Chapter Text
The first thing you notice is the silence. Different from that of late nights where it's just you, your thoughts, and maybe your neighbor's car in the distance. A silence that screams nothing, leaving room for nothing else. The second thing is the darkness surrounding you. A blanket draping itself over you, and what are you, if not a soul waiting to be dressed? With no clue of how you came to be there, nor what was or is to come. Just a stillness that invites one to relish in the peace.
Then, just as suddenly, you feel yourself falling, your skin crying at the lashing of the wind. Maybe, if you let yourself be carried away by the weight of gravity, you can reach that darkness again. So you open your arms, stretching like a starfish, set on enjoying this last ride. Nevertheless, before you can feel the hit of the dirt against your face, you are pulled abruptly from your unbothered state. Shock at colliding with something solid. Embraced in mechanical arms.
Set on rolling with things, you let yourself be carried through the city. But too soon, the magic spell is broken, and you find that the figure is placing you softly on solid ground, leaving you with a tall, strawberry-blonde woman to hold you steady while it lands on a ramp farther ahead, shedding piece by piece its metallic frame. Suddenly, this seems too real, too fast, and without even realizing it, you start to close your eyes again, seeking the feeling of your father's soft hands on your back. Pushing you forward until you reached the moon. Or that white light calling you ahead.
If only these people would let you rest in peace.
"—ey, hey! Kid! No, no, open those eyes. Yeah. That's it, stay with us."
"Tony, should I call a doctor? She's looking rather confused," said the blonde in a concerned manner.
"No, JARVIS said her vitals are clean and there's no sign of trauma or injury. She should come out of the stupor in a sec. How's our baby holding on?"
'Huh, JARVIS?' you thought to yourself, regaining some of your composure. "Like the butler," you mused out loud.
"Levels are holding steady. I think," said the woman, now standing near a hologram of a console.
The man, now crouching next to your sitting form—when had you sat down?—looked perplexed at your butler comment, but focused his attention on the woman's words.
"Of course they are. I was directly involved," he said, rather pleased. Then, once your vision had fully cleared, he asked you, "Back in the land of the living, kid? You seemed dazed, with all the falling from the middle of the sky."
After a few moments of staring past his face, you managed to focus on his face enough to answer, "Ha, you look like RDJ. That's actually pretty neat. I usually get the faces a bit off in these things."
"...What?" he finally answered after staring at you like you'd grown a second face. "What things? Is—Is looking like that good? Is—it, is it a person? Are they good-looking? I bet they're good-looking," rambled the man before the blonde interrupted him with a gentle hand on his shoulder, handing you a glass of water she procured from who knows where.
"Tony, let's give her those few seconds to recover before we expose her to your ego." Then, turning to your slouched form, she asked, "How are you doing, sweetie? Do you know your name or what city you are in now?"
"You're pretty," is all you mumble as you take the offered glass, staring at her as you gulp it in one swing. Then, after a satisfied exhale, "Mhhhh, water always tastes nice, don't you think? I mean, soda and juice are nice too, but there's something that always calls you back to it, you know? Kind of like waves. And did you know dolphins have sexually assaulted people? I don't like them, sharks are better. They have all these teeth, five to fifteen lines of them—can you imagine having so many teeth?"
"Wait, what?" asked the man, smiling at your ramblings without motioning to stop you.
"I'd be like, grrrr, all the time, but they are not grrr-ing. They just kill five to ten people a year, while hippos go kill way more, which really puts into perspective all the shark-related fear! They're just a bunch of softies, and they bite to explore 'cause they don't have opposable thumbs, so they don't have rights—"
"Are opposable thumbs the new measure of rights?" he asked, looking at the woman behind him, who kept progressively pinching her brows.
"—or a way to gauge whether that flappy thing is a scared, jummy sea lion or just a human. Anyway, where's Hades and all the naked Korean men? I want to get married now."
Then, before either of them could ask you what you were talking about, a British voice said, "Sir, the telephone. I'm afraid my protocols are being overridden," cutting immediately to a different male timbre. "Mr. Stark, we need to talk."
Sighing, the man—Mr. Stark, if the man on the phone was to be believed—lifted his phone from a nearby table. "You have reached a live model decoy of Tony Stark. Please leave a message," he said, eliciting a chuckle from the woman before she caught herself and directed her attention back to you. With her help, you stood and made your way to a sitting area.
