When Tony slowly returned to consciousness and all but forced down a shriek as pained consumed him. His head felt like it was on the verge of exploding, he was pretty sure he had a few more broken ribs, his left hand was crushed, his left shoulder was dislocated, and his right ankle was probably broken. Doing his best to pull away from the pain, he glanced around to find a lap top sitting in front of him, the Avengers and Nick Fury staring back.

"Oh. Hi, guys." Tony grated out. His throat was dry as hell and he realized he was pretty hungry, granted he felt like he would throw anything he ate or drank right back up, but he would appreciate the effort.

"TONY!" Somebody yelled and Tony winced, he had a banging headache.

"Shhhhhh, I know you missed my amazing presence, but I'm fine." He gave a half smile to them and vacantly realized he was missing a tooth and his mouth tasted like copper. A figure stepped beside him and Tony glanced sideways to spot V, grinning at the webcam in the laptop maliciously.

"So the codes, Nicholas?" V smiled and Tony made a face.

"Calling Fury by his first name is not a good idea. That's like calling on the devil and expecting not to be sent to –" Tony was stopped midsentence with a foot slamming into his broken ribs. "FUCK!" He yelled, closing his eyes tightly as if it would help with the pain. It didn't. He wanted to die. The pain was clogging his mind and stopping him from being able to think clearly, he didn't like that. He didn't have a mutation, or superpowers, or ninja training. He was a genius. Without his mind, then he really was nothing.

"The. Codes." V grinded out angrily.

"Ooooh, Fury, forgot to mention that this guy is batshit and has the craziest mood swings." Tony chuckled but stopped when he coughed up blood. The Avengers were quiet and he wondered why. 'Did they leave? Fuck. Tell me they're at least going to try to get me out of here…'

"Stark. Look to your right." V commanded and Tony followed, if only to save himself from another attack. He was a trough of water with ice cubes floating inside. It didn't even take him a second to realize what was in store for him.

'No. No. No. No. NO!' Tony screamed in his mind. 'Not again. This can't be happening AGAIN! NO!'

"Great, I was thirsty." He kept up a cool, apathetic mask as he spoke, not wanting to let anyone know the fear he was feeling. His time in Afghanistan left him in such a deep seated fear of still water that led to him filled all of his pools with concrete, removing all bath tubs from his various houses, and never going to the beach. He had kept the phobia concealed from everyone except for Pepper, Happy, and JARVIS. Rhodes didn't even know, but Tony had a feeling he had a vague idea. But Tony had made extra sure that the Avengers had no clue of it. He had erased the files documenting his torture during his capture from any database. The only person in the Avengers who probably knew of it was Natasha. He had covered up the lack of baths with large showers and claiming he found baths disgusting since all you did was bath in your own filth. He covered up the lack of pools with the excuse that he didn't want to have drinking parties run fowl with guests drowning in the pool. He covered up not going to the beach by saying that outside was too mainstream and that his workshop was where he belonged. No. Nobody truly knew how scared he was of water, how downright pace the halls, wake up with nightmares, yanking out hair, terrified he was of still water.

V smirked at him, leisurely slipping his hands into some gloves, probably just to draw out the moment since either way, those gloves were getting wet. "Then let's get you a drink."

The Avengers all watched worriedly and winced as Tony was kicked. They all saw the pain he was feeling, hell, they'd all felt similar before. None of them were green. Steve had been slap-bang in the middle of World War II before he got frozen and torture was nothing knew to him. Bruce had been captured and experimented on countless times by people who thought that they could 'control' the Hulk. Thor had his many experiences from his adventures in his home realm. Natasha and Clint were… well, this stuff was practically part of their daily routine.

"They're going to…" Clint started off in Natasha's direction and she simply nodded.

Natasha knew about Tony's past experience in Afghanistan, she had been briefed on the situation by Pepper. Tony had refused to see anyone about what he had experienced in the cave and was apparently prone to PTSD. And she couldn't blame him. She was trained for this type of stuff but some triggers just brought the pain back like it was fresh. She could only imagine how hard it would be for a civilian like Stark to face it. People learned how to cope, but some things you just can't deal with. With somebody as dysfunctional as Tony Stark, coping wasn't even an option.

