Chapter Text
The spike strips appeared out of nowhere. Steve was probably the only one in the car who even saw them before they hit, but it wouldn’t have made a difference even if he’d been the one behind the wheel – they were going way too fast to stop in time. And that had almost definitely been the intention. The strips hadn’t deployed across the road until they were right in front of them.
“Shit!” Clint yelled, the car swerving wildly as he fought to maintain control. The tires were hissing and the tire rims screeching as they scraped the road until they came to a smoking stop.
At least they were almost at Central Park. It wouldn’t take them more than a minute or two to get over there, barring any other nasty surprises. War Machine had gone ahead, so with luck he’d have already successfully detained Tony by the time they made it.
It was so obviously a trap it hurt, and they’d known it the moment they’d seen that video of Tony in the park. He had a plan, one they needed to take as seriously as their more dangerous missions, and they were playing right into it.
Not that they had much of a choice.
“Leave the car,” Steve said shortly and he, Clint and Natasha quickly jumped out. Bruce had elected to stay back at the Tower, reminding them that the Hulk was quite fond of Tony and was unlikely to be of any help against him (and also ran the risk of outright killing Tony if the Hulk suddenly decided to turn against them).
They were greeted by a wave of people running away from the park, some looking panicked while others just seemed uncertain of what was going on. Steve tamped down his worry that Tony had started targeting civilians – so far he hadn’t seemed to show any interest in them, but what if that changed?
Tony would never forgive himself once he returned to normal. Steve couldn’t let that happen.
The park itself was mostly devoid of people by the time they made it there, and Steve could almost immediately tell why – War Machine was down, lying worryingly still on the ground with Tony bent over him. He had some sort of tool in his hand pressed against the seams of the armor’s chest plate. A backpack rested nearby with a fire extinguisher leaning against it.
Steve resisted the urge to call out to Rhodes and make sure he was all right. He couldn’t risk alerting Tony before absolutely necessary, not when this was the best chance they’d gotten so far to take him down.
It didn’t matter, because Tony clearly knew they were there. He had that gun-like weapon he’d had back in SHIELD pointed in their direction before they could get any closer than twenty feet, and all three of them came to a halt. Tony pressed a thick-gloved hand to his chest in mock surprise, giving them a wide-eyed look.
“Wow, all of you but Brucie came? You shouldn’t have. I’m honored. Touched by how much you care.”
“Just put down the gun, Tony,” Natasha said, raising her hands placatingly. “No one needs to get hurt.”
Tony grinned, but it looked foreign on his face, unnerving. “Right, because you’re so trustworthy, Natalie. I’m sure you all have my best interests at heart.”
“We do,” Steve said earnestly. “You’re our friend. We really care about you. This doesn’t have to end in a fight.”
“You won’t be able to change his mind,” a voice chimed in from behind them, and Steve spun around with his shield raised to face Adria. She was just as ridiculously dressed as the last time they’d encountered her, this time in a red dress with cleavage down to her navel and… demon faces printed on the fabric.
Steve had never seen anything so ridiculous in his life, and hoped he never would again.
“Okay, now I’m convinced she gets her wardrobe from Hot Topic,” Clint said, and Adria’s face twisted into an ugly sneer.
“Mock me if you want, but it won’t help you get the mind of your friend back,” she said, stalking around them to stand by Tony. The smile he gave her was the most genuine one Steve had seen in a long time. It made him sick.
“Good to see you again,” Tony said to her. His weapon was still trained on them and Rhodes remained motionless. Adria was starting to mutter something, her hands fluttering in the air – the beginning of a spell. Tony noticed their concern and grinned again.
“Don’t worry about Rhodes for now,” he said. “Y’know, it’s amazing how much you all have managed to underestimate me so far. I made that suit, of course I know how to take it down. Hell, I made almost all your gear.”
“What did you do to him?” Steve asked, his fingers twitching in worry. If Tony had killed Rhodes…
Steve wasn’t sure Tony would ever recover.
Right now, though, he just looked amused. “Does it matter? He won’t be getting up anytime soon, and that’s really all that counts for now. I’d be more worried about yourselves.”
He pulled the trigger. Steve instantly raised his shield in front of himself and the two spies ducked, Natasha hurling a taser disk. Tony dove to the side. Adria, not recognizing the disk for what it was, failed to move and let out a choked scream as electricity arced around her.
