owner. The man stopped there, as if waiting.

Tony stopped walking, taking a quick look around. He could see no one else. What was he going to do, though, if he did? Call for help? He looked at the man again, who was ever so casually leaning on Tony's car, elbows on top of the roof, finger crossed as if he were waiting for a meeting to start.

They stared at each other, or so Tony felt. He was pretty sure the single visible eye was fixed on him.

"Uh, that's my car," Tony called out then. "Can you move away from it, please?"

What was the guy even doing here? This wasn't close to where Tony had seen him before. The entire company property was fenced, and people weren't supposed to be able to just walk onto it. There was no guard station at the entrance, but it still looked unwelcoming to anyone who didn't have actual business to be here.

"We need to talk, Stark," he man called out to him.

Tony blinked, looking around again. He still couldn't see anyone else. "I think you've got the wrong guy," he replied then, relieved. Maybe it was just a case of mistaken identity. No wonder Crazy Eyepatch Guy had looked kind of miffed whenever Tony got away from him previously.

"Your name isn't Tony Stark?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow.

Tony felt all tense again.

The man frowned – or at least narrowed his one eye. Did he have another one under the patch?

"For fuck's sake…," the Eyepatch Guy swore. "Okay, look, I'm working on limited information here. This place doesn't exactly come with a rule book."

Maybe he had indeed escaped from a facility somewhere. Did they have a nuthouse in town?

Steve would definitely be giving him a disapproving look for calling it that…

"I'm here to help you," the man said. "You seem confused by that, but I'm not a threat."

"Okay," Tony said, playing along.

"What is your name?" the man asked, trying to sound more pleasant; like they were two chaps, having a chat.

"Tony," Tony said.

"Tony… what?"

Again, it gave him pause.

"How do you sign your name on documents? What reads on your work ID?" the man pressed.

Tony frowned, looking at the ID around his neck. It just had his first name in his own handwriting, a barcode and a string of numbers, and other work-related logos and text. Had he never really paid attention to that before? It was a safety measure, most likely. Just like the guy at the grocery shop just had 'Dave' written on his name tag.

The other man was suddenly moving around Tony's car and Tony backed up a bit. The guy stopped, raising his hands a bit. "Not a threat," he repeated. "My name is Nick – Nick Fury. We've met."

"I would remember that," Tony said honestly.

"Do you have a pen and paper?" the Crazy Eyepatch Guy – Nick – asked. "Show me how you write your name."

It was a weird thing to fixate on, but Tony hoped that acting along with his fantasy or whatever would make Nick lose interest in Tony and move on. So, he dug out a notebook and a pen, and opened to a blank page. Nick walked closer, and to show how wrong he was, Tony signed his name under his very eye and then pulled his pen back with satisfaction.

"Is that supposed to be legible?" the other asked, looking at the thing Tony had just written.

"It's a signature," Tony said, then looked down at it properly. The 'Tony' part of it was quite distinct, but the rest? He cocked his head, and honestly, he couldn't read it. But it was his name in the signature, so…

"Your name is Anthony Edward Stark," the other man told him persistently. "You are also Iron Man."

Tony looked at him, wondering how loosely connected to reality the man was. "That sounds like a…" He didn't even want to know what the other man thought it was. A celebrity? A show wrestler? A porn star?

"You're a superhero," Nick stated.

"Do I wear a cape?" Tony asked, amused.

"You wear a suit of armor."

"Like a medieval knight?"

"If they wore a high-tech, flight-capable 'prosthetic', as you once called it, then sure," Nick grunted. He was clearly getting annoyed. "None of this rings a bell?"

"I mean…" Tony gestured at the building behind them, his workplace. "It must sound pretty insane to you, too, right?"

"I wish," Nick huffed. "You alone have caused me weeks' worth of paperwork, meetings, not to mention the man-hours." He looked around. "Where's cap?"

Again, Tony was confused, which really was the theme of this strange conversation. Why couldn't he just slip into his car and drive away, and hope this man never tracked him down again. "What cap?" he dared to ask.

"Captain America," the other man snapped. "Steve Rogers. He went MIA with you, infiltrating a hydra base. Is he here with you?"

That sentence was a lot to unpack, even for Tony's brain. "Hydra? Like, the multi-headed, mythical beast?"

"Like a Nazi-era paramilitary fringe organization that has been making a re-entry into the world as we know it."

"And MIA, as in…?"

"Missing in action."

"I knew that one," Tony hummed.

"Have you seen Cap?" Nick asked, leaning a bit closer to him. "Tall guy, built like a brick wall, blond hair, blue eyes, wholesome like driven snow until you piss him off?" Fuck, he was menacing.

"The only Steve I know is my husband," Tony replied, feeling uneasy.

That seemed to demand a moment for Nick to process, which was a welcome change of pace. "Husband? Okay… I'm rolling with the punches here." He sighed, looking around as if he, too, wished to be somewhere else. "May I guess you don't know his last name, either?"

"That's none of your business," Tony informed him. "I need to be heading home now, if you don't mind –"

"This world isn't real," Nick Fury said, with new energy, moving ever so subtly to block Tony from his car. "I don't know where you are, physically, but none of this is real."

"How is this not real?" Tony demanded. "Just let me get on my way and maybe I won't call the cops on you. Please go and get help. And stop stalking me!" he added for good measure, moving to the side, trying to get past the other man.

This time Nick reached out, fisting his hand in Tony's shirt. He was quite strong. "As far as I have it figured out, all of this is as real as your brain makes it. Start looking at the edges, Stark; the spots where your brain supplies fodder and static to keep the image closest to you crisp, but it doesn't quite have the strength to fill in all the gaps."

Tony frowned and tried to pry the man's fingers open. "If my mind is the engine creating this world, how is it logical that I could even see the faults?" he demanded. "My brain would just straighten things out as I go."

Nick blinked and his grip loosened, but only slightly. "Good point. But you must see how… imperfect this all is, right? I see it everywhere. Sometimes I feel like I'm stepping off a map if I'm too far away from you."

"And what is outside the map?" Tony asked just because he kind of liked the thought exercise – not because he believed a word of it. Besides, if he played along, maybe Nick would get distracted and Tony could make a break for it.

"I wake up," the other replied. "And then we spend hours to try and reconnect again."

Tony wondered who the 'we' was, but he didn't ask. He didn't want to encourage this craziness too much. "It sounds troublesome. Maybe take a break next time."

Again, Nick's single visible eye narrowed, and his grip tightened with it. "Trust me, we tried sending Mr. Banner in here, but there was a concern that the experience might have an effect on the other side."

Tony had no idea what he was talking about, and really, that was beginning to irritate him. Tony was used to being the smart guy in the room. Playing catch-up wasn't his style.

Nick seemed to realize his argument wasn't valid, letting out another frustrated sound. He also shoved Tony into the nearest car, letting go of him, but standing there, huffing angrily.

Like a wary dog protecting his precious bone, fully aware you were looking to take it from him.

"It doesn't strike you as odd that you don't really know your full name? Follow that logic. You're one of the smartest people I know. What else is missing? Your marriage, your… husband, when did you meet, how did you get together, where did you get married?"

"I'm not going to tell you any of that stuff," Tony replied sharply.

"Not for me. For you. You're the one trapped here, Stark," Nick snapped right back. "You and Cap. Steve." He seemed to ponder that. "You're going to take me to your home," he said then.

"Not fucking likely," Tony replied.

Wait, did that mean Nick didn't know where they lived? If Tony made a break for it, the man wouldn't be able to find him?

Hell, maybe he'd just call in sick for the rest of the month or however long it took for a crazy person to lose interest and move on…

"I need you guys to realize what is going on," Nick pressed. "We don't know where you are, or what the purpose of this mind-game is. But there is a reason, and knowing Hydra, it's nothing good. So we're going to get in the car –"

He grabbed onto Tony again, pushing him towards his vehicle, and Tony could admit he panicked a bit. This man was crazy, and the last thing he would do was take him to his home, to his husband. "No!" Tony shouted, resisting.

"I'm not wasting any more time chasing you across town. Get in the fucking car, Stark –"

"Get away from me!" Tony yelled, shoving at the crazy stranger who was clearly stronger than him, but maybe he wouldn't be waiting for Tony to resist. And suddenly, the man was gone – eyepatch, trench coat and all. He was just… gone.

Tony blinked, turning around, looking at the deserted parking lot, then at the spot where the man had just been. There had been no sound, no nothing. He was just…

"Doesn't matter," he muttered, grabbing his things and running to his car, unlocking it with shaking hands. Tony threw himself inside it as soon as he had the door open, then locked himself inside, giving the surroundings another paranoid look.

There was no one around. None of his co-workers. No random passer-by on the crappy industrial street.

Tony took a breath, then started the car and tried to drive off the property as calmly as he could, but he was definitely pushing the speed limit all the way home.

---

Steve heard the front door bang shut then hurried steps moving across the floor below – soon followed by a thundering sound of someone coming up the stairs. Tony moved into Steve's studio so violently Steve almost fell off his stool. "Honey, what's going on?" he asked. "You sounded like a heard of elephants coming up the stairs."

Tony took a moment, appearing shaken. He looked at the room, then went to one of the windows, taking a look outside.

"Tony, you're scaring me. What's going on?"

"I had the weirdest encounter after work," Tony told him a bit distractedly.

"You didn't see that crazy man again, did you?" Steve asked. It wasn't like Tony to get worked up like this, so something unusual must have happened. Tony stared past him, a blank look on his face, and Steve frowned, then stood up. "Hey, what's going on?" he asked Tony, gently touching his arm.

"Is that what you've been working on?" Tony asked, gesturing towards the large sketch pad Steve had set up on an easel.

Steve looked back at it. "Yes, well… It's not quite the thing I'm going for, but I think I'm finally getting somewhere," he said, feeling excited. He had been chasing the vague dream for so long, it felt amazing to be able to capture something that finally felt right.

"That looks like…" Tony trailed off, cocking his head.

"Like something you would draw?" Steve asked. "I know. I think I got the inspiration from one of the books I borrowed from the library. That had plenty of geometric and mathematical drawings, which are the basis for a lot of the things you work on, right?"

"It looks like circuitry," Tony mused.

"Well, whatever it is, I'm just glad to finally get it out of my system. Or, something that will lead to the actual thing." Steve smiled, then looked at his husband again. "Tony, what got you so upset earlier?"

Tony blinked, gaze finally breaking away from Steve's drawing. "Yeah, the crazy guy… He showed up at our company parking lot. I think he mistook me for someone else, or he was… delusional. Like, really delusional."

"Maybe we should try to get him some help," Steve frowned. "Did he act aggressively?"

Tony didn't say anything immediately, which wasn't exactly comforting. "Tony, if he's dangerous that's a different thing entirely. But he needs help."

Tony nodded almost absently. "I'm hungry," he decided then.

"Let's go eat," Steve agreed, putting his tools away and turning off the lights, then following Tony down the stairs.

When he got to the kitchen, Tony was sort of… standing in the middle of it, staring off into space again.

"Did you get anything productive done at work today?" Steve asked as he moved to put food on a couple of plates and heat them up.

"No," Tony replied. He was acting very strangely. He also kept going to windows, looking out, pulling curtains over them.

"Did the man try to follow you?" Steve guessed. "We can call the police."

"No, I'm pretty sure he didn't," Tony replied.

"Have a drink, try to calm your nerves," Steve encouraged. Tony had a bottle of whiskey he only touched whenever he felt particularly festive. It had probably cost a fortune. Steve didn't really have a taste for that stuff.

Tony nodded but made no move to do so, and Steve finished heating up the food, putting it on the table. They sat down and ate, but Steve was the only one able to carry a conversation. Tony seemed distant and Steve wished he knew what had really happened. At least his husband didn't seem injured or anything.

After eating, Steve washed the dishes. He heard Tony grabbing a glass and finally going to the living room, pouring himself some of the whiskey. Hopefully it would ease his nerves.

Steve wanted to ask him more about what had happened, but he wasn't sure it was helping. He didn't like how lost Tony looked.

After he was done cleaning up the kitchen, Steve grabbed himself a beer, taking one for Tony as well in case he felt like it, and moved to the back door, finding Tony standing outside. His husband was still nursing what little was left of his whiskey, whirling it in endless circles around the glass as he gazed up into the darkening sky.

Steve set down Tony's beer, unopened, but cracked open his own and took a sip. He also looked up and was startled. "Wow," he blinked. "I wonder if there's something in the atmosphere…" The moon looked really red. Not alarmingly so, but Steve hadn't heard anything about it happening due to sunlight, atmospheric conditions, pollution, or something like that. Then again, he had been quite busy with his work, finally feeling like he was getting somewhere.

"Yeah," Tony hummed. "It really is… something."

Tony finished his whiskey while Steve drank his beer. Steve kept looking at the other man, spying how he inhaled the smell of the drink, as if savoring it before downing the last trickle that was left. Tony didn't reach for the beer.

"I think I might go to bed early," Tony said then.

"Not the worst idea," Steve agreed. Tony looked weary. "I'll join you, I think. Get an early start tomorrow."

Tony nodded, giving him a brief smile, then turned to go inside. He grabbed the beer bottle Steve had brought for him, and stopped beside him, dropping a kiss on Steve's cheek. "I love you," Tony whispered.

"I love you, too," Steve smiled, standing outside as he finished his beer, listening to Tony washing his glass, putting the unopened beer back in the fridge, and then heading to the bedroom. It was really quiet outside so he could hear him clearly, moving around.

Steve looked up at the sky again, and the red moon – which, really, looked a bit more normal now. Maybe there was some dust in the air, or pollution. Steve would have to turn on the news tomorrow, see if they might report on it.

He finished his drink and stepped inside, locking up. When he went to their bedroom, Tony was in bed, lying still, and Steve went to brush his teeth and get ready, then crawled in beside his husband. He placed one arm around Tony and closed his eyes, though he had a feeling Tony was still awake. He didn't seem too tense, though, so hopefully Tony was going to fall asleep soon, and tomorrow would be better for him…

---

Tony hadn't slept well and he was tired when he headed out to work. Steve had gotten up at the same time as him, but he had been subdued, clearly concerned by Tony's mood.

As he drove, Tony scanned the streets but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

While he chose his usual spot in the company's parking lot, Tony took his time, slowly getting out of the car, again scanning his whereabouts. Nothing.

He walked inside in a shuffle, almost. The hallways echoed as he approached his workshop, and once inside it, Tony just stood by the door for a long time. He felt uneasy. Just like last night…

Tony went and made himself coffee, waiting next to the machine for it to brew. He poured it, then went and sat down in his chair. He drank his coffee, staring at the blank screen of his computer. When the coffee was gone, Tony forced himself to turn on the computer, then spent another fifteen minutes staring at the login screen.

He got up to pour another cup of coffee from what was left of his earlier brew, then sat back down again.

Did he feel disillusioned? Paranoid? Was he truly going crazy?

In the next hour, he opened and closed various old projects. Nothing seemed to jar his brain into action.

Did it even matter?

Of course it did.

But… what if it didn't?

Deciding that making himself another pot of coffee and then drinking it would be overkill, Tony instead got up and walked out of his workshop. If he saw anyone, he would tell them he had forgotten his lunch and was going to go get some. Well, it was true he had nothing to eat, so…

He saw no one. Not a single soul anywhere. He couldn't even hear voices echoing from other rooms.

Tony was tempted to walk back and to start opening doors, peering in, but he went to his car instead, started it, and drove to the grocery store nearest to his workplace. Not the one Steve liked him to shop at, but he came here plenty.

Finally, there were people, mothers shopping with their kids, the occasional working man, and people who worked at the store.

Tony must have spent almost half an hour inside, browsing the aisles, watching people, trying not to act like a creep. Eventually he had to go because the staff was giving him looks. He grabbed something he might actually eat for lunch: a sandwich, a selection of diced fruit and vegetables, a vitamin shake and some chips. On a whim he also grabbed a box of donuts, then carried them out to his car.

He was almost ready to drive back to work, sit at his desk, eat some of his lunch and go back to his daily routine.

Then he saw Nick Fury, the guy with the eyepatch and the black leather trench coat, leaning against the side of his car.

Tony sighed. He felt tired, defeated.

"I feel like we got off on the wrong foot last time," the other man said.

"You disappeared," Tony replied.

"I believe you booted me out," Nick shot back.

Tony just nodded, unlocked the car, threw his bag of groceries in the backseat, then got in. He waited, and a few seconds later the passenger door opened and the other man got in, closing the door.

"You seem… down today," Nick commented then. "Trouble at home?"

Tony stared straight ahead through the windshield, watching people moving back and forth, cars pulling in and out of the parking lot. People going about on their business.

"I made the moon turn red," he finally said.

"Excuse me?" Nick asked.

"Last night. I stood outside on our back patio and I made the moon turn to a different shade. Didn't know I could do it, but…" Tony leaned back against his seat and lifted a hand to his face. His palm felt cool on his skin. "Tell me again," he said then. "Tell me about… how none of this is real."

"You are Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. You are an avenger," Nick said.

