Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Over the next few years, Tony’s life was swamped with busyness - board meetings, paperwork, Avengers training, missions, developing new tech as part of his work with the R&D department for SI, and the list went on and on. The mess that was New York City had taken far too long and far too much money to clean up and rebuild.

And then, and then, and then.

A terrorist blew up his home. A giant alien ship and Thor made a mess of Greenwich, and that took far too long to clean up as well. And then Rogers and Romanov brought down SHIELD and the Triskelion, and why had nobody called him in for that? Was it because he was too busy? Because now he had to deal with far too many consequences, having not even had a hand in the matter in the first place. One call to him and JARVIS could have stopped the helicarriers from even lifting off the ground, but nope! Tony hadn’t even been informed until he turned on the news.

With time, Tony came to realize that he barely had time to sleep anymore, what with so many events pulling his attention every which way until he felt stretched thin.

And eventually, he realized he didn’t have to sleep anymore. Not literally.

Because with a little tweaking, and a bit of calibration, the mental transference device around his wrist could immediately slingshot his consciousness into Ghost’s body the moment he let his human body fall asleep, no manual operation needed. It was a bit like that movie Avatar. Sure, he couldn’t be as productive as a cat, but he was still working on that.

Overall, he loved this new arrangement. His human body got the rest it need, he avoided nightmares, and ultimately got more time to get at least some work done. He just had to let his feline counterpart sleep during the day, which wasn’t a problem. He had little time for tricks and games as Ghost nowadays.

However, there were slight drawbacks.

For instance, if he were wandering around as Ghost when some run of the mill, no good evil-doer decided to temporarily disable JARVIS and his protocols, sneak into the Avengers Tower, and kidnap him in his sleep, Tony would have no way of knowing until he went back to his human body when he woke up.

Such as right now.

He had left Ghost sleeping peacefully at the New York Sanctum, where he often visited at night when there was nothing left he could do as a cat. And when he woke up, Tony expected to be in his own bed, rested and ready to take on the day. Not beaten, sore, and lying slumped against a cold and damp concrete wall with his hands bound behind his back.

He groaned as he opened his eyes, trying to ignore the ache in his bones and the way his arms were stretched so tightly behind his back that it was painful. There was one light above him, dim and flickering and a ghastly shade of yellow. He appeared to be in a cell, with barred walls on all sides except the back wall. Water dripped down from leaky pipes in the ceiling, splashing in small puddles on the floor and giving the cell a musty air to it.

Oh, for god’s sake, not again.

Panic momentarily gripped him, and Tony had to remind himself that he wasn’t in Afghanistan, the arc reactor was no longer in his chest, and he was not in a cave. Of course, prison bars weren’t all that better. Just breathe, he told himself, deep breaths. It wouldn’t do to lose his cool so soon.

“Tony!” Steve’s relieved voice came from his right, followed by a relieved sigh. “You’re okay. We were worried, you weren’t waking up.”

In the cell next to him, Steve was standing by the bars closest to Tony, looking down at him with a worried expression. The soldier’s hands also appeared to be bound - but that wasn’t right. Steve was enhanced, couldn’t he just break the metal cuffs through sheer strength alone?

Steve frowned - apparently he’d said that out loud. “They’re vibranium, Tony. I can’t break them.”

“Oh,” he looked around at the other cells, and found the other Avengers to be in their own cells, equally bound by vibranium manacles. In the cell to his left, Natasha seemed to be having a one sided staring contest with the cell door’s locking mechanism. He hoped that would mean she was figuring out it’s weak points, and they could get out of there soon. He found Thor to be on the other side of Steve’s cell, lying on a table with restraints that looked far more complex than Tony’s own - most likely to suppress Thor’s power. Bruce was similarly restrained. Both had IVs attached to their arms, and looked to be in a drugged haze.

Before he could say anything else, a door slammed open and a man strode in, dressed in an all black uniform that reminded Tony a bit of SHIELD uniforms - only with the Hydra logo stitched into the shoulders with crimson thread. It matched his hair. Old Red, Tony quickly decided to dub him. So creative.

The agent walked past Bruce’s cell, and then Natasha’s, and then Tony’s, eventually stopping in front of Steve.

“You cost us a lot, Cap,” Red growled, hands folded neatly in front of him, back held straight. It was a surprisingly intimidating gesture, despite the casualness of it. Tony couldn’t tell if it was because of the promise of threat in his voice, or just because of how vulnerable the Avengers - earth’s mightiest heroes - were in that moment. Oh, how mighty they seemed now. “Did you think you could just get away with something like that?”

“Hydra got what it deserved,” Steve bit back. Tony almost winced at how weak it sounded - they were powerless here. Helpless. The man scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“None of you will be getting out of here alive, I hope you realize that,” he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Not true, Tony wanted to mutter. Nobody captures someone just to kill them, there is always an agenda.

“You wouldn’t have locked us up here if that were the case,” Natasha pointed out, her face a mask of calm, as per usual. “We would have already been dead.”

“Clever girl,” Red smirked, then strode over to her cell - looking all too much like a cat playing with a mouse. “I concede! You won’t die. Not yet, at least. Most of you are all so very… not human. It would be a shame to waste such a potentially good research opportunity!”

A chill ran down Tony’s spine. Hydra was going to experiment on them. No.

“However,” the agent suddenly said, and his gaze locked back onto Steve, “It seems only fair that you feel the pain we felt. But I know that most of you heal too quickly for effective torture. What can we do about that, hmm?”

Red’s hard eyes landed on Tony, the frigid cruelty within them burrowing its way under his skin and settling in the pit of his stomach like a ball of ice. Then the man grinned, and the ball of ice turned into an iceberg.

“Psychological torture is always my favorite,” the agent murmured, so quiet Tony doubted the others could hear it even with their enhanced hearing.