"Fury, we need to do something about this." Steve said darkly with his arms crossed over his chest. He was deep in thought. Tony was becoming something of a friend to him, albeit their incredibly rocky start, and he couldn't just stand by and watch his friend get tortured.

"I agree with the Captain, we should rescue our companion rather than wait in safety." Thor nodded, his voice quite the opposite from the usual bubbly and jovial tone.

"I'm not handing over the codes." Fury turned to face them, the decision final.

"We're not asking you to do that." Bruce said, he was looking down at the ground with clenched fists and furrowed brows, taking deep breaths in attempts to calm himself down. "We're asking you to make an effort to save your biggest asset."

"And who says Stark is my biggest asset?" Fury raised a brow and Bruce made a growling noise before jumping up.

"I need to get some air. If you'd excuse me." He stomped out of the room, his muscles had grown slightly and his skin had a greenish hue.

"Thor, go check up on him." Steve pointed to the door Bruce had left from and Thor nodded, following quietly.

"Ahem, ahem. Fury. I'm giving you one last shot to give me the codes before I begin. Sooooo, codes?" V said in a tone too happy for the situation. The group turned their attention to see V's hands tangled in Tony's brown hair, the usually styled locks were ruffled; sticking up in some places while others were matted with blood and sweat.

"Fury, if you give him the codes, I swear to God, when I die, I will haunt your shiny fucking head." Tony said through gritted teeth, obviously in pain as V held his weight with his hair. He was trying to squat and take the burden off his scalp with his legs but the position was awkward and hopeless.

"I'm not giving the codes, Stark." It seemed to be the only thing Fury knew how to say today. I'm not giving the codes.

'He doesn't even seem to care if Tony lives or dies.' Steve frowned at the thought. He knew Nick was only doing his job. The population of Earth or Tony Stark. The option should've been easy and obvious. Tony Stark was his choice.

"I love you too, Nicky." Tony chortled and the joke gained him an extra hard pull on his hair. The pulling was reopening the scabbed wounds on his scalp was well as reducing him to a small child with pain. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. If I knew you were a hair puller, I wouldn't have paid for dinner, princess. I've got my fetishes but this ain't one of them."

Tony felt his head get pulled back so his ear was right by V's mouth. "Have a drink, Stark." V hissed angrily and Tony barely inhaled before he felt his head forced down into icy water.

'FUCK! NO! FUCK! NOT AGAIN! FUCK!' He shrieked in his mind, flashing between Afghanistan and the present. 'I'M NOT BUILDING THOSE FUCKING WEAPONS! NO! YINSEN! DON'T JUST STAND THERE! FURY DON'T GIVE THE CODES! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!' He felt himself thrash and shift his wounds painfully. 'YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN! CALM… Down.' Tony tried to still himself, tried to stop himself from wasting the precious small amounts of oxygen he had left. He knew how much ice water in the lungs stung, he wasn't going back there. 'You can hold your breath for around two and a half minutes. You'll be fine, Tony. You'll be fine.' He felt his lungs screaming for again but he ignored it, actually enjoying the numbness that came along with being systematically drowned. He went slack, it was a trick he learned from his time in the cave. If you're a hostage, if you're leverage, they don't want to kill you. Just in time, his head was pulled from the water, hair tugging out of its roots, and he took the chance to gasp in the air, trying not to choke on the leftover water covering him. He didn't have a chance to look around before everything was dark and watery around him once more. Again, he tried to be still, he tried to bide his time, he tried not to drown. But this time, a fist made contact with his gut and reflex forced him to cough out the precious air he was holding it. He gasped in shock and was treated with a mouthful of ice water.

'Fuck.'

A/N: Tony + Whump = My Favourite. And I can't believe this story's got so many followers already, I love all of you. Again, this is unbeta'd so mistakes are my own. And please, please, please, please don't forget to review. Those things make my day. Seriously. Love you. 'Til next time~