The maudlin, unsynchronised beeping of multiple machines was becoming a far-too-familiar wake up call for Tony. Every time he wakes up hearing them, he has to spend far too long thinking about whether he was actually trying to kill himself this time, or whether it had been - again - really, really just an accident. Really. The second situation happened far more often than the first. Even if only because Tony was a genius, and if he was going to of himself, odds were that he'd succeed.
No one else seemed reassured by this, so he avoided mentioning it wherever possible.
Once Tony manages to push past the obnoxious beeping his awareness catalogues that distantly stiff feeling that means he's really in a spectacular amount of pain, but they've swaddled his mind in layer after layer of pain medication.
Tony hates the way it makes his brain all slow and normal, but he suspects that in this instance, he'd better be more appreciative of it.
Still, Tony's not only an old hat at injuries, as well as terrifying people, he's done this whole rigamarole before, he is still quantifiably smarter than the national average. So, when he feels the drugs begin to pull him under again, he pushes his brain as hard as he can, feels it like a tangible movement in his cranium. The fingers of both his hands twitch once, then again, and -
Tony dimly computes the pressure around his left hand, far too long after Pepper must have squeezed, and he's gone again.
\./
Pepper sighs when Tony's fingers twitch, and Steve can see her knuckles turn white with the pressure she returns. Steve watches as their faces, one ash-grey with pain, the other with worry, relax into the same lines of reassured comfort at the same time. Steve aches fiercely, and not just because Tony is hurt. Beyond hurt. Pepper and Tony are… so familiar with each other they've become one person. Steve never misses Bucky as much as he does when he watches Tony trail Pepper around the penthouse like a puppy eager for affection, or when Pepper storms into Avengers Tower, spoiling for fight, and watches Tony give her one. They yell at each other while the walls tremble and dust shakes loose from the ceiling, until Tony decides Pepper has had enough, and has her blissfully calm once more, in less than two minutes. They're kind of beautiful to watch.
Steve blinks suddenly, startled, because Pepper is standing, smoothing her dress and shrugging on her coat. It takes Steve far too long to understand that Pepper is preparing to leave. He frowns at her, not comprehending why she would leave now of all times, when Tony is just starting to show signs of waking. He would ask her, but forming sentences right now is an adventure he's not prepared for.
Luckily, Pepper, like Tony, must be some kind of mind reader. She smiles at Steve, not at all intimidated by his disapproval - also rather like Tony.
"Tony will take forever to wake up while doused with painkillers, even if they've brought him out of the chemical coma. His brain needs to do it's own system reboot, when it's not suppressed by drugs. They make him too slow. Which he hates. He probably won't be lucid enough to interact with his environment for at least eight hours, during which I intend to get at least four hours of sleep," Pepper explains evenly, and Steve knows, no longer in the abstract way he knows all soldiers get hurt, that this is not Pepper's first time keeping vigil over Tony's body. Steve wonders how long it took for Pepper to be able to leave his bedside at all, even to care for herself, and if the fact that she can bear to leave at all has anything to do with the fact that he saw her carrying several boxes out of the Tower a couple weeks ago. She hadn't been around since, and Tony hadn't left the lab for days at a time, which, admittedly, wasn't an unusual turn of events, but still worrying.
Pepper brushes Tony's hair off his forehead, cradling his head with excruciating tenderness as she drops a kiss to his brow. She straightens once more, and presses the same elegant hand to Steve's cheek as she passes. He allows his eyelids to fall, but keeps himself from leaning helplessly into her comfort with massive willpower. It would be too tempting to never let her leave.
"You're a good man, Steve Rogers," Pepper murmurs, and Steve almost flinches. Pepper is unfailingly polite and nice to him, but this is the first genuinely kind thing she has ever said to him. Steve had been starting to think she didn't like him very much. "I'll give Bruce an update."
Bruce, and the rest of the team, had decided that maybe being in the hospital, with the stress of relapses, and doctors and nurses constantly coming and going, and the incessant noise, was maybe not the best situation for someone with a hair-trigger like Banner's. He'd returned to the Tower, to the (Most Likely Probably) Hulk-proof Bunker Tony had built there for Bruce, on the condition that Natasha sneak pictures of Tony's chart whenever the doctor's updated it so he could stay on top of Tony's condition. She'd agreed readily - Steve suspected she didn't trust the doctors anymore than Bruce did.
