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The avengers tower was often filled with some kind of craziness that came with living with heroes, demi-gods, assassins, and children with drinking permits. Clint causing havoc from the vents, Thor declaring his love for poptarts at the top of his lungs(Thor’s normal booming voice), Loki pulling pranks on every avenger regardless of the death threats(Mostly from Natasha), Natasha and Bucky hiding various weapons throughout the tower and if they could would hulk out when they’re moved, Tony leaving random dried fruit and nuts in various hiding places(sometimes the same hiding places as Nat’s and Bucky’s weapons), Bruce at least once a month hulking out for some ridiculous reason(they all blame Clint, he’s yet to deny the accusations), Wanda and Pietro getting into some heated argument in a way only siblings can(Thor’s words, Loki disagrees but no one listens to him), Sam having to fight Tony off from messing with his gear(because Tony Stark has to improve everything even though people tell him no especially after the coffee machine meltdown on 2013, no one dares speak of the event), Scott joining in Clint’s pranks(because being the size of an ant helps way too much and several people have considered stepping on him as the only way to stop his reign of terror). The only members of the team that don’t seem to add to the chaos is Vision, Steve, and Rhodey (but that’s only because no one has caught Rhodey yet, the bastard is sneaky like that and Tony only needs to find proof.)
So with them living together fighting villains and causing all around chaos that has Steve lecturing them like they’re all children is how they ended up in this situation. Tony locked away in his lab having pulled everyone’s access including Bruce’s which is nearly unheard of. The only time being when Bruce had switched out Tony’s coffee for decaf in an attempt to help his already weak heart (Tony had been frightening because he hadn’t yelled or argued, just been the silent deadly force that is a coffee addict).
To make matters worse was that Friday was refusing to relay messages to Tony and the only one who could get inside the lab to check if the genius was alive was currently unable to. Loki while being a god could get sick occasionally and when he did it caused his magic to go haywire. Thor had abandoned ship when Loki first showed signs of being sick. He’d left a note for the avengers that read simply: I knew you well and hope to return to find at least some of you alive.
To say the least they were all a bit scared (including Natasha and Vision which was just terrifying.) So here they were standing outside Tony’s lab. Steve, Rhodey, and Bucky trying hard to get through to the inventor after Steve had made the mistake of lecturing him about how carless he was and again saying he only fought for himself. He’d been angry because Tony hadn’t followed the plan and it was an increasing problem that Tony disobeyed orders. They were hoping to reconcile with the inventor because with Loki’s magic possibly becoming a problem they all knew it would probably target them. Loki was practically best friends with Tony since being told by Odin to serve out his sentence in Midgard as an avenger. He was protective of the genius and if one avenger fucked up they all fucked up and earned the god’s wrath.
Steve rested his head against the clouded glass wall of Tony’s lab. His words replaying in his head like a broken record.
“Tony you can’t keep being reckless. What if you got one of us killed because you didn’t follow orders?”
“Plans change Steve, I saw an opening and I took it. If I hadn’t people could have died.”
“Tony you don’t know that. You need to stick to the plan. I’ve been to war, I’ve seen battle and I’ve seen what happens when you don’t stick to the battle plan. You don’t have training for this kind of thing.”
“Fuck you Rogers! You don’t know shit, I know more than anyone what happens.”
Steve still didn’t know what Tony had meant. He had asked Rhodey and even he didn’t know. Tony hadn’t seen war and he didn’t have special training like Natasha and Clint. Outside his armor he was a civilian who could easily be killed. Steve was just trying to protect him and when they were in the field he needed him to listen and obey the chain of command.
“Stevie let’s go, it’s clear he’s not answering us.” Bucky said getting the super soldier to move away from Tony’s workshop.
Even Bucky was worried about what Tony had meant. The two had begun dating despite everything and even he didn’t know much about Tony’s many secrets. The former assassin had accepted he may never know everything. Tony had warned him when Bucky had asked him out and he had accepted it.
Loki was curled up on the common room couch wrapped in so many blankets it was hard not to consider it adorable even if he shocked anyone who came to close with his magic. His nose was dripping and there wasn’t enough Kleenex in the world to stop that. Only his hair and eyes could be seen through his blanket burrito and that was frightening as those eyes turned to anyone who dared walk in the room. It was clear the god was pissed at them for upsetting Tony. The drastic drop in the tower’s temperature could contest to that. Clint had even had to stay out of the vents because the growing amount of ice in them made it impossible for him to move around.
When they called it a night and went their separate ways to sleep each one said a silent prayer that a certain overprotective god didn’t slit their throats in the middle of the night.
