The Beginning
Where’s my goddamn coffee, I think, as I stumble into the meeting room. It was 5am, the usual time that we are supposed to wake up to begin our training regime, but usually none of us are ever ready to start until at least 7am.
Not today, I suppose. Natasha is sat next to Clint’s left, with Wanda on Clint’s right, with Vision next to Wanda. Steve is on Natasha’s other side, and Sam and Bucky are stood on the side, whispering away to each other. They pretend they hate each other a lot of the time, but they’re much closer than they make out to be. Scott’s not here either, I vaguely recognise. I clear my throat, and all heads turn to me. There he was- a man, tall, with golden-blonde hair, with piercing, ice-blue eyes that make me want to shudder. And then, hidden from view, pops out Thaddeus Ross. That idiot.
“Ah, Tony. It’s great to see you!” He says brightly, almost too brightly, and holds his hand out for me to shake. I ignore it.
“Ross. What are you doing here?” I question, glancing at this man who I definitely have never met before. Ross gestures to the man, the next time he speaks.
“This is Thomas Reeves, and he’s joining the Avenger’s Initiative. The World Security Council thought that they should bring another person in, one who can stop you guys from being so reckless the next time that there’s an incident that needs handling.”
I bristle at Ross’s words. No, I didn’t think we needed another member. Stuff was already crazy enough with the newer members- Scott, Sam, Bucky, Wanda, Vision, Peter. There were so many of us, and I had barely just gotten used to the additions to our team. Now we had to have a random man, one that no one knew, from Ross himself? How joyful. I glance over to the rest of the team, to where they are sitting. They all have the same sort of expression on their faces- not really showing emotion. I stare at the back of Steve’s head, just staring, staring, staring, until he finally turns around, and looks at me. He’s frowning- at me?- so I ask,
“Steve. Did you know about this?” Some emotion I can’t quite place flickers in his eyes for just a second, and then his lips are turned downwards and his eyes show disapproval.
“Tony, I ran this guy through with you three weeks ago, and you ushered me away saying that it was fine? Don’t you even remember?”
I hesitate. Three weeks ago was when Pepper and I finally broke up- for good, this time. At least, it seemed like for good. The final time. No more Pepper and Tony- though I’d let her stay on, as CEO. She was good for me, even if we were not going to be as close as before. Three weeks ago, after she’d broken up with me, I’d gone straight back to the alcohol, losing all my progress, and the whole of that week had been a messy, unconscious blur, even if I’d been awake. Then, Rhodey had found me in the way I was, and he’d finally brought me back to sobriety. I was ashamed with myself for losing control, but I was trying again, to stay good for Peter. I cringed internally, thinking about some of the tech I’d tried to create, whilst being intoxicated. Key word: tried. Honestly, it was a bit of a surprise that Steve hadn’t noticed how bad I had looked, those week ago, but then again, it’s Steve. When did he ever pay much attention to me? He still barely likes me, for god’s sake. I clear my throat, feeling that Steve’s eyes were glaring daggers at my head, waiting for a response.
“Yeah… well. I don’t remember that.” I muttered, bringing my eyes down to stare at the floor in awkwardness. I missed the way that Natasha and Clint looked at each other, in worriedness- the way that Wanda looked at me, with uncertainty in her eyes as she stopped sending me death stares every two seconds. The way that everyone just looked, with all eyes on me and I could barely handle that because why are they all staring at me, I need them to stop.
So I strode out of the room, missing the confidence I usually would have shown.
I hurriedly walked to the stairs, going down, down, down, down, down, straight to my lab, and sealed the door off from the others, shutting the blinds. Not even Hulk could get in if he tried, though Bruce had not been seen for months. Moreover, Thor, too.
I focused my eyes on the couch in the corner, and went over to it, collapsing on top of it, curling my legs up to my chest, and I was asleep in seconds.
That night, I was plagued with nightmares, yet again. I awoke with a scream, jolting upright.
Couldn’t I even go a day without having a sort of breakdown? Clearly not, I thought, as I sat on my bed, at 2:49am, hunched up in a ball, my arms wrapped tightly around my curled-up legs. Memories start hitting me- the day I met him at MIT. Back then, he’d been so nice, so calm, so cool. I had so wanted to be like him. God, how naïve and innocent I had been back then- a fifteen-year-old genius kid, at MIT, surrounded by a sea of people way older than me.
