Chapter 2
He spends three days designing the holo-glasses. He hadn’t really gotten to it the previous months, and he can admit he didn’t even want to. It gave him an excuse to avoid going out, not having the glasses ready. He had driven Pepper mad refusing time after time to have a press conference to convince the press he is just fine. He is so focused he barely eats- not that he would eat if he wasn’t focused.
The action of eating is a mere necessity to keep working at this point. He isn’t even hungry anymore. He eats only cause he knows he’d die without food, and he can’t work if he’s dead, now, can he? But he doesn’t even eat all that regularly. Once, sometimes twice a day he forces himself to eat something, and he often can’t even keep it down.
So yeah, he usually barely eats, but now that he’s focused he doesn’t even remember about it. Which brings him to where he is now, laying down on the pavement of his workshop, blood lazily oozing from his head wound, a killer headache on the way and the room spinning. He doesn’t exactly remember falling, but he remembers getting up from his hunched position on the bench to get coffee, the wave of dizziness and the pain in his head as he hit his head on the work table behind him. So, maybe it wasn’t a great idea to mute F.R.I.D.A.Y. when she tried to remind him to eat.
He scrunches his eyes shut, trying to stop the room from spinning. God he’s an idiot
He manages to get himself in a sitting position resting against the bench. The cold metal of the bench digging in his back grounds him as he takes some deep breaths. After a couple of minutes he feels better, but still out of breath.
The bots are beeping worriedly and F.R.I.D.A.Y. must have said something to Dum-e cause Tony would be pretty sure the bot is trying to make a smoothie if it weren’t for the fact that he just put engine oil in it. But that must be what he was doing cause now Dum-e’s handing it to him
There’s a sudden shrill noise pounding through his scull, coming from one of the holograms, alerting him of the incoming call from one Laura Barron.
He gets on his feet, the dizziness making him waver, and stumbles to the bench in front of the hologram, sitting down heavily on it.
He accepts the video call
“Hey Tony, how are you?” Laura asks sounding concerned
“‘m fine, how bout you? The kids doing okay? Wait- did something happen? Is that why you’re callin me?” He asked worriedly ignoring the nagging of Dum-e’s claw in his back
Her brows furrow “what? No, I just wanted to check up on you, you haven’t called to tell me when you’re going to come-” he turns around once he’s reassured of their safety to get the smoothie from his boy “-and is that blood?! Are you okay?!”
“What?” He turns back around “Oh, yeah, ‘course I’m fine, just slipped and hit my head. It’s all right though, doesn’t even need stitches”
Her eyebrows raise quite a bit “that’s a lot of blood for a head wound”
“Yeah well, I’m a bleeder”
She snorted “I thought everyone was?” she turned serious again “Tony? Should I call someone? An ambulance?”
If they see him like this they’ll surely tell the press “No ambulance- no hospital”
“Okay well, there must be someone else we can call, is anyone there?
“There isn’t- I’m alone right now”
“You sure you don’t wanna me to call a friend or… there must be someone-”
“No one” he sighs and rubs his eyes with his left hand as his right is keeping him upright against the table “there’s no one” he looks down, not ready to see the pity in her eyes
“Turn around” when his eyes slowly look up to see her, there’s no pity there, only determination
“What?” He asks dumbly
“Turn around, Tony” she commands
He does
“Okay, it needs stitches” he turns back around
How the hell could she tell “How do you know?”
“He asks to a woman married to a spy” she deadpans
“Right, how do I do that?”
She raises a skeptical eyebrow “you, a man who is a hero and gets hit more times than I could count and, from what Clint told me, hates doctors, have never stitched yourself” she half asks half states
“Not in the back of my head I didn’t”
She nodded admitting defeat “to quote you: touché” then she shrugs “All you need is two mirrors and me- also, maybe some alcohol?”
Right, like he could actually drink with all the pills he’s taking for the arc reactor “I’m fine”
They pass the next fifteen minutes trying to stitch his head wound without making things worse.
Once done Laura convinces (read: forces) him to agree to letting her call that night every two or three hours to make sure he wakes up since apparently he might also have a concussion.
The first time she calls he hasn’t actually gone to sleep, against her ‘you need rest, Tony’ statement, so, fearing her ire, he runs and throws himself on the couch, throwing a blanket on before F.R.I.D.A.Y. is able to answer, or at least he hopes he was fast enough as he buries his head between the couch’s cushions feigning sleep.
