Chapter Text
Tony jerked awake for the third time that week to some weird dream he never remembered upon opening his eyes to the real world. It's been going on for months, almost since the exact date he had snapped everyone dusted by Thanos back into existence and nearly died and lost an arm in the process, had it not been for Strange, Wong and, surprisingly, Loki. At first, he had written it off as the aftereffects of the trauma he'd went through throughout the year, but it wasn't making any sense anymore. Christmas and New Year's Eve were just around the corner and everyone seemed to be getting better at dealing with the experience Thanos and his insanity had been. Hell, they even managed to rebuild Vision once they had the Mind Stone back and even Quill was learning to live with no Gamora. Even Nebula, who had decided to stay on Earth - she trusted no one with keeping Tony alive in her absence, in spite of how offended his friends and AIs were at the insinuation but glad to have someone else in their corner regarding that - was starting to relax and accept the fact that her sister was gone.
Only Tony continued to struggle, and that was mostly because of his restless nights.
Well, not restless. This was probably the first time in years he kept sleeping through the night when he went to bed and waking up at least six hours later, a record for him, really. Though he always felt like he'd been awake for hours after he got up, which made no sense whatsoever. It almost felt like the dreams were happening instead of just being products of a resting mind.
And they weren't even nightmares.
In fact, Tony hadn't had a single nightmare since everyone came back and Thor severed Thanos' head from his shoulders.
It was like there was nothing left to haunt his nights when there was, in fact, now more of it than ever. Pepper had at first marveled at the change before becoming unnerved by it. She started checking his reactions to everything else and whenever he pulled up his press mask when asked about things he felt uncomfortable talking about, she'd get this ... almost disgusted look on her face. Tony hadn't understood why until she one day accused him of turning into a psychopath that had no empathy for others and no emotions whatsoever. He could see that she instantly regretted saying it - it was a heat of the moment thing, after a long, stressful day at SI for her and a string of Accords meetings for him so they were both on edge and he had tried to hide it so as not to worry her since he had still been technically recovering - but the words were there and they haunted their every step for two months, putting a strain to their relationship that had never been tested in this sense before.
They grew apart and Pepper asked that they cancel the wedding and everything else and just try to go back to being friends. It was hard and they both struggled through it, but when the media realized they were passing through their shitstorm together regardless of the status or nature of their relationship, they backed off before the power(ex)couple of SI gets them fired from their jobs for lack of professional conduct or verbal harassment. Either way, soon enough Tony once again found himself sleeping in his own bed and yet the dreams persisted.
He'd never remember them, not a single thing, though he was sure he'd talked to someone or at least listened to them. He couldn't be sure but he almost felt like he was ... sharing his dreams with someone else, quite literally at that. Stark had panicked at first, of course, given both Loki and Maximoff were staying with the rest of the - reformed and re-branded, according to the UN Council - Avengers at the Compound, and yet he never felt ... threatened or endangered by the dreams. He was always content during and after one of them so he was pretty sure neither of those two had anything to do with it. He had suspected Stephen - because he was Stephen these days; anyone who can tell the former rouges and Loki to stuff it and then reinforce whatever consequences he set for the failure to oblige was definitely okay in Tony's books - doing something to alleviate his nightmares, thinking it was some neat sorcery trick only to be baffled by how tired both he and Wong looked after a night of reliving their own nightmares when he'd come by to check on them in the Sanctum in New York after no sightings of either man despite some extraterrestrials being far too close to the Sanctum for anyone's liking.
Apparently practicing the Mystic Arts while emotionally unstable was a big no no. Loki let up some of his grudge towards Stephen - Tony has got to get the story behind that - acknowledging that despite being inferior in years of study, Strange might not be such a bad sorcerer if he abides by these rules/regulations or whatever.
Needless to say, neither practiced sorcerer was all that happy with the Scarlet Witch.
Anyway, the point was it couldn't have been Stephen. Even if he did have a cure for nightmares, Stephen wouldn't administrate it on anybody unless he had their permission and especially not on Tony. The man had been quite clear about that while he was healing Tony's head injury and he'd made a joke about mental magics. He had looked so hurt and offended, like Tony had thrown a slur in his face and Tony could understand that. The man did have a straight and sure moral compass, even if the utter, asshole of a dumbass had went against it and allowed half of all life in the universe to be - thankfully only temporarily and that was all because of Strange in the first place - erased from existence just for Tony to live. But seeing as it was the only way to defeat Thanos, Tony can forgive him this once.
