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Tony Stark can’t honestly remember the last time he got any sleep. The only fuel to his body is cups upon cups of glorious coffee. There’s too much to get done. Clint needs some new and improved arrows, Pepper wants the model of the newest StarkPad out before Christmas, and a whole slew of other projects and tasks sit at the forefront of his mind.
He’s finishing up the specs for the StarkPad when everything goes dark. Furrowing his brows, Tony looks up from his project. “J? Talk to me, bud.”
Silence.
His heart clenches in his chest. Red lights begin to flash, the symbol of a break-in. His head spins as he jumps to his feet. The room tilts back and forth as does his body as he meanders to his suits. Tony suits up as fast as he can in his surprisingly weakened state, and races to find the intruders.
It’s not very hard to find them. A giant group of shooters is highly conspicuous–not to mention the large hole where there used to be glass.
Steve and Sam are already in the room, hiding behind the kitchen counter. Tony makes a mental note to thank Natasha for being paranoid as the two find her hidden guns.
His entrance draws the attention of the invaders. They shoot at him, each bullet pinging off his suit. His repulsors take down the majority of them, Sam and Steve picking off the rest easily enough. After every man goes down, Tony’s vision begins to blur. He’s so exhausted that he can barely stand.
He doesn’t hear the gunshot until it’s too late. Even then, the sound doesn’t register in his brain until Steve shoots the enemy and Sam screams. More awake than he’s ever been before, Tony dashes behind the counter where Sam puts pressure on a bullet wound. It’s bleeding profusely, staining his grey National Guard crewneck.
“Sam!” Steve cries out after making sure that all the intruders are gone. “Shit, we need to get him to medical!”
They rush him to the medbay, yelling for help from the team on staff. The nurses and doctors scramble to the injured man and take him away.
Steve and Tony sit in the waiting area. The latter can barely keep his eyes open, his head jolts up every couple of seconds as he tries to keep himself from dozing off.
“Tony? You should get some sleep. I’ll make sure to ask Jarvis to get you when Sam is out.”
“No,” Tony stands, hobbling over to get himself some coffee from the machine he so cleverly placed in the waiting room.
“When’s the last time you slept? This isn’t healthy for you.”
Tony rolls his eyes. “Spare me the speech, Spangles. I’ve got this under control.”
Lifting the mug to take a sip, Tony winces at the burning liquid. Steve sighs at him but doesn’t comment further. Natasha is quick to enter the room.
“What the hell happened?”
“Ambush, Sam got hit.”
“Barnes and Barton are taking care of the guys right now,” Natasha reports. “Is he going to be okay?
“I don’t know. He lost a lot of blood, I think they hit some important organs, but I could be wro-”
The doors open and a young woman walks out. Steve jumps out of his seat, nausea twisting his gut.
“I’m very sorry. He… he didn’t make it…”
The three heroes freeze. Tears fight their way into Steve’s eyes, Tony’s throat clogs, and Natasha’s heart tears. Natasha excuses herself from the room, not looking at anyone as she mutters something about helping the boys with cleanup. Steve asks to see him; this can’t be happening. After all they’ve been through together, this can’t be what takes Sam away from him. Tony can’t move. He can’t breathe. He should have been able to stop that man. He should have made sure that there was no one left. He should have-
“-Tony?”
“Yeah?”
“I asked if you wanted to come… if you wanted to uh…”
“I’m good, you go ahead… I’ll just… I’ll be in the lab if you need me.”
And with that, Tony dashes out of the room. Once in his lab, he boots up the Tower’s control centre and blueprints. He has to make the tower better, more secure. This can’t happen again. It’s due to his negligence that Sam… that Sam… he… he’s gone.
Papers fly across the room as he sweeps his hand across his desk, coffee cups and mugs crash to the ground, pencils and pens fly everywhere as he screams. This is all his fault. He couldn’t even protect his teammate, his friend. What kind of a superhero does that make him? He is a failure.
He doesn’t even realise how much time has passed until someone knocks at the doors to his lab. It’s two hours to midnight. How did that happen?
He accepts the plate of food, setting it aside to eat later. He doesn’t need food right now, he needs to fix this.