Steve breathed a quick sigh of relief at the apparent failure of Tony’s weapon to fire. Tony fumbled with his gun before tossing it behind himself.
“Uh, Cap?” Clint said, his voice strangely weak. Steve gave him a once-over, not noticing any bullet wounds or other injuries, though Clint was holding one hand to his neck. Clint shakily held up a small black object with his free hand.
A dart.
His eyes glazed over and he collapsed. Natasha caught him around the middle, arranging him in a recovery pose on the ground, and gave Steve a pointed look that wasn’t hard to understand.
This needed to stop, now. Steve’s heart dropped at the realization that it had long since passed the point where they could resolve this without injuring Tony. They’d drawn their punches too much. If Tony were in his right mind, he would have opened his arms wide and welcomed their attacks along with the pain they brought if it meant keeping him from hurting his friends. Steve was failing Tony by failing to stop him, no matter the cost Tony had to pay.
His new conviction set, Steve lunged at Tony, who jerked back, caught off guard. He slammed his shield into Tony’s chest and grappled with the smaller man’s flailing arms, aiming to yank them behind his back and out of reach from any other weaponry. Tony’s gloved hand reached up and clapped against Steve’s neck.
A high-pitched whine was the only warning Steve got before the muscles in his body involuntarily locked up, the hold he had on Tony’s other wrist tightening until he felt something crack. Tony let out a choked yell, barely audible above the staticky roaring in Steve’s ears. It abruptly cut off and Steve slumped forward as his muscles went lax. He hadn’t lost consciousness, but it was a near thing – there was no way that glove had a standard grade amperage, considering Steve’s almost nonexistent recovery time to an ordinary stun gun.
Tony ripped himself away from Steve, breathing heavily and pulling his no doubt broken arm close to his chest. Natasha didn’t give him any time to recover, latching around his neck and slamming him into the ground, pinning the arm with the stun glove. Steve could hear them grappling, hissing grunts and sharp exhalations telling him Natasha was having a hard time keeping Tony down.
Steve forced himself back onto his feet, and he could see Adria doing the same. Both Rhodes and Clint were still down. He moved to block Adria as she aimed at Natasha, but she managed to get one blast of magic out before he could get between them. Natasha and Tony both went flying in opposite directions, Natasha bearing the brunt of the attack and obviously winded, while Tony crumpled in a heap near Rhodes.
“Goddammit,” Tony cursed. He was in a lot of pain if his sharp, broken breaths were any indication. He didn’t sound like he was getting up for a while.
Adria was chanting again (Latin? Probably, not that Steve knew it, and wasn’t that the language wizards used?) and he ran at her, shield at the ready. Her speech quickened as he approached and her eyes widened, then focused on something behind him.
It was the only warning he got before a hissing bang began, followed by a sudden wave of powerful, wet heat. Flames enveloped him for a few brief seconds before the main blast stopped, but whatever served as the lighter fluid was clinging to his suit and heating his skin to uncomfortable temperatures. Thank goodness Tony had fire-proofed their uniforms, even if it didn’t completely block out the heat.
Tony was, of course, the source of the fire. He’d gotten back on his feet and was clutching the fire extinguisher Steve had noticed earlier in his hands, a small flame burning on a rod built in front of the nozzle. Tony’s skin had taken on a pale pallor aside from a massive bruise blooming on the side of his face and kept his arm pressed against his side. He had a look of grim satisfaction.
“Captain!” Natasha barked, and Steve refocused on Adria. Distracted as he was by Tony and the flames still flickering on his uniform, Steve had almost missed the end of Adria’s spell preparation.
He recognized the little purple flash of energy the moment it appeared in her hands. Time slowed to a crawl as he watched it fly towards him. He raised his shield to block it.
But armor hadn’t protected Tony when he’d gotten hit by it.
It had gone straight through his suit.
The spell was right in front of Steve. It would hit him dead-on if the vibranium couldn’t stop it.
He threw himself to the side. The spell passed straight through the shield, right through the air where his chest had been a fraction of a second earlier.
Adria screamed shrilly, pointing an accusing finger in Tony’s direction. He flinched back like he’d been struck, pulled his arm closer to his chest and dropped the modified extinguisher. She sounded like a petulant child as she shrieked at him. “You promised! You said he wouldn’t dodge! You said he’d just let it hit the shield!”
