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Breathe

Summary:

Tony's alone on a ship and is running out of air. His thoughts on his people while trying to remain calm...He may be failing at calm.

Notes:

The grounding technique that is used throughout this story is a real technique to help deal with ADHD, anxiety, along with others. It also can be used as a relaxation technique. Personally, I am of the opinion that Tony has anxiety so I wondered if the grounding techniques could help him. They could...if he didn't have all of the stories behind each thing. The grounding technique is called five things. Five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. I'm sorry it's been a while! I do not own these characters and hope you enjoy!

Work Text:

Five
Red and gold surrounded him. Black hinting at the edge of his vision. His face mask lay in front of him shining with blue light as it recorded. There was a bit of webbing on one corner of it. The nanobytes best attempt at a memorial Tony took a shuddering breath. A memorial for Peter.

Four
He could feel the suit under his fingers. It was trembling from the nanobytes trying to hold the suit together. He could feel the cold from the ship. He felt the aching in his chest from where his scars still hurt even know.

Three
All he heard was eerie silence now. There was no chattering, no sound of machinery. He could almost hear Jarvis’s voice of concern though. He could almost here Pepper responding to his message he had recorded for her. Her exasperation and concern loudly evident.

Two
The whole place smelled metallic and not in a comforting way like his lab did but in an alien way. Like the ship was not made with human hands. He could almost smell the carbon monoxide build-up which was probably why he kept thinking he smelled Pepper’s perfume. But what was the point in worrying when it brought such peace?

One
All he could taste was ashes. Everything that he had eaten since that day on Titan. It tasted like ashes. And Tony was quite sure even if he actually miraculously survived, ashes were all he’d ever taste. Tony could almost hear someone say he deserved that, but even he knew that was not the case. He had seen what was coming and tried his best to prevent it. What else could he have done? He was a brilliant man but even he hadn’t seen this coming.

Breathe. Just breathe. For as long as you can. For that’s all you can do when all else has been done.