Tony had been going on a day and a half without sleep when he started to hallucinate for sure. It was hard to keep track of time, especially considering there was no day/night cycle in his dark room, but he made do. He hadn't eaten for two days, but he couldn't avoid drinking the water he was given. He knew that he was already close to being dehydrated, and could hear Steve scolding him.
He could explain the reasons behind the hallucinations (or at least hypothesize about them, since he wasn't sure which one it was), but that didn't mean he could rationalize them away.
Yinsen appeared first, the same way Tony had last seen him. He was covered in his own blood.
It should have been mine...
Tony blinked.
"You're not real," he whispered. "You're a hallucination. You're dead; I watched you die."
Yinsen nodded at him. "I did. But you didn't listen, did you Stark? With my dying breath I told you not to waste it, and what are you doing? Nothing," he hissed, and Tony winced out of the sheer amount of shame that statement fostered.
Tony squeezed his eyes tightly together. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"You should be."
The voice sent chills down Tony's spine, and his eyes shot open.
No. No, he's dead too, I killed him myself.
"Obie," he whispered, the man standing there in front of him, grin wolfish.
"You didn't think you got rid of me, did you Tony?" he asked softly, moving around the couch where Tony sat paralyzed. It was happening all over again.
"I'm going to have to work harder this time, aren't I?" he murmured, ripping Tony's shirt open to expose the arc reactor.
Tony was helpless, just like he'd been the first time, but this time there was no spare reactor in the basement, because he was in a fucking dungeon...
Right. He was in a dungeon, not in his Malibu house. This wasn't real.
Tony squeezed his eyes shut and willed Obie to disappear.
"Oh Tony... Tesoro mio..."
Tony could almost feel the hand caress his cheek as she said it, which was impossible, because she was dead.
They all were.
"Bambino," she sighed, and Tony opened his eyes to see his mother.
"I'm not a child anymore," he grumbled.
She smiled sadly, and he knew that she was a hallucination because she hadn't aged. She looked the same as he remembered before she died, tired and fair and full of hope that he never got to see.
She stroked his cheek again, and he closed his eyes to lean into the touch.
"Be strong, mio caro," she whispered.
Tony felt, rather than saw, her disappear, and it almost made him sad.
I'll try, he thought.
Tony had to blink a couple of times before he could make sense of the figure in front of him. His vision still wasn't great, but he could recognize who it was from the clothes. Sweatpants (these ones tied, thank god, since there'd been more than one incident in the Tower where Clint's pants had fallen down, and wow, Tony should not think about that) and a shirt with a purple bullseye on it.
Tony smiled. Clint liked purple. It was endearing, probably in a way that it shouldn't have been, but hey, he was concussed and cold and he could think whatever the hell he wanted.
"Where's your sweater?" he mumbled, shifting slightly so he could get a better look at the figure.
Sitting up, he realized the answer to his own question.
Clint's sweater, or at least what was left of it, since it had been torn and ripped and dirtied in a number of places, was draped over Tony as a blanket.