When Tony wakes up, the plate of food has disappeared. All of the papers and pens and coffee he sent flying on the ground are on the table too. Furrowing his brows, he asks Jarvis if anyone came into his lab while he was asleep.
“No, sir.”
“…I could have sworn-”
The power goes out, drowning the room in darkness. “J?”
Red lights flash, making his head spin. “What the hell?”
Stumbling over to his suits, he can’t help but shake the feeling of deja vu. This is exactly what happened yesterday…
Could it be?
Flying over to the common room, he sees Steve and Sam hiding behind the counter, retrieving the guns Natasha hides everywhere.
Okay, what the fuck.
He shoots at the guys just like he did yesterday, paying extra attention to Sam. He can’t let it happen again.
Once he’s sure that all the guys are taken out, he collapses, dead on his feet. He was just sleeping… he should be rested enough.
“Tony!” He hears Steve call out to him.
Tony blearily blinks up at both the men hovering over his body.
“Sam? Sam are you okay?”
Sam furrows his brows, “I’m not the one that just collapsed to the floor.”
“You… you…” Tony feels the telltale signs that he’s about to cry, his eyes sting and it feels like there’s a brick lodged in his throat. He’s okay. Sam’s okay. Tony did it. He saved his teammate.
“Bucky, Nat and Clint are on their way to help with cleanup. You should get some rest, Tony.”
Maybe the fates didn’t hate Tony. He got a second chance to save his teammate and he did it! Sam is okay and no one is hurt.
“Natasha is hurt!” Clint yells, running into the room. “One of the guys got down the hall and shot her.”
Tony feels his heart stop. How did he miss one? He could’ve sworn that he was paying more attention today—no, this time. It’s still yesterday. Except instead of Sam’s life on the line it’s Natasha’s.
“Where was she shot?”
“Her chest, it was bleeding pretty bad, Bucky rushed her to medical, but I came to help clean this mess up.”
“Stark? You should go rest. We’ve got this handled.”
Tony numbly nods, trudging his way to the door. Looking back, he can’t help but wonder if they all blame him. It’s his fault. He should have known. He should have done better.
Instead of going to rest, Tony goes to the medical bay. He will not just ignore the fact that one of his teammates, his friends, is injured.
When he gets there, Bucky is standing guard at the door. His face is set in a glare, arms crossed over his blood-stained chest.
“Stark? Are you okay?” Bucky asks, automatically assuming that he came because he was injured too.
“I’m fine, are you…”
“Fine. Just making sure that no one is left.”
Tony winces. It almost feels like Bucky was making a jab at him. He knows that it’s your fault. He won’t make the same mistake you did.
Clint, Sam and Steve join them not long after; Steve giving his signature frown of disapproval upon seeing Tony still awake.
The same doctor walks into the room. “I’m very sorry. She… she didn’t make it…”
This is your fault.
The next day, or should he say Tuesday number three, Tony is back in the lab in the same spot he woke up on Tuesday number two. This time he won’t fail. This time-
Blood stains his hands and his chest, he’s screaming for help because Pepper wasn’t supposed to be at the tower; she wasn’t the other two times. Steve and Sam rush over after dealing with the last of the guys.
I really hate this waiting room, Tony thinks as the doctor tells him yet again another loved one has passed away.
When he wakes up for the fourth time, he wastes no time. Immediately getting into his Iron Man suit, Tony ignores the pounding of his head and his dizzy vision.
Steve and Sam send him a curious glance as he trudges into the common room. “Tony? What’s going on?” Steve questions him, knowing how unlike Tony it is to be up and out of his lab at this hour.
“You guys need to leave. Now.”
“Tony… Tell us wha-”
Steve’s sentence is interrupted by a bullet in his head. Tony retches upon seeing Steve’s blood and brains scatter around the otherwise pristine living room.
The fifth time, Clint dies in his arms, the sixth time, Bucky dies saving Tony, and by the seventh day of hell in a row, Tony stops counting. He doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t eat; he plans. Each plan fails spectacularly, leaving one of the people he loves dead.
He doesn’t know how long it’s been. He thinks he’s going to go mad if he sees another person die in front of him. He can’t keep doing this.
