A/N: The asterisk indicates a direct quote.
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine.
WARNING: Suicidal Ideation and Past Sexual Assault
Chapter 8 - Cranes in the Sky
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Tony remembers the phone call. He remembers it because he'd been sleeping. Not very well, of course. He had blamed the jet lag and noted that Rhodey would be proud of the serious effort he was making to stay in bed. Tangled up in the sheets from tossing and turning he can't reach the phone when the call comes. When he finally pulls himself from the clutches of fabric, the ringing has stopped. For a moment he sags back into the pillow nearly convincing himself that he hadn't received a call at all, (because nothing good can happen this early in the morning) before the ringing comes again.
He tries to ignore the ball of dread that slides down his throat and lodges firmly into his gut as he answers. There are only a few words spoken. It never did take many words to send his world crashing down. He wonders if that's an appropriate metaphor, seeing as right now he feels more numb than anything. As if nothing is quite real. Not even the voice in his ear calling his name over and over again.
The tears are real though.
Howard Stark, an icon of America's strength around the globe, and the head of
Stark Industries, passed away this morning along with his wife, Maria Stark in a
horrible car accident in Long Island, New York. The couple is survived by their
son, Tony Stark who graduated summa cum laude from MIT at the age of
seventeen. From an early age it was clear that Tony had a special gift, but
whether he will follow in his father's footsteps as the new CEO of Stark Industries
is a question still up for debate. There has been a great deal of speculation about
the future leadership of the company, which is still undetermined. One thing is certain:
Stark industries will live on.*
Tony cut the news feed and let the remote fall to the floor, too tired and exhausted to throw it properly. It had been a week since the funeral, but he could find no reprieve. Some unnamed feeling had slithered up inside his chest with that initial phone call and continued to sit there, making him feel heavy and weighed down. It was debilitating.
Unbearable.
"Tony?"
He looked up and met the comforting blue eyes of the person he'd come to think of as uncle Obie growing up. Of all the SI backers and board members Obie was the only one not clambering for him to do something, to fill the shoes that he had never been able to fit. People wanted to know what would happen next. They needed a response, but he didn't have anything for them. He didn't know what to say to them, how to lead them, how to direct them into the next phase when he didn't even know who he was anymore. He couldn't do it. He couldn't.
"I can't," he choked out, fighting uselessly against the tears already streaming down his face. "I can't do it."
"Tony, tony, tony," Obie sighed, wrapping a large arm around his shoulders and pulling him to his chest.
Tony didn't resist the touch as he once would have in rebellion, but collapsed into the embrace. He knew the shudders racking his body were a show of weakness. His father would not be proud to see his son sobbing in the arms of his business partner. But his father wasn't there to disapprove of anything anymore. And his mother wasn't there to soothe the bite of his father's disappointment.
He was alone.
"Don't worry about it, Tony."
The baritone voice, muffled by the chest his ear was pressed against, centered him. "I'll handle everything okay? You just focus on healing."
He should have refused the help. That's what his father would have done. It was weak to accept such a handout. But he wasn't his father, and he was just so tired. Would it be so bad to let Obie handle things for a while? Just until Tony could put himself back together. Just until he could face the public and handle their intrusive questions and prying demands without cracking. Just until he didn't feel like he was dying every time he opened his eyes to a world without his mother in it.
He didn't have the words and simply nodded into the now damp vest under his cheek, unable to express his gratitude and relief.
"It's okay Tony. You're going to be okay."
He didn't know how long he stayed that way, curled up in Obie's arms as if he had any right to accept such comfort. Eventually, he was able to breath again without the risk of choking on his own grief, and noticed the glass of scotch that Obie had offered to him. He'd looked away from it initially, the sting of the memory of his father's hand making him flinch away from the perpetual culprit.
"That's from my father's stash," he said with loathing.
"No. It's from yours," Obie corrected gently.
"I don't want it," he clipped.
"Come on kid. It'll help you sleep."
At the mention of the word he shuddered, not in grief but in fear. He'd had the same dream each night since the accident, slightly different each time but always ending in a twist of metal and fire and his mother pleading for him, begging for him to help her. Save her. As in the waking world, so it was in his dreams. He was too late. Always too late. He didn't want to see her pleading eyes anymore. He didn't want to see his parent's mangled bloody bodies and know that it was his fault they were dead. He didn't want to sleep.
"I see their faces," he finally whispered in explanation. "Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces."
