I don't know how you guys do it. 100 faves and over 200 follows!
First off, I would like to thank my amazing beta Mircosedy!
Secondly, this chapter is dedicated to my 90th reviewer.
The Sherlockian Vulcan - I would write longer chapters but I sometimes struggle at reaching my 2.5k goal. I think that that's a pretty good length for a chapter though..
This is for you!
The next time Tony decided to talk about his past was a few hours later. "He spoke about you a lot," he said with a normal voice, no fear like when he was speaking before. Steve wasn't sure if he should take that as a good thing or not.
"Yeah?" Steve asked. He glanced at Tony but continued to do sit ups.
Tony nodded. "Yep. You were the perfect Steven Rogers." Tony laughed a little. "You were also my childhood hero," he said, smiling at the memory of all the Captain America action figures and merchandise he had. He had to get his mind off of the fact that he was in a cave very similar to the one in Afghanistan somehow. Talking seemed to be working.
"I would never have guessed that the great Tony Stark would have liked Captain America," Steve said, smirking.
"Of course, that was before I found out how much of a jerk you are." Tony said. Steve glared at him and threw a rock near his head. "What was that for?! You know it's true."
"I am not a jerk." Steve said. "If anyone is, it's you."
That was mean. Tony frowned and looked away. "He compared me to you a lot, always asking me why I couldn't be more like you." He frowned at the memories. "It was like you were his first and favorite son. I was merely a bad replacement." He could feel the tears prick in his eyes but refused to let them fall. "He never stopped looking for you."
Steve wasn't sure what he should say to that. The resentment Tony had for him suddenly made sense. "I- I'm sorry.."
"What for?" Tony asked. "It's not your fault." As much as I'd love to have someone to blame.
"It's not yours either," Steve said. He was finally beginning to see Tony for who he was under the layers of protective masks he wore.
Tony wished he could believe that. He really did. He didn't though, not for a second. It was his fault that he wasn't the perfect son. Maybe if he'd done sports and acted more like Captain America things would have been different. But he hadn't, and that was his own fault. He didn't respond, but after a moment of silence he got up to see if he could figure out how to get out.
"It's too quiet," he muttered some time later. He disliked silence as it meant that his thoughts seemed louder and were unable to be blocked out.
Steve nodded in agreement. "How long do you think it will be before we get out of here?"
"Well, considering how much of an idiot Hammer is, I wouldn't say it would be too long." He paused. "But the fact that Hammer is obviously not working alone makes me worried."
"Worried?"
"Yes. Whoever he's working with knows information about me that I haven't told anyone other than Jarvis. They were able to hack into and shut J down so it would make sense for them to know everything about me." Tony sighed. He was suddenly very vulnerable. "If any of this information gets out to the public then I'm as good as dead," he muttered.
"Tony.. What happened to you in Afghanistan?" Steve asked.
Flashes of images shot through Tony's mind as he went into another panic attack. Steve, again, had no idea what to do. He just repeated the words he'd said the first time until Tony came back.
After catching his breath for a moment, Tony spoke. "I don't like to talk about it," he said quietly.
"Why not?" Steve asked.
"Because whenever I think about it for too long I get either a panic attack or a flashback," Tony said with possibly a little too much hostility in his voice.
"Okay.." Steve said. Was it possible that Tony did actually have PTSD? It would make sense. He wasn't sure if it would do any good in asking but he wanted to know. "Tony, do you have PTSD?" he asked.
Tony looked away from the super soldier. "Only about Afghanistan and the wormhole," he said honestly and quite quietly for him.
Steve had been sort of expecting Afghanistan but the wormhole was not something he'd expected. "The wormhole?" he found himself asking from curiosity.
Tony closed his eyes and saw the huge expanse of space, saw how small he was, how small everything was, in comparison and just how alone he was. He felt with certainty that he was going to die. His eyes shot open from slight panic. "Yes." He said softly.
"What was so traumatic about that?" Steve asked, genuinely confused. He didn't see how space could be traumatic in any way.
Tony looked at him. Someone really needed to teach Steve to think before he spoke. 'Other than the fact that everyone in the world thought I was going to die, including me. Pepper not answering her phone and the suit going completely offline leaving me to look at just how big the universe really is for a split second in complete silence before my Arc Reactor went offline and I passed out? Nothing.' He thought to himself, his breathing becoming more erratic as he remembered.
