The Original Six; Tony
How everyone is feeling on the first 36 hours after the click.
Enjoy you sadistic fuckers;
Tony couldn't stop shaking. He could not stop shaking.
Peter was just before him. He was just there. Seconds ago. He was crying, clinging onto him. Peter Park was there. Ten minutes ago he was giving him stupid grins and ideas from movies. Ten days ago Peter was at school, calling Tony for a piece of homework he didn't completely understand (it was English homework and Tony just laughed at Peter for 5 minutes before telling him has dyslexic and can't spell for the life of him, but he can help anyway). Ten months ago Peter was a laughing teenager, calling Tony every day, explaining what he had done that day, saying what he had accomplished (Tony would never admit it, but those calls kept him grounded when he wanted to float into the abyss and not return). Ten years ago, he was playing with toy cars, flying them around the living room, running in between his parents and giggling like a kid, no cares in the world. Six year old Peter Parker didn't know his fate, he was a kid, jumping around, giggling laughing. Ten seconds ago he was crying.
He was gone. Peter was gone. He was helping him more than he knew, he was helping Tony smile. He was helping Tony realise he wanted a family, he wanted to be with Pepper forever, have kids, grow old together. He was keeping the man grounded, grounded when him and Pepper were apart and he was struggling to float, struggling against the current that begged to pull him under.
And now that help was gone.
And it was his fault. Peter was gone. The Doctor was gone. Quill was gone. Everyone around him was gone. It was his fault. He should have moved faster. Peter fucking Parker was gone. He was a teenager. He had a life. And he was gone, and it was because of Tony. Tony Stark.
"We should leave." The Blue Woman's voice was mechanical, sore. It was raw. "I can't stand being here. We should go to your home. He mentioned it. Earth, correct?"
He didn't know how to reply, he didn't trust his own voice, so he just nodded. He felt an arm on his, pulling him up, lifting him to his feet. The two, an unlikely pair, supported each other to the ship, almost collapsing the second they got in, each taking their time. The Blue Woman (who introduced herself as Nebula) screamed, hitting a wall in pain, cursing her father for killing someone she loves. Tony stood, his mind completely blank. All grey. He felt nothing. He wanted to feel something, but his mind was static.
The two ran on autopilot, flying the breaking ship back to earth. The site of New York almost made him puke. Seeing it from so high again. The calls flooded in, and one, of fucking course, one was from Steve.
He couldn't ignore it. He called the number. Steve answered. He wasn't making sense, mumbling something about Bucky, and he was sorry. And then mumbling he was really sorry for his loss, and then; "Come to Wakanda."
Still on autopilot, he landed in the area. The sun was shinning, blocking their view from being good. The air was cold though. Stiff. It was foggy. Foggy with emotions. Steve was the first to greet them, wrapping Tony into a tight hug. Tony responded slowly, hugging the now shaking man back. "I'm so sorry." He said again. Tony repeated it. He looked around. Bucky didn't stand anywhere around. It clicked, slowly. He was gone. Steve was obviously crushed. Red rimmed eyes, shaking arms and hands, relying on being held up by others. Steve's destruction, Steve's sadness his grief, was on him. If he had done something more, if he had moved faster. People would be here.
Natasha was next to join, rubbing his back when they hugged, also muttering a soft "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Each Avenger greet their old friend, hugging him tightly. He looked around the strange city, the meeting of his friends.
Pepper.
She wasn't there.
He turned to Natasha; "Pepper?"
Natasha couldn't reply other than; "it doesn't look good". She couldn't make eye contact with him. He couldn't even feel his heart being ripped to shreds. He stood there. Half in shook, half. Half having no idea. He wasn't in reality. Nothing felt real. Each step (now being supported by Steve and Banner) didn't feel real. He couldn't feel the ground underneath him, or at least. He didn't know. It felt so strange. Each step, each breathe. The hands on his shoulders, holding him tightly. They felt so off. Like they were touching some else's body, but with his head in it. His vision played like a movie, rolling and flicking tape. His life wasn't real. He wanted to shrug off Steve, he wanted to shrug off Banner. They had their own stuff. He could walk. He could easily walk. They needed support.
His hands made contact with the ground, and he sat there, hands and knees on the ground. His arms were shaking under his weight.
"Tone? Tony, can you hear me?" Natasha's voice sounded so muffled. Her voice sounded like she was shouting from three rooms down. He looked at her. He didn't trust his voice. He didn't want to speak. "We have to have a meeting. We need to discuss what's happening. Contact. Contact Clint. Contact Fury. We don't know for sure about Pepper, okay? We haven't got word of her. I can get someone to check the house." He nodded, and Steve collapsed. All the attention was turned to the blond man, laying on the floor.
