Go Back to Sleep

There are a lot of things that make being an Avenger worth it. Don’t ever doubt that, I can’t think of a single reason we’d ever be willing to stop doing what we do. Fighting for the little man, fighting for the people who can’t fight for themselves, fighting for the people who thought they stood alone. There are so many good things about being an Avenger, but there are bad things, too. I won’t deny it.

I think I realized there’d be bad things when I decided to make Stark Tower into the Avenger Tower. I chose a behemoth in the middle of the City that Never Sleeps, somehow, I think I realized we wouldn’t sleep, either.

It’s not a competition. The fact that none of us have proper sleeping schedules, or that all of us have unhealthy coping mechanisms. We’re all broken, and we’re just trying to get through without breaking each other just a little bit more.

We have good days, we have bad days, and sometimes our good days happen on someone else’s bad day, we just make do as best we can. And I try not to deactivate JARVIS in a fit of defensiveness when he fusses at me the way he always does. I didn’t program him with emotions, but he taught himself them all the same.

I doubt we’ve been out on a mission as a full team in months. There’s always someone who simply isn’t Field ready, and they know it. We don’t point fingers, we’ve all had days like this.

Since the Void, I haven’t been able to sleep without at least two suits on guard at all times. I know JARVIS is always watching, but the physical presence of the suits calms me in ways I can’t explain. Sometimes I wake up screaming, imagining that I’m falling through space, and I can’t breathe. I keep having these flashbacks, followed by sudden attacks of anxiety and terror that only seem to calm down when I’m inside my suit and JARVIS is talking me through the process of breathing.

JARVIS has gotten at least two MD’s and one PHD in psychology since I started having my attacks. It would concern me if I didn’t already know that JARVIS could become qualified in any field of study he so chooses. All the internet is at his fingertips. Doctor JARVIS MD, MD, PHD, tells me that I’m suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I want to disagree with him, but I know he’s right. JARVIS thinks I’ve been teetering on the brink of PTSD since Afghanistan, in fact, he’s certain I’ve actually had PTSD since then, but was able to hide it better.

Nothing compares to falling through the fucking blackness of space. And man, if that’s what Loki had to deal with, it’s no wonder he went around the fucking bend.

The others don’t really understand, but it’s okay, because I don’t really understand some of their problems. We’ve all got our own unique brand of PTSD, and we’re all owning it.

Steve and Bucky share a floor, it’s the most soundproofed floor on the planet, after Bruce’s, JARVIS is certain. Steve and Bucky carry traumas that are over 70 years old and growing older by the day, they’ve never had the chance to deal with them.

When Steve moved into the Tower, I had to make it soundproof, because Steve’s nightmares end with him screaming himself awake, and none of us could do anything for him, except maybe Natasha and Thor, but Clint was never willing to let Tasha try, and Thor rarely ever spends the night. Steve’s screaming would wake any of us who’d been successful in going to sleep, and it’d be a setback for all of us. One day, Steve had come to me and requested I make his floor soundproof, that he would deal with his nightmares on his own, and leave us to whatever sleep we could find. I’d been reluctant at first, until JARVIS had assured me that he kept watch over all of us at all times. It shouldn’t have been comforting, but it was.

When Bucky moved into the Tower, there was no question about where he would be staying. He moved into Steve’s floor without problem, and I think the two of them actually manage to sleep through the night sometimes. JARVIS refuses to give me the details on everyone else’s progress, I think he actually believes he’s our therapist. I guess he kind of is, in a way.

Whenever I’m having a bad day, I go out of my way to avoid Steve and Bucky both, and vice versa. There is too much baggage in our pasts, connecting us to each other, for the three of us to be comfortable around each other in the times when we aren’t even comfortable in our own skin. JARVIS counts any day the three of us manage to have a civil conversation as a good day. Great days are when we manage to interact almost as if we’re friends. We’re not friends. I don’t know what we are, but friends just doesn’t fit.

Clint and Natasha have their own floors, but I’m pretty sure they’ve each moved into the other’s floor, and neither of them realizes. It’s like their floors have a weird custody battle going on, where one week Tasha’s floor gets the both of them, and the next week Clint’s floor gets them. We don’t ask questions. They’re integral to each other’s sanity, we get that.

They don’t really sleep, they spend most of their nights on skype with Coulson, I guess he doesn’t sleep, either. One night, Coulson’s internet went down, and Clint and Tasha woke the entire Tower up and we assembled at Coulson’s apartment to find him angrily yelling at his modem. I fixed the issue, and sent everyone home to whatever they do when they’re not sleeping. It was refreshing to be called to a false alarm. No one died, and no one needed saving. We rarely ever get calls like this.

Bruce’s bad days are extreme. The Green Guy makes an appearance and refuses to go away until he is certain Bruce will be able to handle whatever the world is going to throw at him. This is the reason I had to make Bruce’s floor soundproof and Hulkproof. Until I made the necessary changes, Bruce spent most of his post-mission days in the Cage. I think he sleeps more now that he knows the Hulk is trying to help him, but I don’t know. There’s always going to be something there that keeps him awake at night, but he doesn’t look so tired all the time now. So I’m taking that as a win.

None of us know what to do for Thor. He lost his mother, and he lost his brother, and he feels like he’s lost his home. I never met Frigga, but there are days where I can’t even look at Bucky because of what he took from me, so I understand why Thor sometimes gets really quiet when Fridays roll around. It must be hard having a weekly reminder of someone important that you’ve lost. Friday is Frigga’s day, but no days are allotted to Frigga any longer.

And Loki. Thor really loved that guy. He was a dick face, but Thor really loved him. Thor says he finds it hard to be around me sometimes, because he sees a lot of his brother in me. At first, I didn’t take too kindly too this, until I realized that Thor never really saw his brother as the maniac that he became after the most disastrous ‘you’re adopted! HOORAY!’ talk in the history of ever. Thor looks at me, and he sees Loki from before the fall. Sometimes, I wonder if he looks at me now, with all my trauma from my own fall, and wonders what exactly happened to him when he fell. Because I wonder. Loki spoke of space as an abyss. Insanity dancing in his eyes, he spoke of world’s Thor could never know. It makes me wonder. How long did he fall? How far? Did he ever stop?

Thor sees Loki in me, and he worries. He tries to take me under his wing, protect me as much as he can. He fights battles that should be mine, and he refuses to speak ill of me, even when I want him to. He’s not coping with the loss of his brother well at all. Nor the loss of his mother. He clings to me, and prays that he will be able to save me, able to protect me as he could not protect them. It is an endeavour that has been doomed from the start.

Even JARVIS admits he’s concerned about Thor.

I’ve been playing around with technology, with the suits. Trying to build a version that’ll self-repair and self-correct. Trying to create a version of JARVIS that can be with Thor when all of us are long gone. He needs a minder. It’s something I picked up from Loki. Thor’s always had someone running around after him, cleaning up his messes, or trying to keep him from making them in the first place. Thor needs a minder, and when all of us are gone, I’m worried he won’t find someone to mind him.

We’re all fucking hopeless. An angst ridden ball of PTSD and family issues the likes of which could rival the Earth in size. We’re a fucking disaster just waiting to happen. But apparently, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

So…

Avengers, Assemble.