“Cheat!” Clint exclaimed, throwing the dice at Steve’s face. Steve laughed loudly and glanced at the dice.
“You rolled a one” He declared with a cocky grin. Clint yelled angrily and moved his figure forward one space. Natasha was watching them play out of the corner of her eye, a book open in front of her. Bruce was sitting silently, waiting for his turn. Thor was somewhere in space and Tony…
Clint froze in his angry rant about how “Steve was definitely cheating” and “nobody can roll a six four times in a row” to think for a second. He hadn’t seen Tony since he had come down to eat dinner with the rest of them.
“Hey, where’s Stark?” He asked mainly towards Bruce, the two scientists had grown close since the battle of New York so if anyone knew where the billionaire was it would be him. Bruce frowned and paused in his efforts to find the dice.
“I…don’t actually know”
“He’s probably in his lab, no?” Natasha suggested but Bruce shook his head.
“Nah, Pepper locked him out of it” He said with an amused smile on his face. Pepper was the only one who had the ability to override Tony’s commands, a power she used frequently.
“Sounds fair”
“Can we ask Jarvis?” Steve put in, he was slowly growing used to having an AI hearing his every word (key word being slowly)
“J?”
“I am not allowed to divulge that information Mr Barton” Jarvis replied almost sadly. Natasha scrunched her nose
“Okay never mind I don’t wanna know”
Clint rolled his eyes and stood up. “Nat, take my turns and don’t let Cap cheat again, yeah?” Steve laughed and shook his head as Natasha walked over to take Clint’s seat.
“Want me to come?” Bruce offered, concerned. Clint smiled and shook his head.
“Nah I’m good, thanks, Banner”
He walked over to the elevator quickly, where could Tony be? Apparently he isn’t in the lab and it wasn’t like him to sleep at all let alone this early in the day. Unless…
“Hey Jarvis? Where’s..where’s Pepper?”
“Ms Potts is currently in her and Mr Starks bedroom”
“…is Tony with her?”
“No”
Clint sighed in relief, glad that he wouldn’t be walking into anything…weirdwhen he eventually found Stark. Then he sighed for a different reason, his only idea had been put down. It’s not like Tony could be in any danger, it wasn’t at all unlike him to disappear without telling anyone. Granted, it was always to the lab but still.
“You really can’t tell me where he is?”
“I’m afraid not”
Clint closed his eyes in frustration. The elevator still hadn’t moved, which would make sense since Clint hadn’t said a floor.
“Is there any loopholes to that?”
There was silence for a few seconds, making Clint open his eyes. If there was a loophole he just had to be smart enough to figure it out.
“Yes.”
Clint smirked.
“Okay…what is the loophole?”
“Do you really think I can tell you that?”
Despite his disappointment he let out a huff of amusement, trust Stark to make an AI snarky.
“I suppose not…what’s Tony doing?”
“I cannot tell you-“
“Course you can’t”
…
“Okay…okay! In whatever room Stark is in, where is he?”
“I’m not quite sure what you mean..”
Clint paced around the elevator excitedly. “In the room, is he in a chair, in a bed, what?”
A pause.
“Mr Stark is currently sitting on the floor”
Why on earth is Tony on the floor?
“What room does the floor belong to?” He tried slowly.
“Guest room 12 on floor three” Jarvis replied, sounding as relieved as a robot could. Clint grinned and pressed the button, feeling as though the ding that sounded through the elevator was a reward.
“Thanks J” He whispered, and if an AI could nod that’s what Clint assumed Jarvis was doing.
A ding sounded again and the doors opened, Clint started to rush to the room Tony was in. He shouldn’t be worrying, really. Tony was probably fine and just working on some weird science stuff.
He reached the room and stopped. Now what? He found Tony but he couldn’t just open the door and say ‘hey I was worried about you for no reason so try not to die, okay?’
He shook his head and knocked on the door.
He got a shaky breath in response. Clint knocked again “Stark!?” No response.
He opened the door slowly and was met with the sight of a shaking Tony Stark on the floor, gripping his hair tightly. He rushed forward and hovered a hand near him.