Tiberius Stone would always haunt me.
-WANDA-
Wanda Maximoff’s magic was… chaotic, per say. It was extremely powerful, and daunting when faced against her. She could be terrifying, and had so much power it was almost laughable.
It didn’t take away from the fact that although she came across as this terrifying, rageful person- she wasn’t all that bad. Especially if you stuck around long enough to befriend her- she liked making cooking and baking for her friends, making sugar cookies and paprikash and occasionally, pies.
So, there. Wanda Maximoff was not a heartless person, despite what many may say due to the many accidents that had occurred over the period after she’d gained her powers. She was thankful for being allowed back in the compound by Tony, as grudgingly as she were to admit it. Yes, she still disliked the man and scowled at him each time he entered a room- but she was grateful for not having to be one of the most sought-out people in the world (and not in a good way). She’d been given a room in the compound- it was more than she’d expected out of the man.
Even though she’d been given a room to herself with a king-sized bed and decorations, Wanda still found it hard to sleep. Her dreams were plagued with nightmares of Pietro’s death, and she couldn’t quite get over it- not when she’d lost her last living blood relative; her twin.
So, that night had just been another in a long series in sleeplessness- nothing special.
Until she heard the scream from across the corridor.
She’d jumped up, pulling her door open, scanning the corridor for signs of attack- god knows that Hydra was still out there, wanting her. After staring at the almost pitch-black corridor for several beats, she relaxed. She was about to turn back, to curl back up in her duvet like a cocoon, when there was a tug on her powers. Drawing her to someone’s mind, who she must’ve used her powers on before- she was only really called to the minds of people’s she had infiltrated before.
Then, she was drawn into a memory, a second later.
She was looking through the persons eyes, as if she were- a room? With two beds, clothes cluttered on the floor and twin desks with paper and mugs strewn across it. There was the sound of footsteps, and she spun around, as a door flung open.
She was met with the face of a man- he had an angry expression on his face, his frown only growing as he faced Wanda- or whoever’s body she was in, she supposed.
“You. What the fuck were you doing back there?” The voice was harsh; snapping.
Suddenly, Wanda felt like she was facing a version of Strucker, in a different face. The anger, the clipped tone- all signs of the evil that resided in a bad person.
She took a step back, faltering.
Before she could react, the man was speaking again.
“Listen to me!” he began, screaming, as Wanda jumped in surprise, “You messed up. You ruined the chances of me winning the competition. Are you dumb!?” On the last word, he’d suddenly backed the person against the wall, and then her head connected with the wall, stars bursting in her vision, the unmistakeable crack as skin met brick.
Moments later, she was tugged out of the memory, back into her own head, and she crumpled to the floor, in the middle of the corridor, bringing her hand up to meet the spot on her head where it had met the wall. There was nothing there- no pain, nothing, apart from the slight ringing in her ears to tell from the experience. As the sound began to quieten, Wanda listened to the silence of the Avengers sleeping quarters, the steady tick-toc of the clock, and it’s soothing rhythm.
She wouldn’t tell anyone about what she’d seen- she had to find now.
Silently, she rose to her feet, padding back into her room and locking it with a click. Using her powers had always drained her, so she curled herself back up in the duvet, as if she were the inside of a burrito, and promptly fell asleep.
-TONY-
The next day, I was stood I the communal kitchen, sat on a stool whilst nursing a cup of coffee, when he walked in. I clenched my mug harder, my easy smile slipping away to a tense grimace.
“Ah, Tony. Just the man I was looking for.”
Thomas had a rough voice, with a British accent. As he patted my shoulder, almost teasingly, I felt myself shudder under his touch. I didn’t trust this man, especially as an Avenger. Heck, Id barely held a simple conversation with him. One of the rules I’d given when the Avengers formed was that I wouldn’t allow them to touch me unless I’d specifically said that it was okay, and this man had already broken that rule.
