Well, it's been a while... I can't apologize enough and I don't even have any really sound reasons.

This chapter was extremely hard to write and I had to re-write it a lot of times before I was happy. It does have 500 words more than usual though so that's one good thing...

All you guys who take the time to leave a review or even just read this story are amazing!

This chapter is dedicated to my 100th reviewer!

Superwholockianwriter175 - I prefer to call her Agent Romanova although in some of my other stories she's Romanoff, it depends what mood I'm in when I start the story. :)

Anyway, this is for you!

Tony looked at Steve as the man slept. He knew that he should follow suit, that he needed rest, but he couldn't bear the thought of the nightmares. His mind began to wander. There wasn't much he could do to keep himself occupied in a small cave that held memories he wanted to forget. He thought about a lot of things, he wasn't expecting to get out of the cave and not sure about what he'd face if he did, even less sure about whether he'd be able to take it on without his armor. Steve was right about one thing on the Helicarrier, without Iron Man, Tony is nothing.

He also thought of Yinsen though. Of how he could have saved the man. Of how the man and his family wouldn't have been killed in the first place if it wasn't for him and his stupid weaponry. That was at least one thing Hammer had gotten right, it was Tony's firearms that killed Yinsen, along with thousands of other innocent people. It was something he was trying to make up for even though he knew that nothing he could do would ever make up for the deaths he had caused.

The other Avengers had returned to the tower as they were unsure of where to look next. Bruce, Natasha and Clint were in the lab. Thor had gone back to Asgard for some reason or another, Bruce didn't want to guess why with his limited knowledge of the realm. He was a little confused as to why the god had chosen the time when two of his team members were missing though.

"Come on, there has to be some clue!" Clint's words brought Bruce out of his thoughts about Thor.

"Cool down Clint," Natasha said, "Bruce is working on it."

"He might work better if you two stop looking over his shoulder," Bruce interjected, the assassins looked at him and he looked up, "it makes me nervous."

"Okay, Bruce is right, us pressuring him isn't going to make him find the others any sooner," Natasha said, pulling Clint towards the elevator.

"Make sure you alert us the minute, no, the second, you find anything!"

"Of course," Bruce replied before going back to looking at the scene. He sighed. With Jarvis offline there wasn't much he could do and the only person who knew how to get the AI back online was missing.

Then it struck him, maybe Pepper knew how to get him back online. The doctor called her.

"Bruce! Have you had any luck?"

"Err, no," Bruce said, "I was wondering if you could help me..?"

"I could try. What do you need help with?"

"Did Tony ever tell you how to get Jarvis back online?"

"No," Pepper said. Bruce was quiet. "But I do know where his core is if that's any help.."

"It's at least a start."

"I'll be right down," Pepper said before hanging up.

Bruce sighed. He really hoped that rebooting Jarvis would be as easy as flicking a switch or pushing a button. It could take him a while to figure out how to get him online otherwise.

Tony sighed and tried to fight the boredom that the night brought. He began to hum quietly, not one of the usual rock songs he listened to in his lab but a softer tune. It helped to keep his mind off of dark thoughts and memories although it didn't help as much as he'd have liked it to.

Tony looked up to a camera and cocked his head. Just what was Hammer doing and who was he doing it with? Whoever it was was good and dangerous. They knew far too much about him although they didn't seem to have told Hammer everything. That could have been because they themselves didn't know everything or it could have been that they didn't trust Hammer enough to tell him everything.

He sat in the darkness of the room, closing his eyes against the blue of the Arc. He was tired and wasn't sure how much longer he could hold off sleep. He didn't want to risk a nightmare but he would need all of his strength if they were to escape somehow.

Pepper opened up a complicated secret file in Tony's main computer that led to Jarvis' core before she left again. The core was complicated, the files within the first were named in binary and coding and opening a file lead to yet more binary and coding. Bruce had to admit that he had no idea what to do to get Jarvis back online and what would cause the AI to break even more.

On top of that it was rather late and he could see that he'd woken Pepper up. He sighed and decided he'd take another look in the morning but he needed to rest. He closed the main file and turned off the computer.

He returned to his floor where he went to sleep, worrying about his lost teammates. He could only hope that wherever they were they were okay.

Steve woke first. He glanced at Tony and was surprised to see that the man was sleeping. He hoped that Tony would get adequate rest although he suspected that the man would be having nightmares.

A few minutes later, Tony began to thrash. Steve wasn't sure what to do and that was when Hammer's voice filled the room.

"The great Anthony Stark has nightmares, who'd have known?" Steve knew that it wasn't a question. He was mad at Hammer. Why would the man want to emotionally bully Tony? It didn't make sense to him.

"Why are you doing this Hammer?!" He asked in the tone of voice he'd use when questioning any villain.

"I'd have thought that that would be obvious," Hammer said, "Mr. Stark over there ruined my life." Steve raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. He looked back over at Tony who was thrashing a lot more and wasn't sure if he should wake him or not. He wasn't sure how aggressive Tony would be if he was suddenly awoken from whatever nightmare he was having.

