Tony wakes up

As the last remnants of sleep fell away from Tony's consciousness, his eyes shot wide open. He scrambled to his feet, the bed-sheets tangling around his legs. However, there was no one in the room, no indication that any being had visited him. Everything was identical to how it had been before he fell asleep.

Calming slightly, Tony let his brain work the problem. He was sure he hadn't just experienced an odd dream, something had actually happened. 'A gift of truth', he had apparently been given, 'a taste of godhood'. Those were grand words, and he certainly didn't trust a random stranger at face-value. There were two possibilities here. Either some enemy was trying to trick him, presenting him with a gift that was far more likely to be a curse, or, the less plausible option, he really had been visited by a benevolent god who thought he deserved something for his efforts. Right now, it didn't matter which possibility was true, he needed to test himself for any changes. 'a taste of godhood' implied some sort of abilities, some level of power. If he had been given such a gift, there was a high likelihood that it had changed his biology somehow, left some sort of mark on him.

"FRIDAY, perform a full body scan. Alert me to any abnormalities." he spoke to the ceiling above him.

"Of course, boss." FRIDAY replied, and Tony felt the telltale heat increase on his skin that meant he was being subjected to over a dozen different scans, covering nearly every aspect of his anatomy. It took exactly thirty-six seconds before Tony received his results.

"Everything seems fine from up here, boss. Is something wrong?" FRIDAY asked, slight concern tinging her voice. No matter how hard Tony tried, he seemed incapable of creating an AI without emotions and some degree of sentience.

"Not sure," he replied, thinking to himself, "has anything odd happened while I've been asleep?" Of course, it was possible that any being who could visit his dreams and grant him some sort of power could also hide its presence and its intentions from any normal means of detection. He was going to get to the bottom of this, he had to.

"No, nothing out of the ordinary. General Ross called, asking about the Sokovia Accords again-"

"I don't care about the Accords right now. Besides, tell him there's no way that the rest of the Avengers would agree to that right now. We need to wait."

"On it."

Tony thought about his problem. 'a taste of godhood', 'a gift of truth'. Those were the key words. 'truth', and 'godhood'. What did that mean? How did those concepts fit together? Okay, it was supposed to be his power, right? It had something to do with the metaphysical concept of truth, and was at least approximating godhood. So, his truth became THE truth? Was that even possible? It seemed to fit the available information, but he needed to test the theory. State something that categorically wasn't true, and see if the world adapted to his statement. However, it couldn't be something too important, as if it did work, he might screw up the entire world.

"There is... a... pizza in my hands?" Tony said, feeling ridiculous trying to lie to thin air. That stopped, however, when he felt a weight pulling down of his hands and forearms, and saw a large, cold pizza resting atop them. Okay. That was amazing.

"Did that actually just happen boss?" FRIDAY said from above.

"I think it did, FRIDAY."

"How did you do it?"

"I think... I have the power to make things true." Tony's mind was racing. If this was what it seemed, everything he ever wanted was in his grasp. He could protect the world from any threat. The Avengers didn't need to exist, not if he could simply speak their enemies away. He needed to test this power, right now.

"FRIDAY, scan the pizza, is there anything strange about it?"

"You mean besides the fact it exists at all? No, it appears to be a perfectly ordinary pizza. There isn't even any residual energy from its... creation." Tony stared at the impossible pizza. He might have just created matter out of thin air... by speaking. Just casually breaking the laws of the universe, don't mind him.

"I know why I was given this power." Tony stated, wondering if this would give him the answers he needed. Information flooded into his brain. It was almost as simple as it had appeared. A god, bored and wanting entertainment seeing a mortal that could use some more good in his life. That was it.

"I know the exact limits of my power." There were none. As long as he could speak, he could change anything about anything. The power even took his intentions in mind when he spoke, so nothing would happen that he didn't mean to. There would be no unintended changes, no consequences he didn't want.

"No one will ever be able to take away my ability to speak." he said, removing the one thing that could stop him from doing whatever he wanted. He didn't want to make his power thought controlled, too much chance of accidents that way.

With his apparent godhood assured, Tony almost felt at a loss as to how he should proceed. Anything was within his reach, all avenues were open to him. There was nothing beyond him, nothing limiting him. All of creation was in his palm, and he could change it in any way that pleased him.

What was he going to do?