Date: 2008
Location: Kunar Province, Afghanistan
The convoy carved its way through the desert like a thin scar of motion against endless gold. Laughter echoed inside the armored Humvee, human and warm — a sound of life and arrogance, of a man untouched by consequence.
Tony Stark lifted his whiskey glass, grinning like he was immortal. The sun caught the glass and turned it molten. A soldier beside him laughed nervously.
In that laughter, in that heat and movement and pulse of human brilliance, Dream watched.
He lingered on the edge of the waking world — the shadow behind the glint of the whiskey, the whisper beneath the wind. Humanity had changed since last he paid close attention. They no longer dreamt of gods. They dreamt of themselves — greater, faster, shining brighter than the sun.
The convoy entered a canyon. Tony was still laughing when the first explosion came.
A streak of fire tore through the sky. The laughter died. Metal screamed. The Humvee lifted from the earth and split open.
Dream watched as the mortal world erupted — smoke, dirt, panic, the poetry of sudden ruin.
Tony Stark crawled from the wreckage, dazed, shrapnel burning into his chest. His hand pressed against the wound, his blood painting the sand in patterns Dream had seen before — the geometry of sacrifice, traced by countless mortals through countless ages.
When the missile bearing his company's name landed before him, the man who had thought himself untouchable finally saw the reflection of his hubris.
Then came the blast, and the world went white.
⸻
Dream's domain was not bound by time, nor by the boundaries of the physical. When Tony Stark next opened his eyes, he was not entirely awake.
In the gap between pain and consciousness, the Dreaming stirred.
He found himself standing in a vast desert of burning glass. The horizon bled light. His chest glowed faintly — the wound that tethered him to life pulsing like an ember.
And there, beside him, walked Dream.
"Who—who are you?" Tony rasped. His voice echoed strangely in the still air.
"An observer," Dream said. "And, perhaps, a friend — though not of the kind you are used to having."
Tony looked around, trying to orient himself. "This is one hell of a concussion."
Dream's lips curved faintly. "You are not wrong."
He gestured, and the horizon shifted — glass turned to molten iron, the ground thrumming with the heartbeat of forges unseen.
"This is what you have made of the human dream," Dream murmured. "Fire without restraint. Creation without balance."
Tony gave a weak laugh, clutching his chest. "Yeah, well, balance doesn't sell. Weapons do."
Dream studied him in silence. "And yet, even now, the weapon turns upon its maker."
Tony frowned, his confidence faltering. "What is this? A guilt trip from my subconscious?"
"If you wish to think of me that way," Dream said softly. "But remember, Anthony Stark — every mind that creates also destroys. Every flame you kindle must learn what it means to burn."
The light dimmed. The sound of hammers rang in the distance — echoing down into the waking world.
⸻
Tony woke in a cave, heart pounding, chest burning. The car battery beside him hummed faintly, its wires running into the hole carved near his heart.
Yinsen, his fellow captive, leaned over him. "You're alive. Barely."
Tony blinked at the ceiling, fragments of the Dream still clinging to him — the molten glass, the tall shadow with stars in his eyes.
"Had… one hell of a nightmare," he muttered.
Yinsen smiled faintly. "You're lucky to be alive."
But Dream knew it wasn't luck.
The mortal had been touched — not chosen, but seen.
⸻
In the Dreaming, Dream walked among flickering visions — Tony's memories made shape and sound. Machines. Blueprints. Bombs. Applause. Shadows of a boy seeking approval from a ghost.
Dream touched one, and it burst into light — the arc reactor's first spark, a miracle of power contained within the smallest form.
So this was humanity now. They did not look to the stars for salvation. They built their own.
He found himself speaking softly to no one:
"You will forge a new mythology, Anthony Stark. Not of gods, but of men who dream of becoming them."
He turned his gaze toward the mortal's sleeping body — sweat glistening under the dim cave light, his pulse weak but steady.
Dream saw potential. Not purity, not virtue — but something rarer: a mind unbound by impossibility.
Death had once told him mortals fascinated her because they burned so briefly yet so brightly. Dream understood now.
Tony Stark would burn brighter than most.
⸻
In the waking world, the cave filled with the sound of hammering metal. Yinsen worked beside him, forging crude armor and escape. Every strike echoed through the Dreaming like the toll of a new age.
Dream stood unseen behind them, silent witness to invention born of desperation.
Each blow against iron sent ripples across reality — the concept of hero reshaping itself in the molten heart of the human spirit.
And far away, in the vast tapestry of the cosmos, others felt it too:
Eternity turned his gaze toward the blue planet.
Entropy stirred.
Even Death smiled faintly in the dark.
Dream did not interfere. He simply watched, as he always had. But in the stillness of the desert, he whispered into the edges of Tony's mind — a single idea, small but world-shifting:
"You are not building a weapon. You are building freedom."
And when Tony raised his head, sweat and soot streaking his face, he seemed to understand.
"Let's finish this," he told Yinsen.
Dream faded from the cave, but his voice lingered like the echo of a half-remembered dream.
"The age of gods ended long ago. Now begins the age of men who dare to dream they are gods