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Chapter Text

The team hasn't done a job together in over a year, not since the spectacular shit-show that killed their thief (among others), lost Steve his citizenship, made international headlines, and became the impetus for a movement to push through new dream-sharing laws.  So it's understandable that Clint's a little surprised when Steve says he has a job... for everyone.

“'Tasha's in Budapest,” he says numbly, in response to Steve's question, before his brain catches up to his mouth.  “Hey,” he adds, grabbing Steve's arm before he turns away, probably to make a phone call.  “What's the job?”

Steve turns to look at him.  The man has aged; he's as different from the driven, competent extractor he was two years ago as he is from the fresh-faced, idealistic Marine that Clint Barton first met in Edwards Air Base so long ago.  His expression is haunted (hunted), there are new shadows around his eyes, and he's almost as scruffy as Stark on a good day.

“Inception,” he says.

“Are you crazy?” Clint snaps.  They've been hiding out in a shitty Paris hotel suite taking odd jobs for the last six months; they could definitely use the money, but...  “Remember last time we tried that?  The best thing that happened during that mission was when you called it off, and by then it was too late to fix anything.  We fucked up.  Royally.  I don't know what kind of sap wants us back in the inception business, but whoever he is–”

“It's Tony,” Steve says, sighing and running a hand through his hair.  “He got us the job.”

“Tony?  Tony Stark?  Are you insane?” Clint nearly shouts.  His superiors in the army always told him he's emotional.  In his opinion, most times, his emotion is warranted.  This is one of those times.  “The man's a loose cannon, practically an alcoholic; remember who fucked us all over last time?”

Steve grabs Clint's wrist, squeezing hard in warning.  “I did,” he says firmly.

Clint shuts his mouth.  After working with Steve this long – going on twelve years, now – he knows when to stay quiet.

“The job is for the new CEO of Allfather Corp,” Steve says, releasing Clint's wrist.  “His name is Thor, and he wants us to help his brother.”

“Help him do what?” Clint asks, rubbing his wrist resentfully.  “This isn't therapy.”  He turns away from Steve and goes to the window, looking out.  Their room is on the eighteenth floor, from where you can get a great view of southern Paris.

“Thor is offering us ten million dollars each, to be transferred to our own private bank accounts.  Half up front, half after we complete the job.”  Without turning to look, Clint hears Steve pacing behind him.  “He's also offering legal protection... and he can buy us amnesty.”

“What?!” Clint asks, whirling around to stare at Steve.  “That's ridiculous, no one can buy that.”

Steve crosses his arms.  “It worked for Cobb, didn't it?”

“You aren't Dominic Cobb,” Clint says firmly, but it's clear Steve has already decided.  And when Steve Rogers makes up his mind, the world moves to do his bidding.  It's been that way ever since Steve was in the military, even before that.

And all Clint can do, as per usual, is follow.  Maybe it's a stupid, antiquated idea of loyalty but... Steve was the one who saved him from the army, gave him a new career, gave him a new life.  He owes him.

“I'll get Natasha,” Clint says.  “You take care of Bruce.”

---

Thor is a bulky man in his early thirties, with long blond hair and a physique of mythical proportions.  He's loud, honest, and wears his heart on his sleeve.  Clint distrusts him immediately.

“My brother, Loki, was angered by my father's decision to turn over leadership of the company to me,” he says.  His upper body fills the projector screen at the head of the briefing table; physically, Thor is still in Australia.  “He attempted to turn the Board of Directors against me; for that, my father disowned him.  Currently, Loki is in Singapore, working with the global conglomerate Latveria Industries under Victor von Doom.”

Clint googles Victor von Doom.  The first search page is full of articles about recent controversies, including von Doom's implication in a global Ponzi scheme and Latveria Industries' involvement in an arctic oil drilling scandal.  It doesn't get any better.

“I want to bring my brother back before he can get himself into trouble,” Thor says.  He plays the big brother role pretty well, Clint thinks cynically.  “But I do not wish to do it by force, and he will not listen to reason.”

Tony speaks up first.  “So... what you're asking...”  He crosses his arms and leans back in the chair, giving the webcam a dubious look, “is for us to perform inception on your brother... to make him love you again?”

Thor doesn't even have the grace to look uncomfortable at Tony's obvious sarcasm.  “That is exactly what I am requesting,” he says.

Beside Clint, Natasha winces and rubs at the bridge of her noise.  “Bozhe moi,” she says.  Clint doesn't know what that means, but he agrees with the sentiment.