Steve looked around the room, searching for a weakness. Anything that he could use to somehow escape. There was nothing though. The dimly lit cave had nothing in it other than the bare light bulb that was hanging from the roof.

Tony suddenly woke and was hyperventilating. It took him a little while to realize that he wasn't in his nightmare and even longer to realize that he wasn't in Afghanistan. He buried his fear and panic under weak confidence.

"You're finally awake," Hammer said. Tony glared at a camera. "I wonder what else I heard was true about your time in Afghanistan."

Tony dreaded the implications of that sentence. "Who are you working with Hammer?"

"Why do you think I'm working with someone?" Hammer asked. He sounded slightly hurt.

"Maybe because you're too dumb to hack into Jarvis and there's no way that anyone as idiotic as you could know so much about Afghanistan. I mean, come on, even Rogers over here is better with technology than you."

Steve wasn't sure about how he felt about being used as an insult due to his limited knowledge of modern technology.

Hammer didn't say anything and Tony smiled softly at the small victory. "Don't think you've won Stark."

Tony's smirked. He was going to have some fun with Hammer, or try to at least. "Wasn't I always the winner here? I mean, I'm far more clever than you, not that that's saying much, and I'm also a billionaire."

"Who's trapped in who's cave here?" Hammer asked.

"I don't know, you tell me."

"What's that meant to mean?"

"Well, presumably you are in the vicinity or at least unable to do anything else while your watching us which kinda means that you're trapped too. Also, that's really creepy. You shouldn't watch people." When Hammer didn't respond Tony's smirk only grew.

"What was the point of that?" Steve asked.

"It's kinda fun to annoy him. He's a huge idiot but he thinks he's a genius. It resulted in him ruining my Expo the other year." Steve looked at him quizzically. "You didn't know about that?" Steve's face was still blank, "you really need to catch up Capsicle." Steve shrugged, he'd read Tony's file and there was nothing about Justin Hammer on it. Maybe Tony had deleted that part like he had with the majority of his file.

Steve wanted to ask what happened in Afghanistan all those years ago but he wouldn't. He didn't want to rush the genius and he wasn't even sure if he'd be able to handle the information himself. Instead he decided to ask about a name that had been on Howard's file. He hadn't seen the name on Tony's but considering , "Tony, who is Obadiah Stane?"

Tony's hands immediately went to his chest, as if to protect the Arc Reactor, "where did you hear that name?" He asked, slight panic in his voice.

"It was on your fath- Howard's file," Steve explained.

Tony sighed, he hadn't thought of going through Howard and Maria's files, mainly because he had doubted that anyone would read them. "Obie.. Stane was all I had for a long time. He was a friend, a mentor and a father to me."

"Then why do you never talk about him?"

Tony took a deep breath, "when I got back from Afghanistan I stopped weapon production. Stane didn't approve of that but it was my company so there wasn't much he could do about it. I built my Mark II Iron Man suit, then fixed some things with the Mark III and began to destroy all of the illegal Stark Industries weapons." Tony sighed, "Before this though I had replaced my Arc Reactor with a better one."

"What does this have to do with Stane?" Steve asked. Tony glared at him.

"I soon found out that it was Stane who had been illegally selling my weapons and not only that, Stane was the one who organised my capture, of course, he had wanted them just to kill me straight away but luckily for me, the Ten Rings were greedy and wanted me to make more weaponry. Anyway, Stane had made a crude copy of the Mark I but he needed a power source so he stole my Arc. I managed to get to my 'shop and put the old one in again." Tony wasn't looking at Steve but instead at the wall of the cave, "I killed him and then told the world that I was Iron Man," he turned back to Steve, "so I'm sorry if I never talk about the man who is responsible for trying to kill me on not one, but two occasions. Ironically though, I wouldn't have made the Iron Man suit if it wasn't for him."

Steve wasn't sure what to say to that but there was one thing he didn't really understand, "why is the Arc Reactor so important anyway?"

Tony sighed, he'd almost forgotten that Steve knew nothing about technology and that not many people knew about the Arc. "The Arc is essentially my heart," he said as he looked down at the metal, "it keeps me alive."

"How does it do that?"

"It powers an electromagnet that stops the shrapnel lodged in my chest from getting any closer to my actual heart."

"Why is there shrapnel in your chest?!"

"Because I was hit by a bomb that quite literally had my name on it," Tony laughed a little although there was no joy in it.

"So, you got hit by a blast of a SI bomb and now you have shrapnel in your chest that's only not killing you because of the Arc Reactor?" Steve asked, making sure he understood.

"Yep."

"How deep is it?"

"The Reactor or the shrapnel?"

Steve considered the question for a few minutes, "both."

"The Reactor stops somewhere between my lungs and the deepest bit of shrapnel is almost on my heart from what I can tell."

"Does it hurt?" Tony was surprised by the question, no one had asked him that for a long time and he hadn't been expecting Steve to care enough or even think to ask.