Before he knew it, Red was jangling keys in his hands, and Tony’s cell door was unlocked. Red gripped his arm tightly enough to bruise and tugged Tony to his feet. He stumbled, earning himself another sharp tug.

“Mr. Stark here is going to come with us,” Red announced, retaliating Steve’s death-glare with a charming smile - though ‘charming’ wasn’t quite the right word. A woman in a similar uniform came into the room then, grabbing Tony’s other arm and leading him towards the door. “And the rest of you can spend the next few hours contemplating just what we’re doing to him.”

Tony gulped, but let himself be lead down the corridor, away from the aggressive snarls of his teammates. To fight would be pointless - with his hands bound, there was no way he could defend himself for long. He didn’t have his suit. He didn’t know the layout of whatever hideaway Hydra was keeping them in, or where in the world it was. He needed more information first, and if getting that meant letting himself play the victim, then so be it. It was a helpful tip he learned from Natasha - but he wasn’t sure how long he would be able to keep it up. She wasn’t as helpless as he was now, in the past.

Just before the woman led him through a new doorway - plain, no windows, nondescript - he caught Red’s voice taunting the others one last time. “Let me show you some examples of our previous subjects, just so you get some ideas about what your buddy over there might be going through.”

With that last disturbing statement, Tony was out of earshot. He tried not to let it get to him.

The woman led him down another long hallway, dotted with several iron doors on either side. They’d nearly reached the end of the corridor when she took out a key-ring to unlock one and shove him inside, but not before removing the vibranium bindings. He rubbed gratefully at his sore wrists, and was nearly tempted to turn around and thank her, but the door slammed shut in his face before he got the chance to decide.

He was plunged into complete darkness - there were no windows, no lights, nothing. There wasn’t even a strip of light coming from under the door.

Tony took a deep breath, backing up until he found a wall. His back hit something solid and cold, so he sunk to the floor and drew his knees up to his chest. He would be alright. This darkness wasn’t the vastness of space, it wouldn’t suck the life out of him, it wouldn’t leave his lungs empty as he gasped for one last breath of air. It wouldn’t. It wasn’t space, it wasn’t space, it wasn’t space.

His breathing came in quick gasps, and his heart was fluttering in his chest, and he knew that familiar racing of his heart. How it felt like to be on the cusp of a panic attack.

Nope. Not dealing with it, nope nope nope.

He pressed the button on the mental transference device - why hadn’t Hydra taken it? - before he could stop himself.

Chapter Text

He opened his eyes to find himself exactly where he expected to be, at the foot of Stephen’s bed at the Sanctum. The cloak was floating nearby, startling when it noticed he was awake. Before Tony had the chance to even get to his feet, the cloak had scooped him up and whizzed down the hall.

It gently dropped him on top of a glass display case, and he was met by Stephen’s blue eyes.

“I heard about what happened. Are you okay?” the doctor asked, while simultaneously waving his hands in the now familiar spell that would allow them to talk telepathically.

As okay as I can be. They have me locked in a sensory deprivation room, but the other Avengers are bound by vibranium in some kind of prison, Tony replied, leaping onto Stephen’s shoulders.

“Any idea where they’re keeping you? And the others?” The sorcerer grabbed a sling ring from his pocket, opening a small portal into the Avengers tower and stepping through.

No… but JARVIS can trace the signal of transference device, as long as it isn’t too far away, Tony perked his ears forward. They’d get the Avengers out of there in no time.

“Hello, Dr. Strange,” JARVIS welcomed them. “Glad to see you are well, Sir. However I must inquire after your human body.”

“He's relatively fine, as far as we know,” Stephen answered. “JARVIS, could you please trace back the signal of the transference device, and contact colonel Rhodes?”

Holographic lights lit up over the nearest tabletop as JARVIS opened a video chat. It barely had to ring once before Rhodey’s face appeared in front of them, looking as though he hadn’t had proper rest in hours. Dark bags under his eyes and the taut lines of his face practically screamed worry.

“Strange! What are you doing at the tower?” he asked, hope swimming behind his dark eyes. “Did you get anything on Tony?”

“Sort of. You know that silver bracelet thing Tony wears? It’s a,” Stephen started, hesitating as he searched for the right word. “A tracker. JARVIS is tracing it now, we should have a hit on his location in… how long, J?”

“An hour perhaps, depending on the distance. Maybe two.”

A grin broke out over Rhodey’s face, and it was like watching the filth of dread being washed away by a wave of renewed optimism. “Ah, Tones!” he laughed, sounding for all the world exactly as he sounded when he’d found him in Afghanistan, “Finally coming up with a contingency plan. We won’t lose him this time.”

Tony cocked his head as he stared at the hologram, not bothering to listen to what he and Strange were talking about now. If cats could smile, Tony was sure he’d have a smile on his face as bright as Rhodey’s, if not brighter.

“I’ll be at the tower in 45 minutes,” Tony caught the tail end of the conversation. “Keep me updated.”

“Will do,” Stephen nodded, just as the hologram vanished. The sorcerer turned his head to him. “Now what?”

We wait? Tony flicked his tail, already impatient. Help would be coming for himself and the Avengers, but an hour or two was a long time to be stuck in Hydra's clutches. Tell J to get the cat armor in the quinjet for me, will you?

“I thought that was just for Halloween,” Stephen furrowed his brows, “You mean it’s actually battle-capable?” Tony shot him a pointed look.

You think that if I make armor for my cat body, it isn’t going to be battle capable? Do you know who you’re talking too?

“Right, what was I thinking?” Stephen chuckled, and relayed Tony’s request to JARVIS.