Tony reached out, grabbing Steve's hand. Trying to find a pulse. Trying to find the beating to make sure his friend was alive. He couldn't handle losing him. Steve was a jerk, but he was a good jerk. And now he was laying on the floor in front of him, going pale. He couldn't lost Steve.
"He's okay." A voice he didn't recognise said. "Just tired. Extremely tired. He's gone through a lot. His partner just died."
He shook his head, mumbling confused statements. Steve was held up, Wakandians around him, rubbing his back, trying to bring the man back to reality. Tony watched, watched these people try help Steve. They were all in grief. They lost someone as well. Everyone's lost someone.
"I killed him. I killed Bucky. It's my fault." Steve was mumbling words, sentences that didn't make sense. He was being lifted up, practically dragged away as he continued mumbling about Bucky. Bucky was dead. Steve's partner, his boyfriend, was dead. It made sense, that they were together. Steve did the same stuff that Tony would do for Pepper. He acted the same when he came into danger. He lost his head if he lost him. Steve was losing his head, and Tony. Well Tony couldn't comprehend what was actually going on. Arms were picking him up again, guiding him into places he didn't know, place's he didn't understand.
His vision seemed like it was being painted in front of him, the universe being created as he moved. The room he was placed in was pretty, he guessed. There was a teen girl sitting in the biggest chair, holding herself up tight and straight, and silently crying. Thor was in a seat next to Tony, his head in his hands. He wasn't speaking, wasn't moving. Thor, for the first time in a long time, was quiet. Steve was slumped in a chair, directly across from Tony, red rimmed eyes, but a blank face. He held no emotions in his face, almost like everything had been taken from him. Natasha was sitting on the floor, holding her legs to her chest, breathing somewhat heavily.
Bruce was sitting next to Tony, holding his hand, rubbing slow circles. Tony could register that Bruce was speaking to him, but he couldn't hear the words he was saying. He couldn't understand what Bruce was whispering to him.
"We have information." A woman he didn't know stood in front of him.
Pepper Potts, dead. Nick Fury, dead. Maria Hill, dead.
Pepper Potts. Dead. Her diamond ring was found laying in a pile of ash, a broken wine glass laying near the pile. His friends, his teammates. Tried speaking to him, but he was gone. He'd lost the two of the four people have gave a shit about. He had moved it down to three when Natasha played with Steve, but she was there. And she was talking to him, and she was mostly added back to the list (keyword; mostly).
She was dead. He didn't want to believe it. He couldn't believe what was happening, but he didn't. He sat, rocking himself back and forth. It was his fault. His fault. His number one reason was gone. Pepper Potts, his sanity, his rock, was gone.
"I need to go." He fumbled out. Natasha looked almost shocked that he spoke, and tried to stand. Two strong hands pulled him down, Bruce on one side, Thor on the other. "Please."
"We meet a plan."
"For what? The world's fucked. We may as well fucking give up now."
"We can't." The girl from before, the teen. She'd be about Peter's age.
"What the fuck do you know? Let me go. Please. Please fuck. Nono." His chest was tightening now. His legs moving too fast. He could feel the panic coming on. He's never had one of these around his ex-team. He's never. He couldn't. He couldn't completely freak out.
But he already was. Gasping for pathetic breathe after pathetic breathe. His vision was cloudy with tears. He wasn't sure if he was crying for Peter, or Pepper or that doctor or for himself. But he was crying. He wasn't sure if it was the guilt, or the grief. But she was gone. Bucky was gone. Peter was gone. He'd killed them all. They were all gone.
He made eye contact with Steve, and the man, looked so broken, yet so sorry. He moved forward, marching across the floor towards the blond man, shoving him against the chair he was sitting on. "Where is he?"
"Who?"
"The purple bitch."
"He vanished too, Tony. He's gone too."
"No," he mumbled again, moving backwards until he made contact with Thor. That blond idiot (he wasn't an idiot, Tony knew that) just grabbed him, holding him close.
"I lost my brother." His voice was raw, and shuddering. Thor sounded like he had been screaming for hours, and his hug, seemed like he hadn't been touched warmly or hugged in a thousand years. He was shaking, and the God was not okay.
None of the Avengers were okay. The World's Strongest Heroes were falling.
His sleep failed him. He was plagued by nightmares, and cold sweats.
So he walked the halls of the Wakandan kingdom. Letting the static fill his ears. Each step, each feeling of the dirt underneath his feet, the walls running underneath his fingertips. He took a breathe every ten seconds, trying to keep himself calm. Trying to stop breaking peace by peace.
Walking use to help him, before he got to alcohol. He use to walk his fathers grounds, pace around and around his room. Calm himself. In Afghanistan he would pace the cave. He would pace the area, controlling his breathing. He had no idea where he was going, but he turned corners, followed dimming hallways until he found what he was hoping, had alcohol. The room was vast, and there was a bed in one corner, and a fridge in the corner. He bee lined towards it, opening it up, grabbing bottles out, looking up to see a massive bottle of Jack-Daniels. He grabbed it too, beginning to sever himself a drink, ready to down it all within a minute.
