Voiceless

Home. He was home. Why? Why did he get to return home, while others, the others didn’t? If Peter had somehow made it back to Earth, what of the others? Right. Something to work on, besides the problem of his voice being out of commission. But was it really a problem? He walked down the three flights of steps to his workshop, as he couldn’t bear the idea of being encased in an elevator even for the fifteen seconds it took to get down to the workshop. He stopped at the keypad, entered his code and blew out a sigh of relief as the door slid open and he walked into the place that had always been his safe haven in the past, and shivered as he heard the door close behind him. He’d have to find a way to keep the door open. Yes, of course the point of having the door was to keep him safe, from whatever was after him now… but he rolled his eyes and wondered to himself, who or what was left in the universe that would want him dead now?

“Tony.”

Tony blinked as Steve Rogers’ image appeared on the security camera, as if on cue.

“I know you can’t, or won’t talk right now, but, I need to talk to you, if it’s at all possible. Please?”

Tony shrugged and pressed the button that would allow Rogers access to the house, the elevator, and essentially grant him permission to once again blame him for everything had happened over the past, what, three years, since they had last seen each other. Since the last time they had done everything but kill the other.

He held his breath for a four count and let it out slowly, breathing had become something he had to think about now, even as he had all the air he wanted, his brain was essentially slowly coming back online, as if it couldn’t quite accept that it was still functioning. Damn. He pulled open a drawer and rummaged around for a piece of paper and a pen, and of course found nothing as Steve suddenly appeared at the door. Tony blinked at him, for the first time he had known him, he seemed to have aged, and not aged all that well. Without a second thought, he pressed the button that allowed him access to the workshop and nodded as he walked in. He watched his former friend jump as the door closed quietly behind him. Well, at least that was something. Tony nodded at the chair Peter usually sat in, and watched as Steve fell into it wearily, then tossed a package that had been hastily wrapped in brown paper on the worktable. Tony flinched and heard a snort of laughter escape from the man next to him.

“Sorry. Not a bomb. Figured you might need some paper and Sharpies, as I recall, they aren’t things you usually have on hand.”

Tony reached for the package and opened it carefully, finding a dozen oversized legal pads and a dozen boxes of black fine tipped markers. “I thought -” Steve’s voice came to a halt as Tony’s dark brown eyes met his and he looked down at the floor and ran his fingers through his hair. “Shit.”

Tony rolled his eyes, opened a box of Sharpies, pulled one out and scribbled “Language” on the first legal pad, then held it up for Steve to see.

“Yeah, well.”

So, you’re here, you have the floor, go ahead, let me have it.

Steve sat up so fast Tony instinctively slid his chair back and held his breath as Steve held up his hands. “Damn it, I’m sorry. I’m doing this all wrong. I didn’t come here to blame you, or start another fight.”

No?

“No. I know something went bad on Titan. When we found Peter, he couldn’t or wouldn’t say anything about what went down up there, just that we had to find a way to get you home.”

Anyone else? Strange? And there were some...
How the hell could he ask about the Guardians, even now, he wasn’t sure if they had been real or just figments of his imagination.

“Doctor Strange?”

You know about him?

“He’s why you made it home. You and Strange are the reason everybody made it back, Tony.” The marker slipped from his fingers and Tony glared at Steve, then bent over to pick up the pen he had dropped. “Everyone is safe, Tony, because of you, and Strange.”

But, Pepper told me what happened in Wakanda -

“When did she tell you?”

When? Two days ago? I think? Time has become -

“Yeah, I know. We found Peter first, and then one by one, the others started showing up in places they shouldn’t have been. Everyone is fine, well, as fine as they can be considering.”

Steve.

“I don’t understand it at all, but before Strange left for the Sanctum, he told us you’d understand, eventually, and then he disappeared through one of those golden light things - nearly the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen, and I thought I’d seen - ah - well. I just came here to let you know, I thought you might - actually, not sure, I just wanted to be sure you were okay, I thought about visiting you at the hospital, but I knew Pepper would have my head on a platter before I got in to see you. I was wrong.”

Tony stared at him for a long moment, then with a shaky hand, scratched out:

About?