"What am I avenging?" Tony asked. He felt tired – and he wasn't sure last night's poor quality of sleep had anything to do with it.

"No, you're… Avengers, that's your team. A group of superheroes: you and Steve Rogers – Captain America; a guy who might just be a real Norse God; a man who gets big and green when he's especially angry; a guy who shoots arrows really well; and this spy girl you really wanted to learn to know biblically at some point."

Tony knew it was a joke. He didn't feel like laughing. "Okay. Avengers. Got it. Rag-tag team."

"Pretty much."

"And this is all a dream?"

"I think so," Nick said.

"You think so?" Tony asked, angry all of a sudden. He dropped his hand and turned his head to look at the other man. "You do realize I have a life here? Or, I think I have a life here. I think I'm married and that I'm in love – and you claim maybe none of it is real."

"I know none of it is real. I just don't know if it's a dream, a simulation, or some construct mixing the two," Nick shrugged. "This isn't exactly tech we've come across before. Normally I might ask you to figure it out."

Tony sighed, looking out the window again. "How come I don't know who I am?"

"Don't know."

"Fuck, you are unhelpful," Tony snapped again. "Why are you here?"

"To wake you up," Nick said, giving him a grin. "Whatever this is, and whether it's literally or figuratively a jolt that you need…" He dropped the grin. "Look, we tried sending other people in. For reasons that escape us, I got in while the others didn't."

"Do we have a special connection?" Tony asked.

"I never thought so," Nick shrugged. "Maybe I thought wrong."

"How come you can find me, but you don't know where I live?" Tony demanded.

"You're the signal we are riding on to get in here, so to speak," Nick said. "I have tried following you around, but at some point I just can't. Maybe you're protecting it, or Hydra is, or whoever is in control of this world."

"I kicked you out and I changed the color of the moon," Tony reminded him. "You think I'm not in control?"

"Can you make yourself leave?" Nick challenged.

"I haven't tried that," Tony replied icily, then sat back again, staring at the world outside. Maybe if he wished hard enough, Nick would just disappear again. Did he want him to, though?

Yesterday, he had been scared of him.

Today, he wanted answers.

More than answers, he needed proof. "If you don't know anything about this place, then who does?" Tony asked. "Maybe you got in because you're useless at getting me out."

"Hey now, that's hurtful," Nick pointed a finger at him. "You may not know it, but you kind of work for me."

"Kind of?" Tony raised an eyebrow. Somehow he doubted that.

Nick sighed. "Can I talk to Cap for a change? Maybe he'll listen."

"You still want me to take you to our home?" Tony questioned. "How do you know it will work if you haven't been able to go there before?"

"Well, I cannot know that before we try, can I?" Nick snapped at him. "Maybe you'll be my hall pass. Maybe we'll both be denied access. Hell, maybe your husband isn't even the man I'm looking for."

Tony looked at him for a few seconds then pulled out his phone, opening the gallery and pulled up a picture of him and Steve together, then showed it to the other man. "Is this your guy?"

Nick just stared at it for a moment. "Yeah, that's my guy," he replied, then sighed. "I wish you knew how fucked up all this is."

Tony had an idea but he said nothing. He just fastened his seatbelt, then started the car and pulled out. For a moment he thought about going back to work and telling Nick Fury to wait until he was ready to go home, but if none of this was real, why on Earth would he go back there?

So, he took a different turn, driving towards home.

"How come you're not able to locate Steve?" Tony asked Nick as he drove, to pass the time and maybe to weed out some more answers.

"Because your AI isn't able to track him," Nick answered as if that made perfect sense. "We've analyzed this place as much as possible, but we're looking from the outside in, and the scope within which we operate is extremely limited – or so I've been told."

"If you can access it, you should be able to branch off or something," Tony noted.

"Look, I'm not the scientist. For all we know, this is magic!" Nick huffed.

"Magic?" Tony snorted. "Okay, fine…"

"If I could have sent Banner here, trust me, I might have risked him going berserk," Nick muttered.

"You know those words mean very little to me, right?" Tony reminded him. "How are you patching in? What does the edge look like? You've gotten in here several times, I'm sure you've noticed some patterns. You said there are 'rules'."

"Again, you're asking the wrong guy if you want a detailed explanation of how I get in and out of here," Nick complained. "I just sit back, have some weird shit taped to my temples, and take a nap in this garbled mess of a dreamland. Because that's what the edges look like: reality going into a blender."

Tony looked around as he drove. To him, the world seemed clear, well-defined. "Well, if this is a construct, a lot of things would depend on its purpose, but… If it's anything like designing a level in a game, you need to have limits. Infinite scope would eat up resources and power like crazy, not to mention it would be impossible to implement unless you had some kind of an… AI or something running it, or an infinite loop."

Nick just gave him a blank look. "Okay. Makes sense. I get too far away from you – the center of the existence – things get less and less clear."

"Are we the only people here who are… real?" Tony asked.

"I don't know," Nick said. "I don't even know if Steve is really Steve." He looked at Tony. "I don't know for a fact if you are you, to be honest."

"Then why are we talking?!" Tony asked. He felt like slamming the breaks. Luckily there was a red light he needed to stop at and there was no car immediately behind him, so he did just that.

Nick jerked in his seat, bracing one hand on the console in front of him. "Because Jarvis says to do so," he replied tightly.

"Jarvis?"

"Your AI."

Tony mulled over that. Somehow, that…

"Ring a bell?" Nick asked hopefully. "Please tell me that something sounds familiar to you, finally – and that you're not thinking of the family butler."

Tony frowned. He didn't get that reference. "I mean…" He tapped a finger against the steering wheel, but it eluded him, whatever it was. "Jarvis knows how this works?" he asked.

"I think he knows the most, because he can… I don't know, he's able to get me here, and back," Nick said.

"I feel like he's the one I should be talking to, then," Tony complained.

"I agree, but –"

"Technically, there is nothing to prevent us from doing that," a voice appeared in the car speakers, kind of static-y.

Tony jumped a bit, then the car behind him honked; the light had changed and Tony accelerated. "Is that him?" he asked then.

"Indeed, sir," the voice from the stereo said, a bit clearer with every passing syllable.

"He sounds strange," Nick commented. "He's got this English accent. Posh. Kind of full of himself – but always polite."

"Thank you, Director Fury," the voice replied, dry enough to catch fire without the help of kindling.

"Director?" Tony asked.

"Director of Shield," Nick shrugged. "The Strategic Homeland… Ah, forget it," he waved it off.

"– Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division," Jarvis supplied. "S.H.I.E.L.D."

"A mouthful, that one," Tony commented. "You sure you didn't just want the really cool acronym?"

"That is relative, sir," Jarvis noted. "After all, you named me 'Just A Rather Very Intelligent System'."

"J.A.R.V.I.S.," Tony put it together.

"Also the name of a man who worked for your family all your life," Nick added.

Tony didn't bother saying he remembered none of that. However, the voice in the speakers was becoming more… clear. More British. "So, J.A.R.V.I.S.… Care to shed more light on the situation we're in?"

"I wish I could, sir. I was able to track down your brain's pattern, but I am yet to be able to follow it to the source."

Tony wondered, very briefly, if it was possible he was dead and all that was left was some brain signature in this fake world.

"Don't worry, sir, we will figure it out," the AI promised.

"Wait, you can tell I'm worried?" Tony frowned.

"Indeed. I am incredibly familiar with your cues, but I can also read the stream."

Tony ruminated on that. Well, it kind of made sense. If this world was indeed a simulation of some kind, some or all of it was simply ones and zeroes. Thoughts and dreams were simply electric impulses. If this AI was able to track down his brain, which was connected to this thing…

"How do I leave?" Tony asked.

"We are hoping that waking up will do the trick," J.A.R.V.I.S. said.

"And how do I do that?"

"Unclear, sir."

"Maybe you can just wish it, like you wished me to leave you alone," Nick offered a suggestion.

"Maybe," Tony decided to agree. "Why are you in my car stereo, J.A.R.V.I.S.?" he asked then. That distracted him from the idea of leaving the only existence he knew – or, was currently aware that he knew.

"I felt it might be a less jarring experience for you," J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. "After all, it is much like how we communicate on the other side."

Right, because an AI was still most likely a program, confined by technology… "But here, you're not trapped by such limits, are you?" Tony guessed.

"No, indeed I am not."

"Can we stay on topic?" Nick requested. Sometimes it sounded like he was in a big hurry. Then again, if Tony had a body waiting for him somewhere… could it be he was in danger? Nick had hinted at that possibility.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., could you just… kick me out of the system?" Tony asked. "Not yet!" he added swiftly. "I'm not ready to try out any half-baked ideas."

"Duly noted, sir. We could try it, but I calculate that might not work. Your mind is deeply entwined in the code surrounding you – and, as we are now approaching your home, I believe I can see a pattern that might be Captain Rogers' mind at work."

"That sounds promising," Nick said, sitting up.

"You can see Steve?" Tony asked, just to clarify. "How come you could not see him before?"

"I am following your trail, sir. I have been attempting to upload parts of my program onto this framework, but so far those attempts have been rejected. We are currently interacting in real time, so to speak."

"Are there security measures in place that eject your presence? Can you alter the code at all?" Tony asked.

"The code seems… quite foreign. I can traverse some of it, but I have not yet dared a more direct approach of altering it. I do not want to risk losing the connection to you, if the source is alerted to my presence."

Tony nodded, thinking it over. "I wish I could see it."

"The code?" Nick asked. "J.A.R.V.I.S., can't you conjure it up on some screen or something?"

Suddenly, it was as if the very air around them exploded with unexpected colors, and Tony almost swerved off the road in shock. "Not now!" he repeated his earlier command, and the lightshow disappeared. "Later, though," Tony sighed with relief and looked at Nick. "Why you didn't bring J.A.R.V.I.S. along to begin with, I will never know."

Nick muttered something he couldn't quite catch, and then Tony turned a corner, slowed down a bit, and finally pulled up into their driveway. The man beside him seemed to perk up, looking out with genuine interest. "We're here?" he asked.

"Yes," Tony answered, then remembered they hadn't known this was possible. The AI showing up had distracted him. "This is our home."

"Suburbia dream," Nick commented, turning his head to look around. "Again, I cannot describe how strange all of this is."

"I don't live in a place like this?" Tony asked.

"Not even close."

Tony reached for the door, then stopped. "J.A.R.V.I.S., can you just… hang out here, or… in the background or whatever. I don't want to freak out my husband."

"Duly noted, sir."

Tony nodded, then took a breath and opened the door, getting out of the car. Nick followed him, his movements slow as if he expected something to happen at any moment. He followed Tony closely as they crossed the distance to the house then went to the door. Tony let them in and turned to watch as Nick crossed over the threshold behind him.

"Welcome to our home," Tony told him dryly.

Nick just nodded, looking around. The way he moved his right arm almost looked like he was reaching for a weapon or something. He noticed Tony noticing and stopped, visibly trying to relax. "Sorry. I keep expecting… something."

"Tony?" Steve called out from the direction of the living room. "Is that you?"

"Yeah!" Tony called out.

"Why are you home at this hour?" Steve asked, walking over – then stopped short as he spotted Nick. "Who is your friend?" he asked very slowly.

"You remember the crazy guy, the one you thought we should help?" Tony said. "Well, I brought him home with me."

"I can see that." Steve was definitely confused and wary.

"My name is Nick Fury. I'm…" He stopped, glancing at Tony. "I don't know what he's said about me, but I'm on your side."

"Okay," Steve replied then looked at Tony like he really wanted to talk to him – but he definitely wouldn't want to leave this stranger with an eyepatch unattended in their home, either.

"Come on in," Tony said, moving further inside.

Steve backed up a bit, watching the stranger, but he was too polite to just kick him out. "Can I offer you something to drink?" he asked with forced politeness.

"No, thank you," Nick replied.

They moved to the living room. Nick was looking around as if searching for clues. Tony was fairly certain there wouldn't be any, but then… wouldn't he be blind to them?

"Why is he here?" Steve whispered to him, clearly hoping his voice wouldn't carry.

"I'm here to tell you this world isn't real," Nick said, just like that, and Tony groaned.

"What?" Steve asked. "I mean… real how?" Clearly he thought Nick was crazy and was trying to play along to keep him calm, the way Tony had the other day on the parking lot of his workplace.

"Honey," Tony cut in, so that they wouldn't have to go through all that again. "I think he might be right, maybe," he said. "Last night, the moon? It was a normal color when I went outside."

Steve blinked at him, confused – then his eyes flashed towards Nick, to make sure he didn't lose sight of him. "Well, that's only natural. I haven't heard anything in the news, but it's not unheard of for it to appear red, you know?"

"No," Tony sighed. "I wanted to test a theory, so I told the moon to turn red. And it did."

Steve looked at him with newfound concern. "Are you feeling okay?" he asked, like he suspected Tony was sick or something.

"No," Tony admitted. "I feel… Steve, he's telling me we are both superheroes in this team called the Avengers. That we went missing on a mission. That you and I aren't married –"

Steve took a step back, almost as if he had been struck in the face. He turned to look at Nick. "Why would you say such a thing? Look, I've been patient and I really think you should get help – you need it. None of this makes sense, and whatever you think is happening just isn't real. You're delusional." Then he looked at Tony. "Why are you buying into anything he says?"

"Because I made him disappear yesterday," Tony said. "And then I changed the color of the moon."

"It's a natural phenomenon, and I really would like him to disappear now, too!" Steve raised his voice a bit.

Tony tensed, looking at Nick, fearing that he might pop out of existence the same way he had in the parking lot yesterday – but he didn't. Though, it looked like Nick was kind of waiting for it, too.

"Okay, let's calm down," Nick said. "I'm sure we can approach this in a way that… makes sense to everyone?"

"I want you to leave my home," Steve said, voice a lot less friendly.

Tony looked at him, wondering for the first time if it was possible this wasn't Steve at all. Well, of course it was, but… What if he wasn't actually a manifestation of the man Nick was also looking for? What if this was just part of the program or whatever? What if this was one of the security measures that were sure to be lurking somewhere?

Nick looked like he was prepared to get a lot less friendly, too. "Look, I don't know how much time we have. I've been here several times already and there's no knowing if that will trigger some kind of a response," he said, focusing his eye on Tony. "Maybe time doesn't matter at all, but in case it does? I need to be sure you two understand what is going on. I have no idea where you are, or if you are in danger."

"We are right here, and if you don't leave right now, I'm calling the cops," Steve threatened. He stepped to the side, to offer Nick a free path to the door. "Leave," he ordered.

Tony looked around. He wondered if he could make some change, like the moon. Surely he hadn't imagined it last night?

What if Tony was just going crazy, and this insane person he had brought to their home had fed into some strange escapism fantasy…?

His heart was beating really fast and he felt faint. Did he know, for sure, what was real?

"J.A.R.V.I.S.?" Tony called out.

"At your service, sir," the voice replied, but it didn't come from the car stereo this time. Instead, it seemed to echo from within the walls of their living room, and in the air between the three of them, a ball of light appeared. "I am attempting to manifest a visual representation of my presence, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. said. "I hope you don't mind. My hope is it will perhaps prove our intentions to Captain Rogers."

Steve took a step back, looking like he was seeing a ghost lower itself from the ceiling or something. "Tony, what is that?"

"Uh, my AI?" Tony answered. "That's what I've been told."

"By this crazy person?" Steve demanded.

"Yes, but… Steve," Tony looked at him, then at the ball of light, which was actually lines of code circling in near-endless loops. "I think I know this one," he said. "I can't explain it. None of this is rational and makes zero sense. I know this world; I know you, this house, our life." He looked at Steve. "I know I love you, but…"

"You think it's all a lie?" Steve said, sounding so hurt, so wounded all of a sudden.

"I think there might be more going on than meets the eye – and I don't know if the two of us can be trusted to see it," Tony admitted. "If we're plugged into this thing, whatever it is, and our minds conjure some of what seems so real to us… We can't ever see the faults."

Last night and this morning, he had been thinking of the simple things – and the more complex things, too, like memories and emotions attached to the simpler, smaller details.

"It's these things that make sense at first glance, but not when I really start to question them," Tony went on. "What is my name – your name? Nick tried to make me sign my name, and… I'm not sure I could. When was the last time I saw any of my coworkers? I have these feelings towards them, but have I ever actually lived through any of those things I think are memories? Am I just creating them to aid a narrative so that everything around me isn't quite so jarring?"

"I think you might be ill," Steve said softly. "Won't you go lie down? You barely slept last night, right?"

"Steve, honey," Tony pressed. "Can you really remember anything from the past? Details, dates, specifics? Our neighbors…"

"I bike around the neighborhood all the time," Steve reminded him. "I greet the people I see, I go to the stores, the library. How can you think it's not real?"

Tony was beginning to wonder that, too. Maybe he just had a really crappy, selective memory. There were things that he recalled, vividly, even if he couldn't place them with certainty. Could he be having a breakdown from overworking or something?

"Stark, you're on the right track," Nick told him. "Keep pushing. It might be the way out."

