Every morning Jarvis's voice brings Tony from the dreamless sleep he's in, informing him to events such as the weather and current headlines in the news Tony could care less about. Tony allows Jarvis to speak, because it's someone talking, albeit a machine; a machine closing resembling that of another human life. Even though it wasn't walking in a human body or breathing.

Tony's day is probably going to start off like it does every day—coffee with a dash of Bailey's, always nice to start off the day with a little buzz. It kept him working, kept his hands busy while his mind ran off equation after equation. That's what it did now, basically. It didn't really help him express his emotions, because lately it's like his feelings had taken a vacation and weren't checking in for a while.

He shrugs mentally. He couldn't care less. It's not like he went out into public anymore; Pepper and SHIELD took care of most (if not all) of his PR, so it's not like he has to worry about his public image.

It's not like he cares, though.

Caring. The word rolls around in his mind for a while, and his mind plays with it, twisting it and kneading it until it no longer seems like a word, but gibberish, a made-up language. Tony tosses the word somewhere back into his mind, somewhere in the darkest corners, corners he hasn't touched in years. The places where everything that was wrong with him is piled up, turning into a stagnant mess, getting worse and worse by the progressing year.

Maybe this is why Tony has problems. He keeps avoiding them.

Let it be known that if there is something wrong with Tony Stark, he wouldn't breathe a word of it until it's killing him—maybe even in a literal sense, i.e. the shrapnel clawing its way into his chest. He thinks back to Obie's betrayal, and how he killed the bastard. Maybe that's why he had such trust issues. It was because everyone he ever put faith in had always ended up hurting him in the end.

Maybe that was why he never asked for help.

When he's busy messing with the suits down in his lab he lets his mind wander while his hands did their magic, and how he loved that they had a mind of their own—he can stare off into space and they would continue to work, leaving him time to sort through his thoughts before they conglomerated into a jumbled, frightening mess, like the back of his mind already was. He wasn't going to touch those thoughts though. Not now, and probably not ever.

It's in this very room, here on this day, that Tony Stark admits to himself that something's wrong with him. What's wrong with him exactly, he's not sure of, but he knows something's off. He usually feels better than this, but lately it's like he has to force himself out of bed to do anything normal, like take a shower or eat, which he hasn't been doing much of lately. His ribs are starting to peak slightly from his torso…

It's not like people care anyway, he thinks, accidently dropping a wrench. He cursed, bending down, not looking where he was going.

"Dammit!" he grouses when the edge of the table scratches over the length of his forearm and the sting shoots through his body. He clenches his fists and reaches down ever-so-gently to pick up the wrench again, successfully completing his task. He drops the wrench on the table along in the scattering of other tools and stops for a second, feeling the sting from the cut fade slowly as a whelp begins to form and a few dots of blood peak from the surface of his skin. He remembered his skin from a month ago—nice and tan. Now it was dry and pale.

Something strikes within him when he sees the small amount of blood leave his body. He can't quite explain it, but it makes him feel a bit more real, alive, one could say. He could finally say, "Hey, I'm not empty inside at all!"

But it wasn't like one little whelp was going to prove to him anything.

Tony steps slowly away from the work desk and starts snapping open drawers and cabinets until he finds what he needs, which is a pair of stainless steel scissors, barely used. The lights from the ceiling dance across the gleaming silver and he stares at the blades of steel in wonder for a while.

Before he knows it, one of the blades glides across the inside of his forearm.

The sting is more potent, along with the amount of blood produced. Tony stares in wonder, calculations flowing through his mind. He's still alive. Bleeding. Breathing.

It fades quickly. The feeling—that you're still here, leaving nothing but an empty shell. Tony stands in the middle of his basement, speechless, watching a thin stream of blood drip down his arm and splatter on the floor.

One more couldn't hurt.