“I said probably, Ms. Fashion Reject,” Tony snarled. Steve didn’t give them time to continue their argument, launching his shield at her in hopes of catching her off guard. She cried out as it struck her collarbone, though it didn’t stop her from creating another spell. A portal appeared next to her and she stepped through before Steve could stop her, and when he turned around to recapture Tony all he saw was a second portal closing where the genius had been standing.
Tony was gone. Again.
“You should have contacted me sooner,” Stephen Strange said, glaring coolly at the group. An air of arrogance clung to him like the cloak around his shoulders, and Natasha gritted her teeth. She hated dealing with this man. “I should have been notified the moment you knew a sorceress was involved, especially someone like Adria.”
This SHIELD conference room was going to be considered the room of failure at this rate, if the number of times they’d gathered here in the last week was of any indication.
SHIELD was still struggling to restore their systems, which appeared to have been infected with several viruses on top of the PDoS attack Stark had launched on their hardware. The Avengers themselves hadn’t fared too badly, all things considered. Clint had woken up after only a few minutes with no visible long-term effects, and as they found out upon tearing off the front of the War Machine armor Rhodes had been awake and uninjured throughout the fight.
“An EMP blast,” Rhodes had said, looking mournfully at the broken pieces of the suit. “He knew how high the rating needed to be to overload the armor, and he melted the release clasps before I could activate the emergency release. It makes a pretty hard-to-escape prison.” Effective – Stark had likely intended to return to finish the job once he’d finished with the rest of them.
“You said you didn’t want to be involved with Avengers business the last time we approached you,” Natasha said, raising her eyebrows. Strange turned to face her directly, his gaze unnervingly perceptive. He would have made an excellent spy or detective in another life, she thought absently. An interrogator, perhaps.
“Unless sorcery was involved,” he said. “I’m fairly certain I said as much to your director.”
“Who is she?” Rogers asked.
“A Zealot,” Strange replied. “A disciple of Kaecilius and one of the few still in this realm. I believe she’s taken it upon herself to avenge the fates of her comrades.”
“But why take Tony?” Clint joined in. “How did she even do that? Why hasn’t she tried to get more than one of us on her side?”
“Because the cost of the spell is so high,” Strange explained as if he was speaking to children. “Sorcery is not a free resource. It most likely put her out of commission for several days following the casting. Besides, from what you’ve told me it sounds she did try again with Mr. Stars and Stripes. As for her choice of target?” His lips quirked up in a smile that was less than friendly. “I assumed you would have figured that one out on your own. What is it he likes to call himself? A ‘genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist’? With a powerful suit of armor at his beck and call? Of course she chose him out of the lot of you.”
“But he doesn’t have access to most of that,” Rogers pointed out.
Strange heaved a longsuffering sigh, looking and sounding like he was bearing a great burden just being in the room. “Good god. Obviously she didn’t know he’d put fail safes in place. Most people wouldn’t even consider doing something like that.”
Strange was right, of course. Natasha had come to this conclusion a long time ago. Tactically Stark was probably the most attractive target because of his resources and talent, even disregarding the ones they hadn’t considered – or known about – after his capture. Stark had been holding back on all of them.
He’d also been learning from them during their fights and training sessions, more than she ever would have believed. She’d recognized several of her moves while she’d been fighting with him and he’d definitely had an idea of what tactics she’d try to use on him, reacting faster than almost anyone else could have. Not that he was above dirty maneuvers. She had a nice, smarting bite on her hand to attest to that, and her eyes were still sensitive where he’d thrown dirt in them.
“Can you undo the spell she put Tony under?” Banner questioned.
“Obviously,” Strange said, offended. “She’s really not that powerful of a sorceress, when it comes down to it. The only reason she’s been capable of causing as much trouble as she has is a stolen text from the Sanctum’s library she has in her possession.”
“So it’s your fault, then,” Clint said brashly. Natasha internally winced – his ego was likely still smarting from being subdued by a tranquilizer and it was making him speak without thinking. Strange slowly turned to look at him, any annoyance in his demeanor devolving into frigidness.
“I beg your pardon?”
“If you’ve got such dangerous spells just lying around in your knockoff Hogwarts castle, then this is sort of your fault Tony got mind-controlled,” Clint said. Natasha stepped on his foot hard in warning; he winced and gave her a slightly guilty glance.