With that, they fell into a silence that started out companionable, but was quickly becoming tense. The only noise was the rhythmic beeping of the program JARVIS was running to track the device, a steady bebeep-beep-beep, bebeep-beep-beep that fell on his ears like an itch he couldn’t scratch. It was around the twenty minute mark when the monotonicity of waiting was interrupted by an ache in his jaw and his cheek stinging, as though struck.

Rubbing at the cheek with his paw did nothing to ease the faint pain, but it did prompt a question from Stephen, along with a worrying idea.

“What’s wrong?” Stephen queried, watching as Tony continued to rub at his jaw.

My face hurts, he grumbled. It’s like- ow! Tony’s line of thought was interrupted as the other side of his face suddenly felt like it’d been slapped. He let out a hiss of annoyance.

“Sir?” JARVIS asked, sounding confused.

Do you think, because my brain is connected to both bodies, Tony started, looking up into Stephen’s worried eyes, that I can feel pain from both at the same time, even if I’m not currently in that body?

“Oh, crap,” Stephen blanched, eyes going wide. “It makes sense… if your consciousness inhabits both bodies, then you’d be subject to the responses of both nervous systems. It might not come across as clear in this body, but…” He let the sentence hang.

I have to go back, Tony said. Who knows what Hydra will think of me not waking up, no matter what they do? The last thing I need is for them to go investigating it.

“But… you’d be forcing yourself to go through whatever they’re going to do. They torture people, Tony, you can’t just let yourself suffer through that,” Stephen tried, but Tony shook his head.

You think I don’t know that? Tony growled. I know what it’s like to be tortured. If it gets bad, I’ll just zip back to this body. Or something. They’ll think I passed out. With any luck, it’ll make them go a bit easier on me.

“I don’t like this…” Stephen muttered, but it was too late. The feline body had gone limp, and Tony wasn’t there to hear him anymore.

“Finally awake, I see,” a vicious voice barked as Tony opened his eyes. Red was holding Tony up by the collar of his shirt with only one hand. The woman that put him in the room last time stood behind him, flanked by a third agent he hadn’t seen before.

“What now?” Tony grumbled, shaking slightly as he registered the chill in the room. It was freezing, couldn’t they bring him somewhere warmer? Where he wouldn’t possibly die of hypothermia? Red’s nose wrinkled in frustration, and he jerked Tony to his feet with more than a little too much force than was necessary.

“Clearly this method won’t work if you plan to sleep yourself to death,” Red growled in his ear as he dragged Tony from the room. “Luckily for you, we have a ton of other things to try. What do you think, would the Avengers like to hear your screams as we tear you apart?”

Tony couldn’t respond, too caught up in trying to keep his feet steady as he was lead down a dark corridor. Chills raked down his spine with every word out of the Hydra agent’s mouth, which did little to help him find his footing. When Tony didn’t answer, Red stopped, jerking him by the collar of his shirt once more. “Well? I asked what you think.”

“They probably would, to be totally honest with you. They hate me,” Tony managed, only thanks to years of keeping up a facade for the press, “They say I’m a terrible cook. Did you know Steve didn’t speak to me for a week because I burnt a loaf of garlic bread?” He really needed to stop rambling now.

Red slammed him into the wall, forcing the air from his lungs. “You need to learn to shut up, you know that?”

“Well, they hate me for that too,” Tony gasped out. “Talk too much.”

Tony barely had time to register the fist flying at his face. A sickening crunch met his ears as the hand met his face and pain blossomed around his nose and jaw, throbbing in time with his rapid heartbeat. The familiar metallic tang of blood filled his mouth

“Now, if you would please-” the agent started, voice a mock beg- “shut your mouth, I would be eternally grateful.”

Tony wisely chose to stay silent, and it wasn’t long before they were dragging him once again down the winding corridors of the base. There were no windows at all, the only light coming from flickering LEDs installed in the ceiling around a series of crisscrossing, dripping pipes. They had to be underground, Tony decided, in some sort of bunker.

He was surprised to be guided into a room that was actually lit by sunlight, if only a little. It was harsh to his eyes, filtering in from several small windows at the very top of a concrete wall. One one side of the room, chains dangled from the wall with handcuffs attached at the ends. On the other side sat a table, with a microphone and what looked like a crude loudspeaker system. Knives, needles, and who knew what else hung along a wall, displayed like proud trophies and still coated in long-dried blood.

Tony took a shaky breath as Red tossed him to the floor, and the other two agents buckled his hands into the chains on the wall.

Help would come, it would.

Just a few hours.

Chapter Text

Unable to sit still, Steve struggled to his feet to pace the length of the cell. Which, granted, didn’t give him much to do - three steps to the bars, turn around, three steps to the wall, repeat. But at least it was something to disrupt the monotonous silence that threatened to swallow him whole. Those agents could be doing anything to Tony, and it had already been over an hour…

His imagination ran wild with the descriptions the first agent had given them. All of the methods of torture and human experimentation that they’d done in the past hung in the back of his mind, and thoughts of sleep deprivation and electric shock and an IV full of lethal drugs constantly tugged at his thoughts. Tony shouldn’t have to suffer for his mistakes.

He came to an abrupt stop as the distinctive, scratchy sound of static from a loudspeaker echoed through the cells. A voice soon followed, but it quickly became clear that it wasn’t directed at the Avengers behind the bars.

“So, Tony,” the voice said - he recognized it as belonging to the red haired agent, “Where should we start first? Knives, fire, or water? Or maybe something more exotic. Perhaps this?” There was a slight clink of something being picked up, and then the sound of some type of liquid being shaken in a vial. Steve stilled, a chill running down his spine - that noise brought him back to his own experiences, and the pain that came with it. But his experience was willing; Tony never asked for any of this.

“Oh, bite me,” came Tony’s sharp reply, sounding raspy. What had they already done to him? “You can make them listen all you want, but guess what - you’re the one who won’t be leaving this place alive.”

