Chapter 6
“I’m gonna go work. Keep me company?”
Steve knew the silent question asked. He nodded. “Of course, Tony.”
Don’t make it a big deal, Bruce had told Steve. When he starts to work again. Don’t praise him. Don’t even acknowledge it. Just let it happen.
Steve could do that. He could contain his happiness, even though it had been a solid three weeks since Tony’s hospitalization, and Steve had been losing hope that he’d get back to work at all. But Bruce had been right; Tony just couldn’t stay away from his machinery forever, both a curse and a gift.
“J, start up the bots,” Tony said, entering his workshop with Steve at his heels. The ceiling lights blinked to life around them, bathing the room in a white, industrial lighting.
“I’m afraid the bots are in need of general maintenance before they start,” JARVIS said, almost hesitant.
Tony froze. Steve could practically hear his thoughts. But as soon as it had happened, Tony was at ease again. “Not an issue. Just oil?”
“Dum-E requires a new rear-left tire.”
“Should probably check on everyone’s tires,” Tony mumbled to himself, grabbing a bicycle pump from a desk drawer and a couple more tools. He handed the pump to Steve. “Can you check the pressure? Should be around 90 psi.”
Steve nodded, only smiling when he had his back to Tony. He checked the pressure of Butterfingers’ tires and had moved on to U when he realized that Tony hadn’t moved from his spot at the desk. Steve turned around.
“Tony. You alright?”
Tony was gripping the desk with white knuckles. He didn’t answer.
“Tony?” Steve dropped the pump and walked carefully over.
Tony’s eyes were squeezed tight, his breathing erratic. Steve recognized the signs of an anxiety attack easily; not his first rodeo, and not his first with Tony. He stood next to him and gently pressed his shoulder against his, just to provide some grounding support. Tony opened his eyes and leaned into it. Steve held out his hand and Tony took it, Steve’s pulse under his skin giving some form of comfort.
“Sorry,” Tony gasped out, his voice trembling. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Tony.”
“I thought- I thought I could do this,” he said, his voice full of self-hatred.
“You can. You’ve done it before,” Steve said gently. “This is what you know. And you’re going to get back to it.”
“What if I don’t?” Tony asked in a small voice.
What if I don’t build again? Would you still want me around? was what Steve heard. His heart softened. “I want you around because you’re Tony. Not because of what you can do for me.”
Tony nodded, satisfied with the answer. His hand was shaking less in Steve’s, but still held on tight. “‘kay. Just, quiet. I need-”
Tony had cut himself off with a deep breath, but Steve understood anyway. He stood still, unmoving, a rock, as Tony concentrated on getting his breath back to a normal rhythm. With his supersoldier hearing, Steve listened as Tony’s heartbeat slowed so that it matched Steve’s. Tony stopped shaking as much next to him, and he put his head on Steve’s shoulder for a minute before he stood up straight and let go of Steve’s hand.
“Sorry ‘bout that. Didn’t mean to get all vulnerable with you,” Tony said awkwardly, clasping his hands together. “I’m going to take a very long nap. Sorry I couldn’t be better company.”
“Tony. You’re doing just fine,” Steve said.
Tony smiled sadly at him, not quite believing it.
“I mean it. You’re doing fine. You’ve come a long way. Before you wouldn’t even come down here,” Steve pressed. “Small steps are still steps.”
“Thank you,” Tony said softly. He turned to go.
Steve stayed back, and under JARVIS’ instruction, helped to tune up the helper bots. He oiled joints and checked tires and pressure gauges and soon enough, powered them all up. It had taken a couple hours of work, but it was rewarding. Steve threw a ball for Dum-E a few times and once again, marveled at the fact that Tony had created artificial intelligence with a personality.
The next time Steve knocked on the workshop door, Tony was working by himself, music blaring with his helper bots not really helping but still doing their best.
Steve smiled. It seemed normal.
A few days later, Steve was watching as Tony flew around in the air in the new Iron Man suit. Steve jumped off of balconies and Tony swooped to catch him each time.