"Don't talk to him!" Steve snapped so fast Tony actually jumped, and Nick definitely was looking for a gun at his hip. Did he have one? Had Tony even checked if this man was armed before bringing him to their home, to his husband?!

"Captain Rogers, I can tell this is all very confusing –"

"I don't know what the hell you are, but I'm pretty sure you're not real," Steve said, though it seemed to upset him to be talking to a ball of light. "Tony, I know what is real. Trust me: this guy is insane. I want you to go lie down while I make sure he leaves, then we'll go to the hospital. Maybe you're just really tired and confused. You could be burned out from work, you've been trying so hard to come up with something new. Or maybe you have some kind of an infection and we just haven't realized."

Tony felt frustrated. He had been so sure in the car, but now, faced with his husband's determination…

"You're not married," Nick snapped. "You barely tolerate each other on a good day."

That seemed to do it for Steve: he moved towards Nick so fast it was kind of terrifying, fisted the front of his jacket and physically dragged him out the door, slamming the door shut and sliding the security lock on it. "I'm calling the police right now," Steve said. "If he has any sense, he'll be gone by the time they arrive."

Tony stood there, feeling numb while Steve was on the phone. Then movement caught the corner of his eye and he looked up, seeing the ball of light still hovering there like a fancy disco ball. "What am I going to do?" he asked.

"I am not sure, sir. I fear that if Captain Rogers grows any more upset, Director Fury might be expelled once again."

"Does it hurt him?" Tony asked.

"So far, it hasn't appeared to."

Well, then Tony wasn't so worried about that. "What about you? Are you going to be kicked out along with him?"

"Technically, as long as I'm connected to your signature, I believe I might be able to remain inside."

That, for whatever reason, comforted Tony.

Steve finished his call, coming back – then noticed the ball of light was still there. "Tony, can that thing…"

"I cannot harm you," J.A.R.V.I.S. supplied. Had that been what Steve was about to ask?

"Steve, what if they are right?" Tony asked him. "Just, ignore your gut reaction and how insane it sounds."

"It is insane," Steve said, walking over to him. He put his hands on Tony's face, framing it. His touch felt cool, calming, comforting. Familiar. "I'm really worried about you right now. Should I have seen something was wrong?"

Tony smiled at him, but everything was tainted by his doubts now – even Steve and their love for one another. That was the most horrible part of it all, really. Tony didn't care about anything else, his work or the random people he met every day.

People who probably weren't real…

"Go lie down, please," Steve begged. "I'll stay by the window, make sure that crazy individual doesn't get up to anything before he either leaves or the police get here."

Tony was tempted to do that, he really was.

"Tony," Steve pressed.

"I know I'm probably scaring you," Tony admitted, stepping back. "I'm scaring myself."

"Then stop!" Steve told him.

"I cannot see the edges fraying," Tony said. "But I think… I might be able to feel them?"

Steve looked at him as if he was talking nonsense. Maybe he was. Perhaps he was going insane…

Tony went and walked to the window by their front door, pulling the blinds apart. Nick was still standing there in the driveway, looking… Was that fear on his face?

This man whom Tony didn't know, or had no awareness of knowing, and yet Nick didn't strike him as someone who ever showed fear.

He was a Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He said he was Tony's boss, almost – though he probably wasn't. Somehow, it felt like he knew Tony, or some version of Tony. He had come here, maybe at the risk of his life…

Tony moved to the side and opened the door.

"Don't!" Steve yelled. "He might be dangerous."

Tony left the door open and stepped outside. Nick shifted, looking expectantly at him.

"He's not going to budge just like that," Tony said.

Nick sighed. "He is stubborn," he nodded. "But then, so are you."

Tony could accept that as truth, no questions asked. "We don't like each other?"

"You and Cap?" Nick blinked. "Some days, definitely not. I think it's mostly… ego, and the fact that your father searched for him for so long. At the end of the day, though, you are a team. You may look at a problem from different angles, but you can both see a problem."

Maybe that was the issue now: Steve didn't see what Tony did.

He looked back towards the house. Steve had moved into the doorway, fists clenched at his sides, looking worried.

"How do we convince him?" Tony asked Nick. "You've barely convinced me. There's a part of me that wants to slam that door in your face and forget you ever existed."

Nick clearly had no ready answer to that.

Tony stared at him then sighed, looking past him down the driveway. He could see the house across the street. A family lived there, he was sure. Their kid's rubber ball sometimes ended up on their yard and Steve had the habit of returning it in person rather than just tossing it back over. Tony couldn't even remember the people's faces, but then, he was the kind of person who didn't pay attention to such things.

Either that made him a bad neighbor and a self-centered asshole – or it wasn't necessary for his mind to construct such details to maintain balance in a fake reality.

Whereas Steve…

"Steve always talks to people," Tony said quietly. "Interacts with them. He likes biking around the neighborhood, taking different paths to where he's headed. He tells me things about neighbors I barely know exist."

Nick was frowning.

Tony wasn't sure what that meant, or if it meant anything. He glanced back towards the house, seeing his husband still standing in the doorway. The cops might be here soon.

"Let's go to the back," Tony decided, moving to the side. He rounded the house, Nick following him, and they ended up on the back patio. Tony knew Steve would hate it, and that when the cops finally got here, it might get complicated. Then again, in case the cops weren't real…

"J.A.R.V.I.S.?" Tony called out.

"I am here, sir," the AI replied, the ball of light reappearing in front of Tony, hovering in the air. It's color, texture, or brightness didn't seem altered by the sunlight, which was kind of freaky, making it seem almost unreal, but Tony guessed that if J.A.R.V.I.S. was manifesting himself from beyond what existed in the code, it kind of made sense that laws of physics, as Tony thought he perceived them, didn't apply.

"Can you… Are you able to tell if Steve is the man you're looking for?" Tony asked.

"He is Captain Rogers, yes," the AI replied promptly. "His aura is different, if you will pardon the expression. Just like you, his presence within the stream is very different from NPCs."

"NPC?" Nick asked.

Tony smiled. He understood that reference. "The people who aren't real," he explained, then sighed. "Okay, so, how do we solve this? Steve is so much more outgoing, whereas I've never really paid attention to the things around us. He has more to lose than I do, and as such, letting go of this will be harder."

"Could you force him out?" Nick asked. "Or what would happen if you two died in here?"

Tony gave him a look, not really liking that idea. If their minds were connected to whatever this was, death here could be… dangerous. "I would rather not try and convince him to form a suicide pact with me," he informed Nick. "Or to consider death as our first option."

"What if it's the only option?" Nick asked. "Like dying in a dream tends to wake you up?"

Well, there was that… At least Tony imagined he'd had a dream or two involving falling or such. He could almost feel the sensation it caused now, in the pit of his stomach.

Still, he would prefer some other method. No one wanted to unplug a machine and then turn it on blindly hoping the previous session had been safely restored. Tony was an engineer. As much as he liked working with trial and error, he never wanted to risk everything just to see what would happen if he tried something.

"Show me the code," Tony said, and J.A.R.V.I.S. didn't need to be told twice.

In the air in front of him unfolded seemingly endless lines of code, almost like looking at a semi-translucent screen. Tony squinted at it, not because it was hard to see but because there were parts of the code he couldn't comprehend.

"Do you know what these chunks are?" Tony asked, drawing a pattern with his finger in the air – and it seemed to work like a selector, highlighting the text, bringing it forward slightly.

"That code is not something I am familiar with, sir," the AI replied.

"Should I be familiar with it?" Tony asked, just to check.

"No."

Well, that was a relief, kind of. "It doesn't look like any programming code I've ever seen," Tony mused, cocking his head, then made a pushing motion with his hand, which slotted the section of code back into the rest. His eyes could find it easily enough, like a glaring mistake or a passage of incomprehensible gibberish in a different script. "Could it be something new?"

The view changed and J.A.R.V.I.S. displayed a lot more of the similar, unfamiliar code. "I cannot answer that. However, it does not resemble anything that has ever been created, or used, on Earth, and its behavior is… beyond my comprehension for the time being."

"Magic?" Nick asked.

Tony gave him a scathing glare. "What's with you and magic?"

"For one, I know how much you hate the term, even though we've both seen things that defy what we know of the natural world," Nick replied.

"Pseudo-science," Tony muttered. "Or something we just cannot understand yet." He kept staring at the code, shifting his hand, and he got the more general view again, where there was some code he could at least attempt to read, even though he would need to locate much more of it to make sense of its overall meaning and function.

"Well?" Nick pressed.

"This isn't happening in a second," Tony informed him.

"Funny, you usually already know the answer before anyone starts asking questions."

That sounded right, but in this case, Tony felt like he was looking at a partial, and it was constantly shifting. Well, J.A.R.V.I.S. had said he was tapping into a 'live feed', or something similar, so perhaps this was the executing code being rendered in real time.

Tony really wanted to see what lay beyond it, the building blocks. Otherwise it could take him ages trying to make heads or tails of this.

A wooden board creaked behind them and Tony looked back. Steve had come out the back door, still looking at Nick with distrust. His concern for Tony was winning, though.

"Is this a… new project or something?" he asked Tony, walking closer to him, keeping his distance from Nick.

"This is the Matrix in action," Tony replied, then looked at his husband. "Did I not ever watch those movies with you?"

Steve just shrugged. "I don't know. Won't you just come in with me? We'll go to bed early, and tomorrow, all this will seem like…"

"A bad dream?" Tony asked.

"A crazy one, for sure," Steve murmured.

"I can imagine how this all sounds, and how it feels – I'm going through it, too," Tony said to him. "But there are… things to consider. I have this growing sensation that something is off. Like I'm getting disconnected from all of this."

Steve grabbed his hand suddenly, squeezing it so tight it hurt. The pain seemed excruciatingly real. "Then hold onto me," Steve told him. "I'm right here, with you. We've not going anywhere. I won't let you slip."

"No offense, Cap, but we need to be doing exactly the opposite of that," Nick cut in. Tony could instantly tell that was a mistake.

Steve's blue eyes, usually warm like a shallow lake on a clear day at summertime, were glacial. He looked angrier than Tony had ever seen him. "I don't know how you've gotten Tony so confused, but I won't fall for it. I want you to get away from him – from us."

Tony looked from Nick to his husband, then up at the sky. Perhaps if he could alter something, like the moon… He focused, first attempting to make the sun appear green, or maybe even have a hue of pink, but nothing happened. His eyes found a few clouds, and he frowned, imagining them turning into some shape, some sign so unnatural that Steve could only believe…

A bead of sweat ran down his temple and his skull seemed to ache. Nothing was happening, and Steve's hold on his hand was really starting to hurt. Tony looked at his husband, who was engaged in a silent staring match with Nick. "Steve, I want to prove this to you, and to myself…"

"Enough!" Steve snapped, eyes flashing at Tony. "No more talk of this. It's insane. You're really worrying me."

"We might not have time –" Nick started.

"Fuck off!" Steve yelled at him, and just like that, Nick was no longer there, as if he never had been.

Steve blinked, his brain clearly confused by this – the way Tony had been yesterday in the parking lot: doubting if he had just missed the man making his exit from their yard.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., is he…?" Tony asked, feeling a bit shaky.

"Director Fury has exited this construct," the AI replied calmly. "He appears unharmed, albeit frustrated."

Tony let out a breath. "Honey, you're hurting my hand," he said to Steve, then, who blinked and shifted, belatedly releasing Tony's hand.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Did I… snap out of it or something?"

"You made him disappear," Tony told Steve. "He was kicked out of here, whatever and wherever this is, into… the real world, I suppose. I did it to him yesterday. Doesn't appear to hurt him, though."

Steve looked around the yard again. "Well, he's gone," he said then. He took a breath, as if centering himself. "That's all I wanted. Come on, let's go inside," he said to Tony.

"Steve," Tony said again, "don't just brush this off. We don't really know the situation here and we might be low on time."

"How is that even possible?" Steve asked him. "We've lived in this house for years. We've been married for years. We've…"

"Since when? Give me a date, a year," Tony pressed. "What day is it today?" He blinked, and suddenly looked around with overwhelming suspicion. "What city is this?"

"Don't be silly," Steve told him, but there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice. "We've both had a very stressful few hours."

"Just pretend with me for a second," Tony begged.

Steve shook his head and walked to the door, entering the house. Tony followed him. He could tell Steve was uneasy and his husband launched into making tea, no doubt the calming herbal kind he liked to drink in the evenings or after his dreams had kept him up.

Tony watched him for a bit then started pacing, feeling like a caged animal. He was most likely doing this to himself, but it seemed like it was getting worse, the sensation of things being off-balance. As he moved past the living room doorway, he spotted Steve's library books on the table. One was open, laid out as if Steve had been interrupted from reading it previously.

He walked over to the table, looking at the diagram spread out over the two pages. Tony's eyes scanned it, then he registered the ball of life manifesting itself behind him. "Can you tell if these books are real?" Tony asked the AI.

"They are, sir," the AI replied.

"Nothing off about them?" Tony pressed.

It took a bit longer to get a response this time. "Nothing seems amiss. What is written in their code matches digital versions of the books in a library database I'm able to access."

Tony frowned.

"What are you thinking, sir?"

"The dreams," Tony murmured, then walked into the kitchen. Steve was just pouring hot water into two large cups, tea sifts filled with fragrant herbs and who knew what else. "Steve, these dreams you've been having, obsessively…"

"I'm still working on my piece," Steve replied. "I think I might be getting closer, but…"

"Can you remember how long you've had the dreams?" Tony asked.

"I've lost count," Steve chuckled tiredly. "Too long. I'll be glad once I finish this one."

"I've been on this assignment at work for… as long as I can clearly remember," Tony said, glancing at the ball of light which had followed him in from the living room. "My boss has instructed me to 'create something new'."

"That seems quite vague," J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.

"Innovation is key in Tony's field," Steve jumped in, as if to defend him. "Tony is extremely smart. Whatever he'll come up with might change the world." He gave Tony a warm, loving smile.

"I am aware, Captain Rogers," the AI said. "I am his creation – the only true AI in the world so far."

Tony mused how stressed Steve must be, talking to a ball of light hovering in the middle of their kitchen.

"This is not what you've been working on?" Steve asked Tony. "It sounds… very human."

"Thank you," J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.

"No," Tony shook his head. "I don't even… know J.A.R.V.I.S. But I feel like I'm familiar with him, for some odd reason, yet I don't recall creating him. At work, I was just as stumped today as on any other day, unable to think of anything…" He waved it off, literally. "That's not what I was going for. The point is, Steve, we've both been obsessing over these very specific things for as long as we can clearly remember. Your dream, my assignment."

"What are you getting at?" Steve asked.

"What if it's all connected?" Tony asked. "What if we've being force-fed these tasks, and someone out there is expecting to see results."

Steve was looking guarded again. Briefly, his eyes moved towards the living room where his books were.

"Your dreams – this shape you're trying to recapture – is nothing like what you've worked on before," Tony reminded him. "It doesn't even inspire you, which you've told me. The shapes you're looking at for inspiration and reference are more my field than yours."

"It's just a weird obsession. A strike of uncanny inspiration," Steve shrugged. "Maybe I'll work on different kind of art for a while, who knows."

"Do you really feel that way, or are you trying to justify it to yourself?" Tony challenged.

"You're grasping at straws to justify your wild fantasy," Steve shot back.

Tony blinked. Touché.

"Drink your tea," Steve told him, tone sharp.

Tony didn't want to argue with him, pulling the cup intended for him closer.

"I think your theory has some merit," J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke up.

"What were we doing, before we went missing?" Tony asked.

"You had discovered a Hydra base. Captain Rogers and yourself got there first and went in as an advance team. Everything was well within usual safety parameters until I lost contact with your armor. By the time the rest of the team got to your location, they found the armor but neither of you. Unfortunately, the armor's event logs were unrecoverable due to a self-destruct sequence being activated, so we do not know what happened after I lost contact with you."

Tony looked at Steve, who seemed to be actively trying to pretend this conversation wasn't happening. "Don't you think all of this is a bit too elaborate to be some kind of a weird fantasy of a crazy man?" Tony asked his husband.

"Whatever it started as, you've let it take on a life of its own," Steve said to him. "Just stop, please. I don't know where this is coming from, but it's scaring me, really."

Tony looked down at the cup of tea he currently held between his hands. He could feel the texture of the mug and the heat seeping through the porcelain, a fragrant smell wafting up towards his face. It was real. Just as real as anything else he knew. Once again he felt torn, wishing he had proof – for himself and for Steve, too. It was unreasonable to expect his husband to take him seriously when he had seen no indication of Tony's claims being factual.

What if this was some weird delusion, after all…?

Tony saw a glimpse of blue reflecting off the surface of his tea and looked up at the ball of light hovering in the air between them. He knew he wasn't imagining that because Steve saw it, too, and had interacted with J.A.R.V.I.S.

Could he pull on that thread, somehow? Would it help all this becoming undone, for the truth to reveal itself – whatever it was?