Steve didn’t have time to contemplate Tony’s words, as the agent replied, “Alright, knives it is then.” Clenching his hands so tightly his knuckles turned white, Steve gritted his teeth. There wasn’t anything he could do but listen - he had already tried tugging at his restraints, and only got bloody wrists for his troubles. Meanwhile Tony suffered at the hands of Hydra, moments away from torture.

And then the screams started.

Tony’s cries were harsh, full of raw agony that reverberated through the speakers, loud and shrill and grating. Steve could tell that Tony was trying his best to repress the noises, as if he thought that maybe, just maybe, he could spare the team he knew could hear him from at least some worry. That much was clear by the groans; Tony was closing his mouth to try to repress the noise, but in the end his pain was too much. He had to let it all out. That was one of the things that bothered Steve the most. Tony was suffering something completely unnecessary, something he shouldn’t have to experience at all, and he was still trying to think of someone other than himself.

All the while, Steve could hear the Hydra agent’s taunts and jeers. He could hear his delight in the torture, how he revelled in it like it was an art form, something to be praised. It made Steve sick to his stomach. At some point, he could hear the knives being placed down, and then a crackle of electricity.

The Hydra agent said something about a cattle prod, and how it was fitting to use it on the Avengers' cash cow.

Clint paced around his cell with agitated steps as Tony’s cries started again over the loudspeaker, interspersed with moments of labored breathing whenever the agent would take the cattle prod away. Natasha was slumped against the back wall, staring at something beyond their tiny prison with a face just as stoic as usual, but Steve could see the fire that burned behind her eyes. Bruce’s fingers twitched in his drug-induced sleep, as though the Other Guy wanted to make a fist, break loose, something. But whatever Hydra used, it had to be strong, because the twitch was the only response Bruce made.

How long it had been, Steve couldn’t tell. Over an hour at least, but in a room with no windows, minutes could very well be an eternity.

When change finally came, it came in the form of silence.

There was another crackle of electricity, stronger than the others. Tony let out another strained whimper, but it sounded… different. The cry cut off midway, with barely a fade out to the quiet that took it’s place. The torturer’s gleeful laughs ceased. Steve almost thought that the speakers had been cut off, if not for the sudden grunt of confusion from the Hydra agent.

“What happened?” the agent asked aloud, frustration creeping into his voice.

“Did you just-?” Another agent’s voice came through, sounding slightly panicked.

“Turn it off, stop the broadcast!”

The background static of the loudspeakers fell away, and the room was plunged into silence.

What had happened? Terrible, horrible thoughts invaded Steve’s mind, of things that his brain told him was the only logical conclusion. The obvious one. There was only one thing that could’ve caused such an abrupt end.

Steve stopped pacing.

No.

He wouldn’t accept it. He couldn’t. Because accepting it meant that it was his fault. Hydra was torturing Tony to get to Steve, because of what he had done to take out SHIELD. It was his fault, his fault that Tony just-

He couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought. It made it real. If he didn’t say, didn’t think it, then maybe it wasn’t really what it seemed. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as he thought. Maybe it was just a really bad dream.

“Tony… He can’t be…” Clint muttered, having come to an abrupt stop in his pacing as well. His eyes were wide, shock and horror written on his face.

“Don’t say it.”

“Steve-” Natasha tried, but Steve shook his head. She looked crestfallen.

“Don’t say it. Don’t. If you say it… If he-- Just, please, don’t say it.” Thankfully, the others fell silent, retreating back to their own thoughts in their own minds. Let them think. Steve couldn’t bring himself to believe what everything else told him was real. The cut off scream told him. The silence of the loudspeakers told him. The Hydra agent’s shouts told him. Clint and Natasha’s expressions had told him.

But he would not believe any of them.

Because it couldn’t be real. Somewhere in the back of his head, a tiny voice told him that he was just in denial. It sounded a lot like Tony, filled with the same pain as his whimpers just minutes prior. Steve closed his eyes, if only to stop them from stinging.

The door suddenly slammed open with a loud clank of iron on cement, and Steve whipped around to see the red haired agent striding towards their cells. Blood was splattered all over his uniform, and as he came closer, he could smell the tang of it. He clenched his fists.

“What did you do to him?” Steve demanded, a growl in his voice. He stalked to the very front of the bars, nose curling as Red shot him a lazy half grin. “Let me see him.”

“Oh, Stark? Let’s just say he’s a bit indisposed at the moment,” the agent huffed, “Would you like to leave a message?”

“Stop playing around, let me-” Steve started, cutting off mid sentence as the room suddenly plunged into darkness. Red emergency lights came on a moment later, painting the panes of the Hydra agent’s face in crimson. He unclipped a radio from his chest pocket.

“Jonas, what the hell was that?” he demanded. No answer came. “Jonas, get the power back on, now! Jonas?!”

With an irritated growl, the agent stalked off, slamming the door shut behind him.

Steve glanced at Bruce and Thor, and the machine feeding the drug into their systems. The monitors had gone blank with the power surge. With a flash of hope, he realized that the drugs were no longer flowing.

Rough coughs wracked Tony’s frame as he spit a glob of blood to the floor. The pain was excruciating, sharp pangs with every heave of his chest. And this was a moment of respite, a temporary break from the electricity being forced onto his skin. Red stood nearby, the cattle prod hanging loosely at his side.

Tony brought a weak and shaky hand to his stomach, covering the most recent wound in a futile attempt to ease the gnawing pain. The prod was suddenly there again, electricity biting at the skin of his stomach and hand as Red thrust the end of it into his gut. A whimper clawed it’s way out of Tony’s throat - he was too exhausted for anything more - and he briefly noted through the pain that the cattle prod was dangerously close to the device on his wrist.