He just about loses it when he sees Peter at the tower, yelling at him to get the fuck out of the tower. The bright-eyed kid leaves with tears in his eyes. Now that Peter is safe, Tony patrols the building watching for anything that is out of the ordinary. He is surprised that things are normal. Maybe he did something right! Maybe he broke the curse or whatever the hell this nightmare has been.
“Mr. Stark?” A familiar young voice calls out, it’s out of character how subdued it sounds.
“What the hell are you doing here? I told you to fucking leave!” Tony shouts, spinning on his heel to see Peter clutching his abdomen. Cuts and bruises mar his face, blood seeps out from under his hands soaking the science pun shirt he’s wearing.
“No! No, no, no, no, no, no, fuck! No god please,” Tony mutters, rushing to the kid.
“I’m sorry, please don’t be mad at me. I’m sorry.”
Tony can’t hold back the tears falling down his face. “No, don’t do this to me, c’mon kid.”
“I don’t… I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark, I don’t wanna go.”
The next Tuesday, Tony calls in an emergency meeting. Everyone he cares about from Rhodes to Peter’s Aunt May is required to attend. He prays to any of the gods that they’ll actually come. By some miracle, they all show up. Even Thor who was off with his girlfriend made it.
“Tony, I swear to god, if you pulled us all out of the things we were doing to plan the Christmas party, I will kill you,” Pepper threatens, not looking up from the laptop she has set up.
“Tones?” Rhodey’s voice holds nothing but worry. “You don’t look too good. What’s going on?”
“Why are you in the suit? Is there a mission?”
“He wouldn’t call May and Pepper here if there was a mission, you idiot.”
“Well excuse me for trying to make some sense outta this situation!”
It’s so good to see them all together. Not a single one of them was harmed. He can’t remember the last time he got to see such light-hearted interactions out of his teammates. He can’t let his guard down, though. That’s how they get hurt.
“Tony, talk to us… you’re acting a bit… stranger than usual.” Pepper shuts her laptop, all of her attention focused on the crazed man in front of her.
“You don’t understand, I just-”
Blood. Again. Pepper slumps forward, a bullet hole in her head. A few screams follow everyone jumps up from their chairs. Rhodes looks at Tony, “What is happening?”
“God damnit!” Tony yells, tears of frustration welling up in his eyes. Why can’t he do anything right?
Tony watches in abject horror as Peter and Happy fall next. He feels sick. This can’t be happening. “Everyone get out of here!” Tony screams, frantically trying to save who he can. What if this is the time when everything continues? What if tomorrow is tomorrow and Pepper, Peter and Happy are gone for good?
He grabs May, who is sobbing over her dead nephew's body. Clint and Sam drop dead next to them. Tony stumbles to the door. How the hell are they getting this many shots? Why isn’t anyone helping them? Why? Why? Why?
Blood paints the Iron Man armour as May’s body collapses. Looking around, he sees that the only people left are Bucky, Steve and Natasha. Bucky has a gun, trying to shoot at the guys, but he’s not quick enough. His blood adds to the gruesome pool of red painting the tiles.
Tony bursts out the window, aiming his repulsors to kill at the men who dare kill those he loves. He hears Steve scream, “Natasha!” behind him, but he doesn’t look back. He kills every sniper, but it’s not enough.
They’re dead because of you.
This is all your fault.
Flying back, he sees Natasha staring at him, her face in a blank expression. She’s on her knees, red staining her face and legs as she sits in a pool of her teammate’s blood. Horror is alight in her glassy eyes. He looks down and sees Steve lying at her knees; he sacrificed himself for her. Tony feels like he’s going to throw up or faint or both.
“Nat-”
Before he can finish his sentence, a bullet whizzes past him, embedding itself into Natasha’s skull, painting her face and the floor red. “NO!” Tony screams. Rushing over to her body. He crumples to the floor, exhaustion and guilt weighing on him like a thousand tons. He retracts his helmet so the shooter can kill him too.
The bullet doesn’t come.
He sits and waits, surrounded by the corpses of everyone he loves. It’s such a cruel fate, so horrible and gruesome. He’s always known that he wasn’t good enough. Even as a child, he knew. How could he trick himself into believing that he was a hero?