~ Steve
When Steve had nightmares it was of ice. The nightmare was enough to wake him but not keep him from sleeping after calming his nerves. This was not a nightmare…it was hell. He was certain he was seeing and feeling hell. On a table strapped down unable to stop the people tearing into his chest. His screams being ignored and something being placed within his chest before they finally allow him to fall into an unconscious state. Perhaps if he was a lucky man he’d have woken from that hell but he was denied such kindness. Instead when his eyes opened he was in a dark place that made his heart hammer in his chest.
A doctor was telling him things and a battery was hooked up to the device in his chest. The hell doesn’t end as he clings desperately to the battery keeping him alive to keep it from falling into the water the group keeps using to waterboard him. A voice echoes in his head and he doesn’t recognize it.
“Stick to the plan!” The voice yells clearly pleading.
The doctor dies and his heart tears to pieces before he finds himself stumbling through scorching heat and sand. A realization hits him then though he’s uncertain if it’s a fact or the sun and heat making his mind try to understand why the doctor had died.
“If he hadn’t changed the plan we’d both would have died.” He brain tells him just as another voice in his head tells him, “Don’t waste your life Stark.”
Steve wakes gasping for air tearing apart his shirt needing to know he was ok. That no battery was connected to his chest keeping him alive. He struggles to draw in breath and fears closing his eyes again. He’s covered in sweat but when he goes to shower he can’t bring himself to. He’s afraid of something as simple as showering and it fills him with a feeling of helplessness and all he can think is how weak he must be. He curls up on the bathroom floor and cries.
~ Wanda
Wanda knows this nightmare and knows it is not her own. She has had nightmares many times. Often of seeing her parents die and sitting waiting for death to claim both her and her brother. This is far worse. She had seen what her power showed Tony but it had not made her feel what he felt. It didn’t have the same impact on her as it had him.
She sees the people she had become close to and she feels her heart shatter. All she can think of is how to save them. How to always keep them safe. Then Steve grabs her and tells her she could have saved them. Tells her she hadn’t worked hard enough and soon the nightmare twists and becomes something corrupted and painful. Her mind swirling with old memories that were not her own but another’s. Old wounds tearing open as she finds herself huddled on the floor of a study that smells of too much alcohol. Above her stands a man her brain identifies as dad but then it corrects her. Sir, always sir. Never dad, only good children who aren’t failures earn the right to call their parent dad. The thought fills her with disgust and she fears she’ll vomit when the words come next send pain throughout her body and she questions how the one this nightmare belongs to is still sane.
“You’re a failure! Why couldn’t you be like Captain America?” The words filled with vile poison to the child’s ears are matched with pain.
Wanda wakes up crying and she curls in on herself protecting her body as best she can as though she expects to be hit. Whether it is Loki’s magic acting on its own due to his illness she knows why it’s angry with her as she cries and silently pleads for no more nightmares.
Their last mission had ended up Pietro injured and Wanda had screamed at Tony believing it was his fault. That he hadn’t tried hard enough to go protect her twin when Steve had given him his orders. She had no idea the damage her words would cause. Surely Tony was half mad if he suffered such nightmares.
~ Clint
Clint didn’t think anything could terrify him after his time in the circus and becoming close with the Black Widow. He wished so badly he had never thought such things if only it would make the nightmare stop.
He’s surrounded by unnatural darkness for what seems like an eternity before a single light fills the darkness. That light is an explosion of the nuke hitting the ships above but there is no comfort in this light because the light shows him the horrors that hide in the darkness. Death, death hides in the darkness and it comes in the form of a threat his mind cannot process. Then he’s falling but he knows the portal’s closing and his heart hammers in his chest as his mind tells him he’ll be trapped in this darkness forever. That he deserves the darkness that will slowly chip away at his sanity. When he falls through the portal he has a moment of relief before he realizes he can’t stop his fall and he’s still going to die.
Impact and the nightmares begins again with a different ending. He doesn’t go through the portal and his eyes are forced to remain open to stare into that endless abyss, into that void. The light of the explosion vanishes and once again the darkness hides everything he knows he should fear.
Darkness and the nightmare begins again for what seems like the hundredth time before Clint is awake and screaming just to have proof he isn’t in that void where no sound can exist. He turns on all the lights and dares not look at the shadows in the room fearing they’d consume him and trap him in that darkness. The light does not give him much comfort because the light will show him everything the darkness hides. The darkness hides death. He knows this now.
He curls in on himself and thinks of all the times he and Thor spoke of the battle of New York. How he had failed to see how Tony would become silent. How when Rhodey had thought he and Tony were alone would ask how the inventor’s PTSD was doing. If he was sleeping any better. He hadn’t realized he was making it worse when he should have seen what was happening.