And then suddenly his eyes exploded with white light, blinding and harsh.

Tony jolted awake to find himself on the quinjet, back in the body of Ghost. His entire body shook, violent tremors that sent his fur standing on end and left his legs too shaky to walk. Phantom pains whispered over his skin, dulled down to a manageable discomfort, but not gone. Stephen looked to him.

Are you okay? The sorcerer’s voice echoed in his head, and Tony remembered Rhodey was in the jet too. Stephen picked Tony up and set him on his lap, running a calming hand through his fur to try and smooth away the fear.

I… I don’t know, Tony answered, trying his best not to sink his claws into Stephen’s leg. They had an electric cattle prod. I think it short circuited the device.

“Arriving at the coordinates in ten,” Rhodey’s voice called. Tony flinched at the sound.

“Got it,” Stephen called back, slightly quieter, holding the cat a little closer.

You don’t have to go in there to help, you know. You can wait here if you want, Stephen told him. Tony turned his head up to look into his eyes.

No. I’m going to help.

And that was the end of it. Ten minutes came and went, and before long, Stephen and Rhodey were stepping off the quinjet and into the quiet, cold woods of Maine. Snow crunched under the metal boots of War Machine, and melted away in an instant as Rhodey activated the jets to get a bird’s eye view. Tony slipped out of the quinjet once he was a safe distance away, engulfed in the still black and orange painted Ghost Armor.

There should be a room around here, it’s got windows to the outside at ground level. That’s where I was last, but they might’ve moved my body… Tony offered, running off in the direction he felt would lead him to the room. It was a sort of mental tug, like he was attached by a rope to his human body. He knew where it was, what direction to take to get to it. There was an air vent, get Rhodey to get a scan of the structure. The results will automatically display in my suit, too. I’ll use it to find the generator room.

Cut the power when you get there, we’ll work on finding the room the other Avengers are in and getting them out, Stephen replied, then went to talking to Rhodey through the comms. A moment later, blueprints of the bunker’s layout appeared on Tony’s HUD. He found his way to the room they’d tortured him in, blasting away the windows with a small missile. The room had already been cleared, his body moved someplace else.

Tony made his way to the air vent in the ceiling, following the blueprints toward the generator room. The flight thrusters on his paws clinked with each step, echoing through the metal corridors. Once he’d made it to the room, he ripped the grate open with the suit’s strength alone and jumped through.

A single Hydra agent was in the room, already raising a rifle towards Tony. The man barely got a single shot off before a panel on Tony’s shoulder pauldron lifted up, and a bullet went through the agent’s head. The stone wall was splattered red, and the body toppled to the floor.

The next part was simple - blow up the generators.

Two small missiles later, and the lights all over the building were out.

Tony hovered in the air, about to fly from the room when he heard a voice. It sounded distorted, the way talking sounds through a security guard’s radio. But the voice was one he knew, that sent chills running down his spine. Landing next to the body of the agent with a clink, Tony confirmed his suspicions.

“Jonas, get the power back on, now! Jonas?!”

Tony smirked to himself. Jonas can’t come to the phone right now, sorry! Leave a message after the beep.

He turned and stalked out the door. It was time to go find his body.

Chapter Text

Tony flicked his tail as he padded through the halls, now red-lit with emergency backup lights. He skirted a small puddle - one of many - as he passed a leaky pipe that sprayed mist into his fur. The Ghost armor hovered quietly behind him, locked in sentry mode. Tony had slipped out of the suit, preferring to traverse the halls with his own four feet.

While the armor was good for defense, it wasn’t on the best terms with mobility. At least, not to the extent it should be to work well with a cat’s movements. He would have to work on that later. And besides, with his black fur and silent steps, the bunker’s dark tunnels were practically made for him to slip through the shadows with ease. The clunky suit would be in the way.

The scent of his own blood sent his fur prickling as he passed the place where old Red had punched him in the face. The slimey bastard’s scent trail still hung in the air - no. This one was fresh. Lifting his nose to the air, Tony followed along through the winding labyrinth of corridors and empty rooms.

Somewhere in the bunker, the sounds of a one-sided battle reached his ears. The distinctive tsssk of magical embers coming off of one of Stephen’s portals came from a corridor to his right, and the muffled yelps of Hydra agents. A familiar repulsor blast that could only have been Rhodey cut off a shouted order.

But Red’s trail - and his own - went a different way.

Turning left, Tony found himself smacked in the face with a barrage of familiar smells. Cap’s leather and ice, the air of metal that clung to Natasha long after she put down a pair of blades, the mix of coffee and chemicals that seemed to ooze from Bruce’s pores.

Stephen, Tony called out to the sorcerer, They’re holding them over here, might wanna hurry it along.

On it, just give us a second, Stephen replied in his head, and Tony heard the distinct sound of another agent being punched in the face. Oh, if only it were Red on the other end of Stephen’s fist, that would be beautiful karma. Going back to the scent trail, Tony found it to led to the room next door to the prison cells. Now, if the bunker’s layout made any sense whatsoever, that room would lead to nowhere but a dead end. Red was either being a massive idiot or a cunning little shit.

Stephen appeared behind him, eyeing the door. Rhodes is getting the others out. Let’s get this guy, yeah? The Ghost armor quickly enveloped Tony again, and JARVIS obligingly opened up the red “battle HUD.” With a sharp nod, Stephen blasted open the door to the room, magic swirling around and his hands at the ready. Small missile launchers popped out of Tony’s shoulder pauldrons, the scope on his HUD flicking about the screen looking to lock on to a target.

“Don’t fucking move,” Red’s voice snarled. The agent had his back to the far wall, with Tony’s bloody human body in his grasp. A gun was pointed at Tony’s head. “Don’t move. You move and I’ll shoot his brains out!”

