Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Demons and heroes. There are three men at a party. One of them is chasing his demon in a bottle. One day he’ll become a hero. Another men is a demon the first man will create without even thinking about it. The third man is already a hero and in the truest sense of the word. And no one even noticed he was there.

When, years later, he says to the man they’ll call a hero ‘we met once. A conference in Switzerland,’ the other man will say ‘I’m sorry. I don’t remember you’. 

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“Sorry, they’re only coded to me.”

He was paraphrasing, but Tony had said something like that. He wouldn’t give him a suit. But... he’d also said that Pepper had been wearing a suit when the house had collapsed. And later, when they were talking, he’d said he’d put the suit on Killian and then blew it up. So other people could wear them. just not him.

Rhodey twisted his beer bottle around between his palms. He was going to have to face it sooner or later and he’d put it off long enough. Tony didn’t trust him. not with his feelings. Not with his tech. Tony didn’t talk about the PTSD, even though Rhodey was really trying to help, to get him to talk. This time at least.

The problem was that Rhodey found he couldn’t blame the other man in the slightest for not trusting him. Tony had always been skittish. Rhodes remembered when they first met, at MIT, and Tony was half the size of everyone there and desperate for someone, anyone, to pay attention to him. It had taken months for Rhodey to reassure him that he didn’t want anything from Tony. That he just wanted to be friends. Not sex, or money, or Tony’s brain. Just to be friends. It had taken over a year of Tony to share something personal. Rhodey knew this about Tony. He always had. But when Tony had needed him most, when he was dying, Rhodey hadn’t pushed hard enough. He’d betrayed Tony’s trust instead.

He’d tried to give the suit back, despite orders against it. Tony had said no. He’d said that the suit was Rhodey’s; that he’d made it for him. And he’d locked him out of the workshop. They’d slowly built back up till Rhodey had thought they were back to where they were before. To where he felt comfortable asking ‘are you okay?’ and saying ‘people are worried’. But apparently they weren’t there yet.

Or maybe they were. Maybe Tony had never completely trusted him. Maybe he’d expected him to steal the suit, and he’d only lived down to his expectations. Or maybe Tony did trust him, with everything but his tech.

Rhodey wasn’t sure. But he was going to find out. He was going to go over there and talk until Tony had to listen. And then he was going to make it better.

As soon as he finished this beer. 

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Tony Stark had at one point seriously considered giving himself gills. Of course, this was back when he couldn’t shower without panicking and he spent most of his time drunk so he didn’t have to think.

Now, after everything, he’d pulled up the ideas and notes he’d drafted and looked them over.

“What do you think, boys? Waterproof retrofits for us all?”

“Sir, I do not think this is a wise course of action.”  Tony snorted, and petted DUM-E’s arm. Of course JARVIS didn’t approve. Tony didn’t expect anyone to approve. But the first time he’d been nearly drowned, he’d decided there wouldn’t be a second time. He’d fight and punch and kick, and they wouldn’t be able to force his head down into the barrel of foul tasting water.

It didn’t work like that of course. He fought when they came for him. But they said they’d shoot Yinsen if he didn’t do what they said.

The second time he was nearly drowned, he tried to convince himself it wasn’t so bad. That yeah, he was being tortured in a cave, but at least they weren’t cutting off his fingers or something. It’s just a little water. What was there to be scared of?

The third time he actually died for a few minutes. He knew they were scared they wouldn’t be able to bring him back. They thought they’d be punished. But he woke up, choking on water and the image of the Arc Reactor burned into his retinas. He could do this. He could fix himself and get out, before they shoved him under again.

When he was trapped in the Mark 42, he’d only himself to blame. It was a prototype. Unsealed. He should have had the suitcase suit at hand. He’d threatened a terrorist after all. But he didn’t, too absorbed with his own inventiveness and invulnerability. He fell into the water and he couldn’t... he didn’t... it was okay at first, but then the water started coming in and his struggles got more frantic and less effective.

“Deep breath, sir.”

And then JARVIS was pulling him out, and the hand of his suit was gone, water rushing in over him and he couldn’t breathe...

So. Gills. Bio-tech. How hard could it be? He’d already designed new casings for the boys, so they wouldn’t be damaged if they got wet again. He could do the same for himself. He was in New York, in his tower and he was breathing evenly. If he could defeat that, he could defeat the spectre of the waves. 

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Bruce stared at the paper crumpled in between his hands. He didn’t... he couldn’t... his heart rate was going up. He needed to...

He took a deep breath and focussed, turning inwards. He needed to be calm. He needed to be steady.

His hands were shaking and the skin was tinged green.

‘Presumed’. That was a good word. It meant uncertain. It meant assumption. Bruce was a scientist. He knew better than to trust ‘presumed’. He needed results, hard data to study.