Tony wished he could just recreate what he had done with the moon – or thought he had done. What if he hadn't done anything, though? How much of this was Tony convincing himself something was off when it actually wasn't? Creating a problem where none existed? If Steve hadn't been able to see Nick Fury – or J.A.R.V.I.S. – Tony would have known for sure this was all in his own head. But there were some details that bugged him, plus that elusive feeling of unease inside himself.

The last one, of course, could be a psychosomatic result of what he imagined was happening, so Tony couldn't really count it as proof of anything.

He looked around the room, trying to focus on something small and fundamentally change it in some way: to change color, form, or even pop it out of existence. If he had been able to do it to the moon, surely he could change something smaller? Just enough for Steve to see…

Tony let out a frustrated sigh, turning his eyes to his husband again. Steve was blowing in his tea, trying to cool it down enough to drink. This situation was stressing him out, Tony could see that, and it made him feel guilty.

It was a surreal notion, that these feelings he had might not be real. How could that be? How could something like that be artificially produced? If in the real life they were barely friends, what benefit did a scenario like this hold for whoever had stuck them in it? Was it a joke? Some kind of a bizarre revenge? A social experiment?

More and more Tony questioned the wild theories he had wanted to believe for a moment. Or had he? Which would he prefer? Of course he couldn't remember what was on the other side, so it was hardly a fair comparison. Whatever life, universe, or scenario he was familiar with would always win out if he had no awareness of an alternate option.

He was going to give himself a headache or an anxiety attack.

Tony looked down at his tea, the cup still very warm between his hands.

Funny, he didn't remember ever having an anxiety attack, so why did his mind list that as a likely option now?

His fingers shifted slightly, hands adding more pressure against the cup. The heat he felt, almost burning his skin, was quite real. He wanted to pull his hands away, but didn't.

Tony's eyes found the wedding band on his finger. A simple, golden ring. His attention lingered on it, then he moved his hands, pulling the ring off his finger. He tilted it in the light, inspecting the inside of it.

There were no carvings: no names, no date, no meaningful phrase.

For whatever reason that didn't feel right. Sure, Steve liked simple things, but… this seemed excessively so.

"Tony?" Steve prompted him.

Tony couldn't remember their wedding. He couldn't remember how they had met, or fallen in love. None of it. There were things he knew about Steve, but he had no idea how, or from where. There was no context, no lifetime filled with events and experiences.

"J.A.R.V.I.S.?" Tony spoke up.

"Yes, sir?"

"In this supposed 'real world', is there someone I'm in love with?"

He looked up from the ring, seeing the absolute confusion and hurt on Steve's face.

"There is, sir. Miss Pepper Potts," the AI replied.

It was nothing to him. It meant nothing, absolutely nothing –

Tony's chest tightened. Was he having that anxiety attack after all…?

…

…

…

His body jumped into full alertness way ahead of his brain. His heart hammered in his chest, cold sweat covering his skin, and his lungs seemed to struggle to expand against a phantom weight constricting them. At first there was confusion about where he was, then a realization that he wasn't anywhere he wanted to be.

The space was snug around him, like a coffin. Above his face Tony could make out a narrow window, but beyond it was only darkness.

In the span of the next several minutes, he physically fought his way out of the space, kicking and banging on what he hoped was a lid, until it finally gave way. Tony could hear something breaking and the change in air pressure made his ears pop.

He kicked the lid further off then sat up, chest heaving from the effort. His body ached and his mind was still wrapped up in what felt like one of those ultra-realistic dreams. It lingered in his mind more so than even the most vivid dreams, but now that he was here…

Well, he had no idea where he was.

His surroundings were dark but he could make out several tiny lights here and there, different colors, some blinking. Most of the lights attached to his own coffin-pod were flickering, most likely because he had used brute force to get out.

Tony listened. He heard air-conditioning, not wind, so he was indoors. That fact didn't shock him too much. He could hear machines whirring, fans rotating… and farther away, coming from somewhere beyond these walls, something that was quite possibly an alarm. It didn't seem like they were in motion and the sounds traveled quite far in the space he was in, so Tony was fairly optimistic they weren't in a transport of some kind.

In the dream, HYDRA had been mentioned. As Tony's brain caught up and tried to make sense between what he knew and what he had just dreamt, he decided he was not in friendly territory.

He remembered the mission before all this, going in with Cap without waiting for the others. He remembered it getting hairy, the base resisting more than usual. Tony and Steve had managed to get the drop on them, and there was some tech there HYDRA didn't want to just destroy to keep it out of the hands of the Avengers.

Tony's brain attempted to resolve the conflicting information between where his reality ended and the weird simulation begun:

He couldn't remember if there had been something specific HYDRA had been keen on keeping from them. Those last critical minutes were uncomfortably jumbled or nonexistent in his brain.

He had gotten out of his armor for… what? Something important.

They had gotten captured, and rather than let his armor be cannibalized by HYDRA, Tony was 99% sure it had self-destructed as per his instructions – thus cutting him off from J.A.R.V.I.S.

He really hoped Cap had a better recollection of what had transpired in the final minutes because it wasn't like them to get apprehended by HYDRA goons so easily. Tony had enough weapons in his armor to level the entire base, but they tended not to go that route, wanting to spare lives and information that would offer clues towards their next destination.

Working your way up a chain didn't work quite so well if you kept cutting it above your grip.

Tony thought he heard voices along with the alarms, and if this was a HYDRA ploy, it wasn't as if they would just stick him in a storage space somewhere and take off…

He looked around, eyes having adjusted to the darkness, but there weren't enough light sources to actually help him see. Even if he still had the built-in nightlight in his chest, it wouldn't have been enough to light his surroundings.

"Damn," Tony muttered. His voice felt rough, unused.

He tapped a sequence on specific implants under his skin which would activate a homing beacon – in case J.A.R.V.I.S. wasn't actively scanning for him. There would be no knowing if it worked until the cavalry arrived, and Tony was certain he could now hear movement outside.

If they were smart, they would maintain this element of –

Bright lights flooded the room, and Tony had to squint his eyes almost completely shut to compensate. Well, that was one problem resolved. He blinked, using his hand as a source of shade, and looked around.

In the darkness, he hadn't realized there was another coffin-pod sitting only a few feet from him. He moved over to it, leaning over, and could make out Steve Rogers' restful face on the other side of the viewing pane. Why he felt surprise, he wasn't sure. "Steve?" he called out, then slammed his palm against the lid. "Rogers!" he yelled at greater volume, but there wasn't even a flinch.

Tony looked around the pod's surface but couldn't see a simple off-switch anywhere. They had debated within the dream if there was a safe way to simply cut off their minds from the source, so he didn't even think of trying to force the contraption open.

He looked down at the other man again, feeling… disappointed? "Fuck, Steve," he swore. "Why couldn't you just follow me out?"

Behind him, Tony could hear the telltale swish of an automated door opening, and footsteps approaching. He hadn't yet taken a proper look around the room, but knew it wasn't nearly big enough to go play hide-and-seek.

HYDRA was approaching with caution. Tony only needed one sideways glimpse at them to be sure who his captors were. They could have tried fooling him if they left their uniforms and weapons behind, to take advantage of his post-dreamland confusion, but maybe they gave Tony Stark enough credit to assume he knew exactly with whom he was dealing.

Knowing he had to handle this by himself for now, Tony sighed, stepping away from Steve's dreaming, useless, confined body. Tony really could have used his help, but this was the unfortunate reality he had to deal with. The other Avengers might be on their way, or blissfully unaware he was awake and hoping for some back-up.

Tony faced the HYDRA soldiers, the six of them fanning out. No one was shooting yet, which was promising. Some of those weapons did look like they came with traditional ammunition, and without his armor Tony felt exposed to say the least.

His stress levels were already high, and not having any weapons on hand didn't help. There were just the coffin-pods, wires and tubes leading away from them, but nothing sturdy enough to grab – and certainly nothing that would be a match against even a single gun.

Tony looked down, for the first time really paying attention to what he was wearing: dark shorts and a white t-shirt. Plain, poorly fitting to his body, and most certainly not what he had been wearing when he set out on the mission. These fuckers owed him an undersuit, to start. Those things weren't as cheap to manufacture as one might think.

Realizing he was pretty much standing there in his underwear, exposed and defenseless, didn't help matters. Tony didn't want to go down without a fight, but getting shot would not improve the outcome.

He glanced at Steve in his pod, slumbering away. "Really could have used you right about now," Tony murmured, then moved his attention to HYDRA once more. He could run and hope the room contained something useful, but he had no idea if these people wanted him alive or dead. If it didn't matter – if he had served his purpose – Tony valued his life enough to not brazenly risk it in this situation.

Six guns remained pointed at him as the HYDRA agents slowly approached. What did they expect, that he had a weapon hidden in his shorts?

Tony's breathing sped up, his body wanting to do something about this while his brain looked for an out. Even if he could give them the slip, somehow, just in case they didn't want to harm him, that would mean leaving Steve behind. If the team couldn't track Steve in Dreamland the way they had Tony…

The silence from both sides was clearly bothering both parties. By now, Tony would have usually said something. He wasn't given instructions to surrender, either. The tension was getting thick enough to cut with a knife. As long as they thought Tony was capable of doing something in order to resist, he hadn't lost the hand, but Tony couldn't really bluff when he had no idea what his value was to HYDRA in this scenario.

Tony felt a tingle going through his body, which he didn't connect to anything other than nerves. Then, the entire structure they were in seemed to shiver, followed by two things: the ceiling of the room cracking, and the violent boom of a shockwave traveling through the air. The room had no windows that could shatter, and Tony had no idea how large the whole building was, but it almost sounded like something had just hit them, hard.

A group of laser beams cut through the ceiling, taking down three HYDRA agents with absolute precision, then a red-and-gold armor slammed into the room, not ten feet from Tony, punching the soldier closest to it and shooting down the remaining two with the shoulder-mounted micro-guns without so much as looking at the men as they fell.

Silence followed for a long five seconds, finally disrupted by a few chunks of concrete falling from the ceiling.

The armor slowly turned to face Tony.

"You called, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. said with a surprising level of cheekiness considering the situation. "The Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. reinforcements are approximately seven minutes away," the AI added, predicting Tony would want to know that next.

Tony nodded and watched as the armor's head moved incrementally. "I'm fine," Tony said, then instantly second-guessed that. "Am I alright?" he asked the AI for a second opinion.

"Aside from heightened stress levels – which can be attributed to the situation – and mild signs of dehydration and undernourishment, I cannot detect any signs of injury," J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.

Tony nodded. Now that he felt somewhat safer, he did experience some thirst and hunger. "You were here quicker than I dared to hope," Tony said. There were some gaps in his knowledge he would love to fill ASAP.

"After you and Captain Rogers went missing, the team did their best to track you down. Eventually trustworthy allies were called in, Director Fury bringing in some much-needed manpower. In the meantime, I took the liberty of flying out the spare Mark XLIII."

"That's why we make more than one these days," Tony murmured. Sometimes an armor was beyond salvaging and there was no point trying to put it back together again, but Tony wasn't yet ready to move onto the next iteration of the Iron Man armor – if he even had one in the works. Just because his suits were strong these days didn't mean he was foolish enough to think that he could just build a single unit after the current model got wrecked.

No, he didn't have a dozen extras standing by, but enough spare parts to put a few together – or for J.A.R.V.I.S. to assemble with the machinery back home.

"Where are we?" Tony asked then.

"48.3 miles from where the other base was," the AI responded, using the armor's holographic projector to show him a map. It was rural, with few if any people around to disturb whatever HYDRA had been doing.

Tony looked around, then. "Any HYDRA activity after your arrival?"

He assumed the armor was scanning with thermal imaging, listening for sounds and tremors, as well as eavesdropping on any wireless communication. "I believe they are deciding on whether to abandon this location. Apparently Iron Man's arrival alarmed them."

As long as the rest of the Avengers weren't here, HYDRA still had a chance to retake the situation – but perhaps they had already gained what they wanted from this little experiment.

After HYDRA had been outed and they garnered the attention of the Avengers, it had been established that they didn't usually stand a chance when the superhero team was coming for them. Cutting their losses had been HYDRA's favorite response whenever the Avengers found another one of their bases of operation.

Feeling shockingly exhausted, Tony moved back and half-sat on top of Steve's pod. "Can you spare a moment to scan this thing?" he asked J.A.R.V.I.S., knocking the contraption underneath himself. The sound was metallic.

The armor turned ever so slightly. "It will require further analysis," the AI responded.

"He's okay, though, right?"

"I believe so. The vitals the armor is intercepting are strong and steady."

Tony nodded then jumped slightly when more of the ceiling collapsed, a gunmetal gray figure punching through the hole J.A.R.V.I.S. had created just some minutes earlier. Tony could feel his heart beating some extra until the dust settled a bit and he could make out War Machine's familiar shape scanning the room. The red glow of the armor's eyes finally landed on Tony and James Rhodes turned towards them, walking over.

"Tight fit?" Tony asked as a few more pieces of the ceiling material rained down.

"I can't believe your armor fit through such a dainty hole," Rhodey commented back, then lifted the faceplate. "You okay?" he asked.

Tony nodded. "A bit… rattled, still, but it's nothing a good cup of coffee can't fix."

Rhodey seemed to accept that. It was possible – and likely – that J.A.R.V.I.S. had already reported Tony's status to the others.

"You want to go and secure the compound or something?" Tony asked his friend.

"Nah, the others will be here in a bit," Rhodey said. "My priority on this mission was to find you and to keep you safe – Pepper's orders."

Tony felt his insides tighten. A wave of anxiety rolled over him and he instinctively glanced back at the viewing window of Steve's pod.

Rhodey moved closer to take a look as well. "Can we wake him up?" he asked, tapping an armored finger on the window. The sound was surprisingly loud, and Tony had no idea why he wanted to push Rhodey away suddenly, like this would hurt his teammate somehow.

"I think we should wait for the others and check our options before literally pulling the plug," Tony said.

Rhodey nodded. "Fury mentioned the others had concerns about safely extracting you… But that was before we physically found you," he added. Still, he didn't rush to try and wake Steve up, moving away a bit instead to ensure the HYDRA men lying on the floor weren't a threat.

Tony remained perched on the edge of Steve's pod. He felt exhausted, which seemed unfitting since he had just been napping for a pretty decent time. It hadn't been rest, though. His brain felt way too drained.

Rhodey had finished his rounds by the time Tony could hear aircraft engines outside. Gunshots followed, but they sounded far away, and neither J.A.R.V.I.S. nor Rhodey reacted to them in any way, so Tony remained where he was, telling himself to use this time to gather his wits and strength for whatever came next.

Nick Fury finally strode in, coat flowing behind him, followed by Natasha and Bruce. Tony should have felt more surprised to see Fury in the flesh, since it had been a while – the man was officially dead – but having just been graced with his presence in the dreamland, Tony didn't feel jarred by it.

"Mr. Stark," Fury greeted. "How nice of you to finally join us." He stopped, looking at the coffin-pod Tony had emerged from, then moved his eye towards the one Tony was sitting on. "He still in there?" Fury asked then, voice sounding… tired and almost saddened.

"Yes," Tony replied.

Natasha looked around while Bruce approached, sidestepping fallen HYDRA soldiers. "How are you feeling?" he asked Tony.

"Tired. A bit thirsty and hungry," Tony responded. "J.A.R.V.I.S. didn't find anything alarming."

Bruce nodded, then moved past Tony a bit, looking at the contraption Steve was inside of. Tony took that as a hint to get onto his feet.

"Where are the others?" Tony asked Natasha.

"Securing the area," she replied, coming to stand beside him – then held up something. A power bar.

Tony hesitated, looking at it, then very slowly and cautiously reached out and took it from her fingers, taking half a step to the side to open the wrapper and take a bite out of it. "What do you think?" he asked Bruce. "Can we just open it up and give him a shake?"

Bruce looked up at him, then down. He was frowning, which really couldn't be seen as either a good or a bad sign at this juncture. Depending on the problem he was working on, Bruce Banner tended to frown a lot at times. "J.A.R.V.I.S., can you connect to this device, see how it's operating?" Bruce asked then.

Tony hid a smile in another bite of the power bar. It always made him happy when his teammates utilized his AI. The team could have brought in cases full of tech from the Quinjets, but they had Tony's armor and AI right there to do most of the heavy lifting those other tools could also accomplish.

The Iron Man armor stood still for a bit, then turned in a rather decisive fashion and walked over to the pod. "It seems HYDRA has opted for an uncoordinated retreat," J.A.R.V.I.S. informed them as the armor laid its hands onto the pod. "The base is ours."

"Good," Bruce decided, barely paying attention. He was working to open any panel he could find on the pod, then looked at Tony. "Can you help?" he asked.

Tony chucked the rest of the bar into his mouth, tossed the wrapper, then walked over.

They went over every seam and with the assistance of the armor in lieu of actual tools, they stripped off most of the surface of the pod to expose its next layer of wiring. Tony physically plugged the armor into the pod, and J.A.R.V.I.S. began to run diagnostics.

"Could we just move that thing onto one of the Quinjets?" Rhodey asked.

