Hello, all! Yes, it is I, Dreamer. I know, I know. It's been a while since I last posted anything. If you're looking for anything to do with "Ties", you're in the wrong place. This is a competition fic, with me, Girl-luvs-manga, and writtingnut135723. So if you read this one, be sure to read theirs and pick your favorite, or just read this one and R&R. If you do decide to vote for one of us, then leave a review saying your choice or you can visit one of our profiles and do a poll, which will hopefully be up soon. FYI, we all have the same basic plot/storyline and it's under the same title, but we'll be trying to make each one as unique as possible. So without further ado, Only Therapy Could Save Us! (BTW, the chapter name is from the song of the same name by Daniel Powter.)

Chapter 1: You Had a Bad Day

Tony thinks that this day might just possibly be the worst day he's ever had. Worse that the day Obie stabbed him in the back, worse than the day his parents died, even worse than Afghanistan. First, he had woken up early because Pepper had wanted him to go to a meeting where he sat through two hours of lectures and paper pushing. The subject of the meeting was even about how a company he had invested in was losing stocks. The cup of coffee he had gotten to save himself was even burned. When he had taken his first sip, he wasn't expecting the heat and spilled it all over his best Armani suit. Then he had slunk off like a chastised puppy to the training room, where he got his ass handed to him by a certain Russian superspy for the umpteenth day in a row. And he'd had such a good feeling about the suit's new weapons upgrade too. But a surprise mission from Fury was the fucking cherry on top. No, wait. Scratch that. The absolute worst part of his day was getting a missile shot at him and being injected with a questionable liquid by a known supervillain.

Three hours before

"I don't need this crap, I'm Tony fucking Stark, for crying out loud!" Tony grumbled as he twisted around an incoming rocket from an RPG. "Hey, Thor! Here's people who you can actually call 'Metal Man'!" He said jovially down to his teammate.

"I agree, Son of Howard. This is most disrespectful." Thor scowled as he swung around his hammer in circles wide enough to take care of seven at a blow.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Point Break. Leave my father out of this. My daddy issues are going to take years of therapy just to air out all my dirty laundry." Tony pushed the unpleasant reminder out of his head and blasted another Doombot, with more force than was necessary.

Since there was a lull in the battle, Tony hovered to take stock. Doombots were running rampant in the downtown streets with no sign of their creator. Clint was up on the Quinjet, but only his exploding arrows were doing much. Natasha was piloting the plane, but took breaks every so often to sneak behind a fleeing runner to take them down and to powder her nose. Thor was in the air with Tony taking down the ones that could fly. Hulk was on the ground happily smashing Doombots into the ground, walls, other Doombots, and occasionally other teammates. Steve was also on the ground keeping a nonexistent boundary up, and dodging dismembered halves from Hulk. Jarvis kept a steady stream up, of alerts and notifications, as he was hooked up to all the cameras in the area. Tony sniffed, and shot over to where some Doombots were hassling Steve.

"Doing good, Gramps. Make sure you don't throw your back out with all this strenuous activity." He teased as he led the bots in a merry chase ending in a bridge.

"Just focus on finding the real Doom, hot shot." Steve shot back as he slammed his shield into a bot, which flew backwards into a wall with a resounding clang.

"Aye, aye, Captain Virgin." Tony jibbed as he circled back before he could get a shield up his ass.

Now that his daily jab at the Captain was done, he could focus on the real task at hand.

"Sir, I am detecting a pattern in the movements of the Doombots." Jarvis spoke up.

"Fantastic. Put them up." A diagram of the bots came on the screen, and Tony could see that there was a commanding officer that received and gave orders to the others. If he took that one out, all the others would shut down.

"Now for the main event, ladies and gentlemen, I will single-handedly thwart Doom's attempt to take over the city and still look cool." He mumbled and set his favorite song on. "Shoot to Thrill" came over the speakers, all available radio stations, including, but not limited to Shield's private frequency.

Tony snuck, ducked, weaved, and sometimes danced his way through a sea of Doombots, and over to where the command bot had been set up with a vanguard of twenty others. He wiggled his fingers, knowing that Doom could see through the cameras they called their eyes, and shook his hips before igniting a laser pack and doing a fancy spin. He took a theatrical bow as the command bot's eyes dimmed down. With the destruction of their leader, all the other Doombots powered down. Natasha landed the Quinjet, and she and Clint jumped out. Steve jogged over, barely breathing hard while Bruce shrunk down to normal size, clutching at his shredded pants.

"Thank you for your help, gentlemen and lady. It wasn't needed, but the sentiment is appreciated." Tony took an elaborate bow as he joined his teammates, flipping his faceplate up as he did so. "Uh, I think this one was all me. I mean, what can Katniss do with his eleven arrows, Cap with his defensive weapon, and Natashalie with her handguns? Thor and Hulk helped out a bit, though, keeping them off my back."

