Comfortember Day Fifteen: Scars

Tony knew he wasn't going to be the same after Afghanistan. There were going to be a lot of nightmares. There were going to be things, sometimes small things, that reminded Tony of what happened back in that cave. He wasn't going to deny his trauma but he wasn't going to outright admit it.

"Hey, I'm Tony Stark! My life got screwed up in a cave!"

Yeah, no.

He wasn't like that and he wasn't looking for pity and he didn't want that. He wanted ways to numb the pain. Make it go away. Perhaps not make it go away forever. He doubted that was possible.

Tony had a hard time changing his shirts sometimes, especially if there was a mirror around. His eyes would look straight to his chest where his Arc Reactor was. That's all it took sometimes to send shivers down his spine and remember all that happened in that shitty cave. So, he changed as fast as possible.

After a chain of events, a lot of events, Tony decided to have surgery. He wouldn't have to worry about seeing the Arc Reactor in his chest anymore. He wouldn't have shivers and instant flashbacks of what happened. It was nice, for a while.

But after the surgery he didn't fail to notice there was a prominent scar where the Reactor was. It wasn't big but it wasn't small enough that he couldn't see it. It was, unfortunately, just the right size. Tony knew there was always a chance he'd get a scar after his surgery. He did have very minor hope there wouldn't be one.

Tony supposed a scar was better than the whole Reactor. Now and then he'd run his fingers along it to see if it'd hurt. It didn't. It still provoked him at times but it wasn't nearly as bad as before.

He couldn't escape his past and he didn't think it was a good idea to. It was something he needed to embrace, he thought. It was just one scar. It reminded him of what happened but he realized something else.

It didn't have to be something that haunted him day after day. There were going to be moments, there were always going to be moments. But he realized that this showed he was a survivor. In reality, he shouldn't have survived what happened in the cave. But he did. It was something to be proud of.

So maybe this wasn't as bad as he thought. It could've been worse. He was lucky that it wasn't. And he was lucky that he had people in his life that didn't care about scars. These people loved him unconditionally and in the end that's all that really mattered.

"Hey, Mister Stark! Hurry up!"

Tony snapped out of his trance and looked to the door. He forgot he left Peter downstairs.

"Yeah, I'm on my way!" he called back.

"You said that ten minutes ago!" Peter whined.

Tony rolled his eyes. This kid.

"I'll be right down."

"I'm giving you thirty seconds!"

Tony scoffed. "You're so impatient."

Tony looked at himself one last time in the mirror. Everything was fine. He slipped on his Black Sabbath T-shirt and glasses and headed downstairs.

"There. I'm here," Tony said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"About time. Aunt May is waiting at the apartment with Miss Potts. They can be scary when they're mad."

"There's no 'can be', kid. They are scary. So let's go."

Author's Note: Anyone else find it kinda strange how Tony didn't have a scar on his chest despite the physical trauma it's been through? From what I recall anyway. I don't remember seeing any scar around his chest anywhere. So for the sake of this day I gave him one.

Also I know this is short. Really really short. The shortest one of all. But I wasn't too sure how I wanted to go about it and...well, this was the outcome.

Day sixteen is longer. Much longer, promise. So stay tuned for that one 'cause I had fun writing it.

That's all for now. I'll see ya'll in the next chapter.

Thanks for reading!

~Kurosaki