"We don't know if that would disrupt the stream," Bruce replied. "Before we know for sure cutting off the feed is harmless, we're going to avoid that option."

Natasha had stepped to the side, talking quietly into her comm. Some ten minutes later, Clint and Thor walked into the room as well, along with a few people who were probably S.H.I.E.L.D., if they were still calling themselves that after the HYDRA infestation. Probably.

Clint was carrying a bag and tossed it towards Tony. "Got something for you to wear," he said and Tony crouched down to open the bag. It was from his own spare wardrobe on the Avengers' Quinjet: another undersuit, a hoodie and pants, shoes, as well as water, sports drink, and more snacks.

While Bruce still worked on the pod, Tony took the bag and went to a quiet little corner on the far side behind some crates, using them for privacy as he got changed, then stepped outside. He cracked one of the sports drinks and enjoyed more than half of the first bottle, then set the bag aside and returned to his armor's side.

J.A.R.V.I.S. was projecting bits of code and other data in the air.

"Can you make sense of that?" Tony asked both his AI and Bruce.

"It would take too long to unpack," Bruce said. "It's slightly different from what we saw before, through J.A.R.V.I.S.'s connection to you. This is… denser. We're at the source, after all."

"Is there a main computer or something that we should be looking for?" Clint asked.

Tony looked around, though he hadn't seen anything like it before. None of the cables that left the pods looked like they were transferring data as much as power. "Are they self-contained?" he asked Bruce.

"There are elements within the code that I cannot decipher at this time," J.A.R.V.I.S. replied instead. "A form of code that is foreign."

"Tech is your area," Bruce told him. "I was hoping you had a quick fix to the situation."

Tony sighed, looking at the pod again. "J, can you follow Rogers' mind down the rabbit hole?" he asked his AI.

"I could try, now that I have a direct connection, but… it is quite unfamiliar in comparison to yours." Which was J.A.R.V.I.S.'s way of saying there might be risks involved, or a much greater chance of failure.

Tony's eyes moved to the viewing window and the calm expression of his teammate inside. He didn't linger on the emotions that welled up inside himself, in response to the 'life' he had just been living. "Can you patch us through?" he asked then.

"You want to go back in?" Fury asked. He had been surprisingly quiet. Maybe being kicked out of there repeatedly was an unpleasant feeling.

"If we get him to wake up, like I did, any risks will most likely be reduced," Tony guessed. "Based on the fact that I'm alive and well at the moment," he added, looking at Bruce.

Bruce's nod was hesitant. "I doubt any of us want to stay here any longer than we have to," he said. "I'll keep looking at the code with J.A.R.V.I.S., see if there is anything we can use."

"We need to ensure HYDRA didn't leave any unwelcome surprises in this place," Natasha noted. "Just in case an interruption or an uncontrolled shutdown is dangerous for anyone connected to that thing…" She nodded her head towards Steve's pod.

"I shall patrol the area on the outside," Thor promised, hefting his hammer.

"My people are going through the base as we speak," Fury added, then stepped forward. "Now that we're here, can you connect more than one person?" he asked, looking at Bruce.

Bruce, in turn, gazed at Tony's armor, clearly looking at J.A.R.V.I.S. for an answer.

"I believe it shouldn't be an issue, though it might be a bit bumpier, considering that I am less familiar with this signal than Mr. Stark's… beacon, if you will."

Tony glanced at Fury. "You want to come in, too?"

The man shrugged, walking over the rest of the way. "Why the hell not?"

"Should all of us go?" Clint asked. "As a team?"

"I would rather not," Bruce said immediately.

Thor had already left the room to keep watch.

"Rhodes, you're gonna stay here, stay on guard?" Natasha asked Rhodey.

"Sure," Rhodey nodded, though he looked worried. Maybe he didn't want Tony to go back in there. However, everyone's top priority was getting Steve out of there – with the possible exception of Tony's AI, who would always put his creator first.

"Maybe more familiar faces can get the job done?" Natasha offered, moving closer as well, and Clint put his bow away.

Tony had some water and a bite of another power bar while Bruce found necessary equipment. Natasha and Clint procured chairs from somewhere, and they all took seats next to Steve's pod. J.A.R.V.I.S. was connected to both pods now, though the other one wasn't fully operational after Tony's forceful exit.

Bruce placed flimsy metal bands on their heads with some sticky connectors. It strongly reminded Tony of the instruments he had used over the years to try and map out his brain activity in order to better communicate with the armor and his tech in general. After all this was over, he might ask if J.A.R.V.I.S. had brought this design to the table.

"We're doing this without any computers?" Rhodey asked from the side.

"J.A.R.V.I.S. is running the whole thing," Bruce replied.

"And if he glitches?" Rhodey pressed.

"When have I last glitched, Colonel Rhodes?" the AI asked through the armor's speakers.

Tony gave his friend a look, but Rhodey didn't bring up the whole AIM debacle.

"I hope this works," Bruce murmured as he adjusted Tony's head gear. "It wasn't easy before, and even though we're here now… you're no longer connected, so J.A.R.V.I.S. can't hone in on you."

"If this doesn't work, we'll think of something else," Tony reassured him. "We always do." He leaned back on the stool he was sitting on, his back resting against the pod. He could almost sense a faint vibration from it, an electric current perhaps. "Do we need to go to sleep or something?" he asked then.

"Try to relax," Bruce said, then looked up at Tony's armor expectantly.

Tony waited, as did the others, but nothing happened. Seconds ticked by, then minutes.

"Anything?" Rhodey asked.

"Give it time," Fury murmured. He had done this before, he was probably the most relaxed of them all. He actually looked like he was planning on taking a nap, leaning back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, eye closed.

Tony took a breath, then closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the pod. Who knew, maybe if he managed to fall asleep, this would work better? He was kind of tired, but then, the situation was stressful enough that he might not be able to rest for quite some time, even when he got to an actual bed.

A tingle ran across his scalp, and it felt like the gravity changed a bit. Like one of those nights when he was so sleepy that he felt weariness pull his mind into the dark depths of sleep –

…

…

…

---

Steve felt helpless. He didn't understand this debate Tony was driving himself into, this paranoia that had overtaken him in a matter of hours. He watched his husband's anxiety, and his agonizing struggle to come to terms with either this crazy fantasy – or the fact that it couldn't possibly be remotely connected to reality.

He had no idea where it was coming from or how to help Tony through it.

This man Tony had brought home with him, and who was now gone…

Steve looked up at the hovering ball of light, marveling how it could be, then looked back at Tony. How he wanted to be able to offer him something that would negate this issue, once and for all.

Tony clutched the cup of hot tea, then suddenly removed his hands from around it and pulled his wedding ring off, inspecting it as if transfixed by its mere existence. What was he looking for?

"Tony?" Steve prompted. To say he was freaked out and worried was an understatement. He really wanted to take Tony to see a doctor. What if he had a tumor or some infection, which was causing this? This sudden dysphoria, almost, like a psychotic episode.

"J.A.R.V.I.S.?" Tony spoke up.

"Yes, sir?" the ball of light answered. Steve had no idea how it was possible. He filed it away with all the other surreal things that had transpired today.

"In this supposed 'real world', is there someone I'm in love with?" Tony looked up from the ring, not even apologizing for such a horrible question. What kind of escapism fantasy was this? Had Steve done something that would cause this?

"There is, sir," the eerie voice replied. "Miss Pepper Potts."

Was Tony having an affair? Did he want to have one? What the hell…?

The answer seemed to agonize Tony even further, and it was on the tip of Steve's tongue to once again tell him to stop this – and then, just like that, he blinked and Tony was simply gone.

Steve started. The cup of tea was still there, but his husband had simply vanished. "Tony?" he called out, then looked up. The ball of light was also gone, the room empty. "Tony?!" he called out again, moving around the table, then around the kitchen and onto the living room.

His heart was beating faster as he rushed from room to room, then to the front door and back. He wanted to keep yelling his husband's name, but he was also worried the neighbors would come ask if something was wrong, and Steve wasn't sure what kind of response he could muster.

He checked the garage, then rushed up the stairs to his studio. There was nothing there that shouldn't have been. Steve's eyes fell on his latest draft resting on the easel. He stepped towards it, recalling what Tony had mentioned about it. That he thought it was connected to this crazy concoction in his head.

Steve blinked, then rushed out again. He found his phone and called Tony, but the line just kept ringing and ringing with no answer. He couldn't hear the phone anywhere in the house.

Almost manically he checked the house again, then walked around their property. One of the neighbors passed by walking their dog, a golden retriever type, and Steve forced a smile and a wave, then stood there, shivering. He returned back inside a moment later.

"Tony?" he called out again.

Only silence responded to him once the echo died down, and Steve felt desperation in his core. Had he spaced out? Tony had just been there, right there…

He returned to the kitchen. Both cups of tea still retained some of their warmth even after all the time he had spent running around, frantically looking for Tony. He couldn't have imagined all of it.

Again, he reached for his phone and called his husband, then went to check again that his car was in the driveway and that he wasn't in the garage, or the bedroom, or any other room of the house. He kept calling him, and the line kept ringing without an answer.

---

It was jarring when Tony's awareness returned. He found himself in a small park surrounded by walkways and streets. Cars were moving by, people going about their business.

Next to him, Fury groaned. "Here we go again." He adjusted his patented leather coat, looking almost disgruntled.

Tony looked to his other side, spotting Clint and Natasha observing their surroundings as well. Both of them were actually dressed in the same Avengers attire as in the real world, which made them stand out just about as much as Fury.

On that note, Tony looked down at himself to check his own wardrobe status, but luckily he found himself wearing fairly normal clothing – something he would wear to the workshop at home. If it had been the undersuit – or worse, the armor – that would have made for an even more awkward encounter with Steve.

"It seems very… real," Natasha mused. Her foot drew a line in the gravel underneath them, a lazy breeze stirring her red hair.

"I was expecting something like Tron," Clint stated. "I'm almost disappointed."

"Which way?" Fury prompted in a clipped tone.

Tony looked around then blinked, looking at the others. "You're asking me?"

"You're the one who's been living in this fantasy land, right?" Clint shot back.

"You can't tell where we are?" Fury asked, frowning.

"I mean…" Tony looked around some more. "I think so," he said. "This way," he made a choice, although he wasn't completely certain it was the right one. Why did this area look so unfamiliar? How far away from his usual stomping grounds were they?

"J.A.R.V.I.S., you here with us?" Fury asked as they set off.

"Indeed," the AI replied, manifesting as the ball of light once more.

Tony wasn't sure why he was surprised by J.A.R.V.I.S.'s presence, but he looked up at the glowing sphere, finding himself comforted by it.

"Is our heading correct? I would rather not waste time wandering around and fall off the edge of the map," Fury muttered.

"There is some distance to cover, so perhaps a vehicle would be in order?" J.A.R.V.I.S. suggested.

"Why couldn't you drop us closer?" Clint asked.

"Be glad he got us in," Tony snapped. He was certain there was a reason – and it was irrelevant to their current situation. Tony had spent time here, but at the time he had been unaware of any rules that governed this world. Even now, he knew only what Fury and J.A.R.V.I.S. had been able to tell him; the rest he would have to either guess or find out.

They crossed the park onto a nearby street. Tony couldn't spot any cabs, nor did he have any money as far as he knew. What would it matter, though? This world wasn't real, and so far they hadn't detected any counter-measures against outside influence. Perhaps HYDRA had counted on this simulation being isolated – and for Tony and Steve to reject any interference.

"Can we just jack a car?" Clint asked finally. There were vehicles parked along a nearby street.

"I suppose," Tony agreed, and they walked over there.

Clint and Natasha both looked around, trying door handles, though under normal circumstances both of them could break into a car, Tony had no doubt.

This wasn't the real world, though. "J.A.R.V.I.S.," Tony spoke up. "Can you just… unlock a car and start the engine?" he asked.

The AI was quiet, then a nearby car blinked its lights as if activated by a remove key. "Indeed, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. finally replied, and all of them quickly walked to the inconspicuous silver sedan, getting in. Tony slid behind the wheel before anyone else could.

J.A.R.V.I.S. started the car without an issue and Tony buckled up, pulling out into the street. No alarmed car owner ran after them, and he drove to the next intersection and took a right turn. After a while, Tony thought he recognized some buildings and made another turn.

Natasha and Clint were busy watching the scenery passing by outside, clearly trying to spot details that would betray the artificial nature of this world. Fury was the only one who had been here before, and depending on how much he had described, it was possible he was the only one who could navigate these streets besides Tony – and be able to tell just when Tony was hesitant, unsure of which direction they should continue.

For the longest time Fury just sat beside him, quiet and looking disgruntled. Tony wondered if he was doing okay, or if these repeated insertions into this simulation were causing him discomfort. He was tempted to ask, but wasn't sure the former – or perhaps the current – Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. would give him a straight answer in front of two of his former agents.

"Perhaps a left turn, sir?" J.A.R.V.I.S. suggested quietly as Tony approached another large intersection.

Tony had no argument against it, so he followed the AI's guidance, finally beginning to see some familiar landmarks, then headed away from the city center. He had no idea if he was imagining it, but once they entered the suburbs, the neighborhood seemed much livelier than he had ever noticed it being: people out in their yards, kids playing on quieter side streets and on small playgrounds, pedestrians milling about.

Fury shifted in his seat after a bit, watching the houses go by. "Here, right?" he pointed.

Tony turned, driving more slowly. Were they approaching from an unfamiliar direction?

"Stop," Fury said then, and Tony did, a bit confused.

"Did you see something?" he asked the other man.

"This is your house," Fury pointed out and Tony leaned forward a bit to get a better look.

Silence filled the car.

"This is your house, right?" Fury asked then.

"I mean… it looks different," Tony puzzled. "Are you sure?"

"I counted streets, and there are some familiar houses nearby," Fury said.

Tony put the car in park and the engine stopped. All of them got out, and Tony approached the driveway cautiously, looking up towards a house that wasn't the house he had lived in. It had a roughly similar shape, but it looked less elegant, more… mainstream, just like the houses around them.

Even the car sitting in the driveway looked very much like his – but not exactly the same.

"How could he not recognize the house he lived in just hours ago?" Clint asked.

"I mean, even I think there are differences," Fury admitted.

"Did Steve renovate?" Natasha mused. "How does the time pass here?"

"It doesn't, not really. I don't think so, at least," Tony said a bit distractedly. "You're sure?" he asked Fury again.

"This is the building," J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke up. "However, the code seems… somewhat altered since our last visit."

"Altered how?" Fury asked, clearly suspecting trouble.

"Previously, the surroundings were shaped by Mr. Stark as well as Captain Rogers," the AI supplied. "Now, there is only a single input source."

Tony looked at the house again, at the details. "This is his house," he decided. "This is how Steve sees it. That's why everything seemed so unfamiliar: this is how he's perceived it all along. My perception, on the other hand, was different."

"I assume you guys didn't have fights about wallpaper," Clint mused.

"We wouldn't have described wallpapers to one another," Tony said, feeling more confident with this theory. "It's like two people reading the same book, but forming different pictures in their heads about the things they've read. They might clash, but as long as it's not brought up in detail…"

"They both exist simultaneously, free of one another," Natasha agreed.

"Until the TV or movie adaptation comes out," Clint joked.

Tony found all this intriguing, but also experienced some nervousness regarding what he might face once he stepped inside. How much had changed there? With Steve's mind fueling the entire experience, the rules might also be different. Tony was no longer challenging the vision he had.

"Can he kick us out?" Tony asked.

"We are directly connected to the feed this time, so it will be harder to disrupt it," his AI replied. "However, I would advise against antagonizing Captain Rogers too much, just in case."

Tony nodded, then started walking up the driveway towards the house. He would have been lying if he claimed he wasn't nervous. Just because everything looked so calm on the outside…

How long had it been since Tony left? Did Steve even remember that? What if the simulation had reset completely and Tony was as much a stranger to Steve as Fury had been to them both?

Tony passed the car, and curiously he peeked inside. On the passenger seat, he saw a familiar classic rock CD collection, so at least they had shared that detail, even though the car's model, color, and interior were different from what Tony had pictured in his head.

A car was a car. Same as wallpaper or words on a page, if two people didn't go into detail, they could be thinking of wildly different things in the privacy of their own imaginations. Only here, they had manifested themselves as reality – or, parallel realities, as it seemed to be the case.

As he moved on and approached the front door, Tony tried his pockets for a key. He wasn't surprised when he found none of his usual items there – no phone, no wallet, nothing. It made him feel a bit naked, just as long as he didn't remember they were in a simulation.

Their front door looked remarkably similar to what Tony remembered, and once Tony's brain stopped being alarmed by all the details that were different, the similarities began to sink in. The placement of the windows, for one, was very close to what he recalled. The position of the doorknob, too, and the doorbell button… Tony didn't usually have to ring said bell, but seeing as he didn't have his keys, he went and pressed it before he could chicken out.

Tony had no idea why he was so apprehensive about whatever would happen next. The endgame was to get Steve out of here, one way or another – preferably by talking him into snapping out of it like Tony had. Maybe it was uncertainty after witnessing how everything in this simulation had changed.

