You do think about what your psychiatrist said. You think about it during press conferences and when you can't sleep and when you're overseeing the construction of arc rector in Tokyo and when you fight and when you do business in London, Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai, Cape town, Ottawa, everywhere.
Then Bruce comes back to the US and tells you he would like to stay with the team, with you.
'Sure, Brucey, you should have done that those few months ago when everyone run away from S.H.I.E.L.D., I've been keeping one lab clean especially for you –'
'Slow down, Tony, I grew unused to your rants and to hearing English,' Bruce cuts in and you roll your eyes but you do shut up.
'I need to fly to LA to get my hands on some prototypes I've got my team preparing but we can do some science when I come back. In three days I think, is that right, JARVIS? Three days?'
'That's right, sir,' JARVIS replies and Bruce smiles at the ceiling.
'Good to hear your voice.'
'I could say the same, Doctor Banner,' JARVIS replies and you roll your eyes again.
You go to LA, in the meantime you're ambushed by Fury who wants one crazy thing or another and you've been avoiding him in NY 'cause you are still mad for the thing with Phil. You figure you can work on the S.H.I.E.L.D project as it's interesting and it'll bring you lots of money, but you still don't say a word more than absolutely necessary to Fury.
When you come back you manage to catch Pepper and kiss her before she heads out for a trip to Denmark and then you go down to your workshop and invite Bruce to come with you and then you show him your toys and you two talk science saying words so fast that hardly anyone on the planet would be able to understand.
You love the thrill.
(JARVIS reminds you of eating protocols and you do obey each time. Bruce starts frowning by day two but before he can ask what is going on Pepper comes back and you two play lovebirds and then fly to Chicago to oversee your local team starting up the reactor for your half-ready tower no. 2. This one says Stark on the top. The LA one says Potts because you promised.)
Then it's Christmas and you spend the time with Malibu in Pepper and Happy and Rhodey who finally has some time off duty. Holidays are always touchy time 'cause of the holiday spirit you're not much into and the abundance of food (that doesn't exactly happen at your place). You go running in the mornings with Happy, keeping your training schedule, and you two share memories and laugh and discuss Downton Abbey and you tell Happy about some things you tell your doctor about – and no one else – because he's been around you the longest and he understands best.
Better than JARVIS and that is something. He's been with you before things got really bad.
'I remember how it was when you first hired me, before I knew,' he tells you and you nod sharply.
Pepper and Rhodey and JARVIS remember how balanced everything was before Afghanistan. Pepper and Rhodey remember learning about your thing. Dummy remembers you with a hole in your chest. JARVIS remembers his system failing when you were inside the portal. You've created a nice set of memories for all of them.
You host a New Year party for Stark Industries that is a fair reminiscent of the old times, late 90s, early 00s and you have lots of fun even without alcohol. Then you have a mini saving the world party back in New York, three days later, because in the meantime you've been fighting robots and megalomaniac evil geniuses.
You pour everyone their favorite drinks, even Steve who has discovered a particular liking of sparkling wine, and you pour yourself a soda over ice.
'You not drinking this?' Clint asks, raising his glass with a really good scotch inside.
'Nah, got my own stuff –'
'I don't think I've seen you drinking since we moved in,' Natasha adds and you think you'd be happier living without too observant spies. Even though you're not exactly hiding because this is your house, your home, and you're not going to play games here.
'Like I said, I've got my own stuff –'
'I just think we've all seen your half-naked photos after you did one or another stint being drunk in public and this is a big change,' Bruce says, his voice calm and wondering. You are aware, thank you, that there are endless of those news.
Not since Afghanistan though. Not since Pepper.
'Could you please not gang up on me for not drinking?' you ask, only slightly irritated. You've learned to enjoyed your non-alcoholic drinks and it's fine that way. (Mixing buspirone and alcohol can increase nervous system side effects such as dizziness, drowsiness, and difficulty concentrating, you know you've tried and you can't afford to let your guard down for a sec.) 'I'm being a responsible adult here.'
'Weren't you the one who kept persuading me that moderate amounts of alcohol are both socially acceptable and encouraged – and enjoyable?' Steve questions, looking between you and the tall glass in his hand with a single wrinkle of doubt on his forehead.
You sigh.
