Day 0

Kobik did something weird yesterday. Something she thought heroic. She said, she was done marinating in the anguish that is Steve Rogers' heart, and she couldn't bear to watch him lay waste to this good earth anymore. She promised to fix the root of the problem. Fix Steve's heart. And boy, did she fix it. When she became whole again after Steve merged the final shard of the Cosmic Cube inside his chest, the first thing she did was to restore his consciousness into his body.

He wanted to be a real boy again. His wish came true! And that was all he could remember. He remembered Kobik's apparition floating towards him, her incorporeal hand coming for his forehead… and before that… well.

Let's just say, he didn't forget Civil War take two this time.

Still. Didn't make a lick of sense. Why would Kobik care about what he wanted? Steve couldn't have wanted this, could he? Kobik wanted to fix Steve, so she must've thought that his resurrection would relieve Steve's… what, grief? – that he would stop lashing out on the world. Nah, that was not the Steve he knew. His Steve wouldn't hurt a fly, unless said fly buzzed "Hail HYDRA!" then God help it, righteous fury shall rain upon it and its maggots.

Why would he even think Steve in the same breath as HYDRA? It didn't taste right on his tongue, but his core – something deeply rooted in his consciousness – was convinced that the Steve he knew and loved had been gone. So confusing. So frustrating! There must be for a reason for his coming back. He was… he was certainly back. In his meatsuit. Flesh and blood. And the human body needs oxygen – God –

Tony gasped and jerked upright from the bed, his eyes bulging from the sockets. Somewhat bloodshot, to be honest – maybe they were that way when they put him under. He hadn't been sleeping well since the War started. How long exactly was that? It crept upon them so stealthily that one Monday morning BAM! his friends started dropping like flies. It ended just as abruptly. Hell, so abruptly he didn't see it coming. There was Carol and fire and pain – so much pain –

He choked and sputtered saliva into his fist. He had to relearn how to breathe, so easy does it, come on…

Where in pluperfect fuck was this place anyway? His heaving subsiding, he sat straighter on the bed and peeled the blanket from his lap. Motion sensors activated two rows of recessed lighting above him, and he found himself in the middle of a spartanly decorated room. It was just him, the bed – bolted to the floor, by the way – and a door. He tried the door – who the fuck wouldn't – but the moment he put his weight on one leg, he collapsed spectacularly onto the carpeted floor. He had no strength in his bones, he realised, and panic surged up his spine. He tried to lift himself up, hands grappling the side of the bed, and up –

He flopped around some more, limbs rubbery and useless. He had been asleep for a long, long time… long enough that his muscles had atrophied. Not severely, but noticeably so. Bad enough that he couldn't stand.

Fuck it. He had to get to the door.

He let the bed go, and started crawling. One forearm ahead, pull, another forearm ahead, pull – like a garden snail with a trail of legs. Carpet burn aside, he managed to cross the lengths with little ado, and… he needed to catch his breath. The upper-half of his body slumped against the door as he huffed like a train running on steam.

Who was the smartass who decided to put him under induced coma? And for what felt like a millennium at that! In a month or two, a week mayhap – he could've been gone for good. The human body was not made to last this long this way. Damn it, he had contingencies. He had SOPs to follow if he were to fall in battle. Countlessof experiments performed judiciously on his body to make it more resilient. Meaning, there was a proper way of rebooting himself, dammit, and this wasn't it. If only he'd trusted someone enough with the SOPs –

He did. He trusted Steve Rogers, as he always had.

Finding a spurt of energy in his arm, he reached for the knob won't give no matter how hard he jiggled it, threw his weight at it.

This was a cell. He wasn't wearing an orange jumpsuit, but this flimsy pyjamas might as well be. The thread count was abysmal, and the cotton scuffed his bedsores. But, it was either this or strutting about naked, so he sucked his thumb and endured. There was no window, no clock to tell the time. He could lose his mind in the solitude.

Or maybe this was Hell. His afterlife. Doomed to spend the rest of eternity an invalid with only himself for company. His scratchy screams of "Anyone? Hello?" his hellfire and brimstone. Then, his breathing came in too fast, his vision blurred, and he grounded himself to the cool surface of the door against his back. This sucked balls. This sucked major balls. He stared at the empty bed before him, and wished to be lying on it.

Maybe later. He had forever after all. He curled up on the floor, hugged his knees and cried into the cotton of his pants.