Hi. I sorta wrote this in the middle of the day, for the first tiiiime. \m/ Anyway, this is a songfic, based on the song Echo by Jason Walker, except it doesn't have all the lyrics, there're just explained parts of them that show how they are related to the storyline and blah blah blah, tell me if it sucks.
They're gone, you repeat in your mind, they're dead and it's entirely your fault. You beat and berate and growl to yourself, how stupid you are, how you should have done something, anything at all. But it's done, they're dead and gone and you're here, sitting on a bed you never really sleep on. You actually don't sleep, period.
It was a mission, you remember. Only two got out alive. You remember coming up from the workshop, tired yet accomplished, ready to be greeted by a noisy kitchen and clattering plates and banter, but instead, you see two teammates, slouched and solemn faced. You ask them what happened, where were the others? You had wanted to show Steve his new gloves.
Bruce had turned to you, guilt marring his face, like it was his entire fault, and shook his head. You steel yourself, because what does that shake mean? You rack your brain, which isn't exactly fully functional at the moment, and turn to ask Thor, who was standing there with a stony expression. But when you look at his face, you pause. What could have possibly happened to make Thor look like that? The man looked at Tony with pursed lips and a downturned gaze.
And then it hits you, hits you like Tasha did during training, and your knees give in. You slide to the ground and suddenly the world was spinning. You can't make sense of it. You just had a conversation with Barton last Tuesday, how could they be gone? How could they possibly just zap out of existence like they weren't extraordinary superheroes? They scramble to hold you up, but you start sobbing no, no, go away, and they back away reluctantly.
Two months later, Bruce disappeared, with a little note left behind. He said he was sorry, and that he was a monster who shouldn't have a home. The tears come back, but you don't let them fall. You send him a text, hoping he brought the StarkPhone you gave him, and told him that he was welcome to come back. Two years, and still no reply from him.
Thor was next. He was called for duty in Asgard a year after Bruce's leave, so why would he stick around, even if it was for the sanity of one of his teammates? So he left, patting you on the back as you try and keep a smile on your face. "Keep courage, friend." He had said to you, "I shall return to you once more in the future, you must count on it." A year later, he was still a no-show.
It's been two years since the incident and you've started off with angry and bitter and ready to take it out on work and alcohol, before you started to dissolve into a motionless man. You didn't bother, because who were you really, now that they were gone? Before the Avengers, you've made yourself out as a billionaire who would have fucked anything walking, but when the initiative happened, you turned out better.
Steve made you quit alcohol and sleeping with random people, Natasha had beaten you into shape, and Clint kept you from trying to strangle passerbies when you walk around New York with him. Bruce kept you on your toes with number and chemicals, and Thor had made sure you ate with him as much as he could. With all of that gone, you couldn't identify who you should even be. You saw no meaning in drinking anymore, because it was keeping the pain at bay anymore. It was even making it worse. Every time he took a swig he could feel blue disappointed eyes boring into his neck.
Sleeping with people? You could only imagine looking into blue eyes and mumbling those three special words, silicone boobs and lingerie only made your stomach clench. Sleeping with any prostitute would break you enough to even start sobbing Steve's name in the middle of putting on a condom. So you just start to dissolve into this pool of nothing, and begin to think, hey, maybe I deserve all of this.
One of the things you could never really accept was the nightmares. The way they claw at your heart and make you want to drown yourself in your own tears. There was one nightmare, one that was shadowed with blue eyes and blonde hair and a spangled uniform. He's speaking, you think, speaking to you, how it's entirely your fault. How you could have done something to stop it, so you sit there and you breathe, breathe like it's the only thing you could really do right, and you start thinking maybe that's true.
Even Pepper was gone, car accident, like your parents. There's nobody left, nobody to hold onto and grasp and curl into. No one to tell you to shut up when you mumble and ramble to yourself and no one to make you eat and sleep and drink normal water, and when you really really realized that, you start wasting away even more, because who's there to stop you from ending it all?
Happy is there, or at least, you think he is. You don't go out anymore, you don't even move anymore. You just sit there, with your head in your hands, and wonder why the hell you're still alive.
Sometimes, in moments when you feel like Steve's right there next to you, you close your eyes, and pretend you're alright, like nothing happened, like everything was okay and that everyone was just sound asleep. Never mind that there was no snoring echoing down the halls. But then you open your eyes, and reality just comes crashing down on you again, and you hit yourself for even thinking that that would be enough.
One night, you started screaming. Screaming your own name, like it would turn back time, like you were reminding yourself that you're you, that you are Tony Stark, but the worst part of it was the echo. Like it was the only voice you would ever find, and it keeps coming back and you're waiting for someone else, anyone else, to even whisper your name back but no one ever does, and you can't help but feel that little dust of hope crush every time.
You wish Steve was back, you wish he was here to chase away all the crazy creeping up your own mind. You could hear it, the voices, judging you and driving you insane. They were voices, his teammates' voices, even the ones who were still alive. They would whisper insults, judgments, but you could take those. What you couldn't take were the apologies, like your mind knew the way to shut down mode and it was slowly trying to break itself to get there.
And at the end, with the reactor unconnected, and the shrapnel slowly digging into your heart, you start to smile after all these years, and whisper to the blue eyes showing in your blurry vision, "It's good to see your face again." And this time, it's not an echo coming back, but a real, sad whisper of your own name.