Stane sat back down next to Tony but didn't pull the glass away.
"Take it," Obie insisted with soft firmness. "Enough of these and you'll sleep like the dead. No dreams I promise. Trust me."
Well wasn't that a tempting offer. In a world where he could no longer trust anyone besides Obie and Rhodey the offer was too tempting. He took it.
It burned going down and made him choke for a second. His father always did enjoy the strong stuff. The watered down booze Tony had guzzled in college was for the weak. The second one didn't burn as bad. The third went down smoothly. By the fourth his eyes finally began to droop. At Obie's insistence, he downed two more before slumping over onto the couch and, as promised, slipped into a dreamless sleep for the first time in weeks.
"Another round on me!" Tony yelled, lifting his glass up and closing his eyes as he took in the deafening roar of approval from the bar's patrons.
He couldn't really understand what the blonde on his arm was whispering into his ear, but he really didn't need to understand the words when her hand slipped into his designer pants and was palming him, creating a delicious friction against his silk boxers.
He appreciated the sentiment, and made a mental note to add her to the list of possibles before reluctantly removing her hand. For now. He wasn't done drinking quite yet.
He placated her with a husky whisper in her ear. Dark promises he wasn't at all sure that he would keep but that sounded good rolling off his tongue.
The phone buzzing in his pocket brought him up short. Only a few people had the number, and if any of them were calling it he should probably answer. He hadn't forgotten how furious Honey Bear had been when he'd spent that rather wild week in Barbados and been unreachable the entire time. Until then, he honestly hadn't known Rhodey could lecture for three hours straight.
Another buzz and he remembered that someone was trying to reach him and reluctantly reached into his pocket to answer the summons, smiling at the caller ID.
"Obie! How's it goin?" he greeted with a genuine smile. It was always a delight to hear from the man. He never lectured Tony.
"Tony wha-wow. Where are you?" he cut himself off with a slight grin as he took in the noise of the bar.
"Singapore! Bar!" Tony responded, knowing the man would know exactly which one as he'd been the one to suggest it to Tony a few weeks back. He couldn't say that he was disappointed either.
"Ahhh. I see. Well there's a board meeting in a few hours. You are supposed to be there," he said pointedly, sounding reprimanding for all of a-half second. "Can't say I blame you for skipping though," he chuckled immediately after.
That's right. Tony remembered. He hadn't forgotten about the board meeting. He simply hadn't wanted to go. It had seemed like a very prudent time to visit Singapore.
"Listen Tony, I don't want you to worry, okay. If you can't make it that's okay, you know that. I'll figure it out."
"Not worried," Tony denied shoving another, this time distinctly male, hand away from his pants with a bit of annoyance. He was trying to have a conversation here. "I trust you," he continued, trying to refocus and take another swig of his scotch at the same time.
"Leave it to me, Tony."
"Thanks Obie."
"Sure thing. Call me when you get back Stateside."
"You got it."
He hung up the phone then and downed the liquid remaining in his glass with the hopes of driving his father's voice out of his head. Unfortunately, he ran out much too soon. Well, there was one way to fix that.
"SHOTS!" he yelled.
The resulting cheer lifted him into the air and away from the despair that had become like a second skin these past six months. He pretended that the hands touching him didn't hurt as they each vied for a piece of him and later that night pretended that the winner's demanding embrace was filled with care instead of want.
High on their cheers, his drinks, and whatever he'd smoked an hour ago, it was easy to pretend they loved him.
It was the rain that woke him. The cold he could have endured, but the icy pellets pushed it from agony to unbearable. Peeling his eyes open he took stock of his situation.
He lay curled in a ball in what looked like a narrow alley. His back was to the wall, and after moving his pounding head an inch up, he could see the dumpster looming above, nearly on top of him, and alright, he had to admit this wasn't one of the worst places he'd woken up.
He racked his brain for a memory of how he'd gotten there. That was the downfall of getting shit faced drunk and indulging in narcotics. While the short peace that passing out granted him was a relief, his epileptic status guaranteed a seizure the next morning. Though he'd never reveal the truth, his faulty memory and inability to remember the person he'd spent the night with wasn't deliberate.
The state he was in this morning, however, indicated that somewhere along the way things had gone horribly wrong. He'd known a second before fully waking that he'd been stripped to his boxers. They hadn't even left him his shoes. Of course, they were worth nearly $3000 dollars so he really shouldn't have expected that decency.