Still, that left him no closer to finding out just what the hell was messing with his sleep.
"Hey, baby-girl? What time is it?"
"It's eight in the morning, Boss. Your mandatory Avengers meeting starts in two hours," FRIDAY cheerfully chirps in her Irish lilt that often calmed him well enough after these things. The engineer sighed and got out of bed. Once again, he had somehow overslept through the alarm and FRIDAY had no doubt been eager to shut it off when he proved unresponsive. All of his friends thought his new, regular and healthily lengthy sleeping schedule was a good thing but Tony couldn't help being uneasy. This was him they were talking about. The only people who had ever managed to make him go to bed on time shared a name and a voice and were long since dead. The fact that Tony could sleep so much without a sophisticated, elegant male British voice just one call away left him deeply unsettled.
This, whatever this was, was unnatural and honestly starting to creep him out.
He sighed and went through his morning routine, all the while wondering if he should even bring it up to Stephen after today's meeting or if he should keep quiet. Stephen was, after all, not only the Sorcerer Supreme but also a doctor and while that may not exactly be his field of expertise, Tony rather doubted a perfectionist like the sorcerer would ever not know something that might come up in his line of work as a useful skill. If nothing else, he'll be willing to offer a listening ear and talk about it. It could very well be leftover effects from using the Infinity Stones. According to Thor and Loki and whoever else was asked, Tony shouldn't have survived. No matter what help he received, he shouldn't have survived.
"You are no ordinary mortal," Loki had said before Tony had lost the battle to exhaustion, only to have the same repeated to him by Nebula. "You are not an ordinary Terran." Neither explained but Nebula stuck by his side no matter what visitor he had. Guess keeping him alive for as long as she had while they were in space before they were rescued by Carol did that to people.
When he got a warning from FRIDAY that there was half an hour left to the meeting, he downed another cup of black coffee, got dressed in a three piece suit - his battle armor outside of the Iron Man suit (not that the nanobot housing unit Arc Reactor wasn't attached to his chest regardless). Long gone were the days when he'd walk around in sweatpants or jeans and old and worn band shirts. There was no trust left for him in the Avengers outside of the field and there it was more out of necessity - and headed towards the meeting rooms in the north wing. He lived in the east wing himself, along with Rhodey, Nebula, Vision, Hope and Carol. Pepper, Happy, Harley, Peter, Wong, Stephen and the Guardians of the Galaxy all had rooms set up for them there, too, should there ever come a day that they might need them. The former rouges stayed in the west wing, where their rooms used to be. He'd only added a room for Loki, Thor, Bruce and their badass Valkyrie friend on a different floor in the same wing, keeping them far away from him but also keeping the Avengers, mainly Barton, far away from Loki.
The man might have saved him but Tony still didn't trust him. Still, it was a sad fact of life that he trusted the Frost Giant more than he did the noses between the original Avengers' eyes.
As always these days, he was the first to enter the room. He did this by design. It meant he got to choose where he will sit and who will sit on either side of him. Usually, it was Doctor Strange and Spider-Man - if Peter was allowed or available to come to a meeting, considering he had gone back to being the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and decided he really didn't want to deal with any bigger stuff for now, for which Tony was grateful for - or Nebula and Rhodey. It depended on whether the Space Doughnut Team was all able to come to a meeting or not. And if for some reason Rhodes was unavailable due to his still standing job as the military liaison between SI (Tony) and the military - hey, just because he no longer makes weapons doesn't mean he's no longer providing protective gear for their soldiers or armored tanks and better communication systems. He's still a patriot, though by that these days he means more towards Earth than just the US - then Vision, Hope and Carol were always happy to take the empty seat besides him. No one wanted anyone to be uncomfortable and while most of the new additions to their roaster had no idea why Tony felt sick when Rogers was too close, they helped either way.