Or maybe, just maybe, it had to do with the fact that the fingers of Tony's left hand kept brushing against one another, chasing the phantom sensation of a wedding ring that was no longer there. Those memories – which weren't even that – were still firmly sitting in his mind, attached to the emotions that went with them.

In his brain, it was a disarray of conflicting information that didn't fit together at all. Even though Tony knew which feelings were fake, all of them felt equally valid right now.

"Maybe he isn't home," Clint mused from behind him.

Tony checked J.A.R.V.I.S.'s glowing manifestation from the corner of his eye; he was fairly certain his AI would be able to tell if that was the case, especially when they were this close to their home. They were directly connected this time around. Steve's was the only beacon they could zero in on.

He was starting to get just a little worried about that theory as seconds ticked by. Tony glanced at the window closest to the door, wondering what Steve would do if he saw Fury standing there again. Or Tony, for that matter…

Tony was so wrapped up in his thoughts he actually jumped when the door in front of him opened, revealing his husband.

Teammate, Tony instantly tried to correct in his brain.

Steve's expression was one of shock, which meant he hadn't checked out his visitors prior to opening the door. "Tony?" he uttered as if he couldn't believe it. He looked relieved, all of a sudden, and pulled Tony into a firm hug.

Behind him, Tony could hear Clint chuckling. That was enough to make Steve pull back and check out Tony's companions.

"Can we come in?" Tony asked the other man.

Steve frowned, blue eyes returning to Tony's face. "Of course," he replied and stepped back in.

The rest of them followed.

Tony turned to look at the others while they were still in the entranceway. "If I hear any unnecessary commenting, I will tell J.A.R.V.I.S. to boot your asses out of here," he informed the others. Tony didn't name any names, but he gave Clint an extra stern look.

Steve was standing in the intersection of the rooms, clearly unsure of what was happening. Tony wished he knew exactly what was going through his head right now, and how to navigate him towards leaving this place. Clearly his earlier attempts had been in vain.

Tony walked over to him, offering a tentative smile. Steve replied in kind, though he seemed suspicious of their guests.

"I was worried," Steve said in a low voice. "I couldn't…" Tony could see him swallow. "I must have spaced out, I couldn't find you anywhere," he added then, forcing himself to laugh.

Tony felt guilty, which was unnecessary, but at the same time he could tell Steve had been scared. It made him feel horrible for having caused that, as irrational as that was with his newfound knowledge. When they got out and Steve remembered who he was, none of this would matter. He would feel just as weird about it as Tony currently did.

However, until they got there, Tony was dealing with the man he had been married to, who had no idea this life wasn't even real. Could he even see the things that had changed since Tony blinked out of existence? Probably not, because it was how he had always seen the world, if that theory was correct.

"We need to talk," Tony said – and knowing he needed to at least try to do this the right way, he slid his hand into Steve's and led him into the living room, seating himself on the couch. Steve followed, appearing to find comfort in the simple touch they shared.

"It's been a strange day," Steve mused. He glanced back at Fury, Natasha and Clint. Steve hadn't asked who the newcomers were, though he obviously remembered Fury – and not kindly.

"It has," Tony agreed. "Honey, I…" He stopped, hearing Clint barely managing to catch his initial reaction to the endearment. Tony frowned, took a breath, and all too easily slipped half-way back into the mindset that this was normal. No, he hadn't forgotten what he was here to do, that all of this was artificial and a lie, but all this was familiar, too.

It was more complicated to explain how he felt, though. Those feelings had to be something that had been artificially created in the simulation by HYDRA because they certainly didn't exist before all this, yet Tony could almost… put himself right back to where he had been before he left, into a mindset where he was married to the man sitting next to him, whose hand he was holding. The warmth of his skin was just as real as the affection Tony felt for him – which was just as real as the world beyond this, and the feelings Tony had for someone else waiting there.

"How long ago was it that we had tea in the kitchen?" Tony asked, needing to know how long Steve had been freaking out here.

"A few hours," Steve replied, frowning. "You just left the house, I couldn't find you."

Tony wondered how he could spin this in a way that made sense – then decided there was no way to achieve that. Steve clearly remembered what had happened. He had felt Tony was going crazy, or that he was unwell. Steve might prefer never talking about it again, but with Fury standing just inside their living room, it was kind of hard to justify such a route.

"I didn't just leave this house," Tony said quietly. "All those crazy ideas that I was throwing around? They were real. This place… this life… it's a dream."

While Steve had looked relieved to see him again, all that was washed away in a heartbeat. Steve sat back a bit, his gentle grip on Tony's hand adjusting as if to let go, but ultimately he decided to keep holding onto it. "Can we not talk about that?" Steve requested. "It sounds like you're having a breakdown."

"More like a breakthrough," Fury muttered. He went and took a seat in a chair on the opposite side of the room. Steve's gaze followed him, suspicious of the man's motives, then once he deemed Fury wasn't going to move again, he looked back at Tony.

"I woke up in a different place," Tony went on. "We were being imprisoned. You were still… you are still unconscious," he added. "We have more time now, but we don't know if being here is a risk. So, I'm asking you to… listen to me. To trust me."

"What you say is insanity," Steve countered.

"When I came back here, with these guys, I could barely recognize my surroundings. Some things were familiar as we were driving through town, but… I didn't even recognize our home," Tony said. "Inside this home, most of it is a lot like I remember, but after being awake I don't think I can come back and join you like I was before."

Steve removed his hand from Tony's this time. "What are you saying?" His voice was reserved, body tense. Normally, Tony might have expected more ice in his tone, a harder look on his face, but this dream-version of Steve wasn't quite so battle-hardened. Still, Tony could tell he was getting increasingly uncomfortable and upset.

"I need you to come with me," Tony said, making sure his voice was soft and non-confrontational. It wasn't that hard. A sidestep from the very narrow path he had discovered upon waking up in that coffin-pod and he was right back here, married to this man – in love with him. Hurting Steve wasn't something he wanted to do. "In time, I know you would be able to recognize this place is a fake. Your mind is filling in the blanks, perhaps more than we know. You've filled in the gaps that I left. But that doesn't make it real."

Tony reached out again, grabbing Steve's hand. For some reason that startled the other man. "I'm going to be there with you, every step of the way," Tony promised, even though he couldn't quite guarantee it. "Right now? I'm mere inches from you." That wasn't a lie. "We are a team, Steve. I think we'll… always be a team, no matter what."

Steve wasn't so easily convinced, of course. He glanced back at Fury. "In this 'real world', if it exists… we're not married, right?"

"No," Tony had to admit that. Perhaps he could have lied to Steve, to spin such a deep web of deception he could trick Steve into leaving this place – but it felt cruel to do so. Even when Steve would realize what was real the moment he woke up, like Tony had…

"Why would I leave this place where my life is – where the love of my life is – for some place that has neither?"

Good question.

"I won't be here," Tony replied slowly. "I cannot be here. I came back to bring you home – to our real home. It's a huge thing, to ask you to believe any of this, but… can you trust me, this one time? Put your faith in me? I know I've been talking crazy for hours, but at the end of the day… you know how I feel about you. I would never hurt you."

Tony knew he was laying it on a bit thick right now, and he was using Steve's feelings against him. It toed the line Tony didn't want to cross, but if he could get Steve to leave voluntarily, he would do just about anything to achieve that goal. Otherwise they might be stuck at the HYDRA base for days, trying to figure out a safe way to unplug Steve, and there was no knowing what extended exposure to this construct would do.

Steve was reluctant, looking at Tony and the room around them – filled with memories he held so dear. He gave Fury another glance, then looked at Natasha and Clint. "Who are they?"

"Members of our team – your friends, too," Tony replied. "All of us want you to come back to us, safe and sound."

Steve studied their faces then blinked. "I've never met them in my life," he said, looking back at Tony. "This is all… impossible."

"I know," Tony sighed. "J?" he called out.

J.A.R.V.I.S. appeared in the air above them. "Here, sir," the AI acknowledged.

"Can you do… something? Can you alter the code, to prove our point?" Tony asked.

"I would rather not attempt it. Captain Rogers' influence here is deeply entwined in the stream. I fear for his safety and the stability of his mind if I begin to force changes."

"Duly noted," Tony muttered.

Steve was looking up at J.A.R.V.I.S., the glow reflected on his eyes, making them appear unnaturally blue. The manifestation of the AI didn't seem to startle him as much this time, but there was something else there in his expression … Was it defeat Tony could see on his face?

"You're convinced this is true," Steve said then.

"I am," Tony replied.

"What do you want me to do? If this place isn't real, how do I get out?"

Well, that was the question, wasn't it…?

"How did you get out, Stark?" Fury asked.

"I asked J.A.R.V.I.S. whether there was someone for me on the outside. The answer didn't trigger anything here, no memory, no nothing, but I think in the real world… it elicited a response." Tony may have caused himself an anxiety attack episode which threw him out of the dream. Maybe they should have spent a bit more time figuring that out before coming in to retrieve Steve.

"So, we need to stimulate Cap in the real world?" Clint asked. "Couldn't we have done that without coming here?"

Steve was following the conversation. Tony had no doubt he wanted to tune it out, to kick all these strangers out of their home – but there was also a tired resignation in the lines of his faces. Once more, Tony felt bad for causing him such distress, even when he knew it was irrational.

"Can I have something, before we try… whatever it is?" Steve said then.

"Sure," Tony promised, not caring what it would be.

Steve got up, walking to the corner where they had their sound system. He picked out a vinyl record from a shelf– of course it was vinyl, the fact now painfully clear to Tony why Steve had a preference for that type of medium – and placed it on the electric gramophone player, turning it on and setting the needle down.

It was one of those big-band-era tracks that Steve adored. Before, it had just been a quirk his husband had. Now, Tony understood where it was coming from.

Steve turned to him and reached out his hand, and Tony understood. He got to his feet, crossed the room to reach him, and took his hand. Steve offered him a smile, almost sad, and pulled Tony closer, slowly starting to dance with him. They hadn't done this all the time as far as Tony could remember, but it felt familiar, comforting.

If Clint said a word, Tony might just punch him in the face.

They danced slowly in place, Tony wracked by a guilt he shouldn't feel, and Steve… Tony could only imagine what was going through his head. Disbelief? Terror? Did he think Tony was leaving him?

The long-winding intro broke into a female vocalist's voice:

"Kiss me once
Then, kiss me twice
Then, kiss me once again
It's been a long, long time…"

Tony closed his eyes for a moment then looked up at Steve. The other man looked close to tears, and they pressed their foreheads together. Tony felt Steve's hand shift, fingers clutching at Tony's shirt at the small of his back.

"I love you, so much," Steve whispered.

"I love you, too," Tony lied through his teeth, though here and now, in this place, it wasn't a lie at all.

Steve shifted his face, their eyes meeting again. As if pulled by a magnet, they simultaneously leaned in for a kiss that had a substantial amount of desperation in it as the song inched towards the inevitable close. For some reason it felt like a countdown, Steve's body becoming tenser with each passing note, his touch manifesting the same desperation as their kiss.

Tony pulled back just a bit, locking eyes with Steve, still breathing the same air as him.

The song ended, leaving a faint crackle in the air, the room otherwise silent.

…

…

…

Tony jolted up a bit, heart beating fast. It felt like he had just fallen several feet, though he was still seated right there in the HYDRA base, feeling the rounded shape of the pod at his back.

Someone was moving beside him as Tony attempted to gather his wits.

"Help me to open this thing," Bruce's voice registered in his ears.

Tony heard an armor moving and looked up, seeing both his own suit as well as War Machine standing beside the pod, then the lid opened, a hiss of air following. Rhodey proceeded to rip the lid clean off and tossed it aside like it weighed nothing.

Scrambling to his feet, Tony turned to see what was happening and felt a weight shifting in his chest as he saw Steve sitting up in his pod, looking… well, probably the way Tony had looked when he first woke up, alone in the dark.

Steve didn't have the freedom of schooling his features in private before being seen by his team and an assortment of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Tony felt sorry that he had to experience that rush of emotions here and now, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

"Welcome back," Bruce greeted.

On the side, Fury, Natasha and Clint were also getting to their feet. Their exit must have been jarring, coming out of nowhere, but success had been achieved.

"Well, that was weird," Clint mused, pulling the taped wires off his skin. "Everyone's back, right?"

Fury just grunted, his eye on Steve.

"Steve, how are you feeling?" Bruce prompted.

Steve's head jerked, looking at his teammate. Had he gotten lost in thought? "Fine. Tired. Hungry." It seemed hard for him to focus, then his gaze found Tony. His eyes were confused, but also… not.

"I have some power bars," Tony offered. Here, in front of everyone, it wasn't the time or the place to hash this thing out – if they even wanted to hash it out at all.

Tony went to retrieve his bag of goodies while Steve was helped out of the pod. At least someone had had the foresight to bring him some clothes to change into, too.

Steve was quiet but alert, and as soon as he had changed behind the same crates as Tony had used previously, he said they could leave.

"What are we doing about these?" Rhodey asked, knocking his armored knuckles against one pod.

"We can deal with them," Fury volunteered before anyone else could.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Tony rolled his eyes. Just because he kind of trusted Fury didn't mean he still trusted S.H.I.E.L.D. – or whatever remained of the original outfit after the HYDRA purge.

"Are we really going to argue about this now?" Natasha asked.

"You'd let them take these things?" Tony demanded.

"I don't think that will be an issue for much longer, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. noted through the armor's speakers.

"Why?" Tony asked.

"The pods have started something that I assume is a self-destruct sequence." And just like that Tony could smell electrical fire, and almost simultaneously the pods began smoking. J.A.R.V.I.S. and Rhodey both aimed the armors' built-in fire-suppressant systems at them, but it was too late.

"How did this happen?" Tony demanded, covering his airways with his arm and stepping back a bit as his eyes watered from the smoke.

"My apologies. I was no longer actively monitoring the pods after Captain Rogers was disconnected, but the full disruption of the simulation must have triggered a response."

Tony coughed from the irritating smoke, and everyone else also backed off from the remnants of the pods.

"I'm sure we can still salvage something from that," one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents said optimistically.

"I really don't want to fly back home with those two stinking up the entire Quinjet," Clint complained.

Tony looked at Fury, too tired to fight. "I'm expecting shared data on these things. The first moment I feel like you're hiding something, I'm going to come bust down your door and take them back."

"We want answers as much as you do," Fury promised him.

"Yeah? I just don't trust you to share them," Tony replied. "Call it an occupational hazard."

Fury snorted. Just because Tony trusted Fury, kind of, didn't mean Tony had forgotten about the kind of man Fury was: his secrets had secrets. After all this time, Tony knew Fury could keep information to himself if it benefitted him somehow in the long run – even when it came to the Avengers.

Hell, perhaps it applied especially to the Avengers.

Tony had half a mind to take back his goodwill gesture and try to strap these things onto the outside of the Quinjet somehow, but they had a cross-Atlantic flight ahead of them and he would rather not chance it by causing such poorly thought-out aerodynamic challenges.

"Let's go home," Tony said then, looking at his teammates. All of them looked more than ready for that – though what was going through Steve's head, Tony could only try and guess.

---

Steve felt… rattled.

One moment Tony had returned and Steve felt overwhelming relief – only to realize Tony was still determinedly advocating the crazy theory that they were in some fake reality.

His husband's conviction had been frightening, and Steve could admit that upon seeing him after his 'disappearance', he had sensed a change. There were things that had struck him as odd, perhaps, upon further examination, but he still didn't buy into this chaos theory that their entire world was a lie.

And then, as some part of him jumped with Tony off the edge into the unknown, into a horrible uncertainty…

He woke up and as one world began to untangle itself from the other, his mind was trapped in a chaos of memories from two distinct lives.

One of them, however, was inherently false, Steve knew that.

He knew it, but he still… felt those emotions. They were as real to him as his waking thoughts.

The team was carrying the conversation around him. Steve just tried to focus on simple things: getting out of the weird pod he must have been lying in, receiving clothing and getting changed, getting a sports drink and a power bar from Tony. Inside, he felt chaotic, but he hoped he hid it enough that the others would be none the wiser.

Well, with the possible exception of Tony, but they swiftly went from looking at each other into very much not making contact of any kind.

After the pods tried to set themselves on fire and it was decided the Avengers wouldn't be flying home with them in the Quinjet, leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. to deal with them instead – Steve understood why Tony was leery of doing that – they all headed for the door.

The base looked like it had been abandoned in a hurry. There were minimal signs of a fight.

"There was barely anyone here when we arrived," Natasha told him. "After J.A.R.V.I.S. flew Tony's armor out, they decided to abandon ship, and Rhodey's arrival seemed to scare off the rest of them."

It might not be the most admirable recourse, but Steve knew a thing or two about living to fight another day – even when it went against the grain for him personally; Steve Rogers was notorious for not knowing when to back out of a fight.

Tony hadn't gotten into his armor, which was trailing behind him like a shadow. Everyone knew Tony's armors had been capable of being remotely piloted by his AI for a while now, but it was still a relatively new thing for them to see him quite so openly choosing that route.