---

Allfather Corp is a large, multinational corporation run by a single family, surname Aesir.  The former patriarch of the corporation, Thor's father, died only one year ago, leaving the company and all its holdings to his eldest son, Thor Aesir.

The board of directors of Allfather Corp consists of Thor himself; his mother, Frigga; his uncle, Tyr; his aunt, Idunn; his cousins, Freyr and Frey (children of Njord, Odin's half-brother and retired board member); and his youngest brother, Balder.  Loki was formerly on the board, but was voted out at the same time he was disowned.

“It's a tough family,” Clint says.  That's probably a bit of an understatement.

It's a tough family, and Loki is going to be a tough nut to crack.  Born two years after Thor and six years before Balder, Loki seems to have classical middle child syndrome.  Thor is the prodigy, Balder is the baby.  Loki is the forgotten child, whose grades were always miles above average and whose IQ is probably off the charts.

“But his father probably didn't love him enough,” Clint comments.  “We're dealing with daddy issues to rival Luke Skywalker.”

Loki graduated summa cum laude from the University of Melbourne, achieving higher marks than his older brother in every subject, then proceeded to go to Cambridge for a degree in law – a pointed choice, as Thor attended Oxford for his graduate education.

When Odin handed over Allfather Corp to Thor, Loki, who had apparently been under the impression that he could take over if he was able to achieve enough, went off the deep-end.  His arrest record shows several run-ins with the police at this time, for little offenses like drug possession and bigger ones, like driving under the influence.

Thanks to Allfather Corp and its vast amount of money, Loki was let off the hook every time.  Apparently, his father could forgive those sorts of juvenile misdeeds.  But what Odin apparently couldn't forgive was Loki's attempted coup –

“I thought coups only technically referred to government upheaval,” Clint comments.  “This family is like a Viking warrior tribe or something”

– and continuous efforts to undermine Thor's work as the CEO of Allfather Corp.  Loki was disowned in a large fight that caused scandal and waves of shock throughout the business world, especially since the final falling-out occurred in public, at a restaurant.

After that, Loki left and fell off the grid for a while, only to resurface shacked up with Victor von Doom, menacing leader of Latveria Industries.

“And that's our boy,” Clint says.  He's standing in front of a large bulletin board to which have been pinned copies of various relevant headlines and pictures of Loki throughout the years – when he was a child, during his time at uni, during his decline and fall, and one last, grainy paparazzi photo of Loki with Doctor Doom, as the papers called him.  “Any questions so far?”

No one raises their hand.

“Great,” Clint says.  He got most of that information from a combination of assiduous Google-ing, a bit of snooping into the family's private records, and several chats with Thor himself, during which Thor spent most of the time assuring Clint that Loki wasn't a bad person, and Clint spend most of the time assuring Thor that he actually didn't care.

“Now, in terms of relationships, Loki doesn't have many friends.  He never has; he's a loner.  In high school, he'd occasionally hang out with his brother's crew or this girl, Leah, with whom he's since lost touch.  During his time at Melbourne, he had a long term and, according to most sources, healthy relationship with Icelandic horse-trainer Svadilfari, or Svad for short.”  Clint points to a picture of the two of them, given to him by Thor.  “Look at the cute couple.”

Tony's the only one who rises to the bait, giving a syrupy, “Awww.”  Clint shoots him a thumbs up for that.

“It's currently rumored that Loki and Doctor Doom have a relationship that goes beyond business and into, well, business,” Clint says, pointing at the final photo, “but as yet, rumors remain unconfirmed even by Thor.  And that's all I have for you today.”

“Thank you, Clint,” Steve says, rising to take Clint's place in front of the board.  Clint goes to sit down next to Natasha.  “Now, it's been proven that inception works best when you start simply,” he says.  It's obvious to Clint that Steve is on edge, and with good reason.  The last time this team was together... it ended with a couple people dying, and one of them had been innocent.

“We need to perform our inception based on a concept,” he continues.  “So what do we have?”  He pulls over a dry erase board and writes FAMILY on it in all caps.  “That's one.”

“What about love?” Bruce suggests, raising both eyebrows.  The chemist is normally quiet, except for when he's very, very angry, like their last mission together.  Clint is a little surprised to hear him speak up.  “Loki might still love his brother, even though his actions say otherwise.”

LOVE, Steve writes underneath FAMILY.  “That's a thought.  If he's repressed it, we could work to bring out that feeling.”