“Do you want me to find him or not?” Strange said. A muscle in his jaw was ticking.
Natasha pressed down harder with her foot. “Yes,” Clint said sullenly. “Sorry.”
Strange ignored the half-hearted apology. “Do any of you happen to have a strand of Stark’s hair?”
Natasha wordlessly slid a short brown strand of hair out from one of the clasps on her wrist. It had briefly caught in Stark’s hair while they’d been fighting, enough to pull out a small tuft of hair. Strange could have as many as he wanted.
He gave her an odd look, but didn’t question it. A golden web of magic stretched and warped from his fingertips as he pinched the ends of the hair, twisting until a large portal opened in front of them. No more hiding, no more games. They were bringing Stark back if it was the last thing they did.
Clint was right behind Strange as they stepped through the portal, bow drawn and ready. At this point he wasn’t above taking Tony down with an arrow through the arm or leg or whatever nonlethal place he could hit. He was confident enough in his ability to land it where it wouldn’t cause permanent damage, so Tony couldn’t really complain, right?
Okay, he could, but he’d shot Clint first.
It was a dingy room they were in, though it was more sizable than Clint had expected. A basement of some sort, most likely, given the windowless concrete surrounding them on every side. Pieces of tech and machinery were scattered everywhere, torn to pieces with a large table on the far end of the room covered in smaller parts. It resembled a very rudimentary form of Tony’s workshop. Tony was bent over the table, mumbling as he squinted at whatever he was working on. One of his arms was wrapped up in some sort of basic splint. He didn’t look up immediately, just waved a hand in their direction.
“I told you already, I’d work a lot faster if you stopped pestering me,” he said, but the unconcerned attitude he displayed vanished the moment he actually glanced up and realized he wasn’t talking to Adria.
Unlike their last encounter with him, Tony was completely unprepared to deal with almost the whole roster of Avengers showing up in front of him, especially with a sorcerer in the lead. He jumped back, dropping the mess of wires he’d been working on, and barely managed to snatch a gun off the bed before they were all through the portal. Clint was prepared to take a shot or two, as long as it wasn’t another one of those damn tranqs. Whatever it took to neutralize Tony.
Turns out he didn’t need to worry about getting shot, because it wasn’t any of them Tony pointed the gun at. He pressed the muzzle against his own temple, backing up a few extra steps as the Avengers halted in their advance.
“I’ll shoot,” he said, eyes darting wildly between them all. “I’m serious. Don’t think I won’t do it if it means you won’t get your filthy hands on me.”
“Tony, please, don’t do this,” Steve implored for what had to be the billionth time at this point.
“All right, that’s enough of that,” Strange sighed, his hand flicking in a rapid pattern. Orange sparks erupted from the gun, and it vanished, Tony’s finger twitching over a nonexistent trigger.
It went smoothly after that. Nat and Steve took advantage over Tony’s startled befuddlement, wrestling him to the ground in a tight hold without much trouble. The position gave him no leverage to fight back. Strange eyed Tony critically.
“She used an allegiance reversal spell,” he said. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to undo.”
A short series of complicated motions later, Tony’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped in Nat and Steve’s grip. Strange nodded once, apparently satisfied.
“That’s it?” Clint said, looking at Harry Potter Version II in a new light. Fucking hell, was this really all it would take?
“I told you you should have called me sooner,” Strange replied with a hint of a smirk. “You could have spared yourselves a lot of trouble.”
“So what exactly did her spell do to him?” Clint questioned.
“What the name suggests. It essentially turned his enemies into friends and vice versa. Not exactly the most effective if you’re trying to create a new supervillain, but I imagine she assumed he’d turn on civilians as well. You,” Strange pointed at Steve, “likely would have made a better target for the spell. You consider the public to be your friend, so an allegiance reversal would have led to you targeting them. Stark’s viewpoint of them? Neutral, at best. He’s lived in the public eye his entire life and they haven’t been kind to him for most of it. From what you’ve described of his behavior – and Adria’s – she most likely didn’t get the response she was hoping for and has been aiming to hit another one of you with the spell instead of just killing you.”
It made a lot of sense, actually. The nonlethal methods Tony had been using, even though he was more than capable of creating weapons of mass destruction. The casual not-exactly-evil way he’d been talking with those people in the park. The lack of aggression towards anyone but those he used to consider allies, if not friends.