His stomach heaved suddenly, and he tried to uncurl, to move and raise his head so the vomit didn't land on him, but his limbs were sluggish and the sharp stab of pain in his head at any movement-suggesting the likely cause of his current predicament-left a worse taste in his mouth than the warm sick now cooling quickly on his chest and arms.
He'd been roofied.
He took a moment to get his breathing back under control before going through the usual checks. His ribs hurt, and a shaky lift of his arm revealed nasty bruising that had most likely been the result of a kick or two. His knuckles, elbows and knees were all scraped raw but there was no pain around the important bits and he released a breath of relief.
He wasn't new to such an assault, but it always brought Ronan to mind. A memory he would very much like to never recall again. He supposed he should be grateful that he rarely remembered what happened the next morning. It's not as if he would prosecute the perpetrator even if he could, though he supposed it would be nice to know who to avoid next time.
The seizure took him by surprise.
As a result, he tasted a coppery stream of blood seeping out of his mouth, the rest pooling at the back of his throat threatening to choke him as his body trembled outside of his control. It lasted seconds, a minute tops, but it felt like hours before he was able to pull his teeth from his tongue and further bruise his ribs by hacking up the blood that had caught in his throat.
He hadn't had a seizure that lasted more than thirty seconds in years. Had he taken his medication? He couldn't remember. Funny. That he could forget things that weren't good for him to forget, but couldn't seem to forget the memories that continued to tear at him.
He should get up.
It was too cold, and the rain that had started as a mist was beginning to fall in earnest. He risked life and limb staying there, but he was just so tired. The thing in his chest continued to remain no matter what he did. He tried to drink it away, but he always, always woke up. He tried to smoke, inhale, and shoot it away, but often that made the memories worse. He tried to sex it away, and that was wonderfully distracting, but it never lasted long enough, was never quite as fulfilling the next morning. He tried to spend it away, on himself... on others. He spent millions acquiring anything he desired, but it was all empty.
It meant nothing.
He ran, and he ran, and he ran, and he could never escape the thing that had latched onto him. He was so very tired of running. He closed his eyes against the now sharp rain, thinking maybe he could just go back to sleep and this time, hopefully, never wake up.
"Tony?"
The familiar voice pulled him from the blackness he'd nearly achieved, but he struggled against it. He didn't want to come back. He wanted the sure promise of nothing.
"Shit Tony that better not be you!" the voice yelled, slightly muffled by the elements. Suddenly there were hands on him, the tactile sensation pulling him even further from the comfort of unconsciousness. He felt them push back the hair that had grown too long off of his face and curse again.
"Shit, shit, shit. Tones? Can you hear me? It's Rhodey."
The frantic and familiar fingers at his neck checking his pulse shot a spear of guilt through him. He was a bad person. Rhodey's voice should never wobble like that. He had made Rhodey worry again. Damn it. He couldn't even die right.
"Come on, Tones open your eyes. Please? Please?"
Rhodey never begged. As hands pulled him close he worked to acquiesce and struggled to pull his lids open. Brown met brown and for a moment neither said a word, simply content to stare at the other.
The warm weight now curled around him aggravated his ribs but felt so good he couldn't help turning into it. Then Rhodey blinked and Tony's sharp eyes caught the slight distinction between his friend's tears and the rain. He startled as a strange, sharp warmth seemed to cut through part of the void in his chest.
Rhodey remained silent as he slid off his jacket and wrapped Tony in it tightly. The quiet caring was so much more than the lecture he was expecting, and he was sobbing before he could even begin to put up the usual fight against having such a pitiful reaction. His frame-shaking hiccups did nothing to jar the firm embrace Rhodey wrapped him in. He was aware of several partial seizures, most notably marked by the brief cutting off of his own cries and knew that very soon they would have to move, not only to get out of the rain but to get his Dilantin.
He didn't want to move though. He didn't understand the strange need suddenly rising in him, but he was too tired to try and figure it out. Instead, he gave in to the novel feeling, once again hoping to die right in this moment, so he would never have to experience anything else but this strange, overwhelming comfort for the rest of his pathetic life.
Tony was not a religious man. Still, not for the first time his mind whispered the habitual prayer for reprieve he knew he wouldn't be granted.
Please God, let me die.