He wasn't sure if he was trying to drink himself to being plastered, or drink himself to death. He mostly drunk himself to complete drunkness, the forgetting of past, present and future. His tolerance and certainly gone up in the past two years, with everything that he had fucked up, it was easy to drink more and more. But today? He wanted to forget, and he also wanted to drink himself until he died.
"Get out." He turned. A woman was standing in front of him. Her eyes were bloodshot red, her hair curly and cut short. "Do you have no respect?"
"I'm sorry." He mumbled, "I was wandering and I didn't. I've never been here. I'm sorry."
She didn't reply, simply looked at him, studying him up and down. He backed into himself. Her eyes were staring into his soul, almost glaring at him; "you lost someone as well."
As well
He could only nod. He didn't want to think about it. He was drinking to purposefully forget that Pepper and Peter ever existed. He needed to forget their existences, and he was praying he could drink until he died because they he'd never have to remember them again.
"Drinking won't help forever." She said. He shrugged in response. "Nakia." She sat down next to him, grabbing the entire bottle and taking a large swig.
"Tony."
"To, T'Challa and.."
He shook his head. He didn't trust his voice. Everything was shaking beforehand, and he was sure his voice was going to crack and fail, and that would cause him to cry. He didn't want to cry.
Crying made it real. And he refused to make it real.
But Nakia touched his back, gently, rubbing a circle and he couldn't hold himself together. He tried pulling away, and lent forward, hiding his tears.
"Pepper."
"To T'Challa and Pepper," Nakia said, holding up the glass, Tony clinked their glasses together and downed the drink.
And then they sat. Sitting in silence, each of their minds running over what had happened the past few hours. Tony sat in guilt. Guilt that his poor behaviour, his strive to fix the things, his attempts to stop this from happening hadn't worked. Thanos had still won. Thanos had killed half the bloody universe and it was his fault. The crushed woman beside him, losing her fiancé, was because of him. The grief that swamped the world, the extreme hurt of losing their other halves.
They were all gone, because of him.
He woke up on the floor. Nakia was gone, and he didn't even have a headache. He wished he did. He could blame the grimances of speech on that. But he couldn't.
So he walked again. Trying to find someone he knew. Steve, Nat, Bruce, Thor, anyone. He didn't care. He needed a face. A face he knew to sit with. Probably not talk because he was scared he would let up what was raging in his head. The guilt that weighed him down.
With each step, he heard a different sound, someone knew coping. The guards that stood, blank faces, a few with tears still. The men that walked the castle, hands and arms on each other, recovering from alcohol. The women that sat, drinking calmly on the floor, staring as though nothing in front of them existed.
And then he saw Steve. He glanced in a room, and he saw his old friend. A still punching bag in the corner of his room, empty drinks laying neatly on the floor, his bed barely creased. And the tall, blond man, staring outside the window. Standing straight up, arms behind his back. Holding himself as though he was carrying the sun.
"Steve?" He cleared his throat. Steve didn't turn around. "Steve." He walked into the bedroom, eyes scanning the room again. Everything was insanely neat, scarily neat.
The man didn't register him; "Steve." He touched his shoulder, causing him to flinch violently, and grab Tony's hand. "It's me. Come walk with me. I don't want to speak either, but it's easier than, watching."
Steve didn't respond, verbally at least. He nodded and followed Tony. Now they two walked, following no pattern. Just walking. Feeling themselves, feeling the emotion, the sadness, the grief. The let themselves feel, Steve possibly more than Tony.
Tony didn't truly break down until the evening when Clint arrived. Natasha practically flew off her chair, wrapping the man in a hug. He responded, slowly. They hugged so close to the group, that they all heard it. They heard Clint's sobs, his voice that shook scarily.
"They're dead. They're all dead. My kids. My kids."
His voice filled the room, and Natasha could only hold him so much.
Tony's reality melted once more. He was there, he was viewing what was happening, but it wasn't real. He had done it. If he was faster, if he was quicker. If he had done more. He, Thanos would be dead. They would all be alive. Pepper would be alive. Peter would be alive. Clint's family would be alive. Bucky would be alive. Half the universe would be alive if it wasn't for him, if it wasn't for Tony fucking Stark.
"Tony. Tony breathe. It's okay." Bruce's voice was in his ear, his hand on his back. "We'll figure something out. We can get them back." He sounded like he was reassuring himself as well as Tony.
But it was his fault. It was all his fault. It was his fault; "My fault. My fault. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry." He repeated, over and over. Unable to change his mind, flick to something else.
Anthony Edward Stark was cracking and breaking like a fucking china doll.
Oops, Steve or Clint next?
~ Georgia