“Duty?” Natasha suggests, and Clint smiles, because Tasha would, and her presence here gives a sort of easy familiarity, whereas everyone else makes him feel cagey.

“Maybe,” Clint replies.  “But Loki seems the type to act on his feelings over anything else.”  He shrugs.

Steve, always a team player, writes DUTY? next to LOVE.

When no one seems inclined to offer another suggestion, Steve moves on.  “We need to integrate these concepts into a simple, easily translated message, and then figure out how we're going to get Loki to believe what happens in his dreams.

“What about his childhood?” Bruce asks.  He's sitting the furthest back in the room, straddling his wrong way-facing chair.  “We could bring Loki back in time, to a carnival, or something.  When he was a kid, when things were easier.”

“Looks like our resident chemist is now a specialist in psychology,” Tony pipes up with half a grin on his face.  “I like how you've branched out, Bruce.  Keep it up.”

Bruce gives him a thin smile, and Tony continues, “He's got a point.  In dreams, form follows function.  If he's in the body of a kid, Loki is going to be a kid, more or less.  A suspicious, nasty kid, maybe, but still a kid.”

Steve nods and writes CHILDHOOD, underlining it twice.  “If the dream experience centered on childhood memories, we also wouldn't have to deal with an adult Loki, at least not at certain levels of the dream.”

“Inception is three levels, isn't it?” Tony asks, though everyone knows he knows the answer.  “If the carnival is one level, what are the others?  And where's the golden egg?”

“What's the golden egg, more like,” Bruce corrects, and they're falling into their own routine again, the Bruce and Tony Show, which is mostly the Tony show.

“Something important from his childhood – a stuffed animal, maybe,” Natasha suggests.  “Or a toy, something from his father.”

“I wonder if his father ever got him anything,” Clint mutters.  He may not trust Thor or care for Loki, but after his research he definitely has some opinions on their parenting.

Steve ignores him and writes TOYS on the dry erase board.

“But how are we going to get there?” Natasha asks, sitting up, interested.  “Will the carnival be the third level?  Or will it be something else?”

“The first level could be set now,” Tony suggests.  “Maybe... a family reunion or something.”  He thinks about that, then makes a face.  “Or not.  That could get a little touchy.”

Clint snickers.  Touchy is probably an understatement.  “Maybe a dinner with his brother, or something.  Thor could play a role, you know.  He's enthusiastic enough about this as is; I don't think he'd take any convincing.”

Steve frowns.  “I don't know about tourists...” he begins.

“No, listen,” Tony says, “this is brilliant.”  He stands up and walks to the front, taking the marker from Steve and flipping the dry erase board around to its clean side.  Clint looks at Steve, who glares at first but then steps back.  Still tense, huh?  Not surprising.  Tony was the one who compromised them last time.

“First layer, here!”  Tony draws a line near the top of the board.  “Dinner, a meeting, a date, something.  Maybe Loki's going out with his old pal Svad and happens to fall asleep in the middle of the movie.  Just chill stuff.”

He draws another line and then a circle with spokes – it takes Clint several moments to recognize a Ferris wheel.  “Next level, the carnival.  Maybe the movie was about unicorns and now Loki wins himself a unicorn toy!  ... Which leads us to the third level,” he continues, drawing an X, as in 'X marks the spot.'  “Somewhere safe, childish... but this time, Loki's an adult, and he's exploring the room, and there's a safe somewhere... and he has to find it.  How's that?  A rough sketch.”

Natasha nods.  “Seems workable.”

Steve takes the dry erase marker back without asking.  “You're right, it does seem like a workable plan,” he says, and Tony, no longer in control, moves back to his chair, sitting down and crossing one leg over the other.  Clint watches the power play with interest.  He doesn't want this to become a messy situation later.  “Three levels, one idea, lots of positive reinforcement, childhood memories...”  He nods.  “I'm going to split you into teams so we can fine tune this.  Clint, you're with Natasha and Thor, if he gets in on this with us.  Your team will do more research and create a script.  Tony, you're with Bruce; work on rough designs and have the other team feed you the information necessary to finish the job.  We'll all work together for the final phases of the project.”

“And where will you be?” Tony, always contentious, asks.

“Around,” Steve says shortly.  “Meeting adjourned.”

---

Clint and Natasha meet up in Clint's dream, in a familiar padded practice room.  This time, though, they don't spar; Clint perches in a chair and Natasha, who always feels better when she has something to do with her hands, disassembles and then reassembles her pistol.

