Tony had always hated silence. Hated it with a fiery passion ever since childhood. There had been a lot of silence in his early years. Lots of "be silent, dear, your dad is working", a lot of silent, closed rooms and so many times a child had to be seen and not heard.
He had combated it by blasting AC/DC and surrounding himself with loud people, something his fame and money allowed him to do. It was fine: except that it wasn't - up until he got kidnapped by the Nine Rings.
The silence, except for the words, as his friend died to let him go on, was almost as bad as the overpowering, all-consuming, utter silence about everything as he flew through the portal during the battle of New York. He could dream enough nightmares to last him an entire lifetime on just one of those subjects. And he had plenty of them to dream of.
So he stayed up, working harder than ever, and when Pepper left him, he worked even more to bury that as well.
It was bound to break him one day. As Jarvis correctly pointed out, his diet of coffee and alcohol would both starve him and eventually end up giving him scurwey. Before that could happen, though, something happened. Before he could break, there was Steve. And everything changed.
Hello again, dear readers. This is a prologue, written by me, the Griffin, and edited by Kotyonok. I hope you'll enjoy!
-Griffin