He pulled out the ridiculously sleek and expensive phone that... that Tony had pressed on him before he gave him a lab and a floor in his shiny new tower and then took off. He’d only seen Tony via Skype since then. He shouldn’t be this upset.

The phone was ringing and ringing and ringing.

It went through to voice mail.

That was...

Tony’s phone never went to voicemail. It went to Pepper’s phone. Or JARVIS. It never just....

Breathe. Don’t lose control before you get answers.

He called the second number in his phone and after a moment, Pepper answered.

“Hello?”

“Miss Potts, hello. This is, this  is Dr Bruce Banner. I, uh, I saw the news...”

“Oh. Bruce. He’s not... he’s...He’s okay. He’s on the run, and he might be hurt, I don’t know. But he’s alive.”

“Thank God.” He tipped his head back against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. “I thought...I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened. Do you need...?”

“No. No thank you. I’m laying low at the moment. And I’m not even sure where Tony is. I don’t know what... If and when it gets to a fight, or if Tony needs someone to help save the day with science, you’re the first one I’ll call.” She paused and he smiled slightly at the image she’d created. “I... I should... he’s hiding. If people knew he was alive...”

“I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

“Good. Thank you, Bruce. For calling. For caring.”

“Of course.”

“I’d better go.”

“Sure.”

They both hung up. God. Tony was alive. His house had blown up, he’d fallen into the sea, and he was on the run from a maniac, but he was alive. When he rejoined the land of the living, Bruce was going to have a few things to say about scaring him like that...

Hmm. He’d have to think of a suitable punishment for pulling this sort of a stunt. What was he thinking, giving a terrorist his home address?! It would have to be something good. Something he wouldn’t see coming. Something he’d hate...

And what did Tony hate most? Not being the centre of attention. Being ignored. Yeah, he grinned to himself. That would work.

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The last time Tony had disappeared, JARVIS had panicked. He worried away and scoured for any sign of him. It’s JARVIS who sends images of the explosion to Colonel Rhodes’ PDA. It’s JARVIS who has to sit there and wait while Tony is found and cleaned and healed as much as he can be and flown home. No one thinks to call him and let him know that Tony is alright. He doesn’t know, in fact, that Tony is safe and home until he gets a call from Tony himself.

“Hey, J.”

“Sir. I trust you are well.”

“I’m okay. Got some new hardware we’re going to look at together. My arms a bit... but I’m okay. I’m safe. I’m back on home soil and I’m fine.”

“Glad to hear it, sir. You have been missed.” JARVIS paused, but Tony didn’t respond for a long moment and JARVIS felt he had to keep talking, keep the contact going. “You are on your way home?” He can see where the phone Tony’s using is. It’s on the move, he’s driving, hopefully heading towards the house.

“No. I have something to do first. Don’t worry, I’ll keep the phone on me. And you might want  to record the news channels. I think this is going to be interesting.”

This time when Tony is missing, JARVIS is with him, in the suit. He saves him, protects him and then...

“I think I need to sleep now, sir....” The suit was malfunctioning and it shut down. He was booted over to the back-up servers. First to the house, but since that was badly damaged too, he was shifted over to New York.

He couldn’t think, there was something wrong with his processes and Sir was out there alone. JARVIS was supposed to... he should be there, protecting him, that’s what he was for, but he couldn’t. There was... he couldn’t... he just had to watch and wait and worry.

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Coulson frowned at the paper and glanced at his boss.

“I should be there.”

“No.”

“Someone from SHIELD should be there.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t be there because you’re still ‘dead’ remember? You’re also injured. You’re still in hospital for fuck’s sake.”

“Then send Hill. Hell, send Sitwell. Natasha and Clint would be happy to deal with it too.”

“Barton is still on administrative leave, pending a psych evaluation. Romanov is on a mission.”

“Someone should be there.”

“If he’s dead, it’s too late. If he’s alive, then he’s not letting people know for a reason. We don’t want to wade in and mess up his plans.”

“You mean, you don’t want SHIELD associated with madcap schemes involving baiting a terrorist.”

“That too.”

Coulson knew that what Fury was saying made sense. But...

“It’s just... I’ve been his handler since the beginning. Since the first suit. I... can you at least send someone to check on Pepper?”

“We had someone on the team that attended the explosion. She’s not harmed, and while she seemed upset, she’s okay.” He frowned and leaned forward. “Phil, come on. you know I’m right here.”

“When can I come back to life?”

“Soon. Once the Council has settled down and things are more stable.”

“It had better be soon.”

If Tony was dead, Phil would never forgive himself for not being there. Tony would be his third call when Fury finally let him be alive again. Clint, Natasha, Tony. Then Captain America. Fury said he’d been upset at Phil’s death, which still seemed bizarre to him. like a fantasy come to life.