“You’re going to kill yourself one of these days,” Tony said, a wild grin on his face.
“Nah. I trust you,” Steve said with a shrug, getting gently deposited on the ground. “You got my six.”
Tony also built new wings for Sam. Sam dropped in frequently to test them out as they got developed further, always with compliments. Tony wasn’t so afraid to build new and flashy things anymore, thank god. Sure, it had been a good two months since the hospitalization, but Tony was making such good progress that only Steve and his enhanced abilities could hear the quickening of his pulse whenever the topic of his projects were brought up; no one else could tell. Tony’s heart rate once increased so fast when Sam jumped off of the balcony with a whoop that Steve was convinced it would send him into another anxiety attack.
But Sam was doing loop-the-loops in the sky, and Tony smiled a shaky smile.
Fury paid a visit once when Steve was on the couch in the workshop, watching Tony while he worked.
“I heard about your… predicament,” Fury said, staring at Tony with his one eye.
“Do you want me to leave?” Steve asked, not making any move to get up.
Tony shrugged. Steve stayed.
“I’m happy you’re better,” Fury continued.
“Uh,” Tony said, unsure of what to say. “Same for you I guess.”
Silence. Steve almost wished that he had left; this was painfully awkward.
“Stark-” Fury started.
“I could’ve killed you,” Tony blurted out.
Fury frowned.
“I thought- I thought that the reason you- I built the thing that could’ve killed you. If I hadn’t- if Rogers hadn’t- I just-” Tony broke off, shaking his head. “You would’ve been dead.”
“Stark-” Fury began again.
“I cried for you,” Tony spat. “Did you know that? I cried for you.”
Fury was silent. Tony threw a wrench at the wall. The clatter was loud.
“In other news, I found out some things about Barnes,” Tony said with a heavy sigh, and that caught Steve’s attention.
He perked up. “What?”
“I was avoiding telling you,” Tony said awkwardly. “I’m sorry.”
“What did you find out?” Steve asked earnestly.
“Rogers,” Fury said in a warning tone.
“No. It’s fine,” Tony said with a shrug. “I managed to find some files. They were hidden deep inside of the leak. But I found a reference to a company in one of them, which I then hacked into and found a few encrypted files. After a few hours, I managed to get my hands on them.
“Barnes was… brainwashed. They had the designs for some kind of sick and twisted machine that would kind of reset him if he strayed from his mission. They made code words that would trigger the soldier, and they used his super strength to basically do their bidding. But recent reports showed that he would break his role. Barnes was fighting it. His memory would come back and they’d put him in that torture machine thing and brainwash him again. But, and I thought you should know this, Cap, he disappeared after he dragged you from the water. HYDRA no longer has his whereabouts.”
“Have you… found him?” Steve asked hopefully.
“I believe he’s in Europe somewhere. I don’t have an exact location.”
“Okay,” Steve breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Tony. I knew-”
“Stark is just trying to change the topic,” Fury said, putting out a halting hand in Steve’s direction.
“I’m not,” Tony said stiffly. “This is related.”
“Then get to the point,” Fury said sternly.
Tony huffed out an irritated sigh. “Fine. Barnes was used as a weapon. I got all existential and shit and I realized that maybe I was being used as a weapon. I am a weapon. I have nuclear codes in the palm of my hand. I had a nearly unlimited source of power inside my chest at one point. My suits are weapons too. So I… shut that down,” Tony said awkwardly. “I stopped. I stopped being Iron Man. I stopped working, I kept myself away from the workshop, developed an- I developed an obsession with it. And I’m, I’m not killing myself over it anymore, but I still have to close doors and touch handles until it feels right. I still have to flex all the muscles in my arms every hour or so to remind myself that I have control. Because, I don’t know. I just kind of looked back and started seeing patterns.
