RIP

one

Phil Coulson's funeral is today, and Tony can't bring himself to go. Instead, he puts the workshop on lockdown so that nobody but he can enter and crawls into the farthest corner of the room to cry. He hasn't sobbed like this in a long time. There were a few tears when Rhodey left him for the military, and he certainly cried in Afghanistan. But sobbing? No, Tony Stark doesn't do sobbing. And yet, here are the great big blubbering tears streaming down his face. The last time he was this broken, this hurt, was when Jarvis--the real one, not his AI--died. That, that was like a bullet to the head.

And this pain, the pain he is feeling right now as he clamps his palm to his mouth to stifle his sobs, is perhaps a million times worse than a bullet. Tony buries his head in his grease-stained, jean-clad knees, shoulders shaking, and tries to erase Phil from his memories. It doesn't work, because the agent is in every single one. He remembers the first time they met far too well. Everyone assumes that Coulson had never seen Tony before, based on his poker face and formal greetings to the billionaire, but in truth, they had met many, many times. Tony had been drunk, and numb, and so dizzy from liquor that he had knelt to the sidewalk in pouring rain and just...stayed like that. Howard and Maria Stark had just died the very past night, and while Howard was a cold shell of a man to his son, Maria Stark was as loving and caring as a mother should be. And Tony missed her for it. Phil had been heading to SHIELD, prepared to report to Fury, when he saw the teen on his knees and soaked from the spray of passing cars and the coal-black clouds overhead.

Phil was younger then, with eyes that had still faint laugh lines and skin smoothed by the youth of age. He had gently helped the nearly incoherent, and newly orphaned, boy into the backseat of his car and instead headed straight home. At first, Tony had resisted his help, but soon, accepted that Phil wouldn't hurt him and instead curled up on his bed in the cramped apartment and went to sleep. Later on, Tony would awaken with nightmares of his mother trapped under steel, crying and bleeding, smoke rising from the crushed front of the car. Phil would be there to help him, to hold him, all through the night.

In the morning, Tony dried his eyes and exited the apartment with a rigid back and a hard line for a mouth, with little more than a rough "Thanks" thrown to Coulson before the door closed shut. But Phil, still concerned about a boy he had never met once before in his life, had given Tony his email and three years later, received his first message from a lost person who didn't know what to do with his life and was buckling fast under the weight of expectations.

The romance had eventually bloomed, and for a while, things had been good. Even with the palladium poisoning and Afghanistan and everything else, Tony Stark could even say that he was happy. He had even proposed to the man and it was accepted with a warm smile and teary but joyful eyes. But now...now Phil Coulson, the only man Tony has truly ever wanted to spend the rest of his life with, is gone, rotting in a decorative black casket when Tony knows that his fiancée would have much rather preferred honey brown oak, nice but simple. Honey brown like your eyes, Phil would have said, and Tony clenches his eyes shut as if that could even come close to wiping all his pain away.

The engineer sheds a few more soft-falling tears before he stands, glancing at himself in a sheet of polished metal. Even in the dull reflection, he can see the red of his eyes, the dark shadows, the way skin seems to hang off his cheekbones in a corpse-like way. His quips and snarks have kept the rest of the Avengers reassured well enough that Tony is fine, absolutely positively without-a-doubt fine, even though Bruce seems to be a little more suspicious every time he sees Tony in his bedraggled state.

I want you to be happy, love, Phil's voice murmurs in his mind. He sounds as sweet and soft and gentle as the last time they had a moment alone together. Don't mourn me. The rest of your team is getting worried about you.

Tony shakes his head wildly, can feel his mind pulsing against his skull like a heartbeat. "I...I can't," he mumbles brokenly.

You're so strong, Tony, Phil says back. Tony feels floaty, like he's in a dream or something. But it's okay to let them know that you're hurting. It's not good to be strong all the time.

"I want you though!" Tony cries, muffling his hiccups as he stuffs his wrist to his mouth. Breathe in, breathe out, Phil tells him. You're dying in here. Do you think I want you to be unhappy? Tony stops crying as hard at this thought. He's acting awfully like a child, he knows, but he can't help it.

No, I don't, Phil continues in his soft voice. You need food. Water. Something else besides engine grease and motor oil. Please don't let yourself fade away because of me.

Tony is like Play-Doh when it comes to Phil, like wet clay. He'll do anything the man asks, even if it's just a hallucinatory voice in his head playacting like the dead agent he loves and misses so much.

"Okay," he whispers quietly, and struggles to stand. Wiping stray wetness off his cheeks with a rag that looks rather blackened, he sucks in a breath and counts them one, two, three. That's what Phil always told him to do every time he had a panic attack back when his fiancée was still alive. Four, five, six...

Tony's eyes and nose burn, but he ignores the feeling. He's a master at keeping his emotions under control when needed, and he knows his teammates will only belittle him for the love he has for a man four months dead.

.+.

Everyone is, to say the least, surprised when none other than Tony Stark comes striding into the kitchen, a cocky smirk plastered onto his face. "Miss me?" the billionaire says confidently as he plucks an apple from the fruit basket placed strategically in the middle of the counter.

"You look awful," Natasha comments as she studies the man's worn face. To anyone else, she would seem only as if she were being blunt, but Clint knows better. He can see it in her eyes that she thinks there is something wrong with Stark. Natasha is a professional when it comes to masking her thoughts--she has to be, she's a spy anyhow--but Clint has grown to know her like the back of his hand. And he's pretty sure he knows what the back of his hand looks like.

