A/N Ciao! So I promised myself that I would post something before my birthday, and, well, I suppose this is cutting it a little close, but in few days things are going to get hectic around here and I won't have very much free time. Plus, recently I've been selected in the top twenty of my school grade-point-average wise, and I get to go to the mountains in May. Say what? Anyhoo...

BTW, feel free to PM me if you have a question or just feel like talking! I love talking to you guys, and I'll try to get back to you as quickly as I can.

IMPORTANT: There's a bit of a jump in between the two posts on here, but just know a bit of time has passed. These are just segments of some things I wrote that I wrote to get a feeling for-oh, I rambling. Oops. But seriously, if you guys want me to I can post a few more like this in another chapter, because I have a bunch of things like this. There's one I really want to do where... Spoilers! Haha. Enjoy! :)

Deaths Occur and Families Break, but Life Goes On

When Roberta entered the room, her heart swelled with fresh grief. Lying on the hospital bed was the pride and joy of her deceased best friend and colleague, teetering on the edge of life and death. Tony Stark's face was pallid, his fringe of bangs swept into the rest of his hair, with a deep, diagonal cut running from his left cheekbone to his jaw. White medical gauze was wrapped around his bare chest, with a feeble blue light blinking through with the erratic beating of his heart, and his right arm was in a sling. It pained the woman to know that the injuries visible were just the tip of the iceberg, with a majority of his most lethal wounds being internal.

The doctor who had escorted her in, a kindly looking elderly man, edged out of the room to give her space. Roberta stepped closer to the bed before collapsing in a vinyl chair, leaning forward and propping her elbows on her knees as her fingertips made a tent-like shape to her lips. She was struggling to keep her emotions in check, mentally unprepared for the sight of the prodigy. And how could she be? For a little over a week she had thought him dead, and now here he was. All she knew was that she couldn't take the heartache of losing him again.

"Hey, Tony," she whispered, forcing a small smile and taking his slack hand in her own. His expression, so serene while he was slumbering, troubled her knowing the agony he would feel upon waking; and not just the physical pain.

Suddenly she was overcome with an inexplicable feeling of anger. Why had he not woken yet? The doctors all kept avoiding her question, even though he should have woken up over two weeks ago. The arc reactor melded into his chest was the only thing that had thus far kept him alive, and his circulatory system seemed to be accepting the implant. Somehow she knew that for him to have not awoken by now, it was because Tony wasn't trying. Deep down, she knew that if she was in his position, with the last of her family dead and left with a mechanized heart as a reminder of the incident forever, she wouldn't want to wake either.

But if he died, he would be leaving behind the Rhodes, leaving them to mourn the death of their beloved inventor once again. They loved him. He was family. Didn't he know that?

"Tony," she spoke again, her voice stern to compensate for the pained undertone to her voice. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I just want you to know. When you wake up-and you will wake, there is no doubt in my mind-you won't be alone in any of this. It will be hard, and it will hurt, but you'll get through this because you're Tony Stark, and you've never let anything hold you, not for a second. You've never stopped surprising us, never stopped proving people wrong when they say you can't do something, so here is your chance to prove all of those doctors in their fancy white lab coats wrong. Wake up."

She stood before the tears welling in her eyes could spill over, pressed Tony's hand to her lips, and left.

IMAAIMAAIMAA

The sun was blinding. The brightness of it had inserted dark spots into his vision, so long had he been laying there, sprawled out on the concrete staring up at the sky. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, slender fingers absently tugging at the medical gauze still wrapped around his arms. He felt sluggish, lethargic, like everything around him was slowed; the time between each breath, each heartbeat, felt like minutes instead of seconds. Maybe it was the effects of the anesthetics, not yet completely worn off, but more likely he was in shock.

He could still hear the humming of that retched device in his chest, the only factor binding him to the world. He hated it for keeping him from letting go, for all that it represented. He pressed one palm to its smooth, frigid metal, untouched by the sun's brilliant warmth, as though he could make it disappear. Like he wanted to disappear. He'd always been strong, a trouper, and through the worst times of his life he had always held on with the knowledge that better times would soon follow the hardships; now he felt none of his characteristic optimism. The emptiness inside, along with the coldness in his chest where there had once been organic heat, made him question whether this oppressive darkness would ever lift.

He wished he could blankly lay there, mind as empty as his chest felt, but no matter how he tried he found he couldn't. No matter how much he tried to smother them, terrible thoughts kept springing to his mind. Horrible, self-deprecating thoughts, miserable wishes that he could be the one that was dead.

He scowled, his lips dry from the unrelenting heat of the sun washing over his body. Dead. The word felt so final, like as long as he refrained from saying it aloud there was still a chance that his father was still alive, but the moment he spoke it he would be sealing the man's fate. Of course, he knew these thoughts were infantile. His father was deceased and no amount of wishes would bring him back. No one had told him; he just knew.

His eyes began to sting, and he irritably pushed himself to a sitting position, shoving his palms into his closed eyelids until little sparks exploded behind them. He hated those feelings of weakness and pain, soul-wrenching agony; the kind that felt as though his heart had been torn open and jagged shards of glass had been stuffed inside. Metaphorically, of course. What had actually happened to his heart was much worse.

He opened his eyes, catching sight of someone lurking just within view of his peripheral vision. He knew it had to be Rhodey; he was actually the person who had told him when he was having a bad day he would escape to the rooftop, and he hadn't exactly told anybody where he was going. He wondered if they were looking for him, or if he'd worried Roberta. He didn't want that, he just needed to be alone for a while.

For a moment neither acknowledged the other, not moving or speaking. Then Tony closed his eyes, dropping back onto the cement and letting his head loll to the side as Rhodey hesitantly took a seat beside him, drawing his long legs to his chest and silently observing him. Neither felt the need to talk, nor did Rhodey make any indication that he would tell anyone where he was, something Tony was grateful for. He found it surprising that just his friend-his brother's-presence set him slightly at ease.

This elicited another realization for the prodigy. He hadn't lost the last of his family so long as he had Rhodey and Roberta. As easy as it would be to retreat into the recesses of his mind and shut everyone out, he knew it would only hurt them.

He would be strong again. He would pull through and walk away, on the inside decaying but, for the most part, appearing unscathed on the outside, if only for them.

His family meant everything to him.