~ Natasha
Natasha knows she’s killed plenty of people but this is not her kill. These are not her actions and the cord in her hand as she chokes the life out of a man who had kidnapped her is something that filled her with a sickening feeling. She doesn’t stop though.
“Kill him otherwise he’ll come after you again and capture you or worse.” Her brain supplies and she holds steady until he is no longer moving and gone from the world of the living.
She finds herself walking until she reaches a home that’s not hers but recognizes it from Tony’s file. She had not believed Tony capable of doing what was needed. Thought him blind to how cruel the world really was. She walks the halls no one noticing her return or that she had been missing. It is not the first escape she witnesses in the nightmare. It’s not the first kill she sees. She finds herself standing in the doorway of the tower looking upon herself, Clint, Bucky, and Bruce talking. She talks of her ledger and the red she needs to wipe out but she had no idea the blood Tony saw on his own hands. The blood on those standing before her as she stares at herself with the other so called monsters and killers of their team, it is nothing compared when she’s standing in Tony’s spot looks down and sees oceans of blood. For the brain washed assassin who killed his parents she understands why Tony was so easy to forgive. The blood she sees on Bucky is droplets compared to the ocean that threatens to drown her. She understands now the look that crosses Tony’s face when anyone mentions his old title of the merchant of death. She wakes up wondering how Tony still breathes. She keeps sucking in air but she feels like there’s no way to get in oxygen when her lungs are filled with those oceans of blood.
~ Pietro
Pietro was an avenger and fought alongside Tony Stark but he has not attempting to hide how much he still blames the man. He thinks there must be many who feel the same and blame him for his weapons. To see and feel and hear though is different.
He stands there in a place he knows he’s never been. A woman shoves something against his chest and he stands there and accepts it, accepts her hatred and her anger.
“You deserve it. You deserve all her hatred because you’re a monster and a murderer who swims in a sea of blood.” His brain tells him.
“You murdered him.” Her words cut like a knife.
“You think you fight for us, the only thing you really fight for is yourself.”
Pietro hears the words in not just her voice but Steve’s as well. Pain shatters through his body and he wonders if his heart will tear.
“You should just give up.” The voice in his mind tells him and he recognizes the voice as Howard though he doesn’t know who that is.
“You’re always going to be a disappointment, you’re of no use unless you’re making weapons and even then you’re a monster.” Another voice he knows sounds like Obadiah says though he doesn’t know that man either.
His own mind tells him he’s worthless and a disappointment and a monster. Just as strangers, enemies, and allies alike tell him the same. Yet he continues to try and he doesn’t understand why but he pushes knowing he can never make up for the blood he’s shed.
Pietro wakes up and feels hopeless and feels like nothing’s worth it. Trying will get him nowhere. He stays in bed unable to even consider moving. He doesn’t understand how Tony gets up each day.
~ Bucky
Bucky is use to nightmares. He’s had them so often and each one is more heinous than the last as he recalls the winter soldier’s kills. This is not that. It isn’t his nightmare, isn’t his crimes.
The body is not his own, he knows because of the light within his chest. The hand that is not his own that picks up the phone sees Pepper’s name and answers. He dropped his guard, he should not have picked up the phone and he shouldn’t have mistakenly believed home meant safe.
A noise paralyzes him and he’s led to the couch to collapse against it. He can barely process what’s happening as a man towers over him and rips from him the one thing keeping him alive.
“Obadiah, you shouldn’t have trusted him. Shouldn’t have considered him the father figure you always longed for. Don’t you know murderers don’t get family?” His brain tells him as he feels death creeping closer as the man continues to taunt him.
He’s left to die. His heart is to be shredded by metal. He should not have trusted him. Should never have trusted anyone. His heart can’t survive it.
Bucky wakes up gripping his chest needing to know his heart is still beating. Tony had never told him about such things and he feels too afraid to go back to sleep. Such painful memories that haunt his lover and he should have done better to help him.
~
The avengers avoid the workshop where Tony still resides and the god of mischief like the plague. Only those who did not suffer the nightmares continue about as though nothing’s wrong. Apparently Scott, Sam, Vision, and Rhodey were spared the horrid and vivid nightmares.
They make the mistake of thinking it was a onetime deal. Loki’s still suffering from his cold and Thor had warned them it could last weeks. They each see a new nightmare and while they avoid sleep somehow it still finds them and they’re once again trapped within a nightmare more hellish and painful than the last.
It was a week later when the avengers as a group went to face Loki. The god was still huddled on the couch but he wasn’t alone. Tony was sitting across from him feeding the god soup.
