#referencing Windows computers all over the world and in industry crashing to blue screen because of software error with CrowdStrike

[mysticdragon3md3]

Pictured: large screens on the side of and inside buildings, showing the PC Windows "blue screen of death".

[dibleopard-writes]

Iron, Steel, and Tin - Chapter One

Fandom: Iron Man/Doctor Who

Pairings: None

Word count:  1706

Content Warnings: Referenced Suicide (Spoilers for Waters of Mars)

A/N: I’ve recently started watching the films of the MCU and I had this little idea that snowballed in my head until I began to write it down. This is set after Iron Man 3 (for Tony Stark) and Waters of Mars (for the Doctor). Let me know if I need to add more warnings

Summary: After his disastrous (or so he would call it) visit to Mars, the Doctor is at a loose end and completely, painfully alone. It turns out that investigating a Torchwood facility with nothing to lose is not a good idea because now the Doctor is standing beneath the Statue of Liberty, dazed, and staring at a skyline that seems subtly unfamiliar.

After his revelatory run-in with demons of his own creation (or so he would claim), Tony Stark is at a loose end and ready for it to weave into a new beginning, starting with removing the shrapnel from his chest. A day's hesitance is all it takes for the world to catch back up to him and soon heart surgery is the least of Iron Man's issues.

Or, an army of ghosts appear around the globe and Tony Stark meets a man who knows what they are.

Chapter 1

Also available on Ao3.

Chapter 1: Rust and Roses

And there's no one to stop you.

No.

The words still bounced around his head, their measured fury seemed so burning now, although Adelaide’s voice had been as cold as the snow she stood in. He hadn't seen it until the bright flash lit up the window and the wavering timelines slotted into place. Captain Adelaide Brooke died on Earth, not Mars as she should have, and the world would see the gun lying beside her as proof of her suicide. No one would know that he had forced her hand in his power-hungry craze.

Some Doctor he was.

The Time Lord Victorious’ reign had ended as soon as it began, and now the Doctor felt empty. The slow pulses of the time rotors soothed him as the TARDIS orbited slowly above an earlier, more familiar Earth. 2013, she informed him gently. He was still reeling. How could so much have happened in such a small amount of time?

The flames and the noise of Bowie Base One collapsing around his raged words were still fresh in his memory, terrifying. And yet somehow the calm little Georgian road haunted him the most. He had gone too far. His actions may have saved people -- ‘little people’ -- but they had crashed through the boundaries he had never considered crossing. Maybe he did need someone else to travel with, to keep him from stepping over the line that was nearer than he had first thought. But that would be selfish. He was a magnet for trouble. Who knew what would happen to a new companion? Not all of them could be as lucky as Martha and walk out undamaged. What if they end up like Donna? Or-

The TARDIS jolted, throwing him off his feet.

“What was that?” the Doctor asked, indignant at losing his grace, albeit alone. He got up and swung the console monitor around to face him, trying to push the creeping sadness of solitude away from his mind. The screen showed a map of Greater London and a bright spot radiating from a small industrial area.

“High energy readings. Space-time disturbance. Something pretty big, by the looks of th-” He caught himself. There was no one to explain the screen’s readings to. Not any more.

He zoomed in on the map and a box popped up in swirling Gallifreyan to inform him that the readings had come from a Torchwood facility and that it was one of the few that still ran as Torchwood had before Canary Wharf. An old rage reignited and he tried to pat it down. It was out of duty, not personal issues, that the Doctor plotted the coordinates. It was his duty to the world, protecting it from fractures in space-time, and definitely, definitely not the ghost of someone who hadn't died that moved his hands around the console as the TARDIS materialised outside a complex of warehouses.

The Doctor stepped out. All was quiet, even the roads were free of traffic. He crossed the cracked concrete and shattered the padlock on a nearby door. Checking that nobody could see him, he moved into the building and stopped to inspect the surroundings. His eyes adjusted quickly to the gloom. Light filtered through translucent panels in the roof in a mossy green hue tinted with decaying yellow. Yet for all the signs of dilapidation, the contents of the warehouse was well maintained. Large storage containers were stacked around the room and the floor was littered with boxes of alien debris. Small purple gems glowed beside one box, obviously alien but somehow unfamiliar to his expert eye. The sonic screwdriver told him that the energy readings had originated from the centre of the warehouse, past the labyrinth of containers.

As he picked his way towards the epicentre, the Doctor noted the silence. It was complete and eerie in a place that should be crawling with armed security. Many times he had investigated this kind of building and very rarely did one as active as this turn out to be empty of people. Usually, firearms would be pointing at him before he reached the door. Nevertheless, he continued; he had nothing to lose.

The sonic’s whirring crescendoed in the middle of a circle of technology. Desks with monitors and wires surrounded him. More alien pellets littered the floor and tables and some were hooked up to strange mirror-like devices that stood facing the centre.