It was, in that moment, that the rest of the Avengers decided to join them, crowding in behind Stephen in the doorway. Steve looked ready to charge in, despite the lack of a shield. Or weapon. Red scrunched his nose up in anger. “I said don’t fucking move!”

“Tony,” Steve breathed, barely more than a whisper. The soldier’s eyes were blown wide, and a quick glance told Tony that his face was white as a sheet.

“Let him go,” Natasha growled, though she kept her voice composed. “There are seven of us and only one of you. I don’t think you need me to explain those odds.” As if to emphasize her point, the barrel of a gun shot up from a panel in Rhodey’s armor. Red flinched at the movement, but made no move to pull the trigger on his own gun.

“Just because I die doesn’t mean I won’t bring your most valuable chess piece down with me,” the agent bit back, looking for all the world like a cornered animal. Attempting a vicious facade, but really terrified to his core. Red didn’t really want to die. It was possible they could negotiate their way out of this.

But of course, Steve just doesn’t know when to stop fighting.

The soldier took a step forward with his hands raised in a surrender gesture, but that was all Red needed to set himself off. Fear did the rest.

A gunshot rang through the air, and amid the blur of pain that instantly seized Tony and the ringing in his ears, the Avengers moved. He thought he saw Natasha lung forward and deliver a swift kick to Red’s jaw, and was that Bruce who stumbled forward to catch Tony’s human body? It was impossible for him to tell - pain was ripping through both of Tony’s bodies, so sharp and agonizing that he didn’t know where it’s origin was.

It was over just as quick. Clint tripped Red and sent him sprawling, and Natasha finished him off with a gunshot to the back of his head. For a brief moment, it was quiet. Still. Or maybe it was just because of the darkness creeping in along the edges of Tony’s vision…

“Guys, we’ve gotta get him out of here now,” Bruce ordered, ripping off a bit of his shirt to hold over the wound. He still couldn’t tell where the wound was - only that there was a red smudge growing under the shape of his body. Tony stumbled behind the Avengers (who were now nothing more than a blur of moving color) as Rhodey picked up his limp form, wishing the his head would stop spinning long enough for him to know where he was even going.

“Sir,” JARVIS’s voice in his ear was a rock, something for him to hold on to, even as his steps swayed. “Let the suit go to autopilot. Sir?”

Tony wasn’t awake long enough to hear more. Darkness fell around him.

“There’s no time to get him back to the quinjet,” Stephen said, pulling out his sling ring from his pocket and opening a portal to the Avenger’s tower.

Blood dripped down the War Machine suit at an alarmingly fast rate as Rhodey carried Tony, running more like rivulets than drips. It sent fear coursing through Bruce’s veins, which was dangerous in itself. The Other Guy wanted out, he wanted to rip the Hydra agent apart piece by piece. The image would haunt Bruce forever - the agent had pulled the trigger, and though he flinched, and the bullet went straight through Tony’s head.

It had taken all of his strength and will to keep the Other Guy from breaking loose. The only thing that had helped him manage was that, somehow, he saw that Tony was still breathing. How he’d seen it in the chaos, he would never know. It was as if time had slowed down to a near stop, even though it was still moving far too quickly.

Still. Tony was shot in the head. That Hydra agent’s flinch had quite possibly saved Tony’s life - but how much of it? If they didn’t get the bullet out soon, it could do far more damage than merely killing Tony. Bruce trembled at the thought - he had promised, once. He had promised Tony he wouldn’t let that happen to him. And sure, it had been under different circumstances then. But.

The promise still stood.

Of course, Bruce wasn’t the kind of doctor trained to go and dig a bullet out of his friend’s skull. And even if he were, it wouldn’t have made a difference, as he was too shaky at the moment to hold anything properly, let alone a scalpel. Natasha’s hand on his shoulder drew him from his thoughts.

“You coming?” she asked. Bruce looked around - they were still in the bunker, Strange’s portal still opened up to let them through. But the rest of the Avengers were gone, either bustling around the tower’s medical ward or pacing the waiting room. Tony’s trail of blood led to an operating room, and nurses and doctors were rushing about.

Nodding, Bruce followed Natasha through the portal. It vanished as soon as he was through, leaving the Hydra base behind in the dust.

Now they just had to wait.

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry,” the head surgeon said, “But we can’t do the surgery until we can get the swelling to go down. There would be no way to get the bullet out-”

“But there must be something you can do,” Bruce pleaded. He knew he was being irrational - he’d seen the scans for himself. And sure, he wasn’t officially trained as a medical doctor, but he had a good idea of what was operable and what wasn’t when it came to head wounds.

“We’re doing all we can…” the doctor tried, but Bruce waved him off.

“I know, I know, just- never mind.” He turned to left the room, getting just far enough away for the sound of the commotion in the operating room to bleed into silence. Leaning against the wall, Bruce let out a long sigh and closed his eyes, running a hand through the mop of curls on his head. There was no telling if the swelling around the wound would even go down enough for them to get the bullet out out. And even if it did, way too many things could go wrong in between now and then.

Somewhere in his chest, Bruce could feel the Other Guy writhing in anger - he still wanted out. He wanted to do something, as if punching and smashing were still a viable way to help a gunshot wound to the head. Why couldn’t he do more?

“You okay?” a voice asked him. Bruce opened his eyes, glancing in the direction of the voice. Helen Cho was looking at him, concern shimmering in her eyes.

“Never better,” Bruce let a small smile cross his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It didn’t convince Helen. He knew it wouldn’t, but it was worth a try.

“He’ll be okay,” she tried, though the hope in her voice sounded false, wrong. “When the swelling shows signs of going down, we can start prepping him for a hemicraniectomy. Recovery will take time, but it can be done.”