"I've gotten used to it."

"But does it still hurt?" Steve asked, real concern in his voice. Tony sighed.

"Do you think having a roughly three inch hole in your chest filled with a titanium cylinder pressed between your lungs to stop the shrapnel that is almost piercing your heart from going any deeper wouldn't hurt?"

"I suppose that that's a yes then."

"No shit Sherlock." Tony was feeling the titanium cylinder against his lungs and the shrapnel in his chest a lot more than he had done in a while due to thinking about them and was finding it difficult to breathe around it.

"Couldn't the doctors have taken all of the shrapnel out?"

Tony shut his eyes tightly and tried not to remember the pain of Yinsen's surgery. "He didn't have the technology to do that."

"Why not? Aren't you the smartest and richest man in America or something?"

"Something like that," Tony said, sighing, "but I wasn't in America at the time."

"Where were you?"

"Afghanistan."

At that the subject was dropped. Steve needed to take time to process what Tony had just told him and Tony needed a break, his breathing had become difficult but it was more the memories of Yinsen and the surgery that were hurting him.

Thor returned while Bruce was trying to figure out how to work out Jarvis' files. Clint went down to the lab to tell Bruce who left with him as they went to the communal floor and joined the others.

"Friend Bruce, I bring news of our comrades."

"Do you know where they are?" Bruce asked.

"Indeed I do!"

"How?" Natasha asked.

"I asked Heimdall if he could see them."

"So that's why you went to Asgard!"

"Where are they then?" Bruce asked.

"Here in New York."

"Can you be any more precise?"

"Come friends, follow me," Thor said before leaving the building via the balcony.

"You know," Clint called after him, "we don't all have magic hammers."

The next time Tony spoke about his past it was almost inaudible and he was facing away from Steve. "After my parents died, it was just me. I was left with their fortune and company so I did what any teenager would do and became addicted to the more dangerous drugs and drank way too much, I was just generally having a fun time.

"But then, when I was twenty one, I took over the company and had to make myself semi-respectable, which was hard. With Obie's help I came off the drugs although little changed with my drinking.

"I made Stark Industries great, we had weapons that were unparalleled to any other and they were just getting more powerful. The media gave me lots of titles including 'the merchant of death' which was one I'd never taken seriously until…"

"Afghanistan." Steve whispered slowly. Tony nodded and gulped.

"I was demonstrating the Jericho Missile over there and that went pretty well. Then it all went to hell when we were going back to the plane. We got bombed, by my own bombs. The people- kids- I was with were all killed, as far as I know. One had even taken a picture with me.

"I did the most stupid thing I could have done then. I got out of the car. I hid behind a rock and began texting Stane but then one of my bombs landed close to me and blew up before I could get far enough away.

"The next thing I knew, I was in surgery having my chest opened," he stopped talking as he tried to fight off a flashback, "that hurt like a bitch."

"Hold on. The surgery was done while you were awake, with no painkillers!?"

Tony nodded, "then, I must have passed out or something because the next thing I knew, I was lying on a thin mattress in a cave with a car battery attached to my chest. Yinsen explained a few things and I then I was told by the leader, Raza, to make a Jericho missile."

"You refused?"

"Of course I refused!" Tony snapped, "and so they tortured me. Waterboarded me."

Tony was suddenly there again, his head being dunked into the tank of water until he couldn't hold his breath any longer, began thrashing and had to inhale some of the water. His head was violently pulled out of the water, which splashed onto the wires of the car battery giving him painful burns. He was given no time to do anything other than take another breath before it happened again. The next time his head was pulled up, he saw the face of one of the men in the room, he was smirking and laughing at the torture. His face warped into a worried looking Steve but Tony only saw it for a second.

The next time he was pulled up, he noticed that it was Steve's face and the lips were moving. He tried to concentrate on what he was saying and heard "It's not real Tony, you're not there." Tony tried to rationalize that and everything began to fade away.

But Tony was in a cave that looked like the one from Afghanistan. He put a hand on his chest protectively and scrambled to get as far away from Steve as he could.

Then there was suddenly a loud banging coming from outside. Tony brought his knees to his chest, bowed his head and covered his ears with his hands as a poor attempt to block out the sound.

The next thing he knew, there was a lot of shouting and he was being carried in large arms, arms far too big to be human. He opened his eyes to see the Hulk's thick green skin.

"Heya big green!" He said, Hulk looked down at him.

"Tony rest!" He ordered.

"Okay, big fella, okay," Tony said, laughing a little. Now that he thought about it he was extremely tired. All of those nights with no sleep seemed to be finally catching up to him. He didn't even have time to think about the others seeing him have a nightmare before he fell asleep.

Just something to bear in mind, this chapter wasn't beta'd as I finished it about an hour ago and really wanted to release it today...

Yep, I don't really have much to say about it other than that.

Please leave suggestions as reviews or PM me, they really help me get the chapters out quicker if I know people are reading it...

Thanks for reading and I shall see you all next time, if not before.

Ebil