“I don't like this,” she says eventually.  Dreams are where they can talk privately, where they can share things they don't feel comfortable saying aloud.  “This is the first time the team's been together since... since Bucky.”

Hearing the thief's name is strange now after all this time.  Clint's been with Steve and they hadn't said a word about it after the dust settled.  “Yeah,” he agrees, and sighs.  “I'm going to change the dream now, okay?”  The first time they dreamshared, Clint had changed the setting without warning, and had promptly been shot.

“Okay,” Natasha replies, and they slide into a garden.  Natasha is sitting on a picnic blanket; Clint is perched on a stout tree branch five feet above the ground.  The morning sunlight dapples the grassy ground and flowers sway in the breeze.  “... This is nice,” Natasha says after a moment.

“Do you think Tony and Steve will make it through the job?” Clint asks, repositioning himself so his legs are dangling from the branch.  He kicks them back and forth; makes the tree sway slightly.

Natasha shrugs.  “I wouldn't be surprised either way,” she comments.  “Nothing they can do, I think, will surprise me anymore.”

Clint lets out a harsh laugh.  “And here we are, you and me and Bruce, letting the two of them drag us along again,” he comments.  He's here because he owes Steve a debt; he knows the others are here because of similar reasons.  They all have their small loyalties, old wounds, petty rivalries.

“At least we get paid,” Natasha points out.

“I'll bet that's what Bucky thought,” Clint replies, souring the mood.  Natasha looks away and he looks down, plucking at the small pouch hung around his neck.  That's where he keeps his totem – a stone arrowhead he found at his childhood home and stupidly broke into three pieces.  He's the only one who knows exactly how the pieces feel and fit together.  Totems are so you don't know if you're caught in someone else's dream, and it's both a blessing and a burden to know that he's in his own dream.  If this were still Steve's dream, if they still existed in that dream world where everything began to go wrong, at least he could hope to wake up eventually.

Natasha finishes reassembling her gun for probably the third time.  She rams in the cartridge and clicks the safety off and on again.  “Does Steve still dream about him?”

“Who, Bucky?” Clint asks.  “Yeah.  He does.  He's vicious.”

“Then we can't trust Steve,” Natasha replies.  “And we can't trust Tony, because of last time.”

Last time, when everything warped and changed and it was Tony on his knees, hands over his ears, begging for them to just stop stop stop and the gun going off in the dream...

“Shit,” Clint says, shaking his head as if to dispel a nightmare.  “We're not ready for this, 'Tasha.”

“Trust no one,” Natasha replies.

Clint touches the pouch over his heart.  He doesn't want to end up like Bucky.  “Not even yourself,” he agrees.

Chapter Text

The team relocates from Paris to Sidney, setting up in a warehouse provided for them by Thor.  The area is secure and the streets well-traveled (making it easier for them to hide in plain sight).  All of them suffer horrible jet-lag.  Bruce goes out to get coffee.  Tony goes to visit Steve.

“How's Bucky?” he asks without preamble as he enters Steve's workroom.  He doesn't bother to knock, never has.

Steve looks up from his paper.  “Fine,” he replies shortly.  Something about the way he says it – or maybe it's the way he looks like he hasn't shaved in days and the dark circles under his eyes – makes Tony think otherwise.

“Uh huh,” Tony says skeptically.  Steve is reading a book; interested, he ambles over to the desk and takes a peek at the spine.  Sun Tzu's Art of War.  “Gotta keep up with the classics, right?” he comments.  “You're not answering my question.”

“I answered your question,” Steve shuts the book.  “Bucky is fine.”

Tony raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms over his chest.  “I noticed you're not allowing yourself anywhere near the layouts Banner and I have been making.  So what if we dreamshared now?  How would that go?”  He lifts up the briefcase in his hand.  “I have a PASIV.  Wanna try it out?”

“No,” Steve replies curtly.  “I don't have the time.”

“Oh, that's all?” Tony asks.  “So I'd be in absolutely no danger of being ripped to pieces by whatever crazy monster lives in your head?”

Steve looks away.

“That's what I thought,” Tony says.  Sometimes he hates being right all the time.  He moves forward across the room, swinging the PASIV up onto Steve's desk, where it lands with a metallic thunk, and then levers himself up onto the desk too, sitting next to the metal case.  “Listen, Cap,” he says, reverting to his old nickname for Steve.  He puts his elbows on his knees and leans forward, getting right into Steve's face.  “I got you this job because I want to help you.  But I can't help you, no one can help you, if you can't control him when he's living inside your head.”