His death was supposed to unite the team, and it had for a while. But now, they were all off at different corners of the world facing their demons by themselves. And one of them was probably dead.

He needed to come back to life soon and fix the mess Fury had made.

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“We need to debrief you,” Agent Sitwell said, trotting along at Tony’s heels.

“How about no? SHIELD did nothing while one of my best friends got blown up. SHIELD did nothing when my house was destroyed. SHIELD didn’t even care that I died. So, I’m not giving them their precious statement.” He turned and waved at Sitwell, a grin on his face. “So buh-bye.”

Sitwell watched him walk away, speechless. This job was hard. Really hard. He was never supposed to be doing this sort of thing. He’s always been a retrieval specialist. This was supposed to be Phil’s job.

But Phil wasn’t around any more.

Maybe he could try talking to Miss Potts...

Tony stepped out of the elevator into the hotel suite where he and Pepper were staying for now. There was a man sitting in the armchair over by the desk. Tony stared for a very long moment, then shook his head.

“Rumours of your demise have been greatly exaggerated,” he said, as calmly as he could.

“I could say the same thing about you.” Agent Coulson leaned forward in the chair and smiled, his hands folded in his lap. “Tony.”

“Agent.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t there and that this deception was necessary.”

“Was, past tense? Because there’s a SHIELD agent following me like a puppy trying to do your job.”

“Jasper,” Phil sighed. “He’s on my list.”

“Your list?”

“Yes. You were fourth on there, after Hill, Barton and Romanov.”

“How did you survive?”

“Extremely advanced medical technology and pure stubbornness.”

“Why haven’t you told us before now?”

“I was kept sedated under Fury’s orders. He had good reasons for telling you all what he did, but he knew I would disagree. And he needs me on his side. They stopped the sedation three days ago, and I woke up.”

“How are you?” Tony fiddled with his sunglasses for something to do with his hands. “Your chest...”

“I’m... okay. I have it on good authority that I will heal relatively well.”

“Relatively? No. We can do better than that. Come by the labs and I’ll have the med techs take a look at you.”

“Okay.” Phil looked at him for a long moment. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” he said on reflex, then caught himself and looked away. “I’m getting there.”

“Well, you aren’t dead, that’s a start.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you willing to give a statement concerning the Mandarin to SHIELD?”

“No. But I’ll give one to you.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and started to talk. 

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Someone famous once said ‘Sleep, those little slices of death, how I loathe them’. What he meant by that, I’m not sure. I’m just saying it because he said it and because it seems to fit.

I don’t sleep anymore. When I do, I dream of dying over and over again. Of falling and knowing that I’m going to die. It’s a struggle to wake up.

And when I do wake up, it feels like this is the dream. It’s like I’m still falling, really slowly, and I’m trying to pretend I’m standing on solid ground.

Sleep is... I don’t understand it. There must be some way to replace it. To function without it. I’m a scientist for god’s sake. There has to be a way.

I can’t keep going like this. Something’s got to give, and if I’m not careful it will be me.

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Pepper was burning. Her skin was too hot, too tight. It hurt.  And all she could think about was Tony. Tony who had been so scared and so alone and how she’d never really understood how he needed his suits. How he needed to fight against what had happened to him. And how she was now being used against him. That was the last thing she had wanted.  

She loved him. So very much. Even when he spent a week locked in his lab. Even when he brought her strawberries. Even when she found him drunk off his ass, standing on the kitchen table, singing off key into a wooden spoon (okay, so that had only been once). She loved him and she was his weakness.

She didn’t want to hurt him. She never wanted to hurt him. Somehow she kept on doing though.

“No, don’t I’ll burn you!”

“No, see? It’s fine.”

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Performance issues not uncommon. He was an engineer, he knew that. He knew that without proper maintenance, problems would occur. 

It wasn’t just one thing. It was lots of things, all related and yet totally different. The nightmares, the panic attacks, and this. The lack of... well. Not uncommon. One in five, so he’s told.

“It happens to a lot of guys, Tony. And you’re not as young as you used to be.”

He doesn’t tell her how long this has been a problem. About how he hasn’t been able to... you know... with another person since Afghanistan. When he’s alone, sure. In the shower, he’ll jerk off. He’ll wake up with morning wood sometimes if he sleeps by himself. But when other people are around he just... can’t.

He and Pepper weren’t together and then he was dying and then they were together but they were waiting and so she doesn’t realise. She doesn’t know that his own body is betraying him and he can’t decide if he prefers it when he can get an erection or when he can’t.

It’s about trust. He knows that. Same as half his other problems. Trust and fear. He’d been in a cave for three months. That’s a long time. He’d been tortured, obviously. And there had been Yensin. Poor, dead Yensin.