“Do you really believe that?” Bruce asked, looking back down at his hands. He idly picked at a loose thread hanging from a button on his shirt. Had they really only gotten back to the tower just minutes ago? It felt like ages.

Helen was silent for a moment, then let out a sigh.

“No,” she murmured. “The bullet missed the brain stem, but it went through the ventricles, and there is evidence that it shattered on impact. Getting the pieces out will cause complications.”

“Most people with head wounds this severe don’t make it,” Bruce solemnly pointed out, hands clenching into fists and unfurling again. He stared down at the tiled floor, refusing to meet Helen’s eyes; refusing to see the dread and hopelessness behind them. Because what hope was there? Even if Tony did survive, he wouldn’t ever be the same. The damage to his brain was too great, too severe. It could be years before there was any real improvement.

No. They didn’t come this far to loose him, for Bruce to sit around and do nothing while doctors tried to fix the unfixable. Bruce pushed himself off the wall and made for the waiting room, ignoring Helen’s worried questions behind him. There had to be something, anything that could be done. And he had a sorcerer to talk to who might hold an answer.

“You have to do something,” Bruce started as he approached Stephen. “Save him. Use your spells or what have you, just do something.”

“I can’t even heal my own hands,” Stephen replied, holding up his scarred hands to prove his point. “How do you expect me to heal something this severe on somebody else? I don’t know how to do it…”

Bruce wanted to feel his heart sink at the words, wanted to take them at face value. But there was a hint of something contemplative hidden in Stephen’s eyes, behind the defeat in his voice, that had him speaking again. “There has to be a way, some spell or artifact you haven’t thought of,” he paused. The sorcerer looked like he wanted to say something, but was holding back. “There is, isn’t there?”

“There is,” Stephen eventually conceded, “But it’s dangerous. Very dangerous.”

“How dangerous?” Bruce asked hurriedly. Hope sprang to life in his chest - he would take anything right about now, but only if it was sure to save Tony. If there was a chance it would kill him.... Could they take that risk?

“It’s the kind of dangerous that could destroy entire timelines and send the multiverse into chaos,” Stephen said, so matter-of-factually that Bruce nearly missed the seriousness of the situation should something go wrong.

Blinking back shock, he said, “Woah, wait. Hold on a minute. What kind of spells do they teach you over there?”

Stephen ignored the question, instead choosing to turn his head towards the operating room Tony was laying in. He then looked back towards the chairs in the waiting room - specifically to the one with the black cat curled up in the seat, unconscious. Then Stephen looked to the clock on the wall, and back to the operating room. He looked to be considering, weighing the options, or risks.

“I’m going to do it,” Stephen eventually declared, and was through a portal to the Sanctum before Bruce could reply. He reappeared a moment later, with an elaborate looking necklace glowing green in the middle. A mandala of similarly green designs circled around his forearm.

“Hold on, what are you doing?” Bruce asked, following Stephen as he pushed his way into the surgery, past doctors who rushed to get out of their way.

“I can’t undo all of the wounds he sustained when Hydra tortured him - that would be risking too much, I’ve never tried going back hours before - but I can fix the bullet wound,” he said, raising both hands over Tony’s unconscious body. The doctors milled about the edges of the room, diligent eyes fixed on their patient and the sorcerer before him. They were no strangers to enhanced individuals, but even for them, magic was not what they normally dealt with.

As he spoke, Bruce watched, entranced, as Stephen turned his hands in a slow, counterclockwise motion while aiming the spell at Tony’s head. Before his eyes, all of the work the doctors had done was quickly reversed. Saline pumped out of his skull instead of in, and blood dripped back into the wound rather than pouring out. What looked like metal glinted among the red, and the bullet inched its way backwards and out of his friend’s skull. The skin closed up behind it, the damage having suddenly never existed in the first place. The bullet fell to the metal table with a light clink.

Tony startled with a flinch, blinking his eyes open and quickly darting his eyes around the room. “What just happened?” he asked, eyes narrowing. “I was there, and now I’m here. What..?”

Bruce couldn’t contain his relief, and let out what was most definitely not a choking sob. Nope. Definitely not that. “You’re okay,” he breathed, not daring to say the words louder, for fear that it wouldn’t be true, as if saying would somehow make everything Stephen did suddenly turn into a grief-stricken fantasy.

“As okay as I can be,” Tony winced as he tried to pull himself up.

Tony’s words seemed to spring the doctors and nurses out of whatever trance they’d fallen into when Stephen worked his spell - they quickly leapt to action, ushering Stephen and Bruce out of the room and rushing to treat Tony’s wounds.

“Thank you,” Bruce whispered after the door was shut firmly behind them.

Stephen nodded. “We’d both do anything to save him.”

Chapter Text

Tony blinked sleep from his eyes, trying to block out the too-harsh white light of the LEDs. His room was empty, quiet, and calm - all too different from the Hydra bunker he’d been kept in. It almost felt unreal, like he shouldn’t even have been there at all. The gap in his memory only fueled the thought. The last thing he could remember was watching through Ghost’s eyes as Red had his human body in his grasp, and the barrel of a gun pressed to his temple. Then he woke up here, surrounded by Stephen and Bruce and a half a dozen of his private doctors.

If he hadn’t been shot, why didn’t he remember what happened between then and now? And if he had, he shouldn’t even be alive. Maybe he was dead. Everyone did always say heaven was a bright, white light. Although, he never imagined heaven would look like a hospital room. Or that he would even end up here.

At that moment, the door opened and Bruce stepped in, closing the door softly behind him. Cradled in one arm was Ghost, completely limp. Alright, if Bruce was here, then at least he wasn’t dead yet. But then how-?