Steve scoots his chair back, pointedly moving away from Tony.  “Get out of my face, Stark,” he snaps.

“What do you have against answering my questions?” Tony asks, leaning back but not moving too far away.

“You didn't ask me a question,” Steve replies coldly.

Tony looks at him and frowns.  “Okay,” he replies.  “Here's a question: what happened to the old Steve Rogers?  You know, the one who would take a bullet for his pals as soon as blinking?  The one who would look for any other option before knowingly sending his friends in danger?”

“He's dead.”  Steve meets Tony's gaze; in his eyes, Tony sees nothing but cold blue steel.  “Maybe he never existed.”

Tony Stark has been speechless very few times in his life.  This is one of them.

“You have better things to do than harass me all day,” Steve says.  “Like your work.”

Wordlessly, Tony leaves, taking the PASIV with him.

--

“How much do you know about projections?” Tony asks Bruce a while later, when they're both taking a break from maze-designing and model-making.  “Like, not ordinary projections... the scary kind.  The kind that are monsters from your own subconscious.”

Bruce gives him one of those Bruce-looks, gentle but knowing.  In fact, gentle but knowing pretty much describes Bruce Banner in a nutshell, along with “creepy smart,” at least when he isn't angry.  When he's angry, everything changes.

“You're talking about him, aren't you?” he asks.

It's funny, Tony thinks, that Bucky is pretty much all the team ever talks about – but no one likes saying his name.  “Yeah,” he replies.  “Bucky.  He's still... still around.”

What Tony doesn't tell people – often – is about how he dreamshared with Steve only a few days after the incident.  How the dream changed, how he was captured by Bucky, dragged to a cave somewhere in Steve's twisted dreamscape, and tortured within an inch of his life.  He only escaped when Steve, stony-eyed, had found him and shot him, then shot himself.

Steve and Tony used to do most of their talking in dreams; now they don't talk much at all.  And Bruce knows this; Bruce knows just about everything when it comes to Bucky, mostly because he was the one to whom Tony went first, limping and scarred and afraid.

(A psychosomatic limp and psychological scarring, but Tony knows that things that happen in your dreams are often more real than things that happen out of them.)

“Still... angry?” Bruce ventures after a few moments.  The chemist knows a thing or three about anger.

“Yeah,” Tony replies, and touches the totem in his pocket.  It's an electromagnet – wire coiled and coiled in an endless spiral pattern around a metal disk.  Something he made himself when he was feeling down and it was all he could do to get out of bed, even.  Something to remind him of how bad things can get.

Bruce looks up from his sandwich at Tony's distracted reply, and looks, really looks at him.  “You didn't... you didn't go under with Steve again, did you?” he asks.

“Nope,” Tony replies, taking his hand out of his pocket.  “Didn't get that far today.  Steve kicked me out of his office.”

“Oh,” Bruce replies.  Nothing else.  He knows how close Tony and Steve used to be.

“Yeah,” Tony says.

There's a pause, in which Tony thinks about everything he's lost, and Bruce... is Bruce.  “I don't really know much that can help you,” he says after a while.  “Except that if we can get Steve to stop... accepting Bucky, or blaming himself... if we can get him to fight Bucky off... Then maybe things will get better.”

“Maybe?” Tony asks.  That’s better than nothing, he supposes.

“Maybe.”

---

It's Clint and Natasha who are supposed to be working with Thor, but Tony takes it upon himself to seek out the big guy and give him a heads up.  After all, Tony was the one who originally passed this request on to Steve.  If anything goes wrong, he's the one who will be mostly to blame (again).

The team has moved to Australia for the final stages of the planning process and Tony's just gotten over the last of his goddamn jet lag (from Malibu to Paris to Sydney in a matter of days – that hurts), so he catches Thor after one of his meetings and sits him down for coffee and a quick chat.

“I'm not sure you understand what you're getting into, here, big guy,” he says, tapping on the lid of his coffee cup.  It's half-full; the coffee sloshes around inside.

Thor looks confused – has looked confused since Tony found him in their warehouse and pulled him aside – but Tony's beginning to think it's almost a natural look on him.  It's his resting face.  “I don't understand,” Thor says.

“I know,” Tony replies.  “That's why I'm here.”  Thor blinks, shakes his head uncomprehendingly, and gets up as if to go.  “No no no,” Tony tells him, grabbing his arm and pulling him back into his chair.  “Listen to me.  Thor.  Mr. Thor.”  Thor doesn't want them pulling last names into this, as if it's not already obvious who he is.  “You really don't know what you're getting into.”