Usually at this point Jarvis would be advising him to take deep breaths but Jarvis wasn't there to help him. Fortunately, as idiotic as he could be, Steve was there. "Tony," he said. "Calm down. Panicking isn't going to help us get out of here."
Tony attempted to block Steve out. He knew that panicking wasn't going to help. He was trying his hardest not to panic but Steve mentioning panicking was making him more inclined to panic.
"Just.. Breathe," Steve instructed. "Take some deep breathes.. In… and out…" He demonstrated a deep breath for Tony, who did begin to relax as he took control of his breathing.
Tony didn't say anything. Steve didn't either. He knew that it was his fault that Tony almost had another panic attack but he still didn't see how space could be so terrible. It seemed like the sort of thing Tony would love to see.
Maybe under different circumstances.
Back at the Tower the others were wondering what had happened to Steve, Tony and Jarvis.
"Tony would never shut Jarvis down," Bruce said. "Something has to be wrong."
"I agree," Thor said. "We should try to find friends Tony and Steve."
"They're Avengers. They can take care of themselves," Clint said, not looking away from the TV. "Besides, I'm sure they're fine. Tony probably shut the computer down for repairs or something."
"'The computer' has a name. Jarvis," Bruce said. "And he wouldn't do that without telling us."
Natasha looked at the team. She could see that Bruce at least was truly worried. "Look, Bruce knows Tony best and if he says that this in uncharacteristic then it's uncharacteristic." Bruce looked at her thankfully. "Were there any signs of a struggle in the lab?" she asked.
"I can't get down there without the codes or Jarvis," Bruce told her.
"Let me guess," Clint said, "Tony is the only person with the codes?"
"Actually, no," Pepper said as she entered the room. "I have them too."
"How convenient," Clint said under his breath. Natasha glared at him.
"Can you let us into the lab then?" Bruce asked Pepper. She nodded and they all went to the elevator, some more reluctantly than others.
"I'm sure that everything's okay," Clint groaned, receiving a glare from everyone else.
"I hope you're right," Natasha said. "For your sake."
Pepper punched a code into a panel on the elevator and it began to go down. The elevator journey was tense, the only noise being Clint's occasional complaint.
When they got to the bottom they weren't surprised to see that all the lights were off. Pepper quickly turned on the lights and they found that the door separating the lab from the small room where the elevator was was open.
Pepper cautiously entered the lab. There were obvious signs of a scuffle. Glass was shattered on the floor where beakers had been knocked over and there was a small amount of blood on the floor.
Bruce quickly took a blood sample and put it under a microscope.
"You were saying..?" Natasha asked Clint.
"So, I was wrong," he said. "What happened here?"
"Looks like Tony was knocked out pretty easily but then Steve entered the lab for some reason and he tried to fight but was also knocked out after bleeding a little."
"How do you know it's Steve's blood?" Clint asked.
"Steve's blood has the Super Soldier serum in it," Bruce said. "Something I am quite familiar with."
Pepper was quite obviously scared for Tony so Bruce tried to comfort her. "He'll be fine," he said. "We'll find them." She looked at him gratefully.
"Who would want to take son of Stark?" Thor asked.
"Does he have any enemies?" Natasha asked.
Pepper thought for a moment. "None that could get him," she told them.
"Are you sure?" Clint asked.
"Well, there is Justin Hammer.." she said. "But he's in prison and even if he got out there is no way he'd be able to override Jarvis."
"Until we know for certain, he's the main suspect then," Natasha said. "It may be that he's working with someone else."
"What prison is he in? We should check if he's still there," Bruce said.
Pepper told them and they all made their way there in uniform, other than Bruce, who just went in his normal clothes. He took Steve's shield with him, though. He knew that the Captain would want it when they found them. Pepper stayed at the tower despite her wanting to go with them. They had all told her that it would be too dangerous.
They went into one of Tony's private jets. Clint was piloting.
When they got to the prison, they were greeted by the warden, who was surprised to see them but took them to Hammer's cell when requested. He was gone.
"I don't know how this could have happened," the warden said nervously.
"Did anyone ever visit him?" Natasha asked.
"Not that I can recall," the warden said. He seemed to think for a moment before talking again. "Although there was one visit about a week ago."
