If You Had This Time Again

Welcome Back, Sir

The Avengers made their way through the debris and returned to the Stark Tower in exhausted silence. Bone-deep fatigue provided the perfect cover for Tony's reticence and dulled the others' awareness to the fact that Tony hadn't been able to look at or talk to Steve since the brief exchange when Tony first woke. The bitter betrayal and bloody battle of Siberia hovered at the edge of his mind, fresh yet distant. The discomfort of adjusting to the arc reactor in his chest, how strange it was to be tasting coconut again, served as an unpleasant reminder of the shattering crack of another arc reactor. In Siberia. 

Every so often, Captain America's shield gleamed in the sunlight, blood red and arc reactor blue and snow white. Iron Man averted his eyes. 

Tony felt as though he was walking through a dreaded and dazed dream. Everything around him seemed real, yet it could not possibly be. Multiple theories raced through his mind, though none remotely plausible and all seemingly insane. 

If this was his personal hell, then he supposed he should be grateful that he did not wake up in Afghanistan.  

If this was some kind of time traveling adventure, which had some merit given the insanity of his life, he should be meeting his past self instead of inhabiting his own body.  

If this was an end-of-life flashback, it wasn't a particularly thorough one and flashbacks weren't supposed to include the more mundane parts like walking or sweating. 

Or he was going about this all wrong. Tony assumed his current surrounding was fabricated. He assumed those nightmarish four years following the Battle of New York did happen. He assumed he fought, died, in Siberia. All assumptions with no supporting evidence. Time to look at the facts. 

He could feel the sun heating his face and the metal of his armor. He could hear the gravel crunching beneath his feet. He could taste the aftermath of battle in the air. He could smell the salty-sour stink of his sweat. He could see his tower, with only the letter A remaining, only a block away. 

Maybe everything seemed real because it was real. 

Then what were those four nightmarish years he had lived, suffered, and endured? A bad dream? A premonition? A souvenir of space travel? 

Tony's racing mind snagged on the last theory but before he could examine it further, all thoughts vanished when they stepped into the lobby and JARVIS' voice flowed through the speakers. 

"Welcome back, Sir." 

"JA–JARVIS?" Tony whispered wondrously. For him, it had been years since his last, and heartbreaking, interaction with JARVIS. "That you, buddy?" 

"I do not recall you giving DUM-E or Butterfinger or U a voice module." There was a definitive note of reproach in the A.I.'s voice. "I strongly advise against going out of range again." 

"No arguments from me." Tony rotated his torso in a stretch that wouldn't have done much while still in the armor, angling his face out of the Avengers' line of sight, and mouthed we need to talk at one of the cameras mounted in the ceiling. The lights flickered, easily explained by the damages done to the tower, but Tony knew it was JARVIS returning the sentiment and acknowledging the need for privacy. "JARVIS, meet the Avengers, earth's mightiest defenders. Avengers, JARVIS, just a rather very intelligent system." Tony shrugged, twisting back to face his guests. Not teammates. Not friends.