"Uh, explosive arrows, thank you very much. And all you did was take out, like, thirty. Cap even got more than you, and he's seventy odd years old." Clint scoffed as he scratched the back of his neck with a recycled arrow.

Natasha didn't even bother with a verbal reply. The bullet than whistled past his ear said it all for her. Steve straightened up, and Tony could feel the righteousness surging. In order to avoid the oncoming mom-lecture, Tony fired up his boosters and rose in the air.

"Uh, yeah. Good talk, team. I'll race you guys back. 'Kay? Bye." He grinned as he saw the look of frustration on Steve's face.

"But wait! We haven't even filed an incident report! And you never found Doom!" Steve shouted after him, but Tony just sped on faster.

It only took a couple of minutes to fly there. When he landed, Jarvis booted up the system for disassembling the suit. Left in his sweatpants and an old Black Sabbath tee-shirt, Tony grabbed a whiskey from the bar and headed down to his lab for some genius alone time. He was still in the hallway when he noticed it. Quickly, he grabbed a wrist repulsor and a pair of suit-calling bracelets from underneath a side table and slipped them on. Jarvis was silent. There had been no notifications like there normally was when he landed. The tower was ominously silent. He backtracked to the room he'd come in. Hearing a whisper of cloth against metal, he turned around and saw Doom standing behind him, resplendent in his cape as always.

"You want a drink?" He blurted out the first thing that came to mind as he stepped back a couple feet.

"No. I prefer to not have my wits muddled." Doom returned pleasantly, as if this was a chance meeting between old comrades.

"Suit yourself. See that pun? So. Why are you here, Sparky?"

"Why not?" Doom spread his hands. "I have infiltrated this city. It is mine to control, and the Avengers cannot stop me."

"Yeah, about that attack. We kinda destroyed your army." Tony mock-winced in fake sympathy.

Doom actually chuckled. Chuckled. "You think that my influence is limited only to my creations? I have many associates all around the world."

"You know, the last time I was in this room with an ubervillain, I was thrown out that very same window that you're standing behind. How about we switch it up and you are the one thrown out of it?" Tony grinned and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"I am a god, you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by-." Doom forgot to finish as he was body-slammed by a remote control suit.

Doom crashed through the fateful window as the suit returned to Tony. He strapped in and started after Doom, who had managed to snag onto a flying Doombot.

"Fancy meeting you here." Tony hovered in front of the awkwardly clinging supervillain and grinned toothily. "You know, you're just like Loki. Same lines, same half-assed plans, same window even. Finally! I've been waiting for that for over a year."

"Cease your overgrown yapping, you overgrown wood louse, or I will quiet you myself." Doom growled, glaring as much as someone with a full-face mask could glare.

"You need to get better nicknames, Tin Can. And quiet's not really my thing. You see -." Now it was Tony's turn to break off as a missile slammed into him.

System alerts blared in klaxons and the HUD went dark as he spiraled down to the cold, hard, unforgiving concrete. "Uh, Jarvis? How about a little support right now? Like, say, the emergency boosters!"

Nothing was working. Tony could feel damaged circuits sparking. He desperately hoped that one of the Avengers would catch him, but the last thing he saw was the ground coming to greet him. When he came to, he was lying in the middle of a small crater with the ruined remnants of his suit scattered around him. A couple of ribs were broken, as was his left arm. His ankle felt like it was made of shattered glass. He was bumped and bruised all over, and could see little flying Dooms circling around his head. He coughed and felt blood mixed with bile make a return journey with some whiskey. Someone chuckled from somewhere, and he turned his head, wincing at the noise it made, and saw Doom leaning over him.

"Not so tough now, eh, Stark?" The asshole drew a hypodermic needle from the inside of his cape and found a vein inside Tony's elbow.

He tried to struggle, but he was too dazed and injured to do much.

"Shh, shh, shh. It's okay. This will only hurt a little. Well, I say a little. What I really mean is a lot." The slimy, viscous liquid entered his veins, burned slowly up his arm, and reached for his heart.

Tony spluttered at the feeling of his insides burning and his skin blistering. His organs were getting razed in the god-awful heat. His vision started to flicker, and he spiraled into darkness. The last thing he heard was Doom's evil chuckle. The last thing he thought was that Doom had to turn more original, and that this had been the worst day he'd ever had.

Aaaand that's chapter 1! Hope you liked it! Did anyone get the Brave Little Tailor reference? I hope no one's too OOC. So if you liked it, then leave a review (that little rectangular button at the bottom of the screen) or follow/fav. I have a lot more to do on this story, so stick around! Any ideas that don't interfere with the basic plotline are welcome! Next chapter will be posted every second Friday. I can only write so fast!