Chapter Text
The penthouse didn’t look empty.
That was the first part.
No cardboard boxes stacked by the wall. No silent army of moving drones buzzing politely around the edges of his life. No bubble wrap, no “Mr. Stark, where would you like this sent?” Just the space—immaculate, expansive, cluttered in that curated way designers fawn over in architecture magazines. The light slanted in low through floor-to-ceiling glass like it had every evening for over a decade. Reflected on polished steel, caught on the brushed copper trim of a coffee table. Tomorrow, the cleaning crew would empty the fridge and lock up.
Tony stood alone in the middle of it, one hand still on the biometric lockpad near the elevator, as if that anchor point might keep him steady. It didn’t. The silence was too heavy for that.
There was nothing left to say or do.
He’d just gotten back from the last of the meetings, the final signatures still drying in ink. The paperwork sat in a fat leather folder on the kitchen island. The trust was official. Irrevocable, they’d said. All of it—everything—now belonged to it. For two years.
Two years without access to his bank accounts. To his jets. His cars. His tech, his labs, his buildings. Two years without a place that was his. Not even the Tower. Especially not the Tower. Starting tomorrow, his only residence would be a spartan room at the Avengers Compound in upstate New York. His name might still be on a all his patents, a couple public-facing foundation boards, but he was out. Stark Industries would announce it in the morning.
He peeled off the blazer he’d worn to the meeting—it had felt like armor then, it felt like a shroud now—and tossed it over the arm of the couch. The couch, that wouldn't move an inch when he left. Neither would the framed photos by the piano, the worn dartboard in the hall, or the antique record player in the media nook that he hadn’t used since Pepper gave it to him.
Pepper.
That was the worst part.
The fortune, the lab, even the workshop downstairs where he’d re-discovered elements and rewritten physics – those losses he could rationalize, explain away publicly. Say he was simplifying, refocusing, downsizing for the sake of innovation. The public would nod, and forget the next day.
But Pepper wasn’t the public and neither was Rhodey or Happy.
They knew just enough to know something was wrong, that he wasn’t quitting but disappearing.
And that, he couldn’t talk his way around.
All three had asked, and asked and asked. Pepper with that tight, quiet voice that meant she was a second away from either screaming or crying. Rhodey hadn’t even tried to hide his anger—he rarely did when he thought Tony was walking toward a cliff. Happy had been more reserved, but his eyes followed Tony around like he was waiting for him to crack.
Tony had said the same thing to all of them.
“Don’t ask.”
He regretted the words but did not relent. Fury and Hill had promised to keep his friends in the dark just like everyone else —he hated relying on that kind of assurance, but the alternative had been worse. Letting them know? Letting them see?
No.
He moved to the bar out of habit and froze halfway through reaching for a bottle. Stared at it. Then let his hand drop.
No more alcohol, not for two years. That was part of the deal, laughably insignificant, considering the rest of it. His last whiskey had been the night before, and it had tasted like surrender.
He paced.
He told himself it wasn’t pacing.
The Tower was too quiet when it was just him, and he hadn’t truly been just him here since before the wormhole. Always someone coming and going. Always a project or a debrief or a mission waiting. But the Tower knew when he was alone and echoed it back at him.
He passed the balcony doors, paused, and looked out over the city. The skyline shimmered in the dusk like a mirage: alive, unbothered, unaware. He hated it a little for that.
From tomorrow, he wouldn't see it again.
“Two years,” he muttered aloud. Testing the weight of it in his mouth. It didn’t feel real yet. Like maybe he could still call someone, find a loophole, undo it all before the morning. As if there weren’t a dozen layers of legal and strategic cement poured over the entire thing already.
This has to be the only way.
He’d told himself that every night for weeks. Every night since the plan had been finalized and the wheels set in motion. Every night since Fury had given him that look and said, “If you want this to work, Stark, you don’t get to hedge your bets.”
For the thousandth time, he went through the list of reasons. The stakes had been laid out, and he'd made his choice. Of his own free will, technically.
But as he stared down at the city and tried to believe that, he felt hollow and afraid.
Not of losing things. He’d lost before.
No, what scared him now was the time.
Two years without building, without fixing, without drinking, without Pepper. Two years of silence and supervision, of scrutiny and … the rest of it . Two years of not being Tony Stark, billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist.
Two years of being… what? A shadow of himself? A ghost haunting a compound he helped fund?
He closed his eyes and exhaled through his teeth. Reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. It didn’t help.
Nothing can be worse than the cave, he told himself.
Afghanistan had been months of heat and blood and darkness. Of fear and iron and hollow clang of hammer-on-metal.
But even then—even then—there had been purpose. He’d been building, reinventing, surviving. The work and hope (for revenge at least, if not for escaping) had kept him from unraveling.
This time, he wasn’t even allowed that.