And when he came back his heart was broken and his dick didn’t work anymore.

He’d told himself it was his injuries. To give himself time. Then it was the alcohol that was doing it. or the palladium poisoning. But all of those were gone now. He’d run out of excuses. He just couldn’t. And he couldn’t explain it to Pepper while she was so patient and sympathetic.

So he goes down on her instead. Not exactly a hardship. And he thinks about those little blue pills.

One in five. Not uncommon. He just had to keep putting on a good show and no one would know how broken he was inside.

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The first time Pepper wakes up in a panic, Tony takes it as par for the course. He knows about PTSD, of course he does. He has some rather too personal experience with it. He figures it’s natural. What he finds strange is that it took her weeks and weeks to react.

He talks it over with Rhodey and they agree that Pepper had been putting her emotions on hold. That she’d needed to be there for him while he rebuilt the boys and had his surgeries. They’d had to rebuild his ribcage, to replace the gap left by the reactor, and he’d spent a week waking up screaming for Yensin and remembering surgery done in the dark without anaesthetic.

So, it makes sense. That Pepper’s been hiding her feelings to take care of him. It’s what she does, take care of him. Maybe it’s time he started taking care of her.

So he holds her close and talks her out of her nightmares. It’s okay, you’re safe, I’m here.

She keeps waking up panicking.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He hasn’t felt this helpless since he was paralysed, lying there with his reactor gone and Pepper in danger and...

But he’s not thinking about that.

It takes him longer than it should for him to figure out what’s wrong. It happens after a week of all nighters, trying to rebuild the things that the explosion at the house had destroyed. He is so tired, he collapses into bed and doesn’t wake up when Pepper screams. He does wake up when she starts clawing at the scars on his chest, mumbling low and scared.

“It’s not there, no light, oh god, Tony, JARVIS get the spare up here. It’s gone out, oh god, too dark.”

And that’s when the penny drops.

“It’s okay. I’m fine. I’m here. I had it taken out, remember?”

“Tony?”

“Yeah.”

He holds her close and closes his eyes. They'll sleep with a nightlight from now on.

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Despite information being available ‘online’ Steve still likes to read the newspaper. He likes the feel of it, the smell. It’s like holding nostalgia in your hands. Stark would... no. Stark wouldn’t.

The headline blares across the page.

TONY STARK PRESUMED DEAD.

He reads the story, his frown turning to horror. House destroyed. Armour damaged. Stark falling into the water and not coming up again.

Why hadn’t they been contacted? Tony had given everyone phones and these watches with a button to press in case of an emergency. Why hadn’t he...?

Maybe he wasn’t really dead. Steve had been presumed dead for a very long time and yet here he was walking around. Going on a road trip.

He took out his phone and thumbed through the contacts. He hovered over Stark’s name. But he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he didn’t get an answer. What about the others? Should he call Thor? Natasha?

In the end he puts his phone away, gets back on his bike and rides towards the horizon.

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He’d had the Dictaphone since the eighties. He'd mostly used it to keep track of his thoughts and make 'Twin Peaks' references.  It had always been easier for him to talk through his thought process rather than trying to write everything down. His brain was too twisted and came with it's own logic, so usually whatever thought he'd been having was goen by the time he found a pen. Even with the recorder, he’d lost a lot of ideas that way, until he had JARVIS to take care of keeping track. He was sorting through some old boxes, trying to find some things of his father’s for Steve, and he’d found it. 

It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

“My name is Tony Stark. A genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. An alien invasion hit and I got shot through a wormhole. I fell back through and now I’m living in this Tower, this self-sustaining tower, full of strange and powerful people. My teammates. I’ve seen things. Terrible things. I’ve fought enemies. Powerful. Dangerous. I fell back, dying, and tried to warn Earth. Look upward and share the nightmares I’ve seen.”

He clicked it off. It was good that he could finally joke about what happened at the end of the Battle of Manhattan. He still felt uncomfortable talking about it, but this... he couldn’t help himself.

There was something else too. Something... he clicked the Dictaphone back on.

“Hey dad. I know you’re never going to hear this. But, it just...” he shrugged. “Seems right. We never got along. And I always knew what you thought of me. But I thought you should know. We found him. One of ours, along with SHIELD, out in the arctic. We found him and bought him home. Warmed him up. I understand a little better now. He’s... everything you said he was. And he’s here. Alive.” He hesitated a moment and then clicked it off again. It had all gotten a bit heavy for him. This was supposed to be fun.

 He grinned.

“Dummy. Hey, Dummy, I’m talking to you.” The bot swivelled towards him. “Hey lazybones. We could use a little music, yeah? You know which one.”

The robot began playing the 1812 overture, spinning around and and around as Tony laughed.