Howard pulled the necklace on Tony's neck so hard it broke off. "You are my SON, and you will act like it." His words were coated in a poison-like hatred. "I won't have you parading yourself around like this. Ruining my name. The family's name. You should be ashamed."

And Tony was. Standing there, exposed, only seven years old but having enjoyed every second of raiding his mom's makeup and closet. Now having been caught, the enjoyment and fulfillment had been twisted into a choking sensation.

"I'm sorry." A voice smaller than the child.

"No you're not," Howard sneered. "And you won't be unless I punish you properly." The man slid off his belt.

Tony had been plagued by nightmares and flashbacks for months. Tonight's was the most damning yet. It was relentlessly detailed, vivid. And she found herself unable to wake up.

Sometimes the nightmares seemed better than real life. In the nightmares, she only had to deal with one horror at a time. In waking, all of them were piled onto her conscience, replaying and eating further and further into her sanity. She could've gone the rest of her life without this. And yet... here it was, ripping life apart piece by piece.

"Good morning, Ms. Stark." The AI's voice startled her despite it's calming tone.

"Yeah." She had grown to hate her voice just as much as the rest of herself. The feelings of wrongness only grew as she paid more attention to them. It was a self perpetuating cycle, and completely inescapable after the spiral had started. Even with it having been almost a year since Peter's wretched comment, and thousands of google searches and online quizzes later, Tony still hadn't mentioned anything to the rest of the Avengers. Or to anyone, for that matter. She was still plagued by shame, and too full of self-hatred to believe that someone else could do any less than despise her.

The nightmare left a stinging sensation even after she had woken up. That remnant was something of a final straw. Upon waking up she immediately went to the bathroom, grabbed a razor, and made the first stroke without even looking. The sense of fear momentarily overpowered the relief. What would people say? What would they think that they weren't saying? Screw it. She paid attention for the rest of it, careful not to cut herself, and stopped only once her face was completely clean. It was less painful to look at now, though not perfect, still with masculine edges. A great improvement nonetheless. She sighed deeply and put the razor down. How was she going to explain this?

Arriving in the kitchen for breakfast the next morning brought the questioning stares she had anticipated.

Before anyone could voice the question of what the hell and why the hell, she sighed and delivered her lie. "Accident in the lab, singed off most of it so I thought it'd be better to start back again from scratch."

There seemed to be a mutually agreed upon hum of 'yeah, that seems like a Tony thing to do' as everyone got back to their morning activities.

"You didn't burn your skin or anything, did you?" Peter was the only one to actually seem worried, probably because he wasn't used to superhero style of ignoring injuries and celebrating the lack thereof.

"Nah, put it out fast enough." She remained as casual as she could as Peter's look intensified. He had been the one to call out her gender dysphoria, and no doubt he still had that in the back of his mind. He was the main person she needed to be careful around. She couldn't have anyone figuring this out. She would be ruined.

Tony took what was left over of the coffee from the machine and made it sweeter than she normally would, partially to counteract the depression... and Peter's incessant stare. She had to get him off her scent before he ruined everything. A distraction, maybe.

She placed herself in the chair nearest to the centre of the room as she could find. The room was quiet despite all of the tower inhabitants being present, as it normally was in the mornings before everyone was ready to fully deal with each other. She sipped her delightfully sweet coffee before loudly clearing her throat, drawing the attention of most of the room.

"I have sort of an unrelated announcement." Peter visibly lit up at this. Yep, he was definitely onto her. Hopefully this would be off-putting, make her think she was on the wrong track all along.

Tony had never been uncomfortable with her sexuality; Howard had died before he got the chance to make her feel bad about it. Before she recognised that she really liked men as well, at least. That confidence outweighed any possible nerves that might come from sitting in front an audience of Avengers. She couldn't help but subconsciously channel this confidence into the idea of coming out about what she was really nervous about. Why would that be any different than this? Because it was completely different is why. 'I want to kiss a man' and 'I'm a woman' were completely different things, and even if they were all fine with homosexuality or bisexuality or any other orientation, that didn't at all translate to them being okay with the t part of lgbt, as sadly so many people weren't. Aside from that, telling them made it real. And what if she was wrong? Lying to herself and then them as well? How would she ever live that down, such a big mistake? Calling it 'coming out' made it sound like she had already determined without a doubt that she was transgender, and was only telling others what she already knew for herself. It wasn't like that at all, so was it really coming out? If she decided to tell anyone, that is. No... no it wasn't. It was more like letting them in on the weird little things she did in private to soothe some strange anxieties she had, like talking in a higher voice, having Jarvis address her as ma'am, shaving. It wasn't at all appropriate to tell them those weird little things, let alone the rest of the world. So, no, coming out as bi would have to do for now. Just a distraction... not a supplement for what she really wanted to do or a test of their general reactions. It's only purpose was to distract Peter. Throw him off. And that's what she would do.