“This is different,” he whispered, and hated how thin his voice sounded in the penthouse air.
Consequence, he reminded himself.
He’d said yes. Not under duress, really. There was no court order and dear god, there won’t be a public scandal, not about this. Just a horrific, silent deal hammered out behind closed doors.
Maybe, it won’t be that bad. He knew what could await him in the Compound, oh, he was thoroughly briefed on that part, but he could only hope that most of it or at least some of it would not come to pass, not tomorrow, not next week, not ever. Some of it was inevitable, however.
He turned back from the window and walked toward the main room, letting his steps echo a little louder than they needed to. It felt performative. Like he was proving to the walls that he still existed.
He crossed the floor once more and said aloud, “Consequences are a bitch, aren’t they, JARVIS?” and stopped dead still.
Because of course there was no reply.
Vision had taken what remained, but JARVIS—the voice that had guided him, needled him, saved him more times than he could count—wasn't here anymore. The penthouse didn’t sound right without him. Didn’t feel like home, didn’t feel like anything.
Tony pressed his palm against the side of the hallway, forehead bowing toward it as if the wall might hold him up.
It didn’t.
There was no one to see, and yet he still tried to muffle the first sob against his wrist. Tried to blink the others back. Failed.
They weren’t loud. Just relentless. Just exhausted. Just—there.
Two years.
It was just two years. Oh, who he was kidding, it was at least two years and then the deal would be up for review and if the results were not acceptable, it would simply be renewed for another two years. And Tony wouldn't even get to negotiate then.
He would hold. He had to hold. He’d signed the deal with his eyes open. Tomorrow, he would enter the Compound with his head held high. He would endure, keep his end of the bargain and gain his life back on the first try.
But tonight… tonight he would let himself break a little. Tomorrow would come. But tonight was still his.
Even if nothing else was anymore.
Chapter Text
Tony woke with the shape of his name in his mouth.
Not spoken—but there, like the end of a dream that still clung to the edges of his thoughts. His eyes blinked open to the same ceiling he’d stared at for years. The early light filtered in through the shades. Still his room. Still the penthouse.
For a few more hours.
His hand reached automatically for the phone on the nightstand.
The screen lit up, but it wasn’t his anymore. No calls, no messages, no notifications. The background had been replaced with a blank gray field. There was only a single folder on the screen—unlabeled—and inside it, a single document.
The document had no greeting. No header. Just a line of text, then a bullet-point list:
05:00 – Wake. Begin transition protocol
The rest scrolled down for several screens: Hygiene, Grooming, Wardrobe, Meal.
Tony exhaled through his nose and set the phone back down. His hand lingered on it a moment too long, like he was expecting it to revert to its usual state. Of course it didn’t.
He sat up.
He didn’t feel much yet. Just the dullness of walking through a process set in motion by someone else.
The floor was cold when he touched it. He didn’t mind. At least it reminded him he still had nerves.
The shower was next, and he took his time.
Let the hot water beat down his shoulders until they began to relax and his chest stopped feeling tight. His morning showers had always been quick, functional, background noise to the day ahead. Now he paid attention to everything—the temperature, the pressure, the scent of the soap. He forced himself to enjoy it. He had to. The document hadn’t said how long it would be before he had another private shower.
He stepped out of the cabin without drying off and wiped the fog from the mirror.
The instructions had included grooming specifications. Hair product: none. Cosmetics: none. Eyebrow tone: standardization required.
Standardization.
He found the kit waiting in the medicine cabinet, exactly where they’d said it would be. Marked with his name, though not in his handwriting. The bleaching process took twenty minutes. He sat on the edge of the tub with cotton swabs pressed against his brow, resisting the urge to scratch. It stung. Not enough to matter, just enough to remind him that comfort wasn’t part of the plan.
The shaving came next.
He hadn’t worn a clean shave since… Christ. Since forever. His goatee had survived everything. Armors, lawsuits, breakups, near-death. He stared at it now in the mirror like it was already gone.
The razor was new. He worked slowly, precisely, exactly the way the instructions outlined.
When he was done, he rinsed.
The face that looked back was not his.
It had all the right components—eyes, nose, mouth—but no definition. No edge. Stripped of the familiar, it looked younger and older all at once. Raw in a way that had nothing to do with the skin. Like someone had taken a version of Tony Stark and scrubbed it until the name wore off.
He reached up and touched his cheek. No friction, no resistance.
Just absence.
The hair was to be left alone, no gel or shaping. It flopped awkwardly across his forehead, a little longer than he liked, a little off-center. He debated fixing it, just a little, just enough to look less like someone else was making his choices.
But the document had been clear.
Not much time was left, and a lot more to do.
He returned to the instructions and scrolled to the next section.
Breath treatment, fingernail buffing, the rest… He followed it all. The wheels were already in motion, and to resist now would be worse than useless—it would be a mistake, and he couldn’t afford them, anymore.