“The people around me. They just kept dying. And when you died,” Tony looked at Nick, “I finally put two and two together. Maybe I was the problem. I was the common link. Something was wrong with what I was doing. And the whole…the thing about the helicarriers, when that came out, I just- I couldn’t stop thinking,” Tony continued quietly but smoothly, like he’d thought about this a lot. “I’ve taken so many lives. There would’ve been more blood on my hands if those helicarriers went up. Even though you weren’t dead, I couldn’t get that thought out of my head. The problem has always been me.”
A beat of silence. Steve suddenly realized the burden that had fallen onto Tony. This wasn’t just simple guilt; it never was, Steve could see that. After all, Tony wasn’t one to try and kill himself over it. It ran so much deeper. While Steve regularly beat himself up over missions gone wrong or a death of a civilian, Tony was beating himself up over things that hadn’t even happened yet; a futurist. Tony saw the worst case scenario. The past, the present, the future, that was what Tony was trying to fix. He was trying to fix everything. Steve hated to admit that it sounded a bit like Project Insight, but on a more personal level. Instead of trying to neutralize all threats, Tony just wanted to prevent the possibility of just him doing any harm.
“You’re just a man trying to do what you think is best,” Fury said.
“But so is everyone else. Even the bad guys. At the end of the day we’re all the same,” Tony contradicted. “And at the end of the day I still have to lock locks a bunch of times over until it feels right.”
“No. What sets you aside, Stark, is that you work in a team,” Fury stood up and walked closer to Tony. “Villains are heroes who work alone. You work alongside people with opinions. You just need to learn when to ask for them.”
Tony looked up sharply. “But you asked me to improve the helicarriers.”
“Exactly. So what you did was not a bad thing. You were just following instruction.”
“You ever heard of the Milgram experiment?” Tony asked.
“But you thought you were helping. Those people knew they weren’t.”
Tony nodded. “Valid point.”
“Not everything is about you. Sometimes people just die. And it sucks. I died just last month. But I promise, Stark,” Fury said sincerely, “you are not the problem.”
Tony sniffed. “Okay. Thanks. I would love to dig myself out of this mushy hole I’ve dug.”
Fury barked out a laugh. “Cap, you know I changed this boy’s diapers? And he still thinks he can get out of this.”
“Oh my god,” Tony whined.
“You listen to me. You too, Rogers,” Fury said sternly. “The world needs you. The world needs the Avengers. And I care a whole lot about the world; I happen to live in it. So, by extension, I care a whole lot about you.”
Tony looked near tears. “Thanks,” he whispered.
Fury walked up to Tony and grabbed his hand in some sort of handshake. “I know I said this last time, but it would be hard to bury someone I watched grow up.”
He pulled him into a hug, clapping him on the back a few times, allowing Tony to hide his face from him for a little moment. Fury released Tony, put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it, smiled at him, then left the lab as soon as he had entered it.
“I…” Tony said, still watching the doors that Fury had disappeared from. “I guess I never said thank you to you.”
“Tony-”
“Nah. Let me talk. You can say whatever you want after,” Tony said, feigning nonchalance. “I owe you a whole awful lot. Uh, thanks. For not giving up on me. Because I really just gave up on myself. I let something stupid just… consume me, and I didn’t even try to fight it this time. Thanks for… helping me when I was drunk. And for talking me out of like, actually killing myself. It would’ve sucked if I was dead.”
“It would’ve sucked if you were dead,” Steve echoed.
“Yeah.”
But then Tony was crying. And Steve walked over to him, a hesitant hand out, about to touch his shoulder.
“Just give me the damn hug.”
Steve wrapped his arms around his friend, holding him close, afraid to lose him, afraid to let go.
“I’m not going anywhere soon,” Tony said, as if reading Steve’s mind. “Could never leave everyone now that they’re all at my beck and call.”
“Dumbass.”
“No, seriously. If I’d known that having a couple mental breakdowns would’ve-”
“Shut up, Tony.”
Steve could feel Tony grinning into his shoulder, and Steve couldn’t help but smile himself.