"Who was it?" Natasha asked.
"I can't remember. They only stayed for a minute before leaving anyway," the warden told her.
"Do you keep records of the visitors?" Bruce asked. The warden nodded. "Where are they?"
They were led through the halls and into a server room. The guard who was stationed there went onto the computers and brought up the visitation logs.
"There's nothing here about someone visiting Hammer," he told the warden and the Avengers.
"Are you sure?" Bruce asked. The guard nodded. "Can you see if anyone has hacked into the system?"
"I'm really not good enough at computing to know how to do that, sir," the guard said. Bruce nodded in understanding.
"Unless we get SHIELD involved, we're not going to know who visited Hammer," he told the others.
"Can't you see if anyone hacked it?" Clint asked.
"Tony is the one who can do things with technology. Not me," Bruce told Clint.
"But you're smart," Clint said.
"I'm a physicist," Bruce told him.
"You two shut up," Natasha said. "Thank you for the help," she said to the warden and the guard before leading the others out of the prison.
"So, either no one visited Hammer and he escaped by himself, or someone is working hard to cover their tracks," she said once they were in the jet, heading back to the tower.
"Who is this son of Hammer?" Thor asked.
"I have no idea, I think Tony put him in prison for something to do with robots a year or two back," Bruce said.
"So why would someone want to break him out?" Clint asked.
"A mutual hatred to Tony maybe?" Natasha asked.
"It's possible," Bruce said.
Tony sighed. He couldn't figure out any way out and all he could find to be happy about was that Hammer hadn't replaced the Arc Reactor with a car battery. He touched the glowing bit of technology in his chest under his shirt, remembering making the very first one with Yinsen.
That had taken time and a lot of resources and Tony hadn't even been sure that it was going to work. Not that he was complaining that it had.
It still hurt him every time he breathed and he couldn't take extremely deep breaths as it was pressed right against his lungs. He had gotten used to the pain a long time ago though and barely noticed it anymore.
He was finding it increasingly difficult to take his mind off of Afghanistan so he began to talk to Steve again, not really caring if the man was paying attention.
"He sent me off to boarding school when I was eight," he said, lying with his back on the cold stone floor with his eyes closed. "I was happy, it meant I could get away from him." He paused. "I never saw Jarvis again after that, though."
"Isn't Jarvis your AI?" Steve asked. Tony opened his eyes and sat up.
"Edwin Jarvis was my butler and my only friend," he said. "Jarvis is named after him."
"Oh.." Steve said. "What happened after you went to boarding school?"
"I went on to study at MIT, made Dummy and got my first degree by the time I was 17," Tony said. "Of course, that still wasn't enough to make Howard proud of me." Tony stopped talking.
Steve waited for him to talk again in silence.
"And then they died," Tony said. "I was told that it was instant and neither of them felt any pain when they.. Moved on. I was angry. I wanted him to suffer. I didn't want her to die though, she'd done nothing wrong." Tony felt the tears roll down his cheeks. "That's when I invested in my first pair of sunglasses. The press thought I wore them to hide my tears and I guess they were partly right. I didn't want them to see the tears I shed over Maria. The main reason I wore them was so they wouldn't see the lack of feeling in my eyes when I spoke about Howard at the funeral though." He lay down again and closed his eyes. "Back then I wasn't good at making a fake feeling go to my eyes too."
"What killed them?" Steve asked as he thought about the last sentence Tony had said. He could fake a feeling so well now that it even showed in his eyes?!
"Car crash," Tony said, a slightly bored tone to his voice. "A drunk driver hit them. He died on impact."
Steve didn't ask any more questions and Tony didn't say anything else.
About an hour later, the third meal of the day was delivered through a hatch on the door. Tony ignored it, like he had done with the previous two. Steve would have ignored it but his super metabolism meant that he needed to at least three times a day, especially considering the size and amount of nutrients in the meals they were getting.
"You should eat," he told Tony.
"I'm not hungry," Tony said. Steve knew he wasn't going to be able to get the stubborn genius to eat, so he didn't try again.
After he ate, he could tell it was getting pretty late from his internal clock, and decided to call it a night. He hoped that Tony would do the same.
Well, that was kinda fun to write.
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That's about it. Thank you for reading!
Ebil