By the time he finished, it had been an hour and twenty-six minutes since waking.
He dressed last.
Plain gray t-shirt. Neutral jeans. Unbranded sandals. Every part of it screamed anonymous, the kind of thing someone wore to disappear into a crowd.
The kind of thing someone wore when their body was no longer entirely their own.
He made his way to the kitchen. He pulled out bread, cheese and something approximating turkey from the mostly empty fridge, made a sandwich and ate it while standing at the counter.
Each bite felt heavier than it should have. His jaw ached by the end. He wasn’t hungry, but hunger wasn’t the point.
No coffee.
That rule had stung more than he’d expected. He rubbed his thumb against his temple, trying to trick his brain into waking up, but the sleepiness lingered, dull around the edges. He’d always relied on caffeine to snap his thoughts into place. Without it, his mind was still blurred.
He rinsed his plate and set it on the drying rack.
It was 06:43.
Right on time, the door unlocked with a mechanical click.
Of course they wouldn’t knock. Why pretend? Privacy is a privilege. And he no longer belonged to the category of person entitled to such.
He didn’t turn right away. Just stood there, forcing his shoulders to stay relaxed.
When he finally faced the entrance, he saw exactly what he’d expected.
Two agents. SHIELD, by the cut of the suits, the build, the expressionless posture. He recognized one of them by sight if not by name—black hair, scar on his neck. The other was taller and even less memorable. Between them stood a woman in corporate neutrals. The trust representative from the yesterday’s meeting.
She looked vaguely embarrassed to be here.
“Mr. Stark,” she said, with a little nod.
Tony didn’t answer. He wasn’t supposed to.
One of the agents stepped forward. Gave him a once-over. Slow. Assessing. Clinical.
Tony stood still.
He didn’t flinch, look away, raise an eyebrow, cross his arms or make a joke. He thought about doing all of those things. Then didn’t.
The agent said nothing. Just gave a faint nod—confirmation, or acceptance, or whatever counted as a green light in this little parade—and turned slightly, gesturing to the hallway.
The other agent and the trust rep peeled off, moving into the apartment. He heard drawers opening. Cabinets. A tablet being used to log inventory.
The agent nearest to him said, “We’ll depart now.”
Tony moved. His feet felt heavier than they should but not from fear. Every step had to look effortless. Every breath had to look steady.
Performance was the last thing he had left to control.
He walked down the hall to the elevator beside the agent in prescribed silence. He’d already read the itinerary. The vehicle was waiting in the private garage. The final exit from the Tower would not be public and would not be noticed.
The floors beneath his sandals were polished. Every surface familiar. Every detail catalogued in his brain.
He didn’t look back—let the others shut the door.
The Tower would be sealed, the records scrubbed and the trust in possession.
And Tony Stark would be gone.
Chapter Text
Day One
He’d lost track of time by the evening. Not the hour—he wasn’t allowed to lose that, not with the itinerary updating itself on the wall display every sixty minutes—but the kind of time that shaped a day and gave weight to thoughts, decisions, autonomy.
Now the display was dimmed. “Lights out” had not yet been announced, but Tony was alone.
Not unobserved, of course. The cameras were in plain view.
Three in total, based on a casual glance—one above the door, one tucked in the corner above the desk, and one directed at the bed.
He didn’t bother undressing. Just sat there on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, and replayed the day.
The trip from the Tower had been quiet and insulated, like a courier run for a fragile package no one wanted to label. The vehicle had no windows, no sound except the low hum of regulated speed and systems running, and the SHIELD agent in the front cabin hadn’t spoken a word. Tony hadn’t been addressed, hadn’t been acknowledged. He’d sat in silence, watching his own reflection ghost faintly in the tinted divider, pale brows and clean-shaven jaw and a face that belonged to someone obedient, or perhaps just stripped of the right to object.
They arrived at the Compound mid-morning. The sky was clear and flat above the tree line, the building rising from its surroundings like a relic that couldn’t quite blend into its landscape. The air smelled managed. Every scent felt intentional—decontaminated, curated, defensively neutral.
Tony stepped out of the vehicle when the door opened, not waiting for instruction. Another SHIELD agent stood waiting just inside the entrance, silent, expressionless, and efficient. There was a gesture and then motion, a hallway stretching clean and wide, and finally a doorway that opened without ceremony.
They were all there.
Steve. Sam. Natasha. Clint. Bruce.
He registered them all in a moment—positions, postures, lack of smiles—and felt the immediate absence of warmth. Wanda and Vision, he’d been told, were off-grid, somewhere abroad. Their absence didn’t register much. The presence of the others was louder.
Steve stepped forward, his expression unreadable but his tone measured. “Tony,” he said. “Glad you made it.”