'Well, you are not on meds,' you tell Steve. All eyes turn on you, sure thing, even though they're pretending to be discreet. 'What, did you S.H.I.E.L.D.'s medical leave for half a year guys think you've got the monopoly for issues?'
'Well, you've been awfully understanding when I came around before Phil was back,' Clint says after a prolonged moment of silence during which you sip you drink.
'Well, yeah,' you roll your eyes. 'Quit staring?'
They do and then they don't exactly mention your not-drinking again. You appreciate. You tell that all to your doctor and she asks you if you'd feel comfortable sharing with your team.
'Not yet,' you reply.
She nods and you continue talking thought the subject of the week which is your history of compulsive behaviors and you don't want to go down that line because it means talking your underage near-alcoholism at MIT and going down the memory lane until you reach the day Howard made you drink your first sip of whiskey and then to the first time you heard him shout in alcohol-fueled rage.
All that leaves you slightly undone and you ask Pepper to stay with you so she cancels your appointments for the next day and doesn't let go of you.
You feel like you're peeling layers off yourself and you're not sure you like what's underneath. But then you didn't like what you were before so it's a fair game.
Then you do it again and it's been maybe a few weeks since the previous time and you think with half-anger and half-nostalgia about that one 6 months chip you got from Happy one time, the one you still keep in one of your secret drawers in the workshop.
You save the world the next day and it does make you feel a bit better but you hate it when they call you a hero and a role model and a changed man because you're none of those.
Things are more or less fine, your doctor talks you into the dark corners of your head and adjusts your anxiety meds. You finally open the Stark Tower no. 2 and the Potts tower and build another flying circus for Fury because you're nice and smart like that.
There is this time you go out for a business dinner, get the signatures you've been fishing for for months and then – you don't want to think how and why or anything – you somehow end up eating an entire chocolate cake on your way back; it makes you feel ashamed as well as sick with all the sugar even though, ironically, you're nowhere near being painfully full.
You get home and you're angry. You do anger a lot when it comes to managing yourself these days.
The team is having a bonding night, you don't know why would they need more bonding but then you get somehow antisocial as soon as you get inside your house. They are laughing and having fun and you stare at that from distance with mixed feelings because while they are living their common team life only, your is so much more. You're busy, you love being busy, you need to be busy to keep your brain functioning.
'Stay for pizza?' Steve half-asks, half-states when he notices you and you can feel your blood pulsating in all your veins.
(You shouldn't. You've eaten too much. You know the calorie count. Your head tells you immediately how long you'd have to run to burn them.)
'Yeah, sure, why not,' you say because when you fucked up, you could as well fuck at totally and enjoy it, at this point it doesn't matter how much beyond your limits you've gone. Some things don't change over the years.
'Sir will not be eating with you, Captain,' JARVIS interrupts, making Steve frown and you shiver slightly. 'Please, sir,' the A.I. adds in the sad voice that always makes you give in and you know that you will go upstairs obediently, leaving the team behind. That's what is best for you.
'All right, prep my stuff, J. Another time,' you say, grinning at the team confused faces, and then you're gone. It's rude, but you're always rude so that's nothing new.
You've learned this much: sometimes you have to think of yourself before the others.
JARVIS calls Rhodey who has just landed in New York in the middle of the night, a day earlier than he was supposed to. Rhodey comes by as soon as he can and stay close to you and gives you a belly rub even though it doesn't hurt that much.
'Thanks,' you tell him.
'That's what friends are for,' he replies and you can hear all the words he doesn't say: where are your teammates? Because Pepper and Happy are halfway across the world. But then he adds to himself and you hear it too it took you years to tell me, your best friend.
Rhodey is an angel, you swear.
He asks you to talk him through this evening like he did the first you shared your problem with him and you obey. You tell him what you've been working on in therapy – you tell him just about everything.
'Really, I don't get why some people are so fixated on the word recovery, you don't fucking recover and if you do you're such a lucky bastard,' you laugh drily. You always laugh. 'I call it fighting or battling or struggling or something, not recovering. It's too tiresome to be named a recovery.'
'I know it sounds silly, but relapsing once in a few weeks – compared to the way you used to be – isn't that bad,' Rhodey tells you when neither of you can fall asleep, Rhodey because his internal clock is somewhere far and you because of buspirone and too fast thinking process. 'But you don't settle for anything that isn't complete.'