He moved up to a computer and turned on the monitor. It flicked on immediately and a number of files occupied the screen. Whoever it was that had used this last had been in a hurry to leave. The Doctor skimmed through the information. The words ‘Project Indigo’, ‘dimension cannon’, and ‘reverse engineering’ jumped out from the reams of technobabble. It rubbed him the wrong way to see them written out in a Torchwood document.

A clatter of footsteps rang out and he looked up to see the security that had been missing emerging from behind containers. Their rifles clicked menacingly and he stepped back into the centre of the room, arms raised in surrender. No leader was among them but they seemed to be waiting for a command.

“Doctor,” said a large voice that echoed around the warehouse, “such a pleasure to finally meet you.”

The Doctor looked at a nearby camera perched on a storage container, “I'm sure it would be if you were actually here.”

The voice, irritatingly inoffensive and yet skin-crawlingly ominous, laughed over the speaker system, “Oh, you've got me there. Unfortunately, I cannot greet you in person as we are running some rather dangerous tests at the minute and, unlike you, I would prefer to stay out of harm’s way.”

“You need to stop. I've seen this kind of thing before; you're putting the whole universe in danger-”

“That's where you're wrong, Doctor. We've taken every step to ensure the world's safety. Our technology is designed from the best materials and soundest science we have. I assure you, Canary Wharf is in the past; we've moved on since then. We've improved.”

“No, you haven't, I've seen the energy re-”

“Doctor, Doctor. So wound up. Perhaps you need some space. Oh! What a coincidence: we have the perfect tool for the job.”

People in lab coats came forward and began typing. The Doctor tried to move out of the circle but was pushed back by the security guards. His mind was spinning and for a second he could hear Rose’s screams over the wind that was somehow picking up. A countdown began.

“No, stop this! You can't see what you're doing!”

“Nice seeing you, Doctor. Shame you couldn't stay.”

“...Three, two, one-”

“Wait-”

---

For a moment he could see nothing

And everything.

---

His retinas still bore the light of that moment like a brand when he woke. Rust-red stained the vision of his still closed eyes but he took no notice, too busy feeling a barrage of time hit his brain like the floodgates of a mighty river had opened and left him to the water’s mercy. Water was merciless, he knew that now, and so was time. Usually, he could see the glittering strands of timelines weaving and separating and interconnecting in a universal spiderweb, always familiar, always beautiful. Now, however, the silken threads had been washed out of sight by something new. He existed, at its mercy, for unquantifiable moments until the flood abated and the roaring waves became a gentle babble. Riverlets stretched before him and he knew they were time. They were wrong -- horrifically wrong -- but they were the timelines of a hundred trillion people in a hundred trillion places and he was a Time Lord. They were his reason for being. How could he have ever thought that the rules of time would obey him?

In the near-silence that his mind now afforded him, the Doctor became aware of his surroundings. Of the breeze -- salty, frying oil and fossil fuels -- of the grass underneath him -- recently cut and well-kept -- and of the sounds of people, distant traffic, and non-temporal water.

He opened his eyes and looked to the sky. It was blue and cloudless, partially obscured by a familiar silhouetted structure. Pushing himself up into a sitting position, he blinked away the ghosting lights and saw a city skyline stretch out in front of him.

New York.

The Empire State Building rose confident and complete, wiping a good century or two from the list of possible dates it could be. The absence of twin skyscrapers narrowed it down further. He searched the skyline for further clues but found only a niggling sense of unfamiliarity. He looked up, and the Statue of Liberty, standing tall in her green glory, loomed above him. Deja vu overcame him and he had to look back to the city to remind himself that it wasn't 1930 and that the Daleks were far, far away.

But something was off. The niggling feeling grew into a more specific confusion. New York City’s iconic skyline had been altered somehow. In his frazzled state, it took him a minute to place it. There was a new building near the Empire State, oddly shaped and bearing a glowing blue logo.

But that wasn't the only difference. Looking now, familiar buildings bore unfamiliar neon signs. Had time been tampered with? Was this like the one-hundred-year setback of Satellite 5, changing technologies and attitudes? Surely not. But the only other explanation was-

The Doctor moved to lean against the pale wall of the Statue’s base as a wave of panicked dizziness overcame him.

This was wrong. Time was wrong. New York City was wrong.

Helplessly, his mind reached out to the TARDIS, hoping to grasp her familiar presence past the liquid time, but she was nowhere to be found. He fumbled around, tripping over timelines in an effort to locate her. Fruitless. The only friendly face he had left was gone. He pulled away from the space she should have been and buried his head in his knees. It was too much. This was all too much. He sat there, despairing, and let time wash past him in an unstoppable current until he couldn't tell the difference between minutes and millennia.

Tag List: N/A, let me know if you would like to be added.

[mysticdragon3md3]