No one else said anything. Sam gave a nod, small and self-contained. Bruce didn’t lift his eyes from the tablet he was holding. Clint hovered like he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Natasha’s gaze held, gave nothing.
Tony said nothing in return. The rules were already setting in.
The agent beside him handed a tablet to Steve, who skimmed through the screen with the ease of someone who already knew what it said. He passed it to Clint without a word, then turned to Tony.
“Let’s walk,” he said, not quite offering.
Tony followed. He didn’t look back to see who trailed behind. He could feel them there, a silent perimeter moving at a controlled distance.
Steve didn’t glance at him as they walked.
“You’ll be in the north wing,” he said, the words practiced and perfectly neutral. “It’s been prepared. Private room, controlled amenities. Meals are delivered on a set schedule. Lights out at 2200 unless otherwise directed.”
Tony gave a small nod. His throat felt dry.
“You’ll be issued one secured device. No external comms. Access limited to schedule, directives, and internal documentation.”
Another nod.
“There’s a program. It governs your day. You’ll be expected to follow it exactly.”
Tony’s voice came out flat. “I am aware.”
Steve paused just enough for Tony to register the silence before they resumed walking.
When they reached the hallway that led to the north wing, Steve stopped. The others waited behind, a few paces back, but Tony could feel their presence—silent witnesses, held apart from him by something heavier than protocol.
Steve finally looked at him.
“This isn’t punishment,” he said, and to his credit, he didn’t try to soften it.
Tony’s mouth twitched. A smile tried to rise and died halfway.
“Sure feels like one.”
Steve didn’t blink. “You signed the deal.”
Tony tilted his head. “Consent can be complicated.”
Steve’s face didn’t move much, but the recognition was visible—an understanding that didn’t amount to sympathy.
“We’ll go over it one more time,” Steve said.
Tony nodded. He didn’t want to, but he did.
“Two years minimum,” Steve began. “In-residence. Full compliance with daily schedule.
No unsanctioned travel, no unsupervised projects, no proprietary development. Visual monitoring continuous. Audio—selective.”
Tony didn’t ask what selective meant. He already knew enough not to want the specifics.
Steve kept going. “No contact with unaffiliated parties. Limited contact with Avengers. You’re permitted to consult when requested. Not otherwise.”
“Consult on what?” Tony asked. A thread of sharpness slipped into his voice before he could stop it.
Steve answered without reacting. “You’re still the smartest person most of us know. But this isn’t about building. Not yet.”
Tony waited. Steve didn’t disappoint.
“The goal is reinstatement. You agreed to a process of review and reconditioning to assess whether your return to full privileges is viable. You know that. But it’s not just behavioral. It’s trust. Alignment. You want full reinstatement, you prove that you're willing to live under the same standards you made impossible for the rest of us.”
There it was.
The real cost.
It had started as a compromise after Ultron. Too much damage. Too much distrust and too much justly deserved fear. Tony had proposed oversight—offered himself, even—thinking it would be temporary. A token of goodwill, a short leash.
But the leash hadn’t ended. It had doubled back and formed a collar.
This wasn’t house arrest but ideological rehab. All performative, of course—he knew that, and probably Steve did too—but it wasn’t fake. That was what made it worse.
The rest of the day passed in order.
There had been orientation modules, delivered via sterile voices through wall-mounted speakers. Instructional videos that detailed his room layout, his privileges, his restrictions.
Meal at 1200. Sandwich again. Different bread. No caffeine.
At 1300, physical assessment. Baseline biometrics, recorded by medical staff who neither greeted nor acknowledged him. SHIELD badges on each of them. No names offered.
At 1500, he was shown to his room. North wing. End of the hall.
Plain bed. Plain desk. Neutral lighting. A single window, reinforced.
The walls were pale, not white—some institutional beige pretending to be warm. A single tablet sat on the desk, powered down. One chair. No art. No books. Nothing from the Tower. Not a single object that bore the trace of a previous life.
He wasn’t allowed to personalize.
At 1600, Steve returned.
“Tomorrow begins the work,” he said.
Tony didn’t ask what today had been.
“You’ll be expected in the observation room at 0700.”
“For what?”
“Restorative logic analysis.”
Tony raised a brow. “They call it that?”
Steve didn’t flinch. “That’s the legal term. Off the record, it’s still ‘Psych and ideological conditioning.’ The process starts with your decision records. You’ll review simulations, participate in real-time ethical reframing, answer direct challenges from neutral observers.”
“You mean 'feel bad in front of an audience'?”
Steve didn’t respond.
Tony said, quietly “You know that’s not how it works.”
“I know.” Steve’s voice softened, fractionally. “But it’s part of the deal, and you agreed to be monitored and tested.”
“To be reprogrammed.”
“To rebuild trust.”
That landed harder than anything else. Because Steve meant it.
So he nodded.
