Tony Stark didn't remember falling asleep.
He remembered the party, the champagne, the actress who kept laughing at jokes he barely finished. He remembered the elevator ride, the blurred city lights, and the quiet of an empty penthouse.
Then nothing.
Just white.
Not a room. Not a dream.
An endless stretch of white like someone erased the world and left space where it used to be.
Tony blinked.
His voice echoed without sound.
"What the hell—?"
A shape formed ahead of him, rising like a moon out of nowhere. A sphere — enormous, layered like a machine built around a star. It wasn't floating. It wasn't supported. It simply existed, as if the white space bent to make room for it.
Thousands of hexagonal plates spiraled in slow mechanical harmony. Impossible geometry blinked across its surface like equations made of light.
It hummed — not loudly, but deep enough that Tony felt it in his bones.
His engineer's instinct spoke before his fear did.
"Dyson structure?"
The thing reacted. Not to his voice — to his recognition.
Something shifted.
Plates unlocked. Strands of shimmering material unwound, forming patterns like circuitry veins. They reached for him, not aggressively… but purposefully. He tried to step back.
His legs wouldn't respond.
"Okay, bad dream. Definitely bad dream."
The strands touched his arm.
And pain didn't hit him—it unfolded inside him.
Not agony. Not fire.
A rewrite.
Every nerve lit up as if they were being mapped. His heartbeat grew louder, faster, heavier. His lungs pulled air more efficiently. His muscles tightened like they were being reforged.
He wasn't being healed.
He was being built.
Lines of light etched themselves across his body, sinking beneath skin. They weren't markings or scars — they were instructions, like blueprints written into blood.
A presence surrounded him.
Not a voice. Not a thought.
A decision.
[ACCEPTED]
Tony gasped. The white vanished.
***
When he opened his eyes…
He was in his own bed.
Sweat soaked through his shirt. The arc reactor lit the room faintly, but it wasn't the brightest thing in his chest.
There was something else — deeper — pulsing like a hidden second heart.
He sat up fast. Tools on his desk near the bed rattled and slid slightly toward him. Tony stared at them.
They stopped when he noticed.
"Okay… that's new."
He pressed a hand to his sternum. Nothing on the surface. But his body felt different — efficient, responsive, like it was waiting for input.
He tried to stand. His balance was perfect, too perfect. Movements synchronized like his body anticipated them.
JARVIS' voice broke the silence.
[Good morning, sir. You appear to be under physiological stress. Shall I alert medical?]
Tony swallowed, eyes fixed on the tools that moved on their own.
"No. I'm fine, JARVIS."
He wasn't fine at all.
But for the first time in his life,
He wasn't sure if he was scared… or curious.