The appearance of the underground chamber was so jarring in it's reality that Bruce, or at this point it may be more accurate to say the Hulk, went to attack the glowing energy still hovering over Tony before realizing his mistake. At the sight of his friend's pale, gaunt face, all of the anger seeped out of him leaving Bruce to melt into a slump atop the image of his friend, hands falling uselessly through the illusion.
He, perhaps better than any other Avenger, understood being powerless in the wake of violent, alcoholic fathers. It ate at him that Tony and him shared such similar upbringings, but with Tony in the public eye, it had to have been so much worse. Bruce had often been able to hide, whether from his father or the strains of the world in general, but with Tony in the spotlight since birth, he'd had no reprieve. No safe place to get away where there wasn't a constant demand on his time or energy or sheer brilliance.
Then to add to that the loss of his mother, she who was the sole driving force behind his superhuman ability to continue standing under the onslaught. Except that Tony, while extraordinary, was still very much human, and everyone had their breaking points. It caused a physical ache to have witnessed Tony's. In that moment he would have done anything to take away the despair that seemed to cling to his friend like a second skin. He could feel the Hulk raging in the back of his mind, angry about the lack of a target to smash.
Bruce realized that his tears weren't much of an offer of comfort, but at the moment, it was all he could give.
Clint stood frozen, ignoring Banner's little outbreak and unable to look at his friend still lying prone on the slab. He knew immediately that it was an illusion from the hazy quality, and though he knew Tony was still getting closer and closer to damaging an organ he couldn't deny the reprieve was welcome.
He never realized that the billionaire could be so vulnerable. Tony was a paragon of confidence, with biting sass that Clint took great joy in matching. So to see him so physically and emotionally beaten down left him with a strong sense of wrongness. He couldn't understand why Tony would allow people to treat him so horribly, why it was just a given that he wouldn't chase or prosecute his abusers.
His hands clenched into fists at the word, recalling the state that Tony's father had left him in. Broken, and bloody and on the brink of death, and still Tony hadn't fought back. He remembered going a few rounds with his own father, but Tony never lifted a finger. His eyes clenched shut as he remembered the experience through Tony's eyes as he curled into a ball and simply endured the punishment. Expected it. Sometimes so calmly, as if he deserved it.
Clint could feel the nails digging into his palm hard enough to draw blood, but he couldn't tamp down the anger enough to let up the pressure. The most he could do was to stay still and force his mouth to stay closed as his mind screamed curses at Howard Stark and Obadiah Stane and the leeches in that dive, and anyone else that had ever hurt Tony.
Natasha couldn't help the ingrained training that sent her eyes surveying the chamber the moment it reappeared. She noticed Banner's large burst of movement, body tensing in dread as he grew nearly twice his size, olive skin turning inhuman green. Her hands were at her waist before she remembered they were caught in an illusion and that while her guns felt real there was no guarantee they'd be effective. Turned out she wouldn't need them, though, as she watched Banner's frame shrink nearly as quickly as he had grown, before collapsing over the image of Tony.
Threat at bay she spied Clint and Steve, both seeming frozen in their own thoughts as they tried to process what they'd just witnessed, and more terrifying than that, what they had just felt. She wasn't sure the others had even noticed, but with the previous memories something had changed. They were no longer just casual observers. Somehow, they were beginning to feel what Tony was feeling. With the others occupied she allowed herself a shaky inhale at the magnitude of her error.
It wasn't often that she was completely off in her assessment of a person. She'd been trained since near birth to see what people didn't want you to see about them. She was skilled at finding her targets hidden motivations and then exploiting them. So how was it that Tony Stark had hidden such self-less, forbearing qualities from her?
Narcissist. That's what she'd put in his report.
Tony didn't even come close. Was she blind? For the first time she wondered if she even deserved the term spy. She felt disgusted with her own behavior towards him in those early days, the heavy flirting that she thought had been harmless, his strange lack of interest suddenly taking on a new light.
Closing her eyes against the vision of entitled hands grabbing at him, she swallowed hard past the lump in her throat as she realized she was one of them, guilty of making sexual advances where they were not wanted. He hadn't even fought her when she'd made herself comfortable on his lap, as if he was resigned to people taking liberty with his person.
Another mark on her ledger.
Steve was only vaguely aware of the very dangerous and swift transition Dr. Banner underwent the moment they returned. He was too stunned to do anything but stand there, still trying to process what he'd just seen.
Tony was an epileptic? Tony had been suicidal? Tony had been sexually abused?