Steve looked like he wanted to say something else, then thought better of it and quietly left.
Now, hours later, Tony sat on the bed and stared at the camera above the door.
The display on the wall glowed faintly.
21:57 – End-of-day review.
22:00 – Lights out.
Reminder: Curfew is mandatory. Noncompliance is logged.
He exhaled and let himself fall back onto the mattress.
He was exhausted, but couldn’t sleep, not yet, but he would lie still and let the camera see what they wanted to see.
Let the system believe the appearance of compliance.
He would get through it. Two years. Maybe longer. He would survive the ethical drills, the surveillance, the anonymous food and the regulated breathing. He would say the right things in the right order, scrub himself of Stark Industries and AI ghosts and the ghost of himself. And maybe, at the end, they would give him back what little of himself that still mattered.
For now, he closed his eyes.
There was nothing else to do.
Chapter Text
Week One
He sat outside the unknown office like a middle-schooler waiting to get chewed out for starting a fire in chemistry class. The comparison would’ve made him smile once—half-smile, at least—but nothing curled in his chest now except the faint, steady buzz of fatigue that didn’t go away no matter how much sleep he got.
His chronic insomnia didn’t go away in a new habitat, and he hadn’t expected it to. His body laid down on command, his limbs obeyed, but the rest of him stayed wired, staring up at the pale ceiling while the security camera watched back. The system had flagged it, naturally—flagged it and filed it, and within two days a pill had shown up on his tray. No explanation, just a box checked somewhere in the background. He swallowed it. Swallowed it again the next night, and the next. It worked, and since then he had been sleeping eight hours straight.
But he woke just as tired, maybe more.
He blamed the caffeine withdrawal. At least, that’s what he told himself as it was easier than admitting that maybe he didn’t want to be fully awake.
“Stay here,” the escort said.
SHIELD, of course. They were all SHIELD now—operatives drifting through the Compound halls in near silence, present at every checkpoint, near every entrance, never raising their voices, never smiling. Tony had started keeping a mental count, just for fun. Thirty-six distinct faces by Day Three. Fifty-four by now, maybe more. Too many for a facility that was supposedly just housing the Avengers and one high-profile ethics project.
But he didn’t follow that thought. He didn’t follow a lot of thoughts, lately.
The door in front of him was matte black, unmarked. The kind that absorbed light and sound and gave nothing back. A little theatrical. Fury always had a flair for that.
Seven days of regulation, evaluation, re-education.
The first half of each day was dedicated to what they called “Perspective Reconstruction Modules.” In practice, it meant simulations, scenario replays, and hour-long group reviews dissecting every major decision Tony had ever made with pseudo-surgical vagueness. Slides of the tragedy of Sokovia, cold recaps of Ultron’s creation, mission logs full of redactions—followed by loaded phrases about “accountability ecosystems” and “collective security obligations.” Words like transparency and restorative alignment and patriotic reintegration floated around like air freshener in a sealed car.
Tony didn’t argue. Not because he agreed—he didn’t; he couldn’t even summon the effort to disagree—but because the words passed through him without resistance. He couldn’t look at them directly. It felt like trying to stare into a bright white light. Easier to blink, nod, answer the questions when prompted. Take the quiz. Accept the conclusions.
There were physical modules too. Exercise, posture correction, biometric tracking. Even those felt vaguely humiliating, not hard, just... performative. SHIELD-standard uniforms, expressionless trainers, tasks measured in compliance and tempo, hydration on command. A heart rate monitor beeped through each timed session like a metronome. He wasn’t allowed music.
A soft chime broke the silence and the door opened.
“Inside,” the escort said.
Tony stood, stiffly, and stepped inside. The SHIELD man followed.
The room was larger than expected—high-ceilinged, sparsely furnished, and cold. Fluorescent lights hummed faintly overhead. At the long table sat three civilians—officials, judging by their tailored suits—and Nick Fury, seated at the head like a loaded gun.
Tony recognized none of the officials, but that didn’t matter. They recognized him.
The moment stretched.
Fury gestured to the chair across the table. “Sit down, Stark.”
Tony didn’t move until the guard nudged him forward. The chair was metal, standard SHIELD issue, uncomfortable by design.
Fury leaned forward. His voice was low, even, and unmistakably pissed. “You’re going to tell me where the suits are.”
Tony blinked. “Which suits?”
Fury didn’t take the bait. “All of them. Don’t insult my intelligence.”
Tony tilted his head, feigning mild curiosity. “You mean the ones that melted? Or the ones that also melted?”
One of the officials leaned toward the table. “They didn’t melt.”
“Oh, they absolutely did,” Tony said. “You can check the facility logs. Oh, wait—you did. Took you seven days, but you finally caught up. Bravo.”
Fury’s voice tightened. “This is a violation.”