'I'm still irrationally anxious about stuff,' you admit because you can let yourself. Rhodey has seen you at your most broken. Rhodey has never made you felt vulnerable. 'Not in anxiety disorder and panic attacks kind of way, my meds take care of that – in a control freak I-don't-want-to-be-a-failure way.'
'So you've been digging back to Howard with your doc?' Rhodey asks. You laugh drily.
'I can't blame everything on Howard –'
'How about Ty?'
'– and Ty,' you protest but the words feel weak. There are exactly four people in the world, including you and Ty, who know what happened and the two others are in room with you.
'You haven't told you doctor about that?' Rhodey asks, holding you in a way that means affection and support and understanding, in a way that means anger and protection.
'No.'
'You probably should.'
'I probably should,' you admit. 'But every time I try I – I just choke on my words. You know. You remember when I told you –'
'I could come with you if you think that would help,' Rhodey says because he is an angel.
Rhodey is in town for two weeks and by day ten you agree to that and you take Rhodey with you (you didn't manage to swallow a single bite before) and he has to calm you down a few times on your way to the office because you're not sure there is anything in the world you want to talk about less and that makes you feel more vulnerable.
Your psychiatrist loves Rhodey, of course she does, and she doesn't interrupt you for a second or rush you when you tell her the things about Ty you've never mentioned, when you tell her in your best (broken) Stark fashion you he used you and then dumped you. You never use the actual r-word but it's hanging in the air.
Then you discuss the whole story, with Rhodey's arm wrapped protectively around you, for an hour longer that your visit was supposed to last.
You don't tell Pepper. You can't tell Pepper. Rhodey doesn't push.
Pepper is even more of an angel because she accepts that you've had some fucking catharsis-but-not-really and doesn't push you, just holds you gently and strokes your hair and kisses your whole body in Pepper-speak for I love you.
She has to leave in the morning but you have Rhodey for three more days.
You spend time with the team, as much as you can bear human contact right now, and Rhodey still hovers protectively around you in the way you're pretty sure only you can understand because it's been going on for decades.
When Rhodey is gone you miss him but it's how the world works: it won't stop because you've had a life crisis over something that has happened twenty years ago.
You work, you work with Bruce and he makes this frown a few times at JARVIS slightly nudging you to eat in his code-speak; Bruce isn't around often enough to make anything out of it though. And the food protocol names are not obvious at all.
The other day your doctor tells you she's glad you have Rhodey around.
'I'd be dead if it weren't for him,' you reply and you do mean it in at least two very different ways.
You want to ask Pepper to marry you but you don't because you haven't figured out you yet and you don't want to force the messed-up you upon her. It's funny 'cause the world gets a pretty set persona of Tony Stark and everyone treats you as such and it's a big lie. But then most of your public face is a joke in one way or another. You at home and you at work are real.
You in the suit is you in disguise that you appreciate a lot because it's useful.
You keep thinking of what you need to be to be a fully real you.
You decide you'd like not to be afraid of yourself (and messing up everything you've created).
You try and you fail and you end up binging in the middle of the night – in the tower's kitchen, something you haven't done before – and it's all because you wanted to take the matter in your hands and fill up the still empty hole somewhere in the middle of your persona.
Someone almost manages to sneak up on you.
'Hey, hey, don't drink it straight from the fridge like that – are you having a midnight milk and cookies run here?' Natasha asks, gesturing at the empty cookie bag. This all is what you'd call a slip-up these days. (She doesn't know about the previous three.)
You don't stop drinking because you're not sure you can.
Natasha comes up to you with a frown on her forehead and takes the bottle out of your hands gently, puts it away and clasps her hands around yours, still somewhere mid-air.
'You'll get tummy ache if you do that,' she tells you, her expression unreadable. You take a second to blank out your thoughts and then you snicker.
'Did I just hear the Black Widow say tummy ache?' you ask, ignoring all emotions surrounding this situation. Easier that way.
'And I've just seen you sneaking off to devour midnight comfort food. I'd call it even. We can keep it secret.'
For a moment you want to say yeah and laugh it off but you're sick of your own lies.
'No, don't,' you say and Natasha's face is back to the frowny look. 'I can't do this, all right? I shouldn't. Don't give me excuses. No midnight comfort foods and alike. Not for me.'
There is a flicker of something you cannot figure out in her eyes and then she nods sharply. You don't have so say anything else. She's smart and – she's a woman. They deal with this… more.