He is no hero. He’s not worthy.
He is a monster. Everyone dies because of him. The world is right about Tony Stark. He’s a selfish, good-for-nothing murderer. He doesn’t deserve to be called a hero, to be admired by kids around the nation.
He stays on the bloody ground, kneeling beside the dead bodies until dusk turns to dawn.
Waking up, Tony blearily looks around him. He’s in the lab. It’s Tuesday number (unspecified), and Tony is done. He’s done watching his loved ones die. He’s done not being enough. He’s done being helpless as everyone around him is hurt. He’s done.
The breaking point has finally been hit, and he can’t take anymore. He can’t do it, he can’t!
The systems go down, red lights flash, only serving to worsen his headache. If he stays away from everyone, he won’t have to watch as the blood spills out of his friends.
Curling up on the couch in the lab, Tony cries. Sobbing into his hands, Tony’s mind plays the images of them dying over and over and over like a broken record. He screams, holding his head and weeping. Just go away! Please, no more!
That’s how Steve finds him; curled up into a ball, sobbing and clawing at his own skin.
“Tony!” Steve calls out, rushing to help his friend. What happened to him? Did someone get to him? He thought they got them all.
“No, please, no more, no,” Tony cries, trembling and curling further into himself.
“Tony, it’s just me. You’re okay, you’re safe.” Steve hesitantly places a hand on his back. “What happened?”
“Who was it today?”
“What?”
“Who died, Steve?”
“What? No one died, Tony. What are you talking about?”
It hits him like a ton of bricks. The one time he decided to stay out of the fight, no one was killed. It has to be a sign. A glaringly bright neon sign telling him that he is the problem. He always has been, hasn’t he?
Tony laughs.
He laughs like a crazed man, a psychopath. Of course. It’s so simple. He is the problem, the variable that doesn’t fit. No matter what he does, he kills. No matter how hard he tries, he’ll never be enough. Him dressing up and playing hero will only end in the death of those around him. He doesn’t deserve to be an Avenger. He never did, and he was stupid to fall into a false sense of security with the group that he now thinks of as a family.
He had been foolish.
Tony stands up. His vision blurs and his head throbs. Swaying on unsteady feet, he wonders when the last time he got something to eat or drink was.
“Tony!” Steve grabs him, stopping him from falling flat on his face. “Good god, Tony. What’s with you and forgetting to take care of yourself?”
Tony’s heart hurts almost physically. Steve is annoyed with him. His teammate hates him, the rest probably do too. He’s a burden. A fool who tricked himself into believing that maybe if he worked hard enough, produced enough tech, and fought off bad guys, he’d be able to win the favour of those near to him. All he’s ever wanted was to be enough. To be loved.
Tony Stark was not made to be loved.
He’s too difficult, too flashy, too guarded, too much. His list of character defects spans for miles and miles. No one in their right mind would willingly put up with him for extended periods of time as a friend or otherwise. That’s why Rhodes always leaves for the army. That’s why Pepper left him, and that’s why Happy left him to work with Pepper.
“Let's get you to bed.”
“No,” Tony weakly pushes Rogers away. “I need… I need to finish the… arrows—the StarkPad-”
“You can do all that after you get some rest,” Steve negotiates.
Tony huffs. “I won’t get any rest there anyway.”
“Why not?”
Later on, Tony will blame the sleep deprivation, dehydration, and lack of nutrition for his lack of filter. “I don’t want to be alone.”
Steve softens at his words. “Want me to go up with ya?”
“No, I don’t wanna go there.”
Furrowing his brows, Steve asks, “Then where would you wanna go?”
Tony shrugs, yawning into his hand. Scrunching his nose at the smell of his breath that reeks of coffee, he wonders when he last brushed his teeth.
“What if I take you to my floor? It’s cosy and we can sit by the fireplace. I’ll even make you some tea. We can order takeout if you want, or I have some leftovers.”
“That sounds nice,” Tony can’t get through his sentence without yawning.
Steve helps Tony walk to the elevator. He doesn’t pull away once they’re in the elevator even though he could definitely leave Stark to stand against the wall.