Tony shrugged. “The deal said I’d hand over all proprietary systems and place the suits in long-term secured storage. I did. I just neglected to mention that long-term storage had non-standard climate control. You wanted me to hand them over like a dog bringing a stick. You know me better than that, Fury.”
Fury’s chair scraped back against the floor as he practically catapulted from it.
Tony didn’t flinch, though his hands curled slightly on the table.
“You arrogant son of a bitch,” Fury said, voice rising. “You think this is a game? You think you’re still holding the cards?”
“No,” Tony said. “I think I’m a caged animal and you’re pissed I chewed through the leash.”
Fury hit him.
Fast, hard, across the face. Open-handed, but with enough force to whip Tony’s head sideways. His cheek exploded with heat.
He was up before he could think—reaction, not strategy—and then restrained immediately, his arms pinned back by the SHIELD officer at his side. Adrenaline roared through his veins.
“Don’t,” Fury snapped. “You don’t get to swing.”
Tony struggled once then went still. Both men were breathing hard.
Fury forced himself still. His voice, when it returned, was low and hoarse. “You think the public’s forgotten? You think they don’t ask? Maybe I’ll go out there and give them what they want, tell them who built Ultron, show them the fine print on the deal we had to make to keep you out of federal custody.”
One of the officials perked up at that. “That might be politically useful, actually.”
Another official, older, rubbed his forehead. “I don’t care about the optics. I expected the suits to… to remain where they were for the duration.”
Tony laughed, breathless and dry. “You expected the world's most powerful weapons to sit quietly in a warehouse? Bless your heart.”
The man flushed.
The third official stood. He was pale, composed, his tie too tight. He stepped close and looked Tony over like he was inspecting a faulty appliance.
“Well,” he said calmly, “it seems some consequences are in order.”
And then he slapped Tony on the other cheek.
Tony’s head rocked to the side. A metallic taste filled his mouth.
“There,” the man said. “That should even out the blush of shame.”
Fury didn’t move. “Take him back.”
The guard nodded and pulled Tony upright. His arms ached from the restraint.
Fury looked at him once more. “You’ve violated the terms, Stark. There will be consequences.”
Chapter Text
The room was dim by the time they arrived, as it always was in the final hour before lights-out, and Tony had been sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the bed, staring not at the wall itself but slightly past it, trying to locate the feeling of memory, or perhaps just of thought, in the fog that had settled in his mind since the afternoon. The schedule had marked this half hour as Personal Reflection Time, and while short, it did at least afford him a margin of stillness. No directives, no review screens, no assessments clicking in his periphery. Just silence. And surveillance.
The camera above the desk blinked once when the door opened, and he turned his head slowly, not in alarm—there wasn’t room for that anymore—but in the dull acknowledgment of the only uncertainty left in his world: which of them would walk through that door this time.
It was Natasha first. Then Clint.
He hadn’t expected anyone, certainly not them, not now, not here. And definitely not after what had happened only hours earlier in the conference room down the east corridor, where his cheek had burned red from a slap that had caught him too far off-guard to brace for.
Still, the fact that they’d come at all—unescorted, without a preamble chirping through his wall display—was enough to jolt something faintly alive in him, a flicker of… not quite hope, but awareness. A reminder that the world outside his quarters still existed, that people had lives, that conversations took place without him.
The door shut behind them without a sound, soft as breath. Natasha’s sleeves were rolled back to her elbows.
“You really know how to make an impression, Tony,” Natasha said, and while the line was casual, her tone was not.
Tony stood slowly, aware that there was still a phantom ache along the side of his face where the older official’s ring had pressed into his skin.
“I thought I wasn’t allowed visitors,” he said.
“You’re not,” she replied. “But you’ve made enough noise this week that we figured you’d earned a house call.”
She said “house” like it was a joke. It wasn’t.
Clint, already moving, passed through the room with the casual energy of someone who had no real intention of staying still. He circled once, examining the desk, the window, then drifted into the bathroom like he owned it. Tony could hear him opening drawers, poking around the shelves, the sound of a towel being flapped once, possibly in disgust.
“I see the design team went for ‘hostel with trust issues,’” Clint called out.
“No locks?” Natasha said, eyeing the bathroom door.
Tony shook his head. “Not even handles. Push-to-close, push-to-open. Keeps things tidy.”
“It’s to prevent you from slamming them in someone’s face, isn’t it?” Clint reappeared in the doorway with something in his hand—an orange microfiber cloth, which he waved dramatically before tossing it back toward the cleaning supplies shelf. “Or maybe locking yourself in.”
He gave Tony a once-over. “So. How’s prison cosplay going?”
Tony didn’t answer. Partly because there was no good answer and partly because Natasha had already turned back to him, eyes narrowed with something sharper than sarcasm.
“You destroyed all of them?”
There was no context given, no need. Tony looked at her steadily.
“Yes.”
