Imagine If You Assembled The Avengers: Volume 2

Causality (Stark x reader/Civil War references)

Minor Language

How were you guys planning on beating that?

Together.

We'll lose.

Then we'll do that together too.

Tony jolted awake and sat up with a panting desperation, his eyes darting around the room to try to find something familiar that would center him and bring him into the moment, but the darkness made it nearly impossible.

"FRIDAY...lights..." he gasped, running his hands through his sweat-soaked hair. His room was quickly filled with a warm glow that began to calm him, and he was thankful that his A.I. had the wherewithal to not inadvertently blind him. "What time is it?"

"It's 3:15am, boss."

"Shit," he groaned, reluctantly swinging his legs over the side of the bed and pressing his feet to the floor to stand with a long stretch that made it painfully aware how his recent lack of sleep was wearing on him. Every muscle and joint fought the movement and a dull ache reminded him just how exhausted he was. After a quick trip to the bathroom and a splash of water on his face, he gave sleep another try.

I saw them all dead Nick. I felt it. Because of me. I didn't do all I could.

The Maximoff girl, she's workin' you, Stark.

I wasn't tricked, I was shown. It wasn't a nightmare, it was my legacy. The end of the path I started us on.

The same pattern repeated, Tony waking with a pounding heart and a now a striking vision of a dead team stuck in his mind. He swore that he could feel Steve's cold and pulseless skin on his fingers even now when he looked down at his sweating and tremulous hands. "Time?"

"It's only 4am," FRIDAY said quietly and almost apologetically. "Should I call Miss (Y/N)?"

"No!" he snapped, but then quickly softened his tone, "no, that's okay. I have to figure this out on my own. Like everything else I've ever screwed up."

~~~

Tony was all out of sorts, first slamming drawers closed and banging his cup on the counter top with frustration; glancing up at you with pained eyes as Steve and Sam entered the room to sit with the team. It only took a matter of seconds for an argument to ensue, and normally Tony would be at the center of it, but now he had taken a seat silently with his eyes covered as if he wanted nothing to do with it.

"Tony," Nat smirked, "you're being uncharacteristically non-hyperverbal."

"Because he's already made up his mind."

"Oh, you know me so well, Cap," he groaned, rolling his eyes and returning to the kitchen with an almost nervous energy; when Tony was upset there was no way to keep him still. "I'm nursing an electromagnetic headache. It's just pain."

You stood to go to him, but before you could take a step he pulled out his phone and a picture of a young man came to life. His expression dropped and his eyes began to redden; something was terribly wrong and you knew the pain he was talking about wasn't just from his headache.

"Oh, that's Charles Spencer, by the way," he snapped. "He's a great kid. Computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA. Had a floor-level gig, an intel plan for the fall. But first he wanted to put a few miles on his sole before he parked it behind a desk. See the world, maybe be of service. Charlie didn't wanna go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn't go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where. Sokovia."