“About you. Siberia. I know you can’t ever forgive me, and whatever trust or friendship we had at one point can’t be fixed. On my way here, I tried to think of something that could repair what we had, and I finally realised there isn’t any reason for you to think -”

The person he had been before up until the moment he had found himself on the donut from hell would have let Steve keep talking, just to see how far he would go. But he held up his hand and the words stumbled to a halt.

Tony sat still for a moment then began to write, slowly and awkwardly at first, then one sentence turned into a page, and then to two pages. After three and a half pages, he replaced the cap on the pen, tossed the legal pad to Steve, and turned his focus to his thousands of unread emails.

Steve-

I don’t know why I made it back. I don’t know why Peter or the rest of them are back, maybe I’ll figure it out, and if Strange said I will, then I probably will. I can’t explain what happened on Titan, I won’t even try. Pretty certain it’s why I can’t talk right now, I’m not meant to. Whatever.

Ever since, well, to be honest, ever since I met you, I’ve had a difficult time. Yeah, as if that wasn’t as clear as crystal. I was used to doing things on my own, it worked some times, well enough that aside from Rhodey, it was hard to trust you and the others. Until after New York. I realized Coulson was right, that there are such things as heroes, and I thought I had people, a team, but more than that, as many mistakes as I had made, I had acquired a family of a sort, a bizarre, off the wall, piping hot mess kind of family, but considering the family I came from, it was a relief to know I had people who had my back no matter what. And then Sokovia happened. And Pepper left me. And I could barely breathe, barely function, and I thought if I could keep Wanda safe, with Vision by her side, keep us together somehow, maybe things could calm down, but it quickly became something that was beyond my control.

To be honest, ever since I came back from Afghanistan, I’ve felt like my life stopped being my own once I chose to build the armor, and put it on. I realize now that it was a choice I made. I wasn’t fated to become Iron Man. It was a choice I made to become him, and for the longest time, I believed the reason I was allowed to survive the cave and everything else was because I was meant to be something bigger, at least do something more than what I had done for most of my life. On Titan, I did everything I could to stop Thanos from wiping out half the universe, and I failed. I failed, Steve, and yet, here I am, still. I don’t know why. Don’t know if I care.

About Siberia. Yeah, in those moments after I saw Barnes kill my parents on that video, I wanted him dead. You chose to defend him over me. Nearly killed me in the process. But you didn’t. You have always been a black or white kind of guy, you never believed in the nuances of things, did you? That was one of our basic problems. I was once like you, something was either wrong or right. Good or Evil. Sure, yeah, in rare instances. But mostly, I’ve come to the conclusion after a few harsh lessons and years of quiet and not so quiet deliberation with myself, that the world, the universe, existence itself is made up varying degrees of grey.

I always tried to get everyone home after a battle. But I never saw us as soldiers at war, perhaps that is where I erred. You have always seen the world as a place in a state of war, and yeah, historically, human beings aren’t good at peace. You were always willing to accept casualties, your goal was to finish the mission and hope the majority of us made it home in one piece more or less, so we could go onto the next mission. Yes, I wanted to try to complete whatever task we had set out to do, but I always fought to get home to Pepper, back to my little life, such as it was, and it seems smaller, yet even more important at the moment.

I know that must seem selfish to you, small-minded, whatever. Still, on Titan, as I watched everyone I fought with turn to dust, held Peter in my arms as he fought to stay in one piece, and heard Strange tell me there was no other way, it wasn’t the universe I thought of, it was of Peter, of his Aunt May, of Pepper. At that moment I believed I was going to die on that damn dead planet, and I was never going to see Pepper again, never marry her and never have a family with her. And now? Now all I want to do is to stop thinking, and sleep for a day, maybe two and maybe I’ll be allowed to get on with my life. I don’t know if it’s possible or realistic and maybe I blew it with her when I got on that damn donut. All I know is I have to try.

Hungry?

Steve looked up from the legal pad and couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yeah, actually, I can’t remember the last time I ate, to be honest.”

Tony glanced over at him, then got up from his work station, and nodded towards the door. After a moment’s hesitation, Steve got up and followed Tony out of the workshop, up the three flights of stairs and into the kitchen, where Tony set about making him an omelet, still the only thing he knew how to cook.