The next few hours are a blur. He remembers going to visit the Avengers at the Raft. He remembers Ross's threat, "You better be grateful you're not in one of these cells too." He had to force down his response of 'I should be'. He honestly deserves worse than a prison cell.

He vaguely remembers the insults the team hurled at him as he stood motionless in the doorway, the only one sticking to his memory like a barnacle was Clint's dig, "Stark never has your back when you need him, just ask Rhodey! How is he by the way?" Tony knew that Clint didn't know that Rhodey actually died, and he hoped deep down Clint's words would have been different if he had known, but he honestly didn't know. He faked fixing his sling to wipe away tears onto his jacket.

He vaguely remembers talking to Sam and then his memory jumps to arriving in Siberia. He remembers having a nice conversation with Steve. He distinctly remembers the hope that twirled in his stomach that after all this was over they could still be friends again, maybe even a family if he was lucky. But he should have known that Starks have horrible luck. Hope was dangerous.

The only crystal clear thing in his memory from that day was watching that video. He wants to puke just thinking about it. He remembers watching the light fade from his mother's eyes and he remembers the red hot anger he felt at seeing that the hand that had killed his mother was only inches away from his own. He remembers the voice whispering 'Avenge her' in his ear that he choked down upon looking at Barnes. But then he remembers the heart burn he felt at Steve's betrayal. After that, everything is a blur. The last foggy thing he can remember is the hot anger he felt as he was forced to stare at the bloody shield that lay next to his face for hours.

He lied, that's not the last thing he remembers. The last thing he remembers is the crippling sense of loneliness as he reached hour three of being trapped in a dead suit in the middle of Siberia. He had heard the jet take off what felt like days ago. He was lucky that the suit was naturally warm, but he was quickly growing cold without the suit's additional heater. He remembers the exact moment he came to terms with the fact that he would die alone in the middle of a Siberian Hydra base. He wondered if anyone would come to his funeral. And finally with the hope May would allow Peter to come, he fell into unconsciousness with a smile, happy over the thought that at least there would be one person to mourn him.

Tony woke up about two days after in a random hospital in Russia. It has been almost two weeks since he woke up and he still has no idea who found him.

He barely remembers anything but pain from the first few days of awakening. There was only one doctor in the whole ICU who knew English and Tony was only able to understand a bit due to the man's thick Russian accent. It turns out Tony had taken too many hits to the head during the fight with the super soldiers that he came out of it with a brain injury. In addition, sitting in the cold for so long had given him hypothermia. Luckily, nothing had to be amputated but his fingers and toes were extremely numb.

He hadn't thought his brain injury was bad until they got him out the bed to start walking. Upon standing on his own feet, he immediately collapsed. The doctors had conducted tests and he worked with several physical therapists to learn his brain injury had affected his left side, making it weaker than his right. He couldn't put weight on his left leg at all and his left hand couldn't even squeeze a ball. His injury had also affected his speech, making his words come out slow and slurred.

Another injury he discovered was his chest. The suit had done it's best to protect him against the shield's final hit, but his artificial chest had caved in slightly. It wasn't enough to do surgery or replace the sternum which would come with its own complications, but it did have a further effect on his breathing. It also came with chronic pain, but that blended with the one big bruise his body felt like at the moment.

Today was the day Tony arranged for himself to be flown back to the US. He had made a bit of progress using a walker and had gone through extensive speech therapy so that he at least was a bit more understandable. But alas, Tony was homesick. He missed his bots and since he couldn't find his phone, he was anxious to answer back anyone that was worried about his whereabouts. At least someone had to be wondering where he had been for two weeks. At least someone had to care.

No one. No one did.

The tower was just as empty as when he left. He checked with Friday and the only calls he had received was from Ross. The voicemails were full of threats and all he was able to get out of it was that the Avengers escaped, Tony was going to pay for it, and he better call him back.

Tony deleted them all.

Tony did have an insane amount of emails though. He scanned them all for any of the Avengers' names. He didn't want to admit it, but a large part of him was hoping Steve would come for him. Invite him to join the team on their runaway adventure. Just once he wanted to be able to run from his problems. Just once he wanted to be included in the 'Protected by Steve' crew. Ross was after him too, why did no one stand up for him? Why did no one try to save him?

Opening the other emails, Tony realized his wishes of running away from his problems was even more unrealistic than he thought. The first few emails were from Pepper, angry that the SI stocks were dropping since he hasn't produced any new content in over four weeks. She either didn't realize or didn't care he was dealing with the Accords and almost died. The others from her were lists of things she needed done. Instead of bringing the paperwork to him, she faxed and emailed digital copies instead. Tony figured her and Happy must have acted on their crushes if she was that eager to avoid him.

