Dreams of Peaceful Chaos
He can't sleep.
He thought after everything was over, after he finally let everything go, that his nightmares would end.
But they're getting worse.
It isn't just him he sees falling anymore. It's both of them; as soon as he shuts his eyes, all he can see is her hand just slipping out of his reach, spiraling downwards into the flames. It's always so much more graphic than he remembers; the fires are colossal, the fall never ending. And then it's his turn, rocketing from the sky, the ground closing in on his body even though he never really felt the impact. He imagines it in his mind, the feeling of every bone snapping as he craters the concrete. He wakes up violently with the irrational feeling of suffocation, his eyes spotting as tries to make himself remember that he isn't in space. He's home.
He wakes up often like that, to a cold sweat that soaks through his shirt and makes his tentative new heart race.
And he doesn't know how to stop them.
He doesn't have anything to tinker with anymore; there is nothing to fix, nothing to make since he destroyed all of his suits. He thought it was a good idea at the time, giving them up, but his insomnia has been insufferable without them. He thought for a brief time about getting medicated; he knew he'd needed to be properly diagnosed with ADHD and PTSD a long while ago, but it was just one of those things he thought could wait. He was fine; he didn't need any medical help. But now a few muscle relaxers and sleeping pills didn't seem so bad if it meant an end to the madness.
He'd do anything to make them stop.
He hates the extreme fatigue, the constant dark circles under his eyes that he can't explain, the agitation that keeps him from thinking straight. It hurts. He hates living to wait for the next breakdown. For once in his life, he wants things to go right.
But they don't.
He thrashes in the sheets night after night, curling into himself, whimpering words, pleas for the visions to stop. And his ears throb with the thrums of imaginary explosions and his eyes burn in the hostility of the void that isn't there. And just as he begins to think that it is the end, he feels something tangible hit his chest.
It's a soft tap, but a heavy enough weight that it pulls him away from the horrors and drags him from his mind until the dreams are specs, memories faded on a distant shore. His red eyes snap open, his breathing rugged, uneven and heavy as he searches for the target, for his attacker. He's tensed, and in his delirium he thinks that he's in danger. But he's more confused. Because there is something shining dully on his chest, and it takes him a moment to remember that he doesn't have his arc reactor anymore. But this tiny little arc glows and shines with the beams of the moonlight that trickle in through the windows, the small triangular prism illuminating the small section of his chest in all its facets.
And this arc, this very precious arc, is attached to one delicate finger on a hand which he follows down to a very lax arm connected to a person who had moved only so slightly so that her lithe frame now curled up against his. Her arm is wrapped loosely around him, her palm open right over where his heart was. He can feel her warmth through her fingertips; he can feel her hand move up and down with his chest. And he focuses on the rhythm, on the up and down motion of her arm as he regulates his breath, of her steady breathing in his ear.
And it calms him.
Her presence next to him is soothing. He can feel his whole body loosening, the tension slowly but surely retreating. He knows it's not gone; he can only wish for that. But she helps. She helps him heal. She makes him see the purpose in his life again. Because that tiny arc on her finger, that's his future. That's his purpose now. She's his purpose, his reason to keep going, keep living, not the suits. She's all he needs to carry on.
And really, that's why he gave it all up.
Because watching her fall was hell, worse than any other nightmare. Feeling a grief so intense that he couldn't even process it, feeling so full of rage, so ready to throw his own life away without her – those were the most terrifying sensations he had ever felt. And he never wanted to feel that way again, because he had never felt so desperate, so useless, so much of a failure. In those moments, he didn't feel like a hero at all. He had let her fall; he had let the one thing he couldn't live without slip through his fingertips. She was consumed by flames, and he stood by, forced to watch, thinking she was lost to him forever. And he supposed that he was lucky that Extremis had saved her in the end, but it didn't stop the pit growing in his stomach every time she got too warm and started to glow, every time she got a cut and immediately healed. He was so paranoid that something would happen - that she would end up like all the others who burned out because they went just a little too hot.
And that thought drove him to insanity.
But sometimes he had rare moments like that one, where she was happy and peaceful, and for a moment he could pretend he was too. Sometimes, if he just laid there and listened to her breathe, he could actually get some rest. It wasn't fulfilling and nowhere near enough, but it was rest. Pure, blank, thoughtless rest, and for now, it was good enough.