"Fine." Tony clenched his jaw and forced himself to nod along to Fury. Though the pirate didn't know, Tony was just trying his best not to have a panic attack—he was sitting across the table from a man who was the fuel of his many nightmares. A man who Tony had last seen when he was being left to die, slowly and alone. A man who he had grown up worshipping.
A man named Steve Rogers.
Tony stared into his lap and nodded along. He felt as if the SHEILD meeting room was closing in on him and he didn't know what was being said, or who was being spoken to; he only knew that he wanted to get the hell out of there. Tony clenched his hand into a fist tightly and tried to focus on the pain that his fingernails caused as they drew blood. It was better than the feeling of Steve's overwhelming presence surrounding him—suffocating him. All he could see was Steve's shield pounding into his chest, a horror movie stuck on repeat.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed when he heard a voice break through his fog: "Tony?" He tried his best to latch onto it, to follow the voice back to its owner and into the present world. "Tony?" the voice questioned again, this time more insistent.
He looked up and found himself eye to eye with Natasha, the rest of the room had been abandoned and they were the only two left. He blinked rapidly as he tried recall what was going on. You came here to meet about the avengers. Something about the Accords being fixed.A glance at his watch signaled that several hours had passed since he had first arrived at SHEILD.
"Tony, why are you still here?" Nat's face looked puzzled as she informed him, "The meeting ended hours ago…"
Tony slid into his usual façade quickly. "Just hiding from the paparazzi Nat, it's not every day a playboy billionaire can get some down time." He titled his head lazily in what he hoped was an endearing way, and gave her a suave grin to help sell the act.
But Natasha's expression said she wasn't buying it, and Tony truly had no way of knowing how long she had seen him in his pathetic state. He deflated, but tried to ward her off again: "I'm fine."
No you're not, his inner voice chided him. In fact, Tony was farther from fine than he had been in quite some time. He existed somewhere between a numb acceptance of all the pain he felt he deserved, and a gut-wrenching fury that he had not tried harder, done better, to protect the one's he loved.
His nights were plagued with terrifying nightmares and haunting memories while his days were filled with remorse and sadness that he was all alone. He quickly shoved down his selfish thoughts,but that's not Nat's burden to bear.
"I'm fine, really." He echoed, as if the repetition would somehow convince Natasha, and maybe even himself, that he was being genuine.
Nat looked at him with a piercing gaze. The spy was wearing an expression that held many emotions: pity, understanding, and something that said "If you don't tell me what is going on right now, I will use every interrogation technique I know to get the truth from you."
Tony held her gaze defiantly for a moment before sighing in defeat; he was too tired to put up a real fight. She grinned in triumph and took a seat next to him. Crossing her legs she waited patiently for Tony to explain.
He inhaled shakily, pulled off the pair of stylish sunglasses he was wearing and simply said: "I don't know what happened." He shrugged his shoulders like that-was-that and he had nothing else to offer. As if it was normal to lose all sense of reality and be imprisoned in the dark corners of his mind where his most excruciating memories tortured him. For him, it kind of was.
Nat looked at him with concern and finally spoke, "I'm not sure what happened either, you zoned out for a very long time."
Tony shook his head, "No, I know what just happened." He was frankly too familiar with the panic that came from being sabotaged by his own mind: "I saw Steve and had to focus on not having a full blown panic attack."
Natasha's eyes widened in understanding. Nat had seen the way Steve and Tony looked at each other, and she knew that both men were struggling without the other—despite never admitting it. But she had also seen the way that Steve had fought Tony as if he were a complete stranger, and had seen the aftermath of Siberia.
Still, she had been hopeful, "I had thought you two would be able to get over your differences since you both mean so much to each other."
"I've been trying to get over him since the moment I met him, so I'm one step ahead of myself." Tony paused, shocked by the truth in that statement. He powered on: "But since I put allof my energy into that, I don't know what happened in the meeting at all…Though now that I think about it, I never really pay attention to this type of thing anyway, so I couldn't have missed much." Tony concluded with his signature lopsided grin.
Nat rolled her eyes and gave a soft smile in return. Her gaze, however, held a certain sadness in it. "You did a good job of faking it, Stark. I'm not sure Steve would have gone along with all of this if he had known you weren't aware of what you were agreeing to."
Tony chuckled, "It's a skill I picked up from countless Stark Industry board meetings—you just need a good pair of sunglasses." Tony then realized what she had said about Steve. His face darkened. "And what exactly did I agree too?"
"Team bonding."
"Shit." Tony could sense what was coming next.
"You just agreed to the have the Avengers live at Stark Tower." Her eyes narrowed, "Including Steve."