Behind His Quiet Lies: Part Three
By: Villain's Vindication
AN: Oh my god you guys, your reviews are making me SOOOOO HAPPY! Thank you!
JARVIS saved Tony's life.
Moments before the explosion reached Ironman, the computer sent out emergency signals to all the Avengers. It only took the rest of the team a few hours to arrive via supersonic jet.
Tony found it difficult to be grateful.
He sat in the Avenger's Tower infirmary sipping on his scotch. He stared unseeing out the large window. It had been days since the rescue and he had yet to say a word to anyone. They all took turns looking after him and currently Pepper and Natasha spoke to one another quietly in the corner. The two of them had gotten close during the Black Widow's stint as a spy in Stark Industries and their friendship continued to grow as Natasha spent more time in the tower. They were worried about Tony, everyone was. Physically he was fine, easily recovering from the few scrapes and burns he sustained.
But mentally, the man was clearly in another world.
None of them really knew what happened in Bolivia, so all they could figure is that something had triggered Tony's PTSD. There was nothing to do but let the man rest and come back to reality when he was ready.
Why didn't you throw the grenade Banner? Why didn't you just throw it? You could have just thrown it. Why did you eat it? Why? Why didn't you throw the grenade Banner?
He took another drink. They had tried to get him to eat or at least drink water, but the iced alcohol it only thing the Ironman would touch when it was handed to him. They let him have it as it was better than have him become dehydrated.
You could have just thrown it.
At night, when they left him alone in the dark to sleep. He would slip off the bed and walk over to the weapons closet. He stood there until the morning rays of light, he would just stand and caress the empty hooks that once held the Omega Grenade. He hadn't noticed it missing because he almost never visited this room, and JARVIS hadn't thought to inform him as he had told Bruce he could take anything he wanted, so it wasn't as though the doctor had stolen it.
Tony had given it to him.
Why?
It was all his fault...
Why didn't you just throw it?
His closest friend next to Pepper and Rhodes...
You could have just thrown it.
There was no reason to keep these stupid things, and especially no reason why he didn't think to deactivate them. It would have been so easy to do. But instead, he just handed over one of the world's most destructive weapons to his troubled friend.
What the fuck have I done?
He finally snapped.
"AHHHHRRGGG!" he began screaming and tearing the weapons from the wall and threw them around the room in a fury. He didn't even know what he was doing until a pajama wearing Captain America and Black Widow pulled him away from the room. His fingernails bloody and broken from scratching at the metal.
"Stark, stop! Tony! You're going to blow this place up!"
But Tony just kept struggling and screaming.
The horrific sounds of grief had even Natasha crying.
"BRUUUUCE! BRUCE! WHY DIDN'T YOU THROW IT? JUST FUCKING THROW IT!"
Tony cracked his eyes open wincing at the brightness of the florescent lights above him. His brain was still foggy, so he figured they must have sedated him. He saw that the room was still a mess but the missiles were gone.
Thor approached him from where he had been sitting across the room, "Son of Stark it is good to see you awaken."
"Where?" Tony's voice cracked from disuse but the Asgardian understood nonetheless. "We had a meeting this morning and the team voted unanimously that it would be in your best interest to... be rid of the ammunition... I tossed them all into outer space earlier."
The inventor sighed and nodded. It probably was for the best.
Thor's look became a bit uncomfortable, "I have also been instructed to tell you... I do not think it wise to do so but..." he ran his hand through his hair, clearly conflicted. "I suggest you do nothing. You are... not well, but... they are now allowing visitors to see Doctor Banner."
Tony shot up out of bed, "I need to see-" but the sedative was still in his system and immediately he tripped and fell over. Thor quickly caught him, "what you need, Son of Stark, is to rest." He easily lifted the smaller man back onto the bed. "Seeing our friend will not ease your mind."
Thor sighed at the determined look Stark sent him, "alright, but you must wait out the course of the medication within you blood, and you need to bathe." Tony reached up and touched his oily hair. It had been a few days since he had a shower. He knew he couldn't get anywhere at the moment so he laid back down.
He was asleep again in moments.
Thor watched over his friend with pity in his eyes. The Midgardian was no soldier. It would be hard for him to accept what happened.
Especially when Stark saw what had become of their good friend.
The door stood like a monolith before him. Sure it was just like any other door in the hospital, but he found himself frozen before it. Tony Stark was dressed to the nines and he held the most expensive bunch of flowers he could find on the drive over.
The hospital staff had wanted to admit him when he arrived. Despite cleaning up, he looked like hell. But he brushed them off as always, whatever he looked like it would be no comparison to what lay behind this door. He couldn't get his hands to stop shaking, but eventually he managed to open the barrier and walk in.
Bruce lay on an extremely modified bed. There were structures and straps all over him to keep him in place. Grotesque burns covered most of his body so that all Tony could see besides miles of white gauze were the man's closed eyes.
Tubes and wires ran everywhere and into the doctor. Forcing him to breathe, forcing his heart to beat, making his body stay alive. Tony dropped heavily into the chair beside him. He knew what to expect but this... he was in shock.
Half of Bruce's lower jaw was simply missing.
Tony leaned over and put his face in his hands. Banner had been legitimately dead when the Avengers arrived, Tony knew. The team had rushed him to the nearest modern hospital where, by some miracle, the staff was able to revive him and get him stable enough for travel back to the U.S.
Bruce had really died.
Even now he wasn't exactly alive. He was in a coma so complete they wondered if he had any brain activity at all. Without the machines he wouldn't last a second.
"This is some kind of nightmare... wake up Brucey... please..."
The only response was the too slow beeping of the heart monitor.
"You fucking bitch. Wake up! Why did you do this?"
Beep... beep... beep... beep...
There had to be something he could do. He knew Pepper had already allocated funds for Banner's care and hired a team of private doctors. They had already started Bruce on low doses of gamma radiation in the hopes that it would help his cells tap into the Hulk's regenerative ability. But even with that, it would be a long long time before Bruce ever left this hospital.
If ever.
They would have to reconstruct the lower part of his face, put skin grafts all over his body, mend his broken bones, find donor organs to replace his failing ones, and after all of that he still might never wake up. Tony reached out tentatively and touched a bandaged hand.
Tony couldn't handle all this. What could he do to help? He wasn't any medical genius, but he had to do something, anything.
What would Bruce do?
Bruce would run away to help others. He was always thinking of everyone but himself.
It was a few days before Tony could pry himself from Bruce's bedside, but by then he knew what he had to do. He filled his jet with fuel and set off, not as Ironman or Anthony Stark, but just an average man. He hopped from Haiti to the Congo to the Middle East, not curing the sick because he couldn't do that. But, Tony built orphanages, dug wells, fixed schools, engineered primitive self sustaining power systems. He did whatever he could to help these less fortunate people.
And always, he returned to Bruce's side to tell him all about it.
No one really knew what he was doing when he disappeared for weeks on end. This was not going to turn into some Stark Industries publicity stunt. This was his own private penance.
War Machine took over Ironman's station in the city so his absence wouldn't be felt by the people there.
In the mean time, he lived in the tiny, dirty hovels at the comers of the world. It wasn't anything like his previous life as a well kept trilllionaire, and he was amazed at the incredible people he met. At night though, he would sit awake in his cot playing with a torn up deck of cards pretending Bruce was there using his perfect poker-face to win all of Tony's money.
The man was never far from Tony's mind.
Every time he returned, every time he hoped for a miracle.
Maybe this time I've helped enough people, maybe now Bruce can finally wake up.
And every time, he left thinking he just had to help one more person.
Maybe just one more would be enough.