He sat down in the middle of the left side of the long meeting table, waiting for the rest to arrive. Five minutes before the meeting should begin, an overeager Spiderling all but bounded into the room, mask in place as always, but that in no way stopped him from beaming at his mentor like the sun. Tony was still a bit confused as to why anyone would look at him with that much admiration, let alone good, smart kids like Peter and Harley, though the latter was a bit better at not showing it. Not all the time, anyway. Peter usually didn't bother and would just always greet him with an excitedly chirped "Mr Stark!" Tony smiled at the teen as he settled on Tony's left side, further away from the door. Peter didn't know why, but he understood Tony didn't trust his first teammates with him and usually abides by Tony's protective - irrational, paranoid - urges, staying away from the rogues as much as he could without being obvious. If that meant sitting away from the door, technically hidden by Tony's body, where they will come through for meetings, the boy wouldn't say anything and just do it.
And if Tony was grateful to Stephen, who portaled into the Compound a moment later and joined them in a minute, for sitting to his right and practically placing himself as a barrier between Tony and the rouges when they enter moments before the meeting should start, than no one but the sorcerer needed to know.
The three of them were an odd group. Even the 'Revengers', as Thor had named his little group that had fought his sister and destroyed Asgard - Tony hadn't been sure how he felt about that, even as he helped the survivors settle in Norway after a series of negotiations with its government regarding the point - were not as weird, but the three of them were like a perfect unit, each of them bringing something important to the table, each of them smart as a whip and adaptable to whatever the situation may be. For all that Rogers wanted the 'real Avengers' to be a cohesive group 'again', no one tried to draw Tony out of the unexpected team he'd found for himself. Between magic, technology and what was basically an even more advanced supersoldier - though they usually referred to Peter ss enhanced - their experience against Thanos and with the Infinity Stones, they were the most powerful and most utilized team that was used for missions, given they had an answer for nearly every situation. No other team worked as well, either, nor was it as extendable to additional members to their core trio. Their teamwork and easy dynamics were enviable and Tony couldn't be prouder or more content. The Titan Crew, as they were called when Nebula joined them in all her alien-ness, assassin-ness knife-y self, was not to be trifled with and when Wong fought by their side, Team New York was best equipped to fight mystical threats. They were an unstoppable force and people know it.
Whenever the three of them appear on some battlefield, most bad guys opt for running. Not that they could outrun the Iron Man armor, magical portals or web-swinging heroes.
As Stephen settled down beside him, the others slowly started pouring in. Nebula was first, marching in like she owned the place, nodding to them before she settled on Stephen's other side, always preferring to be the first line of defense for their group. Vision trailed in after her, as uncertain how to deal with the fierce alien woman as always, which Tony thought was cute. He settled on her other side, exchanging greetings with the rest of them. Stark couldn't help but admire how they fit in with what appears to be the color scheme of their team, all red, blue and gold. Tony had once joked about how they should dress Wong up in gold or at the very least dye his hair, much to Stephen's immense amusement and Wong's horror. Too bad the Asian sorcerer usually had to stay in the Sanctum when Strange was out on these meetings.
He and Nebula unnerved the rouges as fuck.
Rogers was first after those two, quickly looking around as though he was checking if there was a seat free next to Tony, as though that would ever be the case, and then having this disappointed expression when he saw there was none. What was he expecting, really? It may have been almost a year since Thanos and three since the 'Civil War', but that didn't mean bygones were bygones. He'd left Tony with several new traumas he was still not used to. It was difficult to maintain a certain temperature that was neither too hot nor too cold so panic wouldn't grip him and spiral him into Afghanistan or Siberia outside of the suit or the lab, since everyone else seems to disagree with his preferred temperature everywhere else within the Compound. His chest still ached. He couldn't look in a mirror shirtless anymore and it had been hard ever since the Reactor was removed in the first place. Bunkers and storage bays made him uncomfortable. He almost didn't dare let anyone else choose things they will watch. Not to mention the whole new bag of trust issues he was suffering from, words friend and yes - that would have been interesting at the wedding - and, of course, letters. Things written by hand. On paper.
Or shields. Heavens but Tony was grateful FRIDAY and Dum-E had teamed up and melted his father's shield, integrating the material into Mark LI Bleeding Edge armor while he had been on Titan so his next suit was all ready for the next battle. Gotta love his mechanical kids. They take no shit and no prisoners.