“All of them,” she repeated, voice cool. “Every last one?”
Tony gave a short nod. “Didn’t see the point in a partial gesture.”
Natasha crossed her arms. “You could’ve stripped the weapons. Modified them for rescue. For evac. There were options.”
Tony looked down, then back up. “They weren’t built for that. You know it, and also, repurposing takes time.”
“You had time.”
“Did I?”
She stepped in closer, her tone still low but weighted now with something darker, something edged with memory. “Do you remember Lagos? Do you remember Nairobi? Those evacuations didn’t go clean. You think Stark-level airlift platforms wouldn’t have helped?”
“The suits wouldn’t have been safe in anyone’s hands,” Tony said. “Not yours. Not theirs. Not even mine, anymore”
“They’re not in anyone’s hands now,” she said. “That’s the problem.”
He could feel his jaw clench, and it took effort not to let the response rise. But before he could speak again, she raised one hand, palm forward.
“You’re not cleared to argue. You speak when spoken to, and only to clarify.”
That stung.
Clint, meanwhile, had opened the wardrobe and was pulling open drawers with theatrical flair.
“Minimalist vibe. Real soothing,” he said. “Is this all they let you wear? Gray on gray on oppression?”
He held up a pair of precisely folded lounge pants. “You iron these yourself?”
“Pressed by the cleaning closet elves,” Tony said, “Don’t you know?”
Clint laughed, walked over to the tiny supply closet beside the desk, and opened it. His laughter escalated.
“Oh, hell. Look at this. Mop, bucket, gloves—Tony Stark, billionaire, genius, janitor.”
He pulled out the gloves and snapped one toward Tony. “At least you’ll finally learn how to clean a toilet. Valuable life skills.”
Tony’s face remained neutral, but he had half a dozen responses queued in his head, each one progressively less printable.
“I said no commentary,” Natasha said sharply, not even looking at him.
Tony exhaled slowly and took a step back toward the wall. There was nowhere else to stand that didn’t feel like either a challenge or submission.
“There were talks about letting you into group training next week,” she said, her tone clipped. “Low-contact. Just drills.”
Tony raised a brow.
“Was,” she said flatly. “That timeline’s being re-evaluated.”
“Because I got slapped?” Tony asked.
“No. Because you reacted. Fury’s the director. Higher-ups lose their temper with subordinates all the time. It’s not your job to swing back.”
He didn’t dignify that with a reply.
“You weren’t hurt,” she added.
“No,” Tony said, voice quiet. “Just reeducated.”
Clint had resumed pacing, but something in his movement had slowed. “Anyway,” he said, “we just came to say don’t make this harder than it needs to be. You’re already on thin ice. No need to start dancing on it.”
Natasha nodded once. “Follow the schedule. Don’t make them adjust it further.”
“And keep your mouth shut,” Clint said. “Figuratively. Or…”
Natasha gave him a look. He shrugged.
“Or literally, I guess,” Clint muttered.
Tony looked at her sharply.
“What does that mean?”
Natasha checked her watch.
“Time’s up.”
They left together, with less noise than they’d arrived with, the door soundlessly closing behind them.
He turned back to his bed in the dimness. The room had gone colder in their absence. Or maybe it hadn’t changed at all.
The lights blinked out at exactly 2200. He hadn’t moved from the spot.
He found his bed by touch, and Natasha’s words found him again as he laid back against the firm mattress. The rescue victims. The missed chances. The suits. Ultron. It curled in his chest like smoke, thick and choking, and for some minutes it felt like he couldn’t breathe.
The pill did what it always did, and he slept.
—
The next day, the schedule was altered. Not with warning—there never was—but with a silent update on his wall display, a change in the line where “Individual Ethics Review” had once stood. In its place: Restorative Service Component – Module A1. No details, but a new location, a new time slot, and the ever-present blinking confirmation box he tapped before stepping into the hall.
He was escorted by a SHIELD agent who didn’t speak. They walked through unfamiliar corridors, past reinforced doors and cooling vents that didn’t belong to any residential or reconditioning wing Tony had seen so far. The room, when they arrived, was large, windowless, and painted in a color somewhere between grey and industrial despair. Tables lined the walls, each with a fixed task station—wires, tools, schematic printouts, all carefully laid out as if a technician with no sense of speed or pressure had been allowed infinite time to arrange them.
His name wasn’t on anything. Of course not. But a red light blinked above one empty station and Tony walked toward it like gravity compelled him.
The terminal lit up as he approached. The display read:
Task: Component Recovery and Interface Repair.
Object Class: Archive Tech, Series M11.
Objective: Disassemble, log, clean, reassemble.
Supervising Officer: Present.
Communication: Restricted (Verbal Silence Protocol Tier 2).
He stared at the screen for a long moment before sitting down. The equipment in front of him was outdated—a training dummy interface from a prototype used ten years ago for field agent simulations. It wasn’t even Stark tech. No challenge, no flexibility, no purpose beyond the doing.
