Chapter 1- Tony POV
Tony stared at himself in the mirror. He looked horrible. He was paler than usual, and thinner as well; he kept on forgetting to eat recently. You could hardly blame him, though, he was too busy trying to ignore the dread of today. Logically, he knew that he would have to meet with the rogue avengers because of the impending threat of Thanos, but that didn’t allow him to ignore the anxiety gnawing away at his insides.
In a couple of hours, he was flying to Wakanda with Strange, Wong, and the Spiderling. Rhodey had already left for their destination, along with Vision, who was hoping see about getting the mind gem removed from his head. Bruce, who had arrived with Thor, Loki, and a Asgardian refugees, had gone to Wakanda already with the refugees in tow. Thor, who went to see Jane Foster and make sure she was safe, would meet them in Wakanda. Tony sighed, splashing his face with water. He was too tired to attempt to conceal the bags under his eyes with makeup, opting to slide on some dark sunglasses. Not that he cared; the rogues already knew about his regular pattern of sleeping barely 12 hours a week. It was moderately hard to sleep, what with the nightmares, the buildup of dread, and the mild- but constant- pain from the re-inserted arc reactor (he had got a new version of the arc attached to his artificial sternum which had snapped from Cap’s shield).
The reactor didn’t bother him much anymore, since he only had to get used to it again. It was more his hand that bothered him. It was still stiff and painful from the frostbite he had gotten after his ‘excursion’ to Siberia. He shuddered, thinking of the cold, depressing place he had nearly died in. The new arc had his suit directly attached to it so it could form over his body like a second skin. Leaving his room, Tony grabbed an apple from the kitchen, and began to walk down to his lab to work on some of the projects for SI that he had piled up. He wasn’t willing to admit that he was also trying to delay the inevitable reunion between himself and the rogues. Munching on his apple, he skimmed through his to-do list. He saw that there were still projects and weapons designs from when the rogues were still Avengers. He scrolled the long list for a moment, before swiftly dumping all the projects centered on the rogues into the trash. T’challa probably made them new gear anyway, Tony thought, tossing the apple core into the trash before starting his next project.
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“Boss?” came FRIDAY’s voice, over the speakers.
“Yeah, Fri?” he replied, fingers moving fast over a keyboard.
“You’re running late for the meeting with Dr. Strange to go to Wakanda,” the AI said, sounding kind of frustrated as she said this. The annoyance was not directed at Tony, but at the fact that he had to work with the very people that had almost killed him. Tony’s lip quirked at the protectiveness of his AI, before sighing. He stood up, closing the project he had been working on and pocketing his sunglasses before heading out of his lab.
“Did Happy call a car?” he asked.
“Mr. Hogan is with Ms. Potts at a conference in Japan this week.”
“Ah, right,” Tony sighed, leaving the compound. As he crossed the threshold, he heard the tiny buzz as FRIDAY turned on his earpiece. He activated his armor, and the newest suit immediately began spreading out of the arc and covering his body. Tony blinked as the HUD flickered to life in front of his eyes, before he took off into the sky.
A short while later, he landed in front of the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York. Ignoring the gasps and whispers of the people around him as the armour retracted into the arc, Tony put on his sunglasses and entered the building. He had barely entered the hall, when the excited voice of Peter confronted him as he bounded toward his mentor. Tony couldn’t help it as he smiled when he saw the kid who idolized him, even after everything he had done.
Immediately after reaching Tony, Peter launched into a ramble, “Mr. Stark! Hi! Dr. Strange was planning on teleporting straight to the compound if you didn’t show up soon. Do you think T’Challa will let us use one of the labs in Wakanda? I heard their tech is super awesome. Will he let us use some vibranium? ‘Cause I wanted to-”
Tony interrupted, “Woah, slow down there, kid. I’m sure T’Challa will answer all your questions when we get there, and I thought I told you to call me Tony? Mr. Stark always makes me sound older than I am. Besides, you’re an Avenger now, so enough with the formalities.”
They walked forward to the staircase where Strange was waiting, Wong at his side. Peter looked like he was going to faint after hearing himself be proclaimed an Avenger and allowed to call Tony by his first name in the same sentence.
“Thank you so much, Mr. S- Tony. I got the new armor by the way, and it is so cool,” he gushed.
“Tony,” greeted Strange. Wong nodded at them.
“Strange,” Tony replied, and motioned for Peter to introduce himself.
“I’m Peter,” he said, looking awed at everything around them.
“Dr. Stephen Strange,” Strange replied, amused by Peter’s excitement.
“Wong,” came the calm voice of the librarian.
“So, are we going to hop into your magical portal, or what?” Tony said, clapping his hands together. Peter looked so eager to see magic that his eyes were nearly popping out of his head. Strange simply raised an eyebrow at Tony, before turning to make a circling motion with his hands. Soon enough, a gold, sparkly circle was conjured. Through the portal, they could see what was obviously Wakanda, and Tony could already see T’challa moving toward them with a couple of people flanking him.
“Wow,” whispered Peter, in awe. They stepped through the portal.