"This is urgent," uttered the man through the line.
"Then leave it urgently."
And just as you made it to the sofa and were flopping down, face first, you heard a pair of automatic doors opening.
"Security breach, it's on you," Stark told the woman, who, in turn, focused her attention on the newcomer with a warm smile. "Phil! Come in," she told him, heading his way.
"Phil?" muttered your rescuer, and then, at the same time, you both said, "Um, his first name is Agent." Only instead of them laughing along with you, they stared at you in different degrees of worry.
"Who is she?" asked Phil, breaking the silence.
"Oh, her? A new comedian we found recently, really great work, hits you like it comes from the sky and all. Now, where were we? You were leaving, right?"
"Come on in," said the woman, completely ignoring her companion. "We were just about to find who she is."
"Which is why he should leave," interrupted Mr. Stark again.
"We need you to look this over as soon as possible," the newcomer told him. You watched, entertained, as he declined the dossier, only for the woman to grab it and then exchange it for a drink.
'When did he get that drink? "Could I get some more water?"'
"Of course, sweetie. I'll get you another one," the kind lady told you. "Huh. Maybe I said that out loud," you thought again.
"Yes, you said it out loud, but don't worry. Phil, can I get you a drink?" she asked Phil, leading him to your resting area while signaling Mr. Stark to read whatever he was handed. "Is this about the Avengers Initiative?" she asked, only to amend quickly, "which I know nothing about?"
"Yeah, I thought that idea was scrapped? And I didn't even qualify," said Stark, walking to the other side of the room. "Apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others," offered Stark.
"That I did know," she said, gesturing for him to sit on a chair near you, while handing you more water and him a flute with sparkling liquid.
"This isn't about personality profiles anymore," was all Phil offered.
"Whatever," said Stark, looking over something on the folder. "Ms. Potts, got a second?"
"Half a moment," she told you and Phil before skipping over to him.
"You know, I'm normally able to exert more influence when I reach this point. But no matter how hard I'm trying, there's still no naked Korean man here!" you told Phil with an expression that screamed exasperation.
"I'm sorry, what?" he asked you, puzzled by the meaning of your words.
"Yeah, it's not even working now!" you exclaimed, frustrated. "I've been trying to picture you in a swimsuit and some floaties, but you're still in a suit! Maybe I'm lucid inside a lucid dream?" you concluded, pouting. "I really wanted to control this last one," you whispered to yourself, starting to feel heavy inside your chest.
"I—I don't get it. Did you—Did you hit your head, perhaps?" Then, turning to Tony and Pepper, he asked, "Is she concussed?"
"Not that we know of," answered Tony absentmindedly, returning his focus to Pepper.
"If I can't conjure things, what else can't I do?" you muttered to yourself. Then, spotting a pen on the table in front of you, you asked Phil, "Could you pass me that pen, please?"
Seeing no reason not to, he reached for it and offered it to you. "Sure, do you want something to write on?"
"No, no. This is perfect, thanks." And taking the cap off, observing the tip, you tried it on the back of your hand. Was tickling all you could feel? Set on testing the extent of your feeling capacity, you lifted the pen a little over your leg and stabbed your thigh with it, only to scream while doubling in pain. "Motherfucker! Ngeaaaaaaah!"
Phil, who'd been watching you curiously, roused quickly, taking some napkins from the table while scrambling most of it in his hurry. "Why would you do that?! No, leave it there, leave it there!" he instructed as you started to pry it out.
"I'm sorry, this is my first time dealing with a stabbed pen!" you screamed at him, feeling tears rolling down your cheeks as he cut a throw-over blanket into a strip and secured the pen so that it wouldn't move. Pepper, having finished talking with Tony, made her way to the pair of you. "Phil, is there any way you could drop me by LaGuardi—Oh my god! What happened?"
"I'm sorry about the blanket. I was just checking out the dynamics of the dream, 'cause I couldn't change things! But apparently I can also feel pain! And I shouldn't, right?! Why does it hurt so much, dammit! If I'll have to live all the things of the story, I would much rather be away from here. Loki does run amok in this one, and contrary to what this points to, not really keen on all the pain thing," you said, losing track of your ramblings.
"How do you know about that? That's confidential," he said, suddenly somber. "You're coming with me." And with his and Pepper's help, you were soon in a car. Every movement seemed to jolt in some way the pen inside your leg, making the journey painful.