Thor's face goes from confused to a darker sort of expression, and Tony senses impending anger.  Okay, that's okay; he can handle it.  “Then explain this to me, Mr. Stark,” he says.

“Alright,” Tony says.  “You've heard of the dreamsharing laws they're passing back in the States, right?  And the ones that are being composed by the EU right now?  The ones that passed in Russia six months back?”

A nod.

“Good.”  Tony would have been surprised if he hadn't.  The laws are something everyone knows about, extractor or not.  “And you do know that it's our team, us, me, who's responsible for those laws, right?”

Thor nods again.  That's good too, mostly because Tony would question Thor's ability as the head of a company if he didn't know that much about the people he was hiring.

“And knowing this, you hired us anyway, through me, because we're cheap,” Tony gives a harsh laugh, “and because we've had more experience in this business than most of the teams around today.”  They're the second best, since Cobb's team disbanded, and also the most infamous.

“Yes,” Thor says, frowning.  He gets up to go again; Tony grabs him by the sleeve of his suit and tugs him back down, nearly spilling his coffee.

“Uh, sorry,” Tony says when Thor gives him a thoroughly affronted look.  “Just – stay with me, here.  Listen.  When you gave me the offer I assured you that this team would be the best one for the job.  But I hadn't seen anyone in a while – I thought...”  He bites his lip a little and looks away.  “I thought things would be different.”

Tony had remembered Steve as the careful, diligent, good-hearted soldier he used to be, and had thought that there would be no more problems.  He had thought he was extending Steve a favor, giving him a chance, and by that chance, extending a friendly hand to a man he hadn't talked to since the disaster a year and a half ago.

Then he remembers walking into Steve's office a few days ago, the cold reception he received, the confirmation not in Steve's voice but in his eyes – Bucky's still there.

“There's a monster that lives in Steve's head,” Tony blurts out.  Thor looks skeptical.  “Listen to me.  You know about projections, right?  In dreams?  The people that you'll meet inside someone's head when you're dreamsharing?  They can be – they usually are – based on people one meets in real life, just the faces, because the brain can't create new faces, not really.  Projections, okay?  And if you're in the dream too long, if you make too many edits, they attack.”

Thor nods slowly and Tony is glad of a client with at least some rudimentary knowledge of dreamsharing.

“Okay,” he says.  “Good.  Now, sometimes, when a person has – or maybe... represses – some strong negative emotions, like anger, or, or guilt, those subconsciously become a projection of their own.”

This time, Thor's nod comes more slowly.

“Just– it happens, okay?” Tony says.  He continues talking quickly, because he hates, absolutely hates going over this, he hates having to explain it, and the sooner this is done, the faster he can go about getting rid of this guilty feeling that has nagged him ever since the team got back together.  “And Steve – he's guilty about what happened the last time we were all together as a team, the last time we tried to perform inception.  It went wrong.  You know that.”

“Yes,” Thor replies, and nods.

Tony is still tapping on the lid of his coffee cup; the tapping gets faster and he shifts in his seat.  “But you don't know the details.  Nobody does, except certain members of the United States government, the Russian government, and us.”  And Tony means to keep it that way.  “Long story short – a few people died, and one of them was a team member.  James.  We all called him Bucky.  He was a Special Ops guy, best friends with Steve, and they worked extractions as a team.”

Tony remembers when he first met Bucky, back when he was fresh out of grad school and wanting to make a mark on the world.  Bucky had been chattier than Steve, more realistic, more real.  They would sneak off base and get drunk together.  Tony always drank much more than Bucky, though, and more often.

“On that mission, things went wrong and... Bucky died.”  Tony swallows thickly, the coffee taste turning sour in his mouth.  “It was mostly my fault.”  He's gone from denying responsibility to completely blaming himself to, now, being more rational about things, and a lot of that is thanks to Pepper.  In fact, the majority of good things that have happened to him in the past year and a half are thanks to Pepper.

Thor frowns.  “Your fault?”

“I fucked up,” Tony says simply, and stares at the lid of his coffee cup.  “I was drinking a lot back then.  I built... carelessly.  Too many shortcuts.”  He remembers the dream falling apart around them – they were already on the third level and the projections were finding them easily, too easily, as if the office building Tony had created was full of holes like Swiss cheese.  “It won't happen again,” he adds swiftly, “it won't happen now, but... Bucky's still around.  In Steve's head.  All that guilt, all that anger... it's Bucky now.”