A lump caught in his throat. Those were just not things that he associated with the man. Tony was overconfident, haughty and demanding; not lonely, hurting, and vulnerable.
Guilt sat hot and heavy in his chest. He hadn't known that Howard and Maria's death had affected the man so deeply. The descent into a reckless lifestyle was suddenly more understandable than it had ever been. Afterall, Steve had readily recognized how it felt to run and run and run and still find no relief.
He was coming to mourn just how wrong he'd been about everything, about Tony and especially about Howard. Had Col. Rhodes not been there Tony would have bled out on the floor of his dorm room before he even made it to adulthood. He didn't understand why Tony hadn't fought back. Though still small, he'd been old enough to resist. As a scrawny kid, Steve was intimately familiar with the wrong side of a fist, though he certainly got in a few hits of his own; but Tony, Tony never fought back. He was all defense.
The bitter taste in the back of his throat was suddenly overpowering as he came to the realization that he had seriously misjudged him. Doubt settled over him as he wondered if he had ever truly known the man.
"Captain."
The familiar voice pulled him from the churning feelings in his chest, and he was jarred back into their dire predicament.
"Jarvis?"
The form of the deceased butler appeared in front of him, looking strangely haggard.
"Welcome back."
"What happened? Can you get us out?" he asked, seeing Clint and Natasha step towards them in his peripheral, though Bruce didn't move a muscle.
"Not as of yet," Jarvis responded with a concerned glance towards the image of Tony. "I did try several alternatives, but it seems that whenever sir is pulled into a memory you are taken with him. As it is a place that I cannot access, my attempts to pull each of you outside of sir's consciousness have been to no avail. I am not strong enough on my own."
"So what? We're back to square one," Clint clipped with exasperation.
"Not quite. There is still a method with a higher probability of success, though it is equally high in risk. For you, that is."
"What is it?" Bruce's rough voice came from the side. "We'll do it. Whatever it is we'll do it. We don't have any more options. He needs our help now."
"Dr. Banner is right," Steve confirmed. "If it'll allow us to help him, we'll do it."
"Very well," Jarvis conceded with a nod. "You will have to be quick. I fear it may already be too late," he whispered with another worried glance at his creator. Three sets of eyes looked at Dr. Banner.
"He's right," Bruce confirmed, looking worried as he read the digital read out displayed above the suit's helmet, which he assumed was correct and in real time. "If Tony slips back into another slew of memories, I'm not sure if he'll be able to come out. And I'm not sure he'll survive them."
"I suggest you prepare yourselves," Jarvis interrupted.
Steve tensed while Natasha and Clint fell into a fighting stance.
"For?" Steve continued to prompt, brow furrowing as the butler's eyes lost focus for a moment before snapping up to meet his.
"There's not much time. When the alien energy invaded sir's mind his natural defenses were… caged, for lack of a better term. I myself only escaped because I have greater access to various parts of sir's psyche. We seem to be powerless against such alien advances, but against you… well."
The sound of a thousand mechanical feet could suddenly be heard far down the corridor. Bruce got to his feet slowly, him and Hulk merging back into the same emotion. Anger.
"You will have to tread a fine line," Jarvis continued quickly. "They will attempt to kill you. In that event I am unsure what would happen to your consciousness. You must not allow them to succeed, but you will need to allow them to bring you to the brink."
"I'm sorry come again?" Clint snapped, grabbing his bow and trying not to think of what would happen if his weapons were completely ineffective. He was well aware that technically they weren't real as he watched Natasha similarly arm herself with her own defenses, and Steve strap on his shield.
"The primary goal is to allow them to expel you from his psyche in which you are caged." Jarvis spoke again, now raising his voice against the increasing clang of metal. "In a sense, you are trying to make yourself small enough to slip through a crack, instead of trying to beat down the door. When your energy is depleted it makes the process easier. Of course, it could be just as easy to simply kill you. Avoid the latter."
"Get beat up, but don't die. Got it," Clint affirmed.
"Precisely," Jarvis accented, his form disappearing though his voice continued on. "Though it may seem a bit arbitrary, when the time comes, and you'll know when that is, you must push forth your own desire to leave and return to your body. Your own will to depart along with sirs' hyper desire to have you out should give enough push for you to slip away from energy's hold. Good luck."
No sooner had the voice stopped talking than the room suddenly flooded with what looked like the entire Iron Legion, and while an intimidating sight, the targets of those very large guns were not deterred.
Tony was worth it.