The other emails were bills. Since the financial side of the Accords was not drafted yet, all the damage Steve and his team had created was being charged to his personal bank account. He looked at the Avengers bank account which was funded by himself, the government, and Shield, and learned it had been sucked dry- most likely by Steve to fund their runaway.

He checked his finances and for the first time, he had to calm himself from a panic attack over the amount in it. He wasn't broke, per say. But between paying his employees, paying for the MIT scholarships, paying for the medical bills of those affected by the Avengers, and paying for the damages for New York (which was still currently draining his account), he wondered if he would have anything left.

The last thing he wanted to do was fire his employees. SI employed over 3,000 people and many of his employees had this as their only source of income. He would not be the reason his employees ended up broke or homeless.

He also couldn't take away the scholarships from MIT, the kids would be devastated. He didn't know what to do. He figured it would be best to lay low for now and hope the Avengers wouldn't destroy another city. He would figure out something until then.

Tony couldn't work on the upgrades for SI because with his weak left side and his still numb fingers, he was useless. He decided to have Friday write up an Accords amendment that charged the finances of repairing damage to the government and UN. With that, he crossed his fingers it would pass and tried to erase the thoughts from his mind.

He opened up the remaining emails and learned they were full of days and times for the funerals of the eleven killed in Lagos. He had missed two of them, but still had nine upcoming ones to attend. He cursed when he saw one of them was in three hours. After lots of debate he knew it wouldn't be best for him to show up looking beat up and walking weird. He decided he would show up virtually and say a few words.

It took all of the three hours to apply enough makeup to cover up his cuts and bruises and find his medicine when his leg and chest started spasming with pain. When he connected with the funeral home on video, he was immediately met with snarls of disgust.

"He couldn't even show up in person."

"I bet he doesn't even feel guilty he killed my brother."

"What a disgusting excuse for a human being."

Each dig stabbed him in the heart and he fought tears as he tried to get through his speech. He didn't respond or correct anyone. He just said his words and logged off. It seemed cold-hearted but he knew he wouldn't be able to hold back the tears if he stayed any longer.

After ending the call, he decided to go down to his workshop and figure out a way to attend the funerals without drawing attention to himself. He eventually came up with a blueprint for a brace to support his leg and allow him to walk for at least a little bit. The next funeral was tomorrow morning so he worked diligently to build it. It was hard only depending on his right hand and took literally all night to build something that should have taken max an hour, but he did it.

He eventually fell asleep and woke up the next morning only an hour before he was due to attend. He peeled his face off of the workshop desk and quickly changed into another suit before applying the makeup again. He didn't have time to test the brace so he only worked on tightening the bolts up to the minute before he had to leave and then slid the brace on. Immediately he shouted in pain as the dimensions were slightly off and metal digged into his skin in several places. He didn't have time to fix it now, in fact his left hand was already shaking violently from last night's build. He was just grateful he drives with his right foot.

Due to traffic, he entered the funeral about two minutes late with the funeral having just started. On the walk inside he practiced trying not to limp and bit his lip against the pain the brace was causing him. As he entered, a few people made nasty comments about his tardiness but the rest of the people ignored him.

He had written up a generic speech for each of the funerals, having not known the people, but also to not cause a debate whether he cared about one death more than the other. He had to admit, the speech was slightly detached, but he genuinely was not good at feelings so for him it was really good.

Even so, he was met with snarls again at his assumed ignorance over the deaths and his apparent lack of guilt. He knew people were probably speaking out of grief, but the words hurt. He hoped staying for the whole ceremony would bring better opinions, but even after the service people made sure to walk up and tell him what they thought of him. By the end, Tony was physically exhausted to the point where he was forced to manually lift his aching leg into the car, and he was way beyond mentally exhausted.

He arrived home and could barely make it out of the car. When he finally ripped the brace off, he noticed his leg was bleeding in several places where the metal digged in and the whole limb was trembling. It was the first time he was forced to break out the wheelchair the hospital had given him.

His nightmares were full of the angry stares of the funeral goers and the events of Siberia. It was almost funny how the sneers of angry strangers was extremely similar to the face of Steve as he pummeled the shield into Tony's chest. Tony woke in a cold sweat and fumbled to the bathroom to grab several xanax pills in the hope they would help him sleep. He collapsed back in bed and swallowed the pills dry, not even counting how many he digested. Almost immediately his brain began to fog and his body melted into the sheets.

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