“How are you feeling?” Bruce asked him, pulling up a plastic chair from the corner of the room and placing it next to his bedside. He positioned Tony’s feline body on the bed to look like it was asleep, then plopped into the chair.

Tony took a moment to consider. There were several stitched up and bandaged cuts throbbing on his arms, and his entire stomach area ached, but overall- “Not too bad, actually. Must be the morphine. What happened?”

“Well,” Bruce said, grabbing a clipboard from the side table and flipping through the papers, “There were severe electrical burns on your abdomen, though thankfully it didn’t cause any severe internal damage. The-”

“Not that,” Tony groaned, cutting him off. He had no desire to relive that agony. “How did I get here? What happened, and why do you still look as white as a sheet?”

Bruce sighed, shifting uncomfortably in his seat and putting the clipboard of the the side. There was a pause, a breath of time where the doctor simply stared at him - contemplating, and lost in thoughts that that Tony couldn’t ever hope to know. Tony wanted to squirm under the gaze; it felt like Bruce was looking through him, at some haunted memory behind his eyes.

Eventually, he spoke up, “You… The Hydra agent shot you in the head, Tony. I thought we were going to lose you.” Bruce fixed him with a stare, as if he still couldn’t believe that Tony had made it.

“Then… how exactly am I talking right now?”

A look crossed his friend’s face that Tony couldn’t quite place. “Stephen turned back…” A pause. “Time. On your timeline.”

Tony opened his mouth to reply, but was left gaping. “Uuuh, alright then. I’m gonna have to get him to teach me that one.”

“I’m not sure that’s something he can teach,” Bruce commented, the corner of his mouth pulled up in a half smile.

“Of course.”

There was a brief pause, and then Bruce went on to tell him he had to stay in bed for the foreseeable future (“But what about missions?”), that he could only tinker with small stuff that could be brought up to his room (“But what about my suits, Brucie?), and that he wouldn't be leaving the medical floor until he had a clean bill of health.

“You suck the joy out of everything,” Tony deadpanned as he turned a small assortment of wires and chips over in his hand. It was all Bruce had brought with him when he came to the room.

“I know,” Bruce replied halfheartedly, giving Tony a small smirk. The expression changed in a instant, there for barely a moment before it fell back to one of neutrality, to nothing more than a doctor talking to a patient. Tony could have sworn there was some sort of fondness in his eyes. “I just want to make sure you heal up soon. The better a patient you are, the sooner you can leave. Why not look at it like that?”

Tony let out a mock sigh. “Alright, fine. You win!” Bruce nodded with a satisfied smile, then stood to leave

“Get well, Tony,” Bruce said by way of goodbye, the door softly closing behind him.

Frigid air, carried off the fresh snow coating Maine’s forest floor, swept through the empty corridors of the Hydra bunker. Puddles were now frozen over into patches of ice. The fallen agent’s bodies had gone stiff and cold. The clamor and din of the battle had long since gone, the traces left barely more than an echo of the bloodshed.

Dwight picked his way carefully around the bodies, grimacing whenever his foot slipped in a puddle of half frozen blood. Part of him wondered if he should have come out of hiding when they attacked. At least then, he wouldn’t be the only survivor. But the other part, the more selfish one, was glad. Because he was the only survivor.

But he had to check.

And so he went, crouching by each body, checking for any last signs of breath, of a heartbeat, of life. He wasn’t expecting much. There was too much blood for there to be any life in that place. Death smothered it all.

He chuckled to himself at the irony. Hydra, the bringers of death and submission of the rest of the world, finally brought down by death itself.

Not all of it, of course. But a big part of it. Maybe he could find another of their bases, rejoin the ranks.

A cough stopped Dwight in his tracks. Somebody was… alive?

He rushed towards the sound, arriving at one of the old storage rooms. Inside, lying face down among a puddle of his own blood, was the commander of their squadron - his red hair was enough to go by.

“Arnold?” he asked, not quite expecting a response. And yet.

The body on the floor groaned, turning just enough to lift his face off the ground. “Don’t just stand there, you idiot,” he rasped, his voice cut off as he broke into a fit of coughs that wracked his body. “Help me.”

Dwight shook himself out of his stupor, quickly ripping off a section of cloth from his uniform to press into the wound - a gunshot, through the back of the chest.

“Arnold, I’ll get you help,” Dwight quickly said, “We’ll make them pay for this.”

Tony gazed down at the new device on his wrist. He’d just finished it up, replacing the old one that had been fried by the cattle prod. DUM-E beeped excitedly, waving his arm around in excitement. Tony was back to the lab.

He’d nearly died of boredom in that hospital room, it was a relief to be back in his natural habitat. Machines, materials for him to tinker, blueprints for new projects. He’d missed it.

Looking to Ghost, he found the cat finally waking up after nearly a month of stillness. He close his eyes, and opened them to see through his counterpart’s eyes. He launched himself from the counter, running and jumping excitedly throughout the lab as though his life depended on it. He could roam again, he could do what he wanted. It really was good to be back.

He leapt past DUM-E and U, who tried to follow despite their lack of speed, as he ran laps around the room. The blender he used for smoothies nearly fell the the floor as he bounded past, and a stack of papers scattered underneath his feet. Eventually, Tony came to a stop, panting.

He blinked, switching back to his human body. “Sorry J, had to get that out of my system.”

“It is good to have you back, Sir,” JARVIS replied.

“Anyways,” Tony said, waving a hand to bring up a holographic screen. “You find any more Hydra bases to track?”

“Five, Sir, though none seem to contain the unusual energy readings that indicate Loki’s scepter would be in the area.”

“Still, it’s Hydra, we gotta take ‘em out. Notify the team, we have to move out as soon as possible. They might have some info that could lead us to the scepter,” Tony replied.

“Already done, Sir.”

Time to get back to work.