“Tony” he hears her sigh “I know you’re awake, Tony”
He waits a bit more just because before turning his head towards her “wow, your bedside manners suck, you know that?”
She smiles “can’t sleep?”
“Didn’t even try actually” he hasn’t tried in three days, since the last nightmare. Nightmares are something of a norm by now, waking him up at every chance, sweating and crying. Every time he closes his eyes he sees Pepper screaming as she falls and all because of him, Rhodey falling and falling into a coma because of course he did, and of course it was Tony’s fault. He sees Parker unmoving on the ground after his fall. Seems falling is a constant in his life. He sees Clint and Wanda burying him with cars, Vision leaving, Bruce leaving, Thor chocking him, Natasha stabbing him, Ste- Rogers beating him, oh and his personal favorite: Barnes chocking him and Steve just watching, because he’s my friend, Tony and the rest of the Avengers smiling at the sight. But worst of all, he sees himself tearing the Avengers apart.
She frowns “why?”
“Nightmares” he says sluggishly and why is he telling her this? Oh right, sleep deprivation.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He shakes his head “thanks but no, I don’t- I can’t”
“Okay” she considers him for a moment “I gotta ask you some questions”
He nodded “Go ahead”
“What’s your name?”
“Tony” he says simply
“Come on, Tony, this is serious, you could be hurt”
He sighs “Antony Edward Stark”
“When were you born?”
“1980” she raises her eyebrow again “okay okay, 1970” he raises his hands in mock-surrender “you’re no fun” he laments as he rolls his eyes
She rolls her eyes in turn “Where do you live?”
He ignores her question “how do you know the answers to these questions?
She shrugs “I googled you”
“Creepy” he murmurs
She ignores him “where do you live?”
“This is boring” he commented then suddenly perked up “are you… eating Doritos?!” He gasps
She stopped mid-chew, narrowing her eyes at his exaggerated gasp “…yeah”
“You’re eating?? While we’re having a serious conversation, to check on my cognitive abilities- my mental stability is at stake!” He throws her word back at her
His fake outrage gets a startled laugh out of her
“-these are life threatening injuries we’re talking about-”
She laughs harder
“I could be seriously concussed-”
She’s actually shaking right now
He points a finger at her “I could die, and you eat Doritos?!” He gasps once again “and- fantastic, now you’re laughing at me?! I could be hurt!” He mock-yells, throwing her words back again. Happy at seeing her laughing he relaxes from his angry pose and lets himself fall on the couch, slamming his head on the wall in the process. He hisses.
When she finally calms down and wipes her eyes she finally speaks “hey! Be careful, I don’t want you ruining all my work”
He puts a hand over his heart “I beg your pardon?!” He dramatically says “I’m the one who did all the work!”
“Details, you wouldn’t even have stitched it up if it weren’t for me”
He lets a beat pass just because, then nods his head “to quote you quoting me: touché”
She smiles before speaking again “okay, after this I’m sure you’re fine, I’ll call again in a couple of hours”
The second time Laura calls goes much like the first: she asks questions, he refuses to answer and makes a scene out of it, making her laugh, the slight awkwardness that was present before completely gone by the end of it
Tony is tossing and turning when Laura calls the third time. He has an arm and a leg dangling from the couch, his body draped over it. He’s so bored he’d take any distraction by now. So he says the most cliche thing he can come up with as he answers the phone “what are you wearing?” He asks wiggling his eyebrows, voice a little muffled by the couch
She frowns “you can see what I’m wearing”
He turns his head more towards her “tell me anyway” he says, voice slow and low
She actually laughs at that and, surprisingly, he does too. “God you’re weird”
He shrugs “I try” he says modestly, still draped over the couch
She must have gotten the memo that he won’t answer any boring questions, cause she asks more interesting ones
They both end up eating Doritos as they go, her with a wine glass and him with the smoothie Dum-e made for him
“Is that thing actually digestible?” She asks
“No idea, Dum-e put engine oil in it”
She looks confused “why?”
“I think he believes I need to be oiled”
She laughs
“You know, this is really unfair, I’m here answering all of your questions about my private life while I don’t get to ask you anything” he whines
She raises a brow “What are you proposing?”
“A question for a question” he says simply
She takes a sip of wine “How will you know if I’m not lying?”she asks
He shrugs “I guess I’ll just have to trust you”
By the fourth time she calls they have shared all kinds of funny stories about Clint, the fact that neither of them sounded bitter or cried, and even managed to laugh is a feat in itself. Before answering he does a pose which is supposed to be sexy but is really just awkward
Laura keeps a straight face until he wiggles his eyebrows, then she brakes down and laughs.