"What is it you wish to tell us, Anthony?" Thor always called her that. She hated it. It made her heart feel like it was shivering, in a weird way, and it was so wrong. As unisex as the name Tony was, Anthony was not. And who ever told him that was her full name anyway?

"Just that I'm bi." She shrugged. "No real reason for the timing."

"Not surprised." Natasha turned back to her tea, disappointed probably in having already guessed this long ago and not receiving any new information.

"That's cool, Mr. Stark, me too!" Peter smiled over at her, probably looking for a reaction to the Mr. Well Tony wouldn't give him one, as much as her bones felt like they were being stuck with massive needles. She grinned in approval and was thankful not to have to find a response because of another reaction to her coming out coming in.

"Uh, sorry, what's bi?" Of course it would be Rogers to ask this. Tony couldn't blame him.

"So, you know how straight is liking people of the opposite sex and gay is liking people of the same sex?" Steve nodded, good. "Well bi - bisexual - is liking both."

He blinked, somewhat surprised. "You can like both?"

"Yup. Welcome to the future, Gramps."

Suddenly, Steve's eyes were directed to the floor, unfocused and slightly startled. Tony guessed he was reconsidering all of the men he had had crushes on. Hopefully one of them wasn't her father.

It struck her just then that she had done to Steve what Peter had done to her. She immediately felt guilty, making him question things like that. Before she could soothe him, or at least try, a heavy hand was patting her back. She was jerked forward, spilling some coffee. Thor didn't seem to notice.

"I admire that you feel comfortable enough with us to tell us. Thank you, friend, and know that I will not think any differently of you for this." He smiled brightly with such sincere light in his eyes that Tony felt almost sure he had done this before, and more sure that he was absolutely sincere. "And might I say," Thor broke Tony from her thoughts again. "You look dashing with and without your beard."

"Hmm, thanks. Maybe I'll see what happens without it for a while." Boy was she grateful for an excuse to stay clean-shaven.

"So," Clint spoke up, "Which one of us were you testing with that?"

"You don't believe me?" Tony challenged.

"Oh, no, I do. I'm just questioning your intentions. Trying to weed out homophobes or find more bis?"

"Hm, let's go with both. I usually go with both anyway." She smirked. First bi joke, check. Clint rolled his eyes but Peter snorted.

"I don't think any of us are homophobic," Bruce said in this weird half-quiet way of talking, though he scanned the room for reactions at the claim anyway.

Tony shrugged. "You never know."

"Are you gonna tell Miss Potts?" Peter asked innocently. Tony still had the feeling he was hinting at things, but that might just have been her paranoia this whole time.

"She already knows. It's not a big deal, anyway. We're not really together anymore." It hadn't been completely official, but their relationship had definitely ended. Tony couldn't exactly be upset about that in her current situation now. It was better she wasn't making Pepper have to deal with her thinking she was a girl.

"Oh, sorry."

"Don't worry about it, it was a while ago and pretty mutual." She took some time to drink her coffee, needing the caffeine but also the sweet taste, even though usually she preferred it black and bitter.

"So, just to clarify," Steve rejoined the waking world from his deep thoughts. "You can be gay, straight, or bi?"

Peter bounced over to the captain, nodding enthusiastically. "Mhmm, and a whole bunch of other things, too, like pan, cetero, poly, and then there's the difference between sexual and romantic attraction, so like aro ace or biro pan or panro ace."

Steve blinked at Peter like he was speaking a strange foreign language, and Tony couldn't blame him. She hadn't done an excessive amount of research on these things like Peter seemed to have.

"And there's also the different genders, not even just ftm or mtf trans, but stuff outside and in between." Peter, Tony decided, was the resident LGBTQ+ expert.

Steve held his head like thinking about this was actually giving him a headache, and Tony couldn't blame him. She hadn't even known there were so many variations of gender. Of course she knew that there are people who use they/them pronouns - she had met a few fans where that was the case - but she wasn't sure how those identities worked.

"Can you slow down, explain a bit?" Steve, apparently over his brief headache, sat at pseudo-attention looking ready to learn.

Peter nodded and took a breath of terrifying magnitude.