There's a moment of silence during which Tony is too damned afraid to look up from hands and his coffee.  He's gotten better but he's still such a coward.  Then Thor clears his throat.  “Thank you for telling me this, Mr. Stark.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, awkward.  “No problem.  It was just– I just– since things are like this, I don't know if you still want us going into your brother's head.  It won't be as dangerous as last time, I think, it won't be like our first try, but... Bucky will be there, and that's something none of us our prepared for.  And he might try to sabotage things.”

He will try to sabotage things, Tony knows, but Tony is also shackled by eighteen months of guilt and a near-pathological need to make things right.

“But you will fight Bucky, will you not?” Thor asks, and the question is surprising enough that Tony jerks his head up to finally look Thor in the eyes.

“What?”

“You'll fight him,” Thor says, leaning forward.  “For your friend Steve.”

Tony blinks.  “Yes, of course.”  What the hell?

Thor is resting a massive elbow on the table and looking earnestly into Tony's eyes.  This is new, Tony thinks.  This is unexpected.  “When my brother and I were growing up, I had many chances to tell him that I cared for him,” he says seriously.  “There were times he was hurting and times he needed a kind word from me, and I realize it now, though I did not realize it then.  There are dark things in his mind, too,” he continues, “and now I wish I had fought for him as well.”

Tony blinks a few more times.  “Wait...” he says.  “I'm not entirely sure you understand–”

Thor stands up.  “I must go now, Mr. Stark, but I thank you for your honesty.”  He clamps a heavy hand down on Tony's shoulder, preventing him from rising and following.  “We will continue the mission as planned.”

Well, Tony thinks, left sitting in his chair as Thor lumbers away.  Well fuck.  And his coffee is cold now, too.

---

The days go by and they continue planning.  The tension hanging heavy over the whole team doesn't go away – Tony spends his free time avoiding Clint and Steve and Thor and Natasha and basically everyone except Bruce.  But he has less and less free time now; his coffee intake has gone up exponentially and he's not sleeping.

To be honest, though, the whole not-sleeping thing is mostly because he's afraid of dreaming.  As someone who works with the PASIV, he doesn't dream often, but when he does, they're nightmares (and memories of nightmares), and... he'd really rather not.

He stays social by teasing Bruce and chatting with Pepper over Skype in the wee hours of the morning, because the seventeen hour difference doesn't matter when he's up all night.  That's what really keeps him going, even though with every nightmare the temptation to hit the bottle becomes greater and greater.

In a week and a half, he and Banner (with the help of the rest of the team, sans Steve) finish the levels.  He presents them to the team as a whole.

“The first level is going to be a family dinner.  Clint, Steve, Bruce, and I will be waiters.  Natasha will be forging Odin, Thor will be, well, Thor,” Tony says, gesturing to the muscular CEO sitting with the team.  It's weird to have him here but, as far as Tony knows, which isn't very far, he's integrated himself well.  “And this is going to be Bruce's dream.”  He nods at Bruce, and Bruce nods back.  It's nice to know that at least someone here has got his back.

“It seems that many of Loki's insecurities can be traced back to his relationship with his family, especially with his brother and his father.  So we're going to set up a scenario that involves Odin behaving, well, like Odin,” Tony says.  He knows it's bad to speak ill of the dead but at the same time he's no stranger to inferiority complexes and distant fathers.  “But this time, Thor's going to be here and stick up for Loki.”

The team nods.  Thor does too.

“The layout of this dream is going to focus on a restaurant – one that I've designed myself, taking cues from Vegas, NYC, whatever, you know the drill – and then on Loki's childhood home, which Bruce and I got to visit, thanks to Thor.  Natasha, as Odin, is going to start a fight with Loki in the restaurant.  Thor will take his side and bring Loki back.  He'll put him to sleep, which leads to the next dream, the carnival, where he'll be a kid.  Questions so far?”

Natasha raises her hand.  Tony has to admit, out of the entire team (aside from Bruce), Natasha is probably his favorite, mostly because she's not outwardly hostile to him, like Clint, or terrifyingly different, like Steve.

“Yes, Nat?” he asks.  Nicknames are a privilege of which he likes to take advantage.

“I need time to prep my disguise, in-dream,” she says.

Tony grins.  "We've got that covered.  When the dream starts, Odin will be in the bathroom – that's where you can go dress up.”

