~TRIGGER WARNING FOR SUICIDE ATTEMPT/DISCUSSION~

Yeah, this one's not so happy. It's short, so that the triggery parts are the main thing in the chapter, and are only in this chapter. Summary at the end, if you aren't comfortable reading.

"Yuh...you're an id-d...id..."

That Tony has a stutter, at this point, is the last thing any of them could care about. No matter how hard he has to work at it, the words do eventually come, now. He sighs, bracing himself with his palms against the table, and tries again, "st-stupid."

It's possibly the sweetest sentence Coulson has ever heard. He nods, agreeably, "probably. Why are you bringing it up at this moment, specifically?"

"Sh-should..not...come."

"Ah. Yes, I am stupid, in that regard. Also not changing my mind."

Tony glares at him, so angrily, that Coulson is fairly reassured. Tony isn't planning to have Natasha drug him out of commission, or whatever. He'd be calmer, if he was.

Loki is screaming, thrashing on the floor. Tony goes to manually shut off the machine, even as a small glow starts in the designated area, but Thor grabs him, "you did not say this would injure my brother!"

Tony fights him, hard, but he's a god, and even in the suit, Tony isn't a match for him with pure strength. "B-br..."

Bruce hurries past, and pulls the lever himself. Thor drops Tony on the floor, and goes to his brother, glaring at all of them. Tony gets onto his hands and knees, and sits up, "I ch...changed... it b-b-back."

Thor turns to look at him, "why would you do that?"

"N-no. He ch-changed it. I p-put..."

He gets to his feet, and walks to Thor and Loki, retracting his facemask, and pulling off one of the gauntlets, putting his hand to Loki's cheek, recoiling immediately, "this sh-sh... should n-not have hap-p-penned."

"It's trying to restart, Tony. Get him out of there."

Tony hurriedly shoves Thor aside, lifts the insensate god over his shoulder, and blasts through the wall, just as the machine starts to hum, and glow. Coulson could see ice crystals raining down from under their path, and starting to spread into the cracks in Tony's suit.

Tony lands in the garage, according to JARVIS, so they all hurry to meet him. When they get there, he'd put Loki down in the back seat of one of the convertibles, the softest place in the garage, and is awkwardly kneeling, the gauntlets gone, welding gloves in their place, cradling Loki's head, keeping it from banging against the car door, as he jerks and twitches. Ice is spreading out again, covering the car. Tony goes back through the wall, and a few moments later, Coulson hears a muffled boom several floors above.

The twitching stops. The ice starts to recede. Tony returns, and removes his helmet. Ice falls onto the floor, breaking out of the joints and catches, and cracking off Tony's spiked, frozen hair. The suit didn't protect him from that, apparently.

"Is huh...he?"

"He's alright. He's coming to."

Tony nods, in response to Natasha's words, and leans against a Land Rover, "Th-Thor. He chang..geh...changed..."

Tony looks at Coulson, and he just seems exhausted.

"Loki changed some settings on the portal, turned the safety Tony had put on it, off. Tony changed it back, obviously, but we must have missed something else Loki did."

"Why would my brother do such a thing?"

"Was he sabotaging it, Tony?" asks Steve, leaning on the convertible, and looking down at the slowly stirring god.

"No. Onluh...ly himseh...seh...self."

Tony's speech seems to be getting worse, as he gets more upset, and probably more importantly, cold. Steve definitely has noticed this, but he stands on the other side of the car, and only stares. Bruce nudges him, and he goes across, using his gloved hands to break the ice on the right shoulder of Tony's suit, where there hasn't been enough motion to crack it. Tony closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and gives Rogers a very small, wan smile.

"Tony. Why are you sad?"

Tony looks at Thor, and shakes his head.

"Why were you so upset? I know you were cold, but you seemed with it."

'He tried to kill himself. He knew once we had the neural pattern, inscribed by his power activating the portal, we could open it with just about any kind of energy. He manually shut down the auto-off function, but he also disabled it magically. I had to physically destroy the portal before it stopped drawing his energy.'

"Why would he do that?"

'I don't know. But I'm going to assume it's pretty hard for a god to commit suicide.'

"It is not."

Tony looks up, surprised, as Thor seats himself beside them on the couch, "we may simply will ourselves to not be."

"Then why did he...?"

"Would it not have been a death considered heroic, if one did not know of the interference?"

"You knew something was wrong with him."

Bruce looks up, from salvaging what he can of the decimated portal.

"That's correct."

"You didn't tell anyone."

"I didn't want to worry Tony. Thor...would have been harmful. The others would have been unhelpful. If he truly wanted to die, no interference anyone could have tried would have prevented it, he explained that much."

"What did you do to help him?"