Maybe after… however many days it had been, Tony just wanted to have a proper rest free of confinement. Steve certainly felt like he hadn't just been sleeping in there. He was a far cry from well-rested.

The Quinjet was parked outside along with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s vehicles and aircraft. The spy organization was such a small operation these days, officially disbanded. Fury was officially a deceased person. Who knew, maybe Fury wasn't even running S.H.I.E.L.D. – officially.

Steve was too tired to care.

They got on the aircraft, Clint moving up to take the controls, getting ready to take off.

"I'll see you in New York," Steve heard Rhodey say and glanced over. He and Tony were standing at the hatch, Tony's armor lingering beside them. Obviously Rhodey wasn't planning on hitching a ride with them, though his armor wasn't quite as fast as Tony's, according to Tony. Too 'bulky'. Still, compared to the Quinjet, Rhodey might be able to get a few chores done before the Avengers reached their destination.

"Sure thing," Tony murmured.

Thor joined them then, landing out of the sky with a faint thud as he hit the ground.

"Good timing, Thunderclap. Might have left without ya," Tony joked.

Thor just hummed, striding past the men and their armors. His boots were heavy against the ramp, tremors traveling all the way to the hull behind Steve's back, but the smile Thor gave him was warm. "Captain, I am glad our mission was successful. Welcome back."

"Glad to be here," Steve replied, though… was he? Of course he was. It was ridiculous to think anything else. It just felt a bit too real, still, what his reality had been within that dream or whatever, cracked by the jarring return to reality.

Rhodey stepped away from the Quinjet, snapped the armor's faceplate shut, and jetted into the air. Tony lifted his arm briefly to protect his face from debris that came up in a cloud in the wake of War Machine's take-off, then turned and ascended the ramp, his armor following.

Clint took that as his cue to close the ramp and begin final take-off procedures. Tony took a seat on the opposite side of the Quinjet from Steve, his armor docking itself in its usual spot, and everyone else sat down, too. Clint didn't ask whether they were ready, taking off quickly and smoothly, finding a cruising altitude and heading north-west.

Steve closed his eyes for the duration of the take-off, wondering if he could just take a nap on the way home. Normally he would have been too wound up after a mission, but right now he felt like he could sleep another seventy years…

That thought jarred him out of it a little. Steve opened his eyes, feeling restless again. He sensed the plane leveling, and Bruce unbuckled himself, walking to the lab area, getting some instruments. The scientist approached Tony, who gave him a look and they had a murmured conversation about doing tests and Tony wanting to wait until they got back to the Avengers Tower.

Finally Bruce talked Tony into recording some brain activity, which Tony grudgingly agreed to, placing some kind of receivers at each of his temples.

Bruce approached Steve next, attaching a similar pair onto Steve's head, then went to sit at a computer terminal on the far side.

"Can't risk your brains turning into mush or something," Natasha mused, smiling at Steve, then went up to join Clint in the cockpit.

Thor seemed to be taking a power nap and that left Steve sitting alone – as well as Tony. The distance between them felt especially significant, more than just a few feet. What kind of divide had this experience created…?

Tony sat still for some fifteen minutes, looking tired but also restless – the same way Steve felt. He knew not to assume it was anything like him, and even if it were, Steve understood if Tony wanted to keep some distance between them for a while.

They remained seated where they were, on the opposite sides of the aisle, all the way to New York. Every now and then they would lock eyes, then look away, drift off, and then be jostled back to wakefulness by a bit of turbulence or simply because Steve, for his part, worried what would happen if he fell asleep.

Steve knew it was probably silly to fear they would end up in that dream world again, but with its echo remaining so close to the surface of his consciousness, Steve predicted he might hold off from actually sleeping for some time still.

Bruce concluded his brain wave analysis before they arrived, reporting that he couldn't see anything strange going on. It was a relief, though Steve wasn't too shocked. Aside from the memories that weren't real, he didn't feel anything out of the usual. Tony seemed to share his feelings on the matter:

"I'm feeling fine. Coherent, clearheaded, able to tell what's real and what's not," Tony shrugged in response to Bruce's words.

"Until we know how HYDRA did this, I would prefer we exercise caution," Bruce replied.

"Yeah, that's the big question…" Tony and Bruce seemed to be mulling over that for the rest of the flight, and finally they began their descent, landing safely a few minutes later. Tony was on his feet before the Quinjet fully stopped moving, and the rest of them followed his lead in getting their stuff and walking out.

"I need a drink. And a shower," Tony announced. "I'll see everyone later," he waved, not even looking back, taking off towards the nearest elevator that would take him to his own floor.

"Should we be worried about him?" Clint asked.

"We'll monitor," Bruce replied.

"Of course, Dr. Banner," J.A.R.V.I.S. replied through the Tower speakers this time – even though the AI was currently transferring Tony's armor from the Quinjet to his lab or wherever Tony tended to store it.

"Steve, all good?" Natasha asked him.

"Yes," Steve replied swiftly. "I think I'll follow Tony's advice – on the shower, at least."

The others chuckled and Steve strode towards the stairs, wanting to be alone for a bit. It would help clear his head, put his thoughts in order, and then he would see whether he wanted to rest, work out, or what.

It turned out, after taking a long shower – by his standards – and spending an awfully long time staring at himself in the bathroom mirror – wondering if he was seeing a stranger or not – Steve realized hunger was probably the first issue he needed to address.

So, Steve pulled on some clothes and wandered out to the kitchen, listening carefully as he approached. He couldn't hear anyone else, which was lucky. He knew the others would have questions – Clint and Natasha about what they had witnessed, and the others from pure curiosity because they were depending on second-hand information.

He hoped his teammates could wait just a bit longer, when it wasn't all so… raw in his mind.

Steve loaded ingredients on the table, deciding he might as well pig out: eggs and bacon, butter and toast, avocado, onions, and an assortment of other vegetables. He set out to make a bit of a stir fry, frying the eggs and bacon separately.

"Eating your feelings away?" Tony's voice suddenly reached him and Steve looked away from his cooking, finding the other man entering the kitchen. No one else followed. "Is there enough for me?" Tony asked then.

"Sure, but I don't know if it's something you'll like," Steve replied.

"Trust me, I'm so hungry I'm not going to be picky," Tony declared. He didn't even look at what Steve was doing, going for some wine instead. "Should have brought a bottle down," he muttered, clearly hankering for something stronger, then shrugged and took a big sip, refilling the glass afterwards.

Steve finished cooking, making two plates and setting them down on the counter. Tony came to look then chuckled. "What?" Steve asked.

"You were such a culinary marvel a few hours ago. I wondered if you had some hidden talents."

"Sorry to disappoint," Steve replied. "Might be all those cooking shows on TV, they make me wish I had the time to learn how to use all these modern gadgets and ingredients."

Although unimpressed by the simple meal, Tony took the plate meant for him – the one with the smaller portion – and dug in without complaint.

They ate in a strange silence, standing on opposite sides of the counter. One or both of them could have left the room, but Steve was too hungry and Tony didn't seem interested in privacy either.

Steve refused to think of how homey it felt.

Not in the real world.

They finished their entire meal in silence. Steve consciously kept pace with Tony, not wanting to finish before him, nor too long after him.

"Ah," Tony sighed once he had emptied his plate. "That was quite satisfying."

Steve blinked then hid a smile behind the last few forkfuls of his own meal. "I'm glad," he murmured.

He did the dishes by hand – no point stuffing the machine with just these few items. Tony, oddly enough, didn't comment on it, simply standing there, leaning on the counter, finishing his glass of wine. Steve wondered if the meal had paired well at all with the drink, but maybe Tony had bigger problems in his life right now.

"Well, then," Steve said finally, having cleaned everything there was to clean – including Tony's glass when he had finished.

"Come have a drink with me," Tony said. It didn't sound like a question, but an order.

Steve felt like making an excuse but Tony was already heading out to the living room space – where the bar also was – and seeing as he had asked, Steve figured there was something Tony wanted. So, Steve did the only right thing in this situation and followed his teammate.

Tony had already poured himself a glass of scotch, but he also had pulled out a bottle of beer – which he then slid towards Steve on the bar.

"It won't have the desired effect," Steve reminded him.

"Well, I know you kind of like the taste, so…" Tony shrugged, then stood there sipping his drink, eyes nailed on the Manhattan skyline viewable through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Steve opened the beer, then let it sit on the bar for a while, fingertips resting against the cool glass. He could feel condensation beginning to slip down the surface and reflexively reached out to find a coaster.

Tony seemed alerted by this movement and turned to look at him. "You know, you're meant to drink that," he commented.

Steve hummed and finally took a sip. It was a brand he liked, Tony always had some in stock – along with a number of specialty micro-brewery ones and whatever the others enjoyed.

After gazing into the liquid in the bottle for almost a minute, Steve let out a small, poignant exhale. "You must think I'm an idiot," he said.

"How so?" Tony asked. He turned away from the city view, attention fully on Steve. At this moment, it was almost unbearably intense.

"Because of what happened. Because you… needed to come back for me."

"Oh." Tony sipped his own drink. "I could barely believe it before I managed to kick myself out of there. Without J.A.R.V.I.S., Fury might still be trying to convince me." He sipped his drink again, then seemed to decide he needed to slow down. "Look, it was… what it was. Both of us know it wasn't real."

Steve nodded slowly. "It changes nothing?" he guessed.

Tony huffed, a tiny smile twisting his lips. "No. We'll be back to our old habits in no time."

"Because those people who were married, it wasn't us." For Steve, saying that still felt wrong, but he sensed those emotions were already drifting farther, less mixed in with how he really felt.

"We don't know how HYDRA did it, but…" Tony looked down, clearly trying to choose words he was comfortable expressing. "I think I know how you feel right now," he said quietly. "Because I feel it, too."

For some reason it made Steve feel better. Tony had only been awake a few hours more than him, tops. The dream was still fresh in Tony's mind, too.

They finished their drinks in silence, but it wasn't as tense as Steve had feared their future interactions would be. This was a bit more like sitting together in their living room at the end of the day, watching TV, relaxing.

"Can I… ask you for another favor?" Steve asked then, looking at Tony. "You don't have to say yes. I know I already used up my one wish back there."

Tony chuckled. "I'm not keeping track. What's on your mind?"

Steve hesitated. He wondered which version of him was bringing it up. "It's still… today," Steve started slowly. "I know we're not going back there, and the sooner we move on, the better. But I still feel… like I'm close to it."

Tony nodded, listening. It was amazing he wasn't interrupting Steve. How tired was he right now? How traumatized by the experience?

Well, he was here with Steve right now. It couldn't have been that horrible. Perhaps Tony, too, felt that confusion; that pull in two different directions.

"Just ask, Rogers," Tony finally told him.

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it, looking away. He felt embarrassed, flustered. They were here, the two of them. They'd had dinner and enjoyed a drink together. It was plenty. "Sorry. It's nothing."

Tony looked at him steadily, then pulled his phone from his pocket. For a minute he was so absorbed in it, Steve wondered if this was his cue to leave. Then, just as Steve had decided that it was and prepared to get up from his seat, Tony set his phone down. Almost instantly the speakers mounted somewhere around the room began to play a soft tune. Steve felt like maybe he recognized it, but without lyrics to hold onto, he couldn't place it. There were too many things for him to remember these days – old and new.

"I believe this was a big hit at the time. 'Moonlight Serenade'," Tony told him, then stepped away from the bar and held out his hand. "One last dance, Mr. Rogers?"

Steve blinked, standing up without actively thinking about it. How did Tony know he had been about to ask for exactly this? Was he so transparent? Or maybe Tony's mind lingered on their final dance back there, in their home, in the life that hadn't even existed…

The feel of Tony's hand in his was electrifying and Steve had no idea why it felt so familiar to pull him in, to slowly move to the instrumental song. Tony looked up at him briefly, then seemed to find it a bit too much and just… closed his eyes and leaned his head against Steve's shoulder.

Knowing he should seize the moment now, Steve shifted his hand on Tony's back a bit, still within appropriate boundaries but slightly more familiar, then rested his cheek on the top of Tony's head.

The song ended too fast, and yet, it felt like perfect timing. Any more and it might be too much for them.

Tony shifted, moving back, and Steve released him – not too fast and not too slow, he hoped. He was surprised when Tony offered him a small smile. It was more genuine than most other ones Steve had seen from him. This was the real Tony Stark – not the one putting on a show to distract people, and not even the man he had shared a life with in a dream.

"Good night," Tony told him, grabbing his phone and leaving the room.

Steve stood there in the near-suffocating silence for a bit longer, then moved and grabbed his empty bottle, putting it in recycling. Then he went up to his room and got ready for bed. Come what may, he needed to rest.

He lay down, both dreading and looking forward to what might come. Closing his eyes, it didn't take long for him to drift off, finally.

---

Tony felt tired and would no doubt crash soon, but after his little dance with Steve, he wished to focus his mind on something else.

So, he made a detour on his way to his room and entered his lab instead. He had been there for a few minutes, going over some messages – the most important one was from Pepper, apologizing that she couldn't be there tonight but would most definitely make it by morning – and looking for any updates from S.H.I.E.L.D. on the tech taken from HYDRA – of which there were none – when he realized the light was on in the neighboring lab space.

Tony wandered over there, finding that Bruce hadn't gone to bed either.

"Working on something?" Tony asked.

Bruce started slightly, then turned a bit to look at Tony. "J.A.R.V.I.S. uploaded the data from your last trip to the construct. I wanted to take a look before I crashed."

Tony went to stand by him. Maybe it was due to his tiredness, but he couldn't really focus on the wall of code in front of him. "Anything from the pods?" he asked.

"No update from S.H.I.E.L.D. yet, sir," the AI replied. "I am finishing final uploads from the data I had stored away from directly patching you in, and whatever the armor could access, but preserving the pods would have been ideal."

"Pesky self-destruct sequences," Tony muttered.

Bruce gave him a lopsided smile. "How are you feeling?" he asked then, not for the first time.

"Oh, tired. Just had a bite to eat with a drink or two." His mind stopped at what had happened next. "One last dance with Cap before we bundle this baby up and stick it in the closet forever," he ended up saying out loud.

Bruce looked surprised by that last part. "Okay," he said slowly, clearly processing it still. "Will this be… a problem for you guys?"

"Shouldn't you have said 'a bright new opportunity' rather than 'a problem'?" Tony challenged.

"I mean…" Bruce shrugged. "You're better now than you were, but this kind of thing can make things feel sour – I suspect," he added. "I don't envy your position. This is all kinds of fucked up."

"Tell me about it," Tony sighed. "At least it wasn't Nightmare Land. This domestic bliss? Much better for my psyche."

Bruce deigned to chuckle at it.

"Truth be told," Tony said quietly, "I think he liked it there."

"That's why he didn't want to leave?" Bruce asked.

"No, that was because he thought we were all crazy; that world was the only reality that ever existed for him," Tony waved it off. "I don't know why I feel like this. When we went back, it was like I was seeing our neighborhood for the first time, you know? All those details… I think it was him, breathing life into everything. My version of things would have been a lot more gloomy. Efficient. Performance-based."

"So, you complemented one another and things magically didn't fall apart when you fell from the equation," Bruce said. "Does that bug you?"

"I hadn't thought about it, so… no?" Tony shrugged. "As long as we don't know how HYDRA did it, I guess we'll just assume that little experiment didn't require two minds in there to function."

Bruce nodded.

"Do we have any idea why we were in there? Anything in either of the HYDRA bases that would explain what they tried to make us work on?"

"No," Bruce replied. "I wish I had an answer for you. It might make cracking this mystery much easier. Maybe they just wanted you to invent something for them – anything at all? Was there anything familiar about Steve's design? Could it have been one of your weapons, something Steve's seen that HYDRA wanted to re-create?"

Tony tried to remember but really, the details were escaping him. "I mean, it was art… He wasn't exactly making a technical drawing."

"Maybe sleep on it, see if it comes back to you?" Bruce suggested.

"Or maybe it will vanish entirely," Tony tossed another possibility in the ring. "Maybe we should try to stay awake, to hold on to the remnants of what we can recall from there."

"I have data about Captain Rogers' design, but I have not been able to match it with anything yet," J.A.R.V.I.S. informed them. "It is also possible I am only working on a partial. Translating the stream is… not a simple task."

"Keep at it," Tony ordered. "I don't trust S.H.I.E.L.D. to give us anything useful."

"You think we should have brought the pods back with us?" Bruce asked.

"Definitely," Tony nodded. "But I was already feeling like crap, and sitting in a plane with those smoking devices for several hours?" He shook his head. "My guess is that anything valuable was destroyed by the fire. The damage seemed quite extensive once the flames were put out…"

"Maybe Fury's people will come through," Bruce said, then reached out to switch off his screen. "I'm tired. You're tired. Whichever option you choose in terms of sleep, let me know how it goes tomorrow," he said with a yawn. "I'm going to bed."

Tony chuckled. "Don't let the bed bugs bite," he joked, then exited Bruce's lab with him, taking the elevator to his penthouse.