Stark just gives her his signature eye roll--now that the archer thinks about it, the guy has a LOT of signature looks--and takes a bite of the rosy red apple balanced precariously on the tips of his fingers. The loud crunch and slurping noise that follows echoes in the room. Steve crinkles his nose at the disgusting sound, but says nothing.

"If you've seen the things I've been doing, you'd know why I'm so...dirty," Stark banters, but the signature twinkle in his eyes isn't there this time. They look dull, the engineer himself faded like an old photograph.

"You look like you haven't slept in a million years," Bruce interjects, looking like he wants to say more but is resisting.

"Stark, what's going on?" Steve says, narrowing his eyes at the billionaire. In reply, the man just wearily scrubs at his eyes with a palm that probably hasn't seen soap since the last Ice Age.

"I need coffee, you all are talking to me, and I'm getting a migraine." He pushes past the aggravated supersoldier and pours himself a cup before downing it all in three swallows. Snagging a Saran-wrapped sandwich from off the countertop, Tony moves to leave. Clint steps in front of him, bodily blocking the engineer's only escape.

"We're worried about you, because lately you've just been holed up in your workshop, and today you put it on lockdown." Tony notices with a painful jolt that the archer is still wearing his black dress clothing.

Steve snorts. "There's nothing to be worried about. Stark's just being the selfish, uncaring asshole he's always been." The blonde shoulders forward and stares the smaller man down, blue eyes cold. "So selfish that you couldn't even bother to come to Coulson's funeral, huh?" Natasha and Clint both notice Stark's miniature flinch, but Steve barrels on, apparently unaware: "I thought you'd at least have the decency to show up for a man who sacrificed himself for US. But...I'll admit it--I was wrong. You have no respect for anyone but yourself. I'd be surprised if anyone except for your CEO Pepper showed up to YOUR funeral."

Stark sucks in a breath and steps back. "Steve," Clint says, but his voice is no match for the supersoldier's increasing temper.

"That's probably the first time you've ever lost a soldier, huh," Steve says icily. "Well, we all are soldiers. So you'd better get used to Coulson being gone, because if you wouldn't even show up to his funeral, I get the feeling that not many people have been sticking around for you."

.+.

Tony feels raw pain as Steve speaks those words. It's like a slap in the face, a punch to the gut. What hurts most of all, though, is the knowledge that Steve is right. Howard knew something was wrong with him from the time he was born, or he would have cared more about Tony, right? For all that Maria Stark was, there were times that she just didn't want to talk to her son, and instead pushed him onto Jarvis' lap instead. Edwin Jarvis, Tony's first father figure, left him when Tony was fourteen. The butler allegedly died of cancer, but death is a form of leaving anyway. Then there was Yinsen with the terrorist group the Ten Rings, Obadiah (the one he trusted most), Rhodey who had betrayed him for the government at one point in time. Pepper who ditched him as he was slowly dying of palladium poisoning--not that she knew about it, but her absence was like a knife wound anyway--and now Phil Coulson, as well as the rest of the Avengers because they don't seem to like him very much except for Thor, who's on a different planet.

"Shut up, Rogers," he says, flinching when he hears his voice come out raw and hoarse. He clears his throat. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know enough to realize that you're just a selfish child who will never have any regards for anyone but yourself. If anyone actually got close enough to love you, they'd leave you after seeing how damn cowardly you are." That hits way too close to home, and Tony closes his eyes, scrunches them tight.

"Don't say that ever again, Rogers." His voice is brittle, more like a hollow whisper than the firm demand he wants it to be.

"Or what?" He can feel Steve's presence looming in front of him. He looks up to see the blonde shaking his head. "I don't see how anyone can put up with you. Coulson is dead, Tony! And you don't even care."

That's what pushes Tony past the breaking point, off the cliff into utmost despair and agony. He sinks to his knees, ignoring Steve's bewildered stare and Bruce's concerned one and then the tears are just rushing out, flooding his vision and making everything seem blurry and pale.

Somewhere, a door opens, and there's a pattering of footsteps rushing into the room--his named shouted: "Tony!", and "What's going on? What did you do?!"--and then the familiar scent of sandalwood and deodorant and Phil floods him, calm and comforting and painful all at once. Arms wrap around him and Tony sobs harder, burying his snotty face into a suit jacket and the hollow of someone's throat. There's more commotion as a familiar voice says soothingly, "Baby, it's okay. Love, I'm here. Tony, Tony. I've missed you so much and I'm sorry I couldn't be here earlier. I'm sorry. I rushed straight out of the hospital as soon as I was well enough."

There's a voice that sounds like Bruce's. "We didn't...we didn't know you were alive. There was a funeral in your honor today."

The man holding Tony tightens his grip around the billionaire's quivering body. "I'm going to kill Fury once I see him again." Then the mouth is closer, lips brushing against Tony's ear and sending sharp tingles through his body. "Shh. It's okay. I'm here now."

"Phil?" Tony whispers brokenly. "You're not real, you're just here to haunt me, you're already dead--"

"No." Lips press gently against lips. "Fury lied. I'm here now. You never have to worry about me leaving, ever again."

For the first time, Tony looks up into the clear brown eyes of a man he's sobbed about every day for four months straight. Then he collapses into the arms of the agent he's missed so much, and continues to cry.