When the elevator arrives at Steve’s floor, he leads Tony to the tan couch and starts up the fireplace. “I’ll be right back,” Steve says, going to make Tony some tea that will hopefully help him fall asleep.
“I have some leftover spaghetti if that’s alright with you.”
“Sure,” Tony shrugs, stealing the fuzzy blanket off of the back of the couch.
While the water is heating on the stove and the food is reheating, Steve sits at Tony’s side.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Tony sighs. “I’m going to retire from the Avengers.”
“You… are?” Steve asks, trying not to let disappointment slip into his tone. “I mean… if that’s what you want then… go for it.”
“I mean, I think it’d be for the best, right? I mean, come on. What good am I to the team? What can I bring to the table? Why-”
“Stop right there.” Steve interrupts. “What do you mean by that? You bring plenty to the table. You’ve saved our asses more times than I can count. Where are all these negative thoughts coming from?”
“Steve… I… what if I mess up? What if someone dies on my watch?” Tony drags a hand down his face.
“Tony. You are one of the best teammates I could ever ask for. I wouldn’t want anyone else watching my back.”
“You bled out in my arms.”
“What?”
“You bled out in my arms because I didn’t notice there was another bad guy.”
“Well, obviously that didn’t actually happen. I’m still here, so-”
“A sniper took you and the rest of the team out. Even Pepper, Happy, Rhodes, and May. A bullet shot straight through your skull. You got stabbed in the heart trying to protect me. I can’t really remember all the other times I had to watch you die. They all kinda blurred together. It was like some fucked up Groundhog Day. Each day I wondered: who would I fail to save this time?”
“Tony…” Steve pulls the man in, almost as if wanting to protect him from facing anymore pain—as if to shield him from the world.
A sharp whistle makes both men jump. Steve apologises, before running to take the kettle off the stove. He pours two mugs and brings them over to the table, going back to get the spaghetti out of the microwave. He sets it down on the coffee table.
“You should eat before it gets even more cold…”
Tony looks at the plate, it looks unappealing with the nausea remnant from the images of his loved ones’ blood, but he forces himself to choke it down so that Steve will stop worrying about him.
“Tony, I want you to know that I don’t blame you for anything that happened. I know it must have been… awful to say the least, but I don’t blame you at all.”
“How could you not? If I was just more alert, if I had better security measures, if I-”
“Tony, I think you’re forgetting something really important.”
“Oh, yeah? And what would that be?”
“Tony, you need to take better care of yourself. You can’t expect 100 percent from yourself if you’re not taking care of your body. You can’t keep going like this, running off of coffee and snacks. You need real food and water, and rest.”
Tony pulls his knees up to his chest, curling up on the couch. “I know… it’s… it’s just hard,” he mumbles, not wanting Steve to make fun of him for finding such trivial things difficult.
“How about this? I can help you out, reminding you to eat and drink water and rest. Or I could get Jarvis to set up alarms whenever you should take a break or get some rest.”
“Alarms probably won’t work. Jarvis already nags me about my health, and you can see where that led.”
“Then I guess I have an excuse to see you more often,” Steve smiles at Tony as if seeing him more often would be a good thing.
“Ah, don’t bother. I know you probably have better things to do with your time and-”
“I’d like to.” Steve shrugs, “Plus, I’m sure you could use some human company down there.”
“You really don’t have to-”
“I could work on my art in your lab, right?” Steve steamrolls right over his protest. “It would be nice to have someone to talk to when drawing anyway.”
“We’d run out of things to talk about,” Tony says, trying to somehow make Steve realise that he isn’t worth the time or effort.
“I’m cool with sitting in silence too.”
“I’m… I’m not worth all that…”
Steve’s gaze hardens. “I don’t know who has you convinced that you’re so hard to care for and be with, but I promise that you are worth ten times what I could provide you.”
“That’s not… I… you can’t…” Tony has never had words like that spoken so bluntly to him. Never has someone sounded as genuine as Steve did just then. It’s almost too good to be true. If this is a dream, he never wants to wake up.
“Can I hug you again?”
“Uh… sure?”
Steve smiles at him before wrapping his big muscled arms around Tony. “This is… nice.”
“I agree.”
They don’t need to say anything else. The rest of the night they snuggle by the fireplace in blissful silence.