He was tired, that was extremely clear. So, he went and washed up, brushed his teeth, sent Pepper one more message, then dimmed the lights and crashed into bed. For whatever reason he expected sleep to elude him, but almost as soon as he felt the cool sheets against his body, he was down for the count.

---

Steve woke up with a start, which wasn't completely unlike him. Some mornings he was amazed that he was awake – and that it was still the day he assumed it would be. Other days there was slight disorientation – or the complete opposite where he was on his feet before fully realizing it, already moving onto whatever was first on his agenda.

Today, he tried to remember if he had dreamt of something, but couldn't recall anything. He felt rested, finally. His mind was calmer than it had been yesterday.

He was surprised by all of that and made an uncharacteristic move of lying in bed for almost half an hour, staring at the ceiling, thinking back to the HYDRA dreamland, then the jarring drop back to reality. He thought of last night with Tony, and pondered what all this might mean for the team.

What did it mean for him and Tony?

Nothing, he kept telling himself. It means nothing. We'll move on. As if nothing had happened, he was sure.

Anything else would be incomprehensibly weird, not to mention disrespectful towards Pepper Potts – whom Steve was fairly certain Tony was in a relationship with.

He finally got up, pulled on some workout gear and headed out to the gym a few floors down. As always, he took the fire-escape stairs rather than the elevator, though he made a conscious effort to not skip half the steps and rush to his destination. Tony had more than once delivered comments that the stairs were not for parkour practice and that failed safety inspections due to shaky railings and weird dents in the walls were a headache he didn't need.

At first Steve had told him to build better facilities. Since then, Steve had come to realize that perhaps he simply didn't know his own strength; Steve had spent such a short time living a 'normal' life, where his enhanced body was more than many items and structures were built to withstand.

It was later than he would usually enter the gym, and as such he wasn't shocked to find Natasha already there. Most of the team might be taking it easy for a few days after this mission, depending on what they had been up to while Tony and Steve were missing. Steve doubted they had been sitting idly while waiting for J.A.R.V.I.S. to locate them, or for some sign that would give them a hint as to where to go.

"Morning," Natasha greeted. "You're… late."

"I slept in," Steve said. He hadn't, not really, but it hardly mattered.

Natasha nodded. "Good."

Steve warmed up a bit even though his body didn't strictly need it, then he moved over to where Natasha was waiting, clearly wanting to spar.

She was rarely careful with Steve, knowing it would take considerable force to harm him. Steve, of course, had to hold back, but he knew she preferred him to make her feel it. They kept at it for almost an hour, freely sparring and practicing some specific moves and maneuvers, then called it off and sat on the side with water bottles.

"So," Natasha started. "How jarring has it been?"

Steve didn't act confused: he knew what she meant – and she knew that he knew. "It's not so bad today, I guess," Steve admitted. "As hours go by, I can feel this line of clarity drawn between here and there widening. Last night… I think I got some closure, in a way."

"How so?" Natasha asked.

"Tony and I had dinner," Steve replied. If he didn't tell her, she might try other avenues to find out. Not because she wanted to gossip or needed the information, but it was in her nature to know something about everything, even when she didn't know all.

"Sounds cozy," she smiled.

"It was really strange," Steve corrected, sighing. "He didn't need to give me that, but he did; eating together, having a drink, and… one last dance."

Natasha didn't crack a joke despite her obvious surprise. Steve assumed she had been just as puzzled by their life in the dream world as Clint, but she held it in, observing the situation instead of commenting. "Maybe it was closure for Tony, too," she finally said. "You weren't there alone. Just because he got out first…"

"He came back," Steve said. "He could have stayed behind and let you handle it, right?"

"I think so," Natasha shrugged. "It was easier for him to join us, though. He knew the lay of the land, sort of. And he knew you – the guy his alter ego was married to." She chuckled. "It's kind of sweet, really. He could have told you anything there, at that house, to make you come with us. But I don't think he wanted to convince you by lying to you – even though in a matter of moments you would have been awake and it hardly would have mattered."

In between the lines, it almost sounded like Natasha thought Tony would have handled it differently in the real world. It wasn't that Tony lied to people, but he was notorious for doing things without permission and asking for forgiveness later – though he tended to think forgiveness was irrelevant since he was always right.

Steve leaned back against the wall. Physically he felt better after this bit of exercise, but mentally he was drooping back towards some weird post-dream-world slump. It was better today than it had been since he woke up at the HYDRA base, and he expected things to keep improving as time passed.

He was no stranger to moving on from a life he couldn't get back…

"Think you'll miss it?" Natasha asked with a teasing smile. "I'm sure it was a simpler life there."

Steve chuckled mirthlessly. "Sure. But it's not like it was me who was living that life," he noted, getting up on his feet. "Could I possibly be content with such a simple existence, being who I am?"

"It sounds like a nice thing in theory, but… you're right: we are who were are," Natasha nodded.

Steve picked up his things and took his leave of her, heading back towards his room. He had never been one for vacations, and felt that promptly returning things to normal would help everyone move on from this weird event.

---

The soft ping of the suite's elevator doors opening roused Tony from his sleep. The sound was muted when necessary, but seeing as Tony was asleep, J.A.R.V.I.S. knew to alert him to the fact that someone was approaching.

It was a short list of people who had free access to his penthouse, and he wasn't too shocked when his bleary eyes found Pepper walking in, slipping off her shoes, setting down her bag, then quietly moving across the main area to the bedroom. The lights were still off, but she must have realized Tony wasn't asleep anymore. Almost instantly the room brightened somewhat, soft mood lighting activating, though the space still remained dark enough to sleep in.

"Hi," she whispered, slowly sitting on the edge of the bed. "Did I wake you up?"

"Yes, but I suspect it's about time to get up," Tony replied.

She chuckled. Tony rarely had a schedule he actually stuck to, and he worked strange hours. As such, his use of the term 'time to get up' was very loosely used indeed.

"You must have slept on the plane, being here so early," Tony mused.

Pepper hummed, then reached out to card her fingers through Tony's hair. Her manicured nails scratched his scalp ever so slightly. "I should have tried to get here last night," she said. "Rhodey got called elsewhere, and one of us should have been here…"

"I was hardly alone," Tony reminded her. "It's fine. I was kind of out of it yesterday."

She looked at him as if trying to evaluate how much of Tony's words were the truth. Pepper had many years' worth of experience seeing through Tony's bullshit. "How is everyone?" she asked then, scooting up on the bed. Tony made room for her, and Pepper sat back against the headboard, then pulled Tony's pillow against her thigh and Tony took the hint, leaning onto it. Her hand returned to caressing his scalp, which honestly was just what the doctor ordered.

"I don't know, we kind of scattered after getting back from the mission," Tony said honestly. He could smell her perfume and whatever her clothes had been washed with. Her touch, ever so simple, was incredibly soothing.

They didn't do this kind of thing often, mostly because Tony wasn't capable of settling down long enough – or admitting how much he needed it – but for the time being he knew it was also what Pepper needed, not just him. So, he lay there, head on her lap, letting her comfort them both.

"How is Steve?" she asked then. Pepper and Steve didn't know each other all that well, but they had met multiple times. Both of them played a part in Tony's life, and him being the iconic Captain America…

"He'll live," Tony replied.

Pepper's hand stopped moving.

"We had dinner last night," Tony admitted, "followed by a drink."

She was silent for a beat. "I'm surprised. For whatever reason I would have assumed you would avoid him."

Tony hummed, shifting just a bit closer to her. His eyes studied the lines in the dim room. J.A.R.V.I.S. hadn't turned up the lights any further, and the large windows remained tinted opaque to cut off the outside world.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Pepper asked then.

"The dinner and the drinks?"

"No," she snapped gently, tugging on a tuft of his hair. "This… thing you were trapped in. Rhodey filled me in on some of it."

Tony hesitated. He didn't want to hurt her feelings but then, she was a smart, rational woman. "We don't know what it was. A simulation? As far as we know, just the two of us were real, the rest of it constructed by us, or the program. I don't know where one ended and the other began. J.A.R.V.I.S. probably has some code I can analyze later to figure it out."

"I hear you and Steve were married there," Pepper revealed, to let Tony know he didn't need to beat around the bush.

"Yes," Tony admitted. "We… It's the weirdest thing. Up until the moment I woke up in that HYDRA base, it was all real. How I felt about him, our life together. Even when I couldn't pinpoint any memories, any specifics, it felt wrong to question it."

"So they manipulated your emotions more than your mind?" Pepper guessed. "Could it be accomplished by altering brain chemistry?"

"Perhaps," Tony shifted his head a bit to look up at her. "Maybe you'll be the one to figure it out."

She offered a tiny laugh as reply. "I doubt that, but…" Her fingers caressed his hair almost absently. "Did it feel natural to you?" she asked then.

For any man in a relationship, that might have been a loaded question. Tony felt it, too. At the same time, he knew Pepper wasn't a schemer. She was asking because she wanted to dig deep into how Tony had experienced this, and how to help him through it if the need arose. Handling trauma through proper channels wasn't Tony's strong suit, after all. Pepper knew that and they had already tackled that issue before.

Of course, she didn't yet know if this had been yet another traumatic experience for him.

"It felt natural at first," Tony admitted. "I think I started to feel restless once Fury managed to point out some flaws in the system. I was pretty much working 9-to-5, and I had such complex feelings about that alone. Going home to my husband, in comparison, was the most natural thing in the world…" He fell silent. "I don't know, maybe my brain treated it as some kind of a wild thought exercise. To envision a life so completely different from my own, to the point of recreating myself – or, another me, who isn't even me…"

"We all have a yearning to belong, to feel safe and loved," Pepper told him patiently. "You were appointed a person who loved you, and whom you loved. Since you and Steve are in the Avengers together… Even if you don't always get along, you still share a bond. You've gotten through things normal people never have to face."

"I'm not sure that man in there was really Steve," Tony mused. "Not the man I've gotten to know, anyway." He puzzled over that for a second. "Or, he had such a hard time accepting the dream world could be a lie because he was happy there. The peace and quiet, no more war or fighting… A life he never got to enjoy – in the past or the present."

Pepper actually smiled down at him. "That sounds like an ideal world."

"He bounced back right away, though," Tony said. "When he woke up, he was confused the way I was, those emotions and conflicting life experiences fighting for real estate in his head, but… Last night, I don't think he was sadly reminiscing about the lost opportunity for a normal life."

"Maybe because it was a lie," Pepper said. "You and him… I think you would rather live a life of misery than one built on a lie."

"That's one bold statement, Miss Potts," Tony smiled.

"I know, Mr. Stark," she smiled back, then leaned down to kiss him softly. "I know you, though. I also know how hard Steve has fought since he woke up from the ice. You both deserve peace, to not have the burden of saving the world on your shoulders – but as long as the world remains as it is…" She sighed sadly. Over the years, Pepper had clearly begun to resign herself to the idea that Tony might never be able to let Iron Man go.

Tony had tried, he really had. After the whole Mandarin and A.I.M. thing… he had tried to step back; to take care of his mental health and focus on resolving problems without the armor being his default tool. Then S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen, HYDRA becoming exposed, and the Avengers needed to get together to deal with that. There simply wasn't an alternative.

Pepper hadn't argued with Tony. She could have reminded him of his promise to let go of Iron Man, to become a man worthy of her love, but the world needed Iron Man still.

"I think I'll go make myself some tea, then when I get back, you can tell me – in detail – all about being married to Steve Rogers," Pepper said then, smiling in that slightly mischievous way most people didn't get to see. For the most part she felt she couldn't afford such a carefree attitude, being either his assistant or the CEO of his company, but sometimes when they were alone, it bubbled up to the surface.

"In detail, huh?" Tony teased.

"Oh yes," she grinned a bit. "Or are you telling me this was your shared dream and you didn't get past first base?"

Tony offered her a quirky, lopsided smile. "Why, Miss Potts… You think I would share gossip of my marital bed?"

"In detail," she reminded, kissing him again, then moved out from underneath him and got off the bed, moving back towards the elevator to retrieve her shoes.

Tony sighed, rolling over a bit and watching her go. She would respect it if he didn't want to share any of it. Tony was also mildly concerned about how it would make him feel if he revisited those memories. Pepper knew him extremely well, though. She had been in his life for too many years, and embedded in it too deep, to be scandalized by the idea of Tony sleeping with another man – even though in this instance it hadn't actually happened.

Emotionally, though…

Tony supposed it might be a fun topic to talk about on a date night over several glasses of wine, but today it might be too early still. Part of him wanted to protect those memories, to lock them away safely, to not tarnish them with who he really was.

It might have been better to talk it out with Pepper and then move on, but in his head he still remembered how it had felt, being in love with his teammate. He couldn't even put it into words – perhaps because it hadn't been real.

Artificial or not, he decided he would hold onto it for a bit. Pepper would understand.

---

Steve had opted for a slight detour to the kitchen, to get himself a bottle of that sports drink that was always in stock. His body didn't need it and he wasn't sure he really liked the taste, but he might also grab a bite to eat while he was there, then go back to his room and get started with his day.

When he entered the kitchen he found a person standing at the counter, waiting for the electric kettle to finish heating the water. It took Steve only a second to recognize Pepper Potts.

"Miss Potts," he greeted.

She turned around, looking surprised, then smiled. "Captain Rogers. I hope you're feeling well?"

"Yes," he replied, nodding his head, moving into the room to get his drink. It took him a few extra seconds to realize she had perhaps meant her question in more ways than one. "Are you here visiting Tony?" he asked.

"Yes," she nodded. "We just had a… conversation."

Steve felt quite ill at ease all of a sudden. "I apologize for any trouble I may have caused between you."

She blinked then waved her hand as if dismissing his apology. "There's no trouble. Tony was surprisingly frank about it – most likely because he has no idea how much Rhodey did or didn't tell me beforehand."

"It's not like Tony had any say on what happened," Steve added.

"Or you, for that matter," Pepper noted. The water had finally reached boiling point, the kettle signaling that with a beep, and Pepper moved to pour the water into a large cup she had prepared, a tea bag already inside. "I hope you have someone to talk to about this, if you feel the need," she said.

"I do," Steve said. Well, he wasn't sure if that was true, but…

"I'm not blaming either of you," Pepper added then, looking him in the eye. "It would be incredibly self-centered and insensitive of me to do something like that. More than anything, the two of you are… victims of some strange scheme or experiment. Did you ever find out why HYDRA did this?"

"Not so far," Steve replied. "It was certainly… an experience I didn't expect to have," he admitted. "They could have done a lot worse, in terms of a simulation or whatever it was. Though, some nightmarish dystopia might have been easier for Tony and I to handle," he admitted.

"The normalcy of it all threw you off?" she guessed, smiling a bit. "Tony did mention that. I'm sure both of you enjoyed the peace and quiet, like a vacation, but it's not exactly in either of your natures for such a thing to last."

Steve hummed. "You are very perceptive."

"I have to be. I've been in Tony's life since before he became Iron Man," she replied, a hint of tension entering her voice. "It hasn't been easy, and it's not… easy now, either. I would rather he didn't have to be out there, playing the hero with you and your team, but I know it's necessary. He can do so much good. I just wish he saw how much good he can do without the armor, too."

Steve knew he wasn't the right person to ask about such things. His opinion of Tony, ever fluid, was highly biased. There were a lot of reasons why they hadn't gotten along when they first met, and why things sometimes still came to a head between them.

"I hope Tony was honest in saying that the two of you are handling this as well as can be expected," Pepper said then. "That you had dinner last night?"

Steve nodded. About this, he wouldn't reveal more than he knew for sure Tony had told her. "It was a nice bit of closure for both of us, perhaps. I feel more like myself by each hour that goes by, and I'm sure that's true for Tony as well."

She nodded. "Just… Don't let this come between you, please? The rest of us will never know how you experienced this incident and how it might change how you see one another. Whether you recognize it as some kind of a false reality, or a glimpse at each other's true nature…"

"I think Tony and I both know it wasn't the most honest representation of who we are as people," Steve said.

"Just don't let this become another demon you have to battle," Pepper requested. "Maybe when the two of you are at odds once again, you can look back at this incident and recall that in some weird, alternative world, you were capable of being happy together."

Steve thought about it and chuckled. "I suppose that's worth a try…"

She smiled a bit, then pulled the tea bag out of her cup and put it in the bio waste bin. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Captain, I have an appointment with Mr. Stark to further discuss his illicit adventures in Dreamland."

Somehow, the way she said it with a deeply playful smile made Steve's skin heat up. However, her manner was still polite and she bid him good day before leaving the kitchen with her tea, heading toward the elevators.

Steve looked after her, then forced himself to breathe again. It was good to know she wasn't upset about this. Incidents like this couldn't make it easier for her to continue to be in Tony's life, but she persevered… It reminded Steve of another person in another lifetime, and he allowed himself a trip down a different memory lane as he proceeded to make himself some tea as well, rather than grabbing that sports drink, and put together a sandwich as well.

He and Tony had both survived worse. They would overcome this and continue on to make this world a better, safer place for everyone else.

The End