"I tried to be a friend. Something he's had precious little of. Something that can make all the difference."

"And how did that work out."

Bruce raises his eyebrows, setting down a circular metal sheet, "I gave him hope, Agent Coulson. I helped him see that things could get better. It's just that that wasn't the problem. He didn't want them to. He didn't think he deserved them to. He feels guilt, for many things. He acted out even worse in that guilt. He said his leger was dripping red. He took the first step ever to try to redeem some of that guilt, tried to save Tony, and he has watched Tony be so far from saved. Maybe that's his right, to want to escape that pain."

"That's never the right answer, Dr. Banner."

Bruce looks at him, and Coulson has read the reports. He never quite realized, that maybe Bruce never stopped wishing the Hulk would let him die. Or at least never quite thought he was wrong in trying.

Coulson wakes, from where he'd fallen asleep on the couch, to sound coming over the baby monitor.

"It t-takes courage. A l-lot of it."

"What? Killing yourself?"

It must be Tony's turn to watch over Loki.

"Ch-changing."

"Well then call me a coward."

"C-calling your b-brave. Fixing whh...what you b-broke? Harduh...dest thing ever. C-constantly facing the w-worst p-parts of yourself, without rep-p-preive? Takes so m-much courage to try. Sometimes t-takes help to suhc...succeed. "

Tony's getting upset, Coulson hears a rustle, maybe Loki sitting so Tony doesn't have to speak as loudly with a very disused voice.

"Your boyfriend failed. He's Captain Fucking America, and he had all of you with him."

"He wuh...wanted to m-m-m-make me ha-hap...happy. He d-didn't...w-want to ch-chuh...change. D-don't b-b-base yuh-you on hih..him."

"Okay. Calm down. I didn't realize. But I'm still done trying."

"Okay."

"Okay? You're not going to tell me to buck up and keep trying?"

"Do you w-want me to?"

The only response to that, is a long, silent wait. Then Coulson hears a breath, somewhere between a sigh and a sob, and a rustle, again.

"Buh...buck up and keep t-trying."

"It didn't help." Loki sounds as upset as Tony did earlier.

"Your b-brother l-loves you. Mourned you. M-might not be the m-most tactful of b-beings, but will never g-give up on you. Even if you g-give up on yuh...yourself. Never."

"That..." another shaky breath, "definitely didn't hurt."

"People you t-tried to k-kill want you tuh...to live. Want you t-to have the ch-chance to change."

Loki doesn't answer that one, and the line goes silent. After a little while, there's a soft thump, and a rustle, and then silence, for at least as long as it takes Coulson to fall back asleep.

Coulson stares at the ceiling–metal panels, embossed with complex geometric designs. He's never wanted anything in his life, as much as he wants to turn off the baby monitor, right now. He gets up, leaving the radio on his bedside table, the screams and cries, and worse than all of that, the silence, and small, terrified whimpers, following him out into the hall. He knocks on Banner's door, and the doctor appears, sleepy and bed-headed.

Coulson probably looks less than calm. Banner glances at him for all of a half second, before ducking back inside, grabbing a shirt, and following him into the hall, "what happened?"

"We need to check on Tony."

Banner nods, pulling the shirt over his head, and hurrying to the hall. Clint is already standing outside the door, and Coulson has to guess, expression wise, Clint is about as good as a mirror, right now; he looks like he's going to be sick. Natasha comes around the corner a moment later, though it looks like she was returning, as she hands Clint a key.

Rogers had been the one to insist on physical key overrides, and it's lucky he did. Clint opens the door. Tony isn't screaming at this point, but he's sobbing, and whimpering, tangled in his pile of blankets, face red and snotty and messy with tears.

Coulson seats himself on the edge of the bed, and shakes Tony, until he wakes. He's confused, and upset, and just looks completely lost. Natasha kneels next to Coulson's shins, gently pushing Tony's sweaty, still un-trimmed hair back out of his face, so he can see them properly.

He blinks, a few times, and wipes his nose on his wrist, though there's still snot everywhere, mixing with tears and blood. Coulson gently presses his thumb against Tony's lip, until Tony opens his mouth. His tongue, this time. Again. Banner climbs into the bed, heaves Tony's upper body into his lap, and wraps an arm around Tony's torso. Tony hides his face in Bruce's leg, his nightshirt dark with sweat, his shoulders still trembling.

Tony is speaking, though with a significant stutter. Loki tries to kill himself via the portal. Bruce reveals to Coulson that he doesn't think suicide is always the wrong option. Tony and Loki talk, and Tony convinces Loki to keep trying the whole living thing. Tony has severe nightmares/flashbacks, Bruce, Coulson, Clint, and Natasha help him.

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