“I assume you can handle it from here – I need to leave to start my preparations to deal with the last of the Zealots if it’s all the same to you,” Strange said after a few moments.
“Go ahead,” Steve said. “Thank you for your help. We really appreciate it.”
“Tell me next time a sorcerer makes an appearance,” Strange said, and he disappeared.
Steve lifted Tony, careful not to aggravate the broken arm and other injuries, and they headed upstairs. Clint was right; they were in a basement. Turned out Tony had been holed up in a small suburban home that looked just like every other house surrounding it. Not a place they would have ever expected to find Tony, but then, he’d been subverting every one of their expectations up until this point. Clint was just happy they’d finally managed to return Tony to normal.
What the hell were the lights on for? JARVIS always made a habit of dimming them when Tony was sleeping, but right now they were blazing needles through his eyelids like he was under an interrogation lamp or something.
“J, what the fuck? Dim the lights,” he groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes, and okay, ow, bad idea. He forced his eyes open, staring at the plaster encasing his arm.
Oh. Right. Broken arm, courtesy of Captain America.
“Tony? Tony, how’re you doing?” And that was Rhodey, light of his life, jelly to his peanut butter, Robin to his Batman… Tony had the potent painkillers in his system, didn’t he? Wonderful.
“How bad is it? Am I dying? Christ, I’m dying of an arm fracture and bruises,” Tony grouched, forcing himself up into a sitting position and taking a wary look around the room.
They were back in his bedroom in the Tower, the entire cast of Avengers gathered in the room and eyeing him with both trepidation and worry. Plus Pepper, plus Happy, and Rhodey if you got technical and didn’t include him in the list of the Avengers, but that was just semantics.
God, this had really been a rollercoaster of a week. It gave new meaning to Clint’s explanation of his experiences under mind control, especially that phrase ‘it was like my eyes had been opened.’ Because that’s exactly what it felt like. A reframing of all Tony’s memories, offering clarity in the conclusion that his friends weren’t actually his friends. He… well, he still had a little bit of a grudge against some of their past action, but that was for another time.
Then there was the matter of what he’d found out about SHIELD during his stint as a cheap-knockoff-supervillain. There had been some fucking huge red flags there, and right now he wasn’t entirely sure who knew and who didn’t. He’d have more time to sift through that whole mess later – his head was way too full of cotton to work on that now.
“Tony, you idiot,” Pepper snapped, though she didn’t look truly angry, just upset. “Do you even remember what you did? You promised you wouldn’t be careless!”
“Excuse me, it’s not my fault my suit is apparently not magic-proof,” Tony grumbled, no heat in his words. “Yeah, I remember. God. Gotta say, wish I didn’t. You guys really took your time taking me down. Those protocols were supposed to make it easy for you.”
“That part is done and over with,” Natasha said. She was the only one in the room who didn’t look concerned at all. Tony would have been more worried if she had looked worried, honestly. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, if you don’t want SHIELD to sue you for damages.”
“I’ll fix it,” Tony said, waving a hand dismissively at her. He didn’t look forward to that clusterfuck of a situation, but he’d made backups when he’d broken into the system so really, Natasha was being overdramatic. It might have been for the best SHIELD had been disabled for now anyway, not that he felt like explaining that bit yet.
“How are you feeling?” Steve asked, taking a step closer with those sad puppy eyes of his.
“Peachy,” Tony said with a smile that was all teeth. “Like a bed of roses. With peaches. Also a few supermodels. And more peaches. Good god, someone overdid it on the drugs. All of you, skadoodle. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d really like to get a few hours of sleep in before I start fixing all the stuff you let me break. SHIELD’s been sitting on their asses for a few days, what’s another couple of hours?”
“Of course,” Pepper said, smoothing down a few strands of his hair before turning to the others. “All right, everyone out. Get some rest, Tony. You need it.”
“Hell yeah, I do,” he muttered, flopping back down on the bed. He had a fuckton of stuff to do, but it could wait for tomorrow.
It was about time they finally got him back into his right mind. Tony had known right from the start that they’d underestimate him, though the fact that he’d managed to escape not once, but twice, from SHIELD had to be humiliating.
He’d figure the rest out tomorrow. Right now he just wanted a break.