She seems to be remembering things, you can almost see her thoughts running, and then there is almost-understanding in her eyes and it's immediately replaced by concern.
'Does Pepper know?' she asks finally, her hands still wrapped around yours, and you nod.
'Yeah, we are – we are working it out. See,' you pause, letting a short harsh laughter escape. 'Not even I am perfect. You got that bit right in your assessment.'
Natasha grimaces but it disappears within a second, and then she gives you a quick awkward hug, grabs her favorite box of tea and disappears. You stand in the middle of the kitchen, barefoot and unsure, with your hands wrapped tightly around your belly and you want more, you want to go on, but you take a deep breath and walk out of the kitchen, small steps, and sneak back into your empty bed.
You go back to living your definition of normal. Work, save the world, science, work more, argue with JARVIS, banquet, meeting, work, Pepper time, science etc. You like it as much as you're capable of.
It's the end of April when you tell your psychiatrist that maybe you want to try.
To gain weight, that is. Because as much as you're in denial, you're too rational not to notice that you're a bit too thin – that's how you phrase it. You learn that at this point there isn't much she can do for you medication-wise because most meds for bulimia would be too much and they're based on fluoxetine and if they're the off-label ones they would interact badly with buspirone. And you definitely don't feel ready to get off your anxiety meds, you know yourself well enough to tell her that.
'Because your weight is not a risk to your life I cannot force you,' she tells you. 'You have to tell me you are ready.'
You want to be ready. You want to look at yourself and look past things as petty and silly as the sharpness of your bones because that's what you still find yourself looking for. You want to feel at ease and comfortable because that would make you happier and relaxed and in consequence that would make everyone happier.
You don't want to rely on others to keep you in check and sane.
'This is a big thing that you are seriously considering this decision,' she tells you.
You go home thinking and try to do the homework you got months ago:being whom would make you happy? What would you have to be like to be happy?
Do you need to be perfect to be happy?
No, you know the answer to that. So far, you've been trying too much and it's had the opposite effect.
'What would make this fucking split in my head heal?' you ask JARVIS when you're spending the night in workshop after you made sure Pepper was asleep soundly. You're too restless to sleep.
'I do not know, sir,' JARVIS replies. 'I wish I did.'
You fix one of your old cars car and spend the time thinking about the first time you noticed the changes to your body – because it was sudden. You were okay and then you weren't and you looked for reasons for being left alone like that.
(It was before everyone, it was in the time when the only one you had was Dummy.)
'You know Miss Potts loves you no matter your physical appearance,' JARVIS adds and you nod. 'If love based on appearance was an issue, I am sure it has not been the case since you came back to America.'
JARVIS knows better than to say Ty's name but you still hear it.
You nod and pretend to believe – you do know this and you're a scientist and one of the best minds in the world and you're rational but this is the one and only thing that your calculating mind fails to comprehend.
For your birthday there is an Avengers-and-friends party and wow, it's not even interrupted by an alien invasion or something, and you do your perfect job eating under Pepper's watchful eye (you're thankful for that) and dodging questions about you not drinking even on your special day (you could but you don't want to).
Then you go to your bedroom with Pepper and she tells you she has a real gift for you and you don't have enough time to wonder before she takes out a little box and asks you to marry her.
'I know you've been waiting until you're healed,' she tells the speechless you. 'And I've been waiting for you to realize that it's stupid. You haven't yet so I run out of patience.'
'But –' you manage before she silences you with a kiss.
'I don't want anyone else, ever, ever,' she tells you. 'All right? I was trying to respect your need of time to figure yourself out and appreciated that you shared a lot about your therapy with me but you weren't getting this. I can wait another fifteen years if you want me to – but I'd like you now. The way you are.'
'I'm – I don't deserve you,' you tell her and there's nothing melodramatic to it, it's a simple statement of a fact. You've got (past) reputation and lots of (present) issues and she's a saint. 'Of course I'll marry you,' you tell her, too, and you don't say anything more because you're both busy otherwise during the night.
You don't tell the team but you tell Happy and Rhodey first thing in the morning, holding a mini teleconference while eating your breakfast – busy week – and you laugh at them when they start to argue who's going to be the best man.
Pepper comes by later and kisses you goodbye before she leaves for work and you leave for yours.
A/N: Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The next one will be the last ;)
