Chapter 01: From The Depths Of The Id

His eyes snap open involuntarily. His tries to see where he is but his vision is.. blurred at best.
The color blue appears to dominate his surroundings. Cold, clinical blue..

Where am I?

His mind is sluggish. Slow. He can only make out a steady stream of bubbles that enter into his line of sight.
Coherence is a fickle mistress, dancing just out of his reach as he lunges forward to reach her.
He tries again to grasp at the thin trails of information she leaves in her wake. Must keep trying... Have to know more...
And then pain blooms across the surface of his body. White, shimmering tendrils that snake across the liquid that envelopes him.

He screams silently, no sound escapes him. His mouth.. Something in his mouth...
Liquid.. Keeping him.. alive? killing him?
And then the white tendrils give way to black snakes that coil around him. Encircle him. Tubes.
His mind registers after a fraction of a second what his eyes have.
Not.. keeping.. alive.. Keeping.. imprisoned.. But who?

The throb at the back of his head is building. The questions form jumbled thoughts in his head.
Then the questions give rise to voices. Voices he recognises. Voices he knows.
He wills his aching muscles. Wills them so that he can turn his head ever so slightly.
And then he sees someone standing with their hands against the glass. Glass... In a glass tank...
His vision is growing cloudier, and his mind is on the brink of oblivion.

He can see the figure getting closer. He fights to keep the blackness at bay.
Must see.. Who are you.. Who are you?
And then as he hears the man speak, his eyes widen and his body fills with ice.
"Make sure he stays alive in there. We can't have him dying on us now, can we?"

As the ensuing laughter pounds in his ears, he thinks this isn't possible.
This isn't possible because it can't be possible. Shouldn't be possible.
Because Obadiah Stane was supposed to be dead.
The revelation snaps whatever consciousness he has been clawing at and he is claimed by blackness.

Tony Stark sat up ramrod straight in his bed. He was bathed in sweat and his hands instinctively flew to his mouth. There had been something in his mouth. They'd put something in his mouth.
But his hands touched his lips and found nothing, and he leaned back against the headboard. He closed his eyes and tried to process what he had just seen. Dreamt, not saw; he corrected himself. But it had been so vivid... So real...

He shook his head, that path had already been walked upon. Dreams meant nothing. Period. They were figments of his imagination, that was all. Post the captivity / Iron Man fiasco, Pepper had all but forced a psychiatrist down his throat. There had been the requisite shadow boxing but the shrink's persistence had won out in the end. And after a series of annoying though admittedly enlightening sessions, Tony had come to make a peace (or truce) of sorts with that period in his life. Which had meant no more odd dreams. Until now. Not that this meant anything. This dream could simply mean that he'd have to stop watching the Matrix a million times. Either that or avoid eating spicy food for dinner. He was tired, and his mind wasn't awake yet, not by a long shot. That was it, and that was all.

He felt movement at his right side and saw that Pepper was awake. "What happened?" she asked, sitting up immediately. "I don't know." he replied, scratching his beard thoughtfully. He tried snatching at the wispy cobwebs that the dream had become, but as is the nature with most dreams he came back empty handed.

"I honestly don't know." he repeated. Pepper pulled him down and drew him into her. "If you can't remember it, it couldn't have been very important." she murmured soothingly as she rubbed small circles on the shell of his ear. He only murmured half heartedly in reply, choosing the warm smell of Pepper over very odd, and decidedly random figments of his imagination. But as he drifted off toward sleep, he couldn't help feeling that it had been important.

A/N: TBC. Next chapter: What do these dreams mean? How does Stane fit into all of this? And what is Ikelos?