“Make it stop.” Clint pleaded.
Tony looked up confused.
“Make what stop? I haven’t done anything.”
The god turned to look at them his face blue and eyes red. He had showed them his Jotun form once and it was clear he was so weakened in his current state that he couldn’t keep the glamour up.
“You all look like shit, you should get some sleep.” Tony said frowning at the sight of them.
“We’ve tried.” Pietro said his voice giving away how desperate he was for whatever they were talking about to stop.
Bucky was resisting scooping up his boyfriend into his arms and hold him until all the pain left him. The only thing keeping him from doing so was suffering more of the god’s wrath.
“Food.” Loki mumbled turning back to Tony to get another bite of the soup.
Tony fed the god another spoonful when Wanda stepped forward.
“We’re sorry ok! We’re…we’re not strong enough to suffer those nightmares. We can’t…I don’t know how Tony does it. Just please make it stop…I’m afraid to sleep. I’m afraid of water and electricity and darkness and light and people and I don’t know how he does it being afraid of so much.”
Tony looks up shocked and sees the same expression on all their faces. It’s one he’s seen on his own face to many times. He turned to Loki who’s burying himself deeper in his blankets.
“Hey Lo,” Tony talks softly and carefully to the god, “Is your magic acting out again?”
The god nods slowly but it’s hard to tell when only the black of his hair is showing from within the bundle.
“Can you stop it?”
A shake of the head.
Tony sighs.
“Will you put on the magic suppression cuffs until you’re feeling better? Please?”
The god doesn’t respond but he allows his hands to escape the bundle.
“Friday can you get Dum-E to come up with the cuffs?”
“Sure Boss.”
Tony gives the others a look before he goes back to feeding the god. When the bot comes up with the cuffs Tony puts them on Loki who returns his hands beneath the blankets.
“Thank you Lo.”
The god looks up and gives a small smile.
“Only because you asked nicely.” He says before accepting another bite.
“S-so no more nightmares?” Steve asked hopeful.
“You guys are all clear, get some sleep. You all look like shit.” Tony said not looking up.
“Tony we are sorry…for everything.” Pietro said shifting uncomfortably.
“Look…I didn’t want any of you ever to find out. To see it all is…I don’t sleep. Not if I can help it. I survive on coffee and drinking until I blacked out was the only way to hold off most of the nightmares. I get it that I fucked up. I probably will a lot more. Yeah there’s a shit ton of stuff I’m afraid of, terrified of even, but it’s fine. I deal the best way I can. Probably not the healthiest way but I deal.”
“How?” Natasha’s voice was oddly weak.
Tony sighed as he dropped the spoon in the now empty bowl.
“You don’t want to know.”
“We do Tony, we’re teammates and friends but…we clearly didn’t try hard enough to know you.”
Tony met Loki’s gaze and seemed to see the answer there.
“I’m prepared to deal with the things that could happen…so I don’t have to be afraid of people or getting close to anyone. Other things like water I can shower if I don’t have water covering my face but I can’t take baths but that’s fine. As long as I don’t have a battery hooked up to me I’m fine. Nothing I can really do about light and darkness so I kind of just deal with it.” He says with a shrug.
Natasha seems to be the only one who sees the hidden meaning in Tony’s words and why he was hesitant to answer.
“What do you mean you’re prepared to deal with things?”
Tony met her gaze without fear.
“If you try to kill me like Obadiah or the ten rings did I have a plan on how to kill each and every one of you. Even Thor, even Loki, and even the Hulk. It helps me sleep better at night knowing I can kill each and every one of you and no one would know it was me.”
They all pale and Loki lets out a tiny chuckle.
“You’re a delightful mortal…you would have made a great god.” Loki said amused.
“You need to rest Lo, you know you’ll get better faster if you rest. Want me to be your pillow?”
Loki nodded and laid with his head in Tony’s lap. The inventor brushed his fingers through the god’s hair helping him relax.
“H-how are you’re prepared…?” Steve asked clearly fearful and not taking the possibly Tony could kill them all lightly.
“I’d have to make new plans if I told you. I told you that you wouldn’t want to know.”
Bucky took a deep breath before he went over to the couch and rearranged Loki so he could sit down with the god’s feet in his lap.
“If it helps you sleep at night babe alright.”
Tony smiled while Loki gave Bucky the stink eye.
“I still don’t approve of you.” The god told the former assassin.
“That’s ok, if you did I might not have learned things I should have about my boyfriend a long time ago.”
Loki nodded showing he was pleased with the answer before burying his face in Tony’s lap to sleep.