“You look ridiculous”
“You should see the pose I did for the cover of People for my eighteenth birthday, now that was awkward”
“Ooooh, I gotta see that”
They pass the next twenty minutes searching for the infamous photo through the internet, having a bet on who finds it first. Obviously both bet on themselves, the price of the win being the possibility to ask any question and the other’s obligation to answer truthfully
In the end Tony is the one to find it and, in his enthusiasm for having won, makes the mistake of showing her
Laura belly laughs for the next five minutes. There’s whole package: the tears in her eyes, the hand on her stomach, the phone even falls once from her shaking hand giving him a view of the ceiling
“What were you thinking?” She asks between laughs
“To be fair, I think I was stoned, or drunk… or possibly both” he tries to recall but really can’t “and now, time for the question” he drums his fingers on his knees, getting another smile from her, then turns serious “how are you?”
“I’m fine” she said as if it was obvious
“No, truly, I don’t want to know what you tell your kids or even what you tell yourself. I want to know. How. Are. You?” He asked
She opens and closes her mouth trying to form words “I’m- I don’t know” she sighs “I feel like I should hate him, for what he did to me, but more importantly for what he did to our kids, but… but I can’t-” her voice cracks and he wishes he could be there for her right now “-I can’t help but miss him” she looks up, trying to force the tears down “I can’t help but miss his scent on the pillows and his laugh and his stupid fucking jokes and I’m just so… so angry that he chose Steve over our children, and I don’t want to forgive him because he hurt our kids and…” she sobs “I still miss him” she says in a small voice
“I’m sorry”
“It’s not your fault”
He scoffs but doesn’t elaborate, it’s not about him right now. He sighs “it’s okay to miss him you know?” She scoffs “no, I’m serious. I know that he hurt you, I know that he hurt your children, but he didn’t choose Ste- Rogers over you, he chose to make the world a better place for you and for your children, that kinda entails also saving it from brainwashed super soldiers”
She looks into the camera again “is that what happened though? The super soldiers, you really fought them? Because that’s what the government says your statement is, that you and Steve and Barnes fought and killed the super soldiers and you got hurt, so Steve and his friend ran. But that’s not what happened, is it? You aren’t even able to say Steve’s name. What happened, Tony? What did my husband fight for? What happened in Siberia?”
He closes his eyes at the name of the place he was stuck in for hours, bleeding, hurt and blind in one eye. He shivers involuntarily. He doesn’t want to talk about it, he doesn’t want to remember
But this isn’t about him, and she deserves the truth.
So he tells her. He tells her about the Sokovia Accords, about what they are and what they do, about the airport and Rhodey, about you did that when you signed and I’m not the one that needs to watch their back, about the video and did you know, about he’s my friend and so was I, about destroying Barnes’ arm and being beaten by Ste- Rogers, until his helmet broke, until he was blinded on one side, until he screamed just end it and meant it, about how he was left to die if it weren’t for F.R.I.D.A.Y.
He ended it with an “I’m sorry” and duck his head, ready for the yelling
“Why?” She stared at him as if he had grown a second head
“Because of what I did, I hurt people! I hurt Barnes, I wanted to kill him to hurt St-Rogers, it proves I’m-”
“You’re what, huh? A villain? A monster? Why? Because you, a man with PTSD reacted badly to the news that a friend lied to you about your own parents for years? You’re human, Tony, everybody would have reacted that way, heck, I would have” her eyes softened “you’re human, and that’s all there is to it, okay? Yes you’re flawed, but who isn’t? It’s okay to make mistakes”
He nodded not really believing her. Then he looked up again “it’s okay to miss him too” he said “heck I miss him, and I’m not even married to him!”
That got a startled laugh out of her
He smiled. Maybe, just maybe, she was right. Maybe he wasn’t such a monster after all.
After a comfortable moment of silence she speaks up again“Hey, do you… no it’s stupid” she stops herself
“Hey, you can ask me anything okay?”
She nods and waits a moment before continuing “do you mind staying on the phone? Until I fall asleep, I mean. If you don’t want to I understa-”
“No, I mean, yes, of course! I’ll stay on the phone” he assures her
She smiles gratefully and lays down, the phone on the pillow next to her showing him the ceiling once again.
He listens to her breathing slow down and regulate
Yeah, he thinks as he falls asleep for the first time in three days, maybe he’s not such a bad person.