Instead of engaging in conversation with him, I shuffled myself pointedly away from his direction, so I was facing the light-blue striped walls of the kitchen. From the corridor that lead to the sleeping quarters, I heard muffled shrieks of laughter. A smile formed on the corners of my lips- Natasha and Clint could be incredibly childish sometimes and whilst it tended to rub us all the wrong way, on some days it was almost nice to hear, or see, how Natasha especially seemed relaxed enough to let down her guard, even after everything she’d admitted to me, one night when I’d gone to the living room at 3am and found her, curled up on the couch. She told me about her nightmares- of the red room, killing Dreykov’s daughter, and all the men and women she’d killed in between that frequently haunted her dreams. Natasha and I had actually become quite close, believe it or not, whilst she’d been pretending to be Natalie Rushman. I had never taken a second glance at her advances, and I revealed to her that I was gay. Since then, I’d become much closer to her- as close friends, of course.
“-ony. Tony!” the voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and I blinked rapidly, turning my head to the side to now see that Clint was standing right next to me, now holding his own cup of coffee.
“Tony, pass me the donut box from over there, will you? I can’t reach it from here, and you can.”
A snicker came from the doorway, and there Natasha was, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. Clint pouted, like a grumpy child.
“C’mon Nat, there’s no reason to laugh at me.”
I reached out to grab the donut box, passing it to Clint,
“I am keeping the peace by giving you this donut box,” I responded. Natasha shook her head, and smiled fondly at Clint.
“Come on guys, training starts in 10.” She was out of the room in a flash, Clint scrambling to his feet and shuffling out too, albeit unwillingly, going to spy on one of my Interns in a vent, probably.
I was the second one at the training room, today.
Usually, I was the last up- my brain being fixed on whatever I was tinkering with in that moment- Natasha’s widow bites, or a new arrow for Clint, or a more durable suit for Steve.
The other person in the room now was Wanda. You see, things are very awkward between Wanda and me, especially since she left a massive hole in the floor of the compound. That took forever to be repaired, along with Pepper’s whining about how much the cost would be, to have it properly done.
As well, Wanda still had not quite forgiven me for ‘getting her parents murdered’ as she put it. I wouldn’t- no, couldn’t, ever admit to Wanda that none of that was my fault; that it was not my fault that Obadiah was dealing weapons under the table. It just seemed too cruel- and besides, it wasn’t as if she’d ever believe me. I would be ‘trying to shift responsibility onto a dead man who can’t even defend himself’.
Wanda cleared her throat, shuffling on her feet awkwardly. I stood there, as frozen as a stone statue- better not to give the witch something else to complain about me to the others, I thought bitterly. Miraculously, Wanda was the first to attempt small talk.
“Sooo… Stark. What’s… up?” She made a weird sort of expression as she talked, as if she were properly struggling to get the words out. I bit down on my bottom lip immediately, hopefully unnoticeably, to not laugh. I know, there was nothing funny about Wanda, but she just was.
“I’m, uh, okay, thanks, Wanda, how about yourself?” I spoke in an even tone, still standing as still as stone.
“Me and Vis, we’re doing alright, I suppose?” The way she spoke that sentence sounded more like a question, and my curiosity piqued. I opened my mouth to ask her if she was really okay, because I’m not a monster, but Clint and Natasha tumbled into the room, both now fully equipped in their villain-fighting outfits, probably concealing a gun, or a knife or two, in Natasha’s case, on them.
Clint and Natasha were already play sparring, but as they tumbled into the main fighting circle, they grew serious, throwing out punches and using what, from the human eye, looked like their best moves.
Inevitably, Natasha won.
Clint grumbled about it, as usual.
“There’s nothing fair about pitting me and Nat in a fight, of course she’ll always win,” He said, not really mad, though, as he gave Natasha a gentle poke in the ribs.
Then Thomas walked in, and my guard slammed back up, concealing the most vulnerable parts of myself that only my true friends could see. Almost instantly, he spots me, and he beckons me over. Like a pet dog, I come running at his call. I’m not ready to test this man’s limits yet.
“Tony. You and I are going to fight, right now. Ok?” He grins in a way that rather makes me feel sick, and unease rises in me.