Which, he understood instantly, was the point.
He began to work.
At first, it was tolerable. Hands moving on reflex, sorting wires, checking integrity. There was something familiar in the rhythm. But the insult pressed in heavier with each passing minute. This wasn’t failure—he had known failure. This was condescension. Not discipline, but dismissal. He wasn’t being punished like a threat. He was being handled like a minor inconvenience. An animal to be kept busy.
By hour two, he noticed the first error. A calibration tag misprinted with the wrong resistance value—subtle, but enough to throw off the system when powered.
Tony snorted, loud and sharp. “Are you kidding me? This is a joke, right?” He twisted in his seat, holding the component up between thumb and forefinger like it personally offended him. “This label’s off by two decimal points. Two. That’s not even a rounding error, that’s sabotage by incompetence.”
No one looked up.
He stood halfway, gesturing to the supervisor’s booth behind the reinforced glass. “Hey. This thing would short the minute it runs under load. You want me to flag this, or do we actually care if anything works around here?”
The supervisor turned slowly, stared at him with something close to disbelief. “Was that directed speech?”
Tony’s voice was already halfway to another rebuttal. “I’m saying it’s wrong. I’m saying it shouldn’t even be in the bin. If you want me cataloguing, fine, I’ll catalogue—just don’t hand me trash and act like it’s a—”
“You are not cleared to initiate verbal feedback,” the supervisor cut in, flat. “You log errors in the assigned field. You submit at end-of-module. If your observation meets the threshold, it will be reviewed.”
Tony blinked. “You’re wasting everyone’s time and mine by pretending you know better.”
“End-of-module logging only. Subject is now under warning. Return to task.”
Tony glanced around, expecting—what, a raised eyebrow, a shared glance, even a smirk?
Nothing.
The others, eight of them, were focused on their stations. No SHIELD uniforms. Civilian techs? Contractors? He couldn’t tell. They didn’t react. No fidgeting, no whispering, no human pause at all, just quiet, compliant labor.
Tony sat back down hard, still holding the misprinted part. The numbers stared back at him, still wrong.
—
The next morning passed like the others: hygiene, biometrics, breakfast. He was escorted in silence by a SHIELD operative to the east education hall, where the Cognitive Conditioning Lecture was held daily at 1000. Tony sat in the assigned seat, eyes forward, schedule memorized, just as he’d been trained.
He was not the only student here. The hall had about fifteen seats, and nearly all were occupied each day by the same group of SHIELD agents, most of whom appeared younger than average. Tony was usually the first to arrive. No other students talked to him, of course.
A woman walked in.
She wore civilian clothes but projected the air of someone who understood hierarchy well enough to manipulate it. Her badge read “Consultant.” She smiled without warmth.
“I have something for you,” she said, stepping forward.
He looked at her. Waited.
She extended a small object—an oblong, soft and light grey, about an inch and a half in length. Attached was a short loop of soft twine.
“It’s called a compliance pendant,” she said. “Though that’s more of a nickname. The internal term is ‘Response Inhibition Aid.’”
Tony raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a tool,” she said, gently, “to help reinforce the nonverbal portion of your participation agreement.”
He just stared, incredulously.
“You will wear it around your neck during the day. And unless you are alone, or asked to speak directly, or experiencing a legitimate emergency—you will keep the ball in your mouth.”
He looked at her.
“I assume this is voluntary.”
She smiled again. “Of course. You’re in control. You always have the option to comply.”
He said nothing. Took the object.
“Good,” she said, stepping back. “You’ll wear it for two weeks, and then we’ll reassess. You may remove it to eat, and sleep, and not in the presence of others. And of course, if you begin to choke, you also may remove it immediately.”
Tony said nothing, but his fingers curled tight around the string.
She inclined her head. “Excellent. You’re making real progress, you know. Your file’s been updated.”
The pendant was soft, but dense enough to resist. It didn’t hurt, exactly, when he put it in, but it occupied all the available space completely, allowing the teeth to meet in front of it but only just. There was no talking around it, and the twine coming out of his mouth destroyed any pretense at normalcy.
Nobody, except Steve, Clint and Natasha, had used his name since the day he arrived. The rest called him “the subject,” “he,” or just “you” or avoided direct address altogether.
Fury alone had said “Stark.” Not kindly.
And now, with a “compliance pendant” behind his teeth and cameras trained on his every movement, Tony wondered, distantly, what else this place still had left to offer.
WAYAREYOUOK on Chapter 5 Wed 09 Jul 2025 07:30AM UTC
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Mithri on Chapter 5 Tue 15 Jul 2025 02:21PM UTC
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WAYAREYOUOK on Chapter 5 Mon 21 Jul 2025 05:32PM UTC
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