Natasha nods.

“That reminds me,” Tony continues.  “I have packets for everyone – scripts, scenarios, stuff to supplement all the resources you already have.”  He grabs the stack from the table next to the whiteboard and passes them out, saving Steve's for last.  “I left out the map,” he tells Steve to his face, in front of everyone.

Steve opens his mouth – they haven't discussed this before, and everyone knows, and Tony assumes that Steve knows that Thor knows – and then shuts it, grabbing the packet and looking away.  “Thanks,” he says stiffly.  Tony gives his biggest shit-eating grin.

“One thing I can say about the level, though,” he adds, moving back to the front of the meeting area, “is that it's designed to reflect Loki's ideas about his family.  Everything in the restaurant is big – huge – the chairs, the ceilings, the doors.  Same with the house.  So don't be unnerved at first.”

“We want to ease the transition to the second dream, where Loki is a child,” Bruce interjects, and Tony nods.

“Exactly,” he says.  “Nice one, Bruce.”  Bruce rolls his eyes and grins.  “Okay, second level – the carnival.  This is after Thor puts Loki to sleep.  We'll bring him into the next dream – Clint's dream – pretty gently, but the dream itself is going to be loud and crowded.  Lots of projections.  Clint, we'll need you to stay safe.  Protect yourself, stick with Natasha.  I'll be with Steve.  Thor, here it's your responsibility to lead Loki through the carnival.  Steve will be a game booth operator and I'll be working at the cotton candy stand.  When you get him to the haunted house, we'll put him to sleep.”

Thor nods.  “I can do that,” he says confidently.

“Good, we're counting on you,” Tony replies.  “That stuff is in your packets too.  Basically, we're going to have Thor help kid Loki around, win him a toy or five, buy him cotton candy, take him on the Ferris wheel – essentially, remind him that Thor's his big brother and that his job is to take care of him.”

Clint leans back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him.  “And 'Tasha and I are just hiding?” he asks, that familiar knife edge in his tone of voice.  It's always there when he talks to Tony.

Tony swallows whatever sarcastic replies he could make.  “Not exactly,” he says.  “Natasha will be monitoring the dream, prepared to intervene if something goes wrong.  She – and you – will have more freedom of movement than Steve or I.”

After giving him a skeptical look, Clint nods.  “Alright,” he concedes.

That's as far as he and Clint are going to get, so Tony moves on.  “Now, Loki's going to sleep in the haunted house and wake up back in his childhood home – or so he thinks.  Really, that's going to be the setting for the third level of the dream, and as such, I made it more complex than the first level.  You all have new maps, and this will be Natasha's dream.”

Natasha nods.  Originally Tony had wanted to take the dream for himself, so he could feel useful, but he knows that he's better on the sidelines, maybe taking care of Steve (and Bucky).  He's too unstable, in his mind, to be the dreamer.

“That dream is going to be pretty straightforward,” Tony continues.  “We're hoping at this point Loki will have opened up enough to have a heart-to-heart with Thor.  The guy's a tough nut to crack, it seems, and pretty guarded, but anything can happen, three levels into the subconscious.”

That flippant comment brings up some bad memories for Tony; he moves on quickly.

“Specific scenarios you have in your scripts,” he continues.  “There are certain confrontations we have planned – this is especially relevant to your job, Nat, on the first level.  We're going to try to stay separate as much as possible during the job to avoid attention; dreamers, you guys are going to add comm links to the set up, so we can all communicate.  Make sure Thor has one too.”

Finally, he takes a deep breath.  “Okay, and speaking of attention, all of you know what's waiting for us down there.”  He meets Steve's eyes.  “I'm not just talking about Loki's projections either.  Down there – we're going to meet with Bucky, and he's going to try to fuck with us.  I don't know how, and I don't want to suggest how, because I don't want to give him ideas.”

Steve's eyes narrow but Tony plows on anyway; that's what he's good at, after all.

“Just... be on your guard.  We're going to meet him, and it's probably better it happens now, because I want to deal with this sooner rather than later.  We all do.  And if we can deal with him now, maybe things will get better.”  Tony looks down, shuffles a stack of papers, swallows, and looks up again.  “Cap, we've got your back.”

There's a pause where no one speaks – a fragile silence during which everyone listens very intently – and then Steve says, “Thank you, Tony.”

A year and a half ago, he thought he'd follow Steve to hell and back.  He thought the whole team would.  And apparently eighteen months has taught them nothing, because here they go again.