We step into the sparring circle, and we fight. He strikes first, and I barely block it surprised at how quickly he’s starting on me. A second later, he’s back again, pouncing to get a punch in, again, and this time I don’t have time to think to block, and I push my whole body forwards, out of the way, and dodge the blow. Thomas is ruthless; he is fast like a cheetah and strong like a rhinoceros. The next time, I fail to doge or block his attack, and I’m hurtling to the ground, knocking my arm heavily against the ground. I have so little space with his body on top of mine, and I feel like I can’t breathe. My space is constricted, and suddenly I feel like I’m in that cave all over again- the weight in my chest, the water filling my lungs and I am choking, choking, gasping for air that I can’t find. I squeeze my eyes shut to try to block out the pictures, yet all I can see is a face- his face, Obadiah, the man I had trusted with my life and everything I’d ever made, yet my biggest betrayer. I can subtly hear the fast-paced thump, thump, thump of my heart, fluttering away life a scared butterfly in a small cage. There is another voice screaming at me now, one that I vaguely recognise amidst my breakdown.
“Tony? Tony, you need to listen to me! You are not there, you’re here, you’re safe.”
I’m being shaken now, and I feel a twinge of pain from my arm. I open my eyes, seeing Rhodey’s face, eyes stricken with worry, his comforting face looming above me. I recognise that there are tears streaming down my face, and I bring my non-painful arm up to smudge them away, but they just flow faster. Relief is evident now, on Rhodey’s face.
“Tony, man, we were worried!” He says lightly, but I know that inside, he’s still worried.
I’m shivering now, probably looking pathetic, lying here on the floor like a defeated old man.
I am so pathetic.
Shaking, I stagger to my feet, and look around the room. Natasha and Clint are looking at me worriedly, so is Bruce, who is sat in the far corner with his laptop, probably working on a new theory on nuclear physics. Steve however, is not looking at me with any sort of pity. He’s staring at me, his right eye twitching, the way it usually does when he is mad about something. I shudder under his heavy, piercing gaze. A second later, he is shaking his head, perhaps in disappointment, and he’s out of the room.
Standing by the Avengers main office, I curled my fingers into a fist, pressing my fingertips to my palms, digging my nails into the skin- not deep enough to draw blood, though. Pepper and Rhodey had gone manic last time they’d seen the marks, and though the memory filled me with fondness, to think about my only true friends caring about me, I didn’t want to face that again.
I tapped my right foot against the shiny, polished ceramic floors as I waited impatiently for Steve to make an appearance after I’d messaged him half an hour ago, asking to meet him by the office.
I nibbled anxiously on the skin on my lower lip. It was an anxiety habit I had done for most of my life, especially when around Howard, and seeing his son having an imperfection? He made it his mission to personally rid me of the flaw, yet all these years later here I am, still doing it. If Howard could see me right now, I bet that he’d start screaming at me.
With that lingering thought, I let out a cold bark of laughter.
When Steve finally showed up, I had resorted to crouching on the floor, resting my head against my knees. Like usual, I’d been awake since 2am, tinkering away in my lab at a new prototype of one of Peter’s Spiderman suits. I only realised that Steve was there when I saw his shadow, looming over my curled form. I hastily scrabbled up, aware that I was probably not leaving much of a good impression on him. When he spoke, Steve’s voice was low and rough, as if he’d just awoken for the morning.
“Tony, you called me here. What do you want?”
“I- I wanted to inquire about the new guy on our team. Thomas Reeves?” My voice was hesitant; doubtful. Steve moved his hand forward, in a gesture I recognised to mean ‘go on’.
I sighed. “Look, Steve, there’s just something off about that guy. I don’t trust him.”
The hesitance was clear in my voice – it wasn’t every day I brought up concerns about another person. In fact, the only time I’d ever reported something to Steve was the day Thor had given Clint some Ale, straight from Asgard, and Clint had been stumbling around, giggling like there was a joke that we had all missed.
Steve snorts, and crosses his arms, the way he usually did when he was feeling disappointed in someone.
“Tony, you don’t trust anyone. We can’t just kick him off the team because of your unreliable feelings.”
I took a step backwards and crossed my arms, mimicking Steve’s position, as a wave of hurt rolling through my body. Steve exhaled, heavily, and brought his eyes up to meet mine.
“Tony, you need to stop all… this.”
He over exaggerated the last word, as if I had wounded him.
“To put it simply, you are hurting our team. So please, please, just give it a rest for once.”
I lowered my eyes, guilt washing through me, even though I had done nothing wrong to feel guilt. I’d come to Steve and he’d dismissed my feelings. So I backed off.
I ‘gave it a rest’ as he put it.
…
I would come to severely regret that.