The rest of the rouges piled in soon after, none of them bothering to sit on Tony's side of the table - Hope, who had quickly snatched the seat next to Peter before Rogers could get over his own pity party, unnerved most of them too much to try - where two seats remained empty until, finally, Rhodey and Carol arrived with Fury and Everett Ross, the two leaders and two liaisons of the Avengers Initiative respectively all taking their place. Carol and Rhodey were really the best choice, he down to Earth and she understanding or space, but not everyone agreed. The 'Revengers' didn't care either way as they only cared about kicking ass, though Loki always was ready to commend them for choosing better leaders than their previous one. Thor, it seems, likes Carol better than Cap these days. The only ones really having any problems with Rogers not being the leader was his little group. Even T'Challa, who was only occasionally available given the Black Panther was Wakanda's protector and king, first and foremost, agreed, thought that might have more to do with the fact that Carol seems to be capable of absorbing energy better than Vibranium due to how the Tesseract had changed her being and that kind of scared him.
Tony likes this arrangement the best, especially with no-nonsense-but-all-secrets Fury and no-nonsense-no-secrets Ross at the helm of their dealings with the UN. The Accords were still in discussion, as they will always be, but they were starting to take a shape most reasonable adults would be in agreement with. Problem was, most of the rouges were not reasonable adults. They still refused to sign Accords 7.0 that were currently in effect to stop superpowered individuals from being named persona non grata in most world countries mainly due to their stupidity during the Civil War.
Tony sometimes wondered why he even bothered, but then he'd look at the Asgardians in Norway, at his new team, at Nebula, at Strange and Wong and their sort, at Peter and at Harley and he had his answer. A few bad apples didn't make the whole lot unsalvageable.
The meeting was too long and too boring to be held this early in the morning. Thankfully, it was the weekend so Peter wasn't missing out on school or anything. Fury talked long and detailed about some planned training exercises, a publicity stunt for the Avengers somewhere in Canada by helping clean up a collapsed road - Maria Stark Foundation relief efforts were already on the scene and by the day after tomorrow, when they were scheduled to head out, most if not all the damage would be cleared out and construction would be underway so so much for that - the new amendments made by the UN Council, the nominees for the new Accords Council, how General Ross' trial was going, the progress of integrating the New Asgard 'state' into the world curriculum and so on and so forth. All things Tony already knew about and things he was dealing with. He barely held back a groan when Ross picked up on the current public opinion of Avengers as a whole and certain members - he sure as hell hoped no one ever stumbled upon any Supremefamily twitter accounts. That would be embarrassing. 'But by all things good in this world, fangirls are a scary sort.'
He definitely didn't want to think about how the world viewed the Avengers right now.
Feeling a headache coming on, Tony just sighed, started massaging the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. He just let it all go, letting the noise be drowned under waves of numbers, becoming numb and deaf to the world-
He jolted in his chair when he unexpectedly heard a beautiful voice sing. He looked left and right, wondering who could produce the almost haunting voice, one that sounded familiar to him despite never having heard it in his life. 'At least not in my waking hours.'
"Tony? Are you alright?"
"Yeah, fine. Just fine," he waved Stephen off, still looking around. The voice was female, that had been obvious, but he couldn't imagine any of the current members to have such a soothing tone come from their vocal cords. "Did you hear that?"
"No, I didn't hear anything," the sorcerer replied , no doubt sharing a look with Peter, who has the most advanced and enhanced hearing of them all, around him.
"I didn't hear anything, Mr Stark," the teen revealed and Tony frowned.
"Is something the matter, Stark?" Fury asks, sounding pissed and impatient but the gruff man had always had a soft spot for him and Tony could hear the barely there concerned undertones he was trying so damn hard to hide.
"No," he replied, not reacting when he heard it again, the voice, the singing. "Nothing at all." Everyone was looking at him dubiously but he ignored it. Eventually, they continued with the meeting and Tony waited and waited and waited for the singing to come back, to solve the mystery, to confront the unknown from his dreams ...
The voice stayed quiet for the rest of the meeting.