“Tony?” Clint murmured, not wanting to scare him into anything worse. Tony shook his head frantically, muttering under his breath. His chest was rising and falling quickly and there was a glimmer of sweat on his forehead
“Tones, I’m right here can you hear me?”
Tony kept pleading quietly, stopping to let out a sob when Clint touched his shoulder.
“It’s just me, it’s Clint you’re safe” He whispered, he hadn’t let go of Tony’s shoulder, besides the original reaction it didn’t seem to have much of an affect. He couldn’t make out what Tony was saying so he kept trying to comfort him by rubbing his shoulder. Everything was slurred until Clint could finally make out a few words again.
‘Dad…no…’
Clint’s breathing hitched. He was an agent of Shield. He was pretty much desensitized to abusive households. But this was his friend. His friend was having a panic attack because of his father. Tony was strong, he was always strong. Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, someone who never showed weakness. And he was sobbing in a bedroom because his father was abusive. Clint felt a surge of gratitude to whatever made Howard Stark crash the car that night.
“Tony. Your dad isn’t here, I promise.” He said firmly, moving his hand further up his friends shoulder. Tony let out a shaky sob and started to pull on his hair.
“Hey hey hey- Tony, stop.”
He brought a hand up to Tony’s and rubbed it gently, hoping his message got across. After a minute, Tony slowly let go of his hair and gripped onto Clint’s hand like a lifeline.
“Clint...”
Clint smiled sadly, squeezing Tony’s hand. “Yeah it’s me, I’m here. Can you hear me?”
Tony took a deep breath. “ ‘s muffled”
Clint nodded “Yeah that’s normal, you’re okay”
Tony’s breathing was still uneven, and he wasn’t sure Stark had enough energy to regulate it. He brought the hand Tony had in a death grip up to his chest and started to take deep exaggerated breaths. “Copy me Tones, think you can do that?”
He swallowed before nodding and focusing on the rise and fall of the archers chest. After 10 minutes they were both calmer and a comfortable silence fell over the two.
Tony broke the silence first “Sorry”
Clint frowned, shuffling to get close to him. “Why’re you sorry? You did nothing wrong”
Tony shook his head. “I don’t..I didn't want anyone to see me like this” He took in a deep breath and gestured to his still shaking body.
“I have panic attacks too you know?” The way Tony stared at him said that no, he did not know. “Yup, my dad wasn’t…he wasn’t exactly the nicest guy”
“Did he…did he hit you?”
“Yeah he did, it wasn’t until I was eleven and learned about abuse in school that I realized ‘hey, this applies to me’. Me and my brother, we ran and joined a circus”
“You were in a circus?” Tony turned to face him, lips twitching up as he tried not to smile. Clint was talking about abuse after all, it didn’t seem right to laugh. Clint rolled his eyes
“Oh shush not all of us were rich”
A silence fell again and Clint didn’t dare to break it, leaving it to Tony again. “My dad…he- he did the same. I don’t know if my mom knew but if she did she…”
“Didn’t do anything?” Clint offered getting a nod in response.
“Nothin. How’d you get past it?” Tony asked earnestly.
“Therapy, and by therapy I mean Natasha”
Tony chuckled.
“No seriously, talking to her helped. It was like having a support dog but it was a person and could talk to you” Clint didn’t want to think about what Natasha would say if she heard him comparing her to a dog, but still.
“Sounds nice” Tony murmured, closing his eyes. Clint bit the inside of his cheek.
“I can be that for you, if you’d like”
Tony opened his eyes again. “Really?”
“Well, yeah. I’m here aren’t I?”
Tony smiled and shook his head, “I might just take you up on that”
“Good. It was gonna happen either way.” Clint stood up and offered him a hand. “Wanna go downstairs? I’m curious who won the board game”
Tony gripped onto his hand and pulled himself up, once he was standing Clint threw an arm around his shoulders.
“Who was playing?”
“Natasha, Steve and Bruce”
“Natasha. Natasha won.”
“Probably yeah”
They walked in silence to the elevator, before Tony looked to Clint in confusion. “How’d you find me?”
“I was a spy, I know how to find loopholes”
Tony rolled his eyes as they walked into the sitting room, where Natasha was sitting with a smirk on her face and Bruce was face down on the table.
“Did Rogers cheat again?”