Pepper scoops up the case holding two arc reactors - the one damaged in the attack, and the emergency one that Thor had retrieved, the one that had given Tony a massive dose of blood poisoning on top of all his other injuries - and with one last hopeful look at the bed, clicks out of the room. Thor and Natasha had been sitting right outside the room, Thor because he took up a bench entirely to himself, and Natasha because… well, Steve suspected she had placed herself on guard duty. Barton was giving the mission report to Coulson and Fury, or Steve suspects he would be terrorizing the staff by lurking in the vents. Steve cranes his head to watch as Thor stands to meet Pepper, and follows her out, acting as honour guard, though Steve isn't entirely sure whether it's for the reactors or for Pepper.
Natasha slinks into the room now that Pepper is gone, curling her entire body into the confines of the stiff plastic chair, resting her fingers lightly against Tony's. There's no response from him, but Natasha doesn't seem to take this poorly. Perhaps his tangible presence is enough for her, though this confuses Steve.
"Don't think so hard, Cap," Natasha teases gently, "Just use your words."
Steve clears his throat, realizing that he's been scowling rather spectacularly at her. "I thought you didn't like Stark? The two of you are always fighting, and differently than everyone else is always fighting."
"It's not fighting," Natasha says calmly, not at all fazed by Steve's accusations, "I'm just not a very nice person, and neither is Tony. We're… honest… at each other. It works for us. It's comforting, to not have to hide from someone."
"You don't hide yourself from Barton," Steve points out, knowing that they all hide parts of themselves from each other, except those two.
"Clint is different," Natasha says, "He and I will always stubbornly believe the best about each other, no matter how many times we might prove the other wrong. That's a different kind of reassuring, knowing I will never do anything so bad that Clint will stop fighting in my corner. Tony… understands that there is red in my ledger, that I will never, no matter how hard I try, wash away. Because his looks the same. Clint doesn't empathize with that. Why would he? He's always been the good guy."
"Is that why Tony let you look at the plans for the arc reactor?" Steve asks, still a little bit miffed about that. He'd known there were things in Tony's files he couldn't see, but he assumed they were all weapons plans that SHIELD had helped him bury.
Natasha snorted. "It was really more of a directions manual, Steve, nothing even approximating plans. I doubt Stark even keeps plans for it, the information is probably entirely in his head. And no, that's not the reason. Tony's got more than his fair share of neuroses. Pepper's the only one who's ever been able to touch the thing, besides Tony himself and the doctor who installed it in his chest." And hadn't that been a revelation for Steve, staring in horror at Tony's x-rays, seeing how the housing for the reactor sunk all the way into his chest, ending inches above his spine, his sternum was effectively gone, several of his upper ribs were cracked and twisted around it, all the bones riddled with air pockets. The doctor's said that it reduced Tony's lung capacity by about 30%, and they were amazed that Tony managed to keep up with any of them at all.
"I look the most like Pepper, out of any of us," Natasha continued, "And I'm a woman. After Stane tried to kill him, I expect he'll never let a man anywhere hear the thing. He won't be able to avoid the association in his mind."
Just like Steve would never wake up cold again without immediately thinking he had lost everything he loved, only to find the nightmare didn't end when he warmed up.
Just like Barton would obsessively re-evaluate every shot he ever took, to make sure he was controlling his own decisions.
Just like Banner would never let himself have a family, just like Natasha would always be trying to break even, just like Thor would never give up on his brother…
"What a mess," Steve groaned, slumping further in his chair. "How do we ever… get better?"
Natasha titled her head, staring at him like she didn't understand. And maybe she didn't. But she could try to explain.
Sometimes, Natasha thinks to herself, we all forget how young he is, because he was born so long ago. How many years has he lived though, really?
'How do you still think that you can fix all of this, all of us? You're too good to live like this, Rogers.' Is what she thinks.
"Stare long enough into the abyss, and eventually, the abyss stares back into you." Is what she says.
\./
Tony clawed his way up through layers of fog, steadily getting more and more desperate; He hated this, this cloying, choking feeling, like he was too stupid, too slow, too dead to run to fight to live. Ever since Afghanistan, he'd slammed to full wakefulness in seconds - whenever he bothered to sleep in the first place. Even in an alcohol induced semi-coma, he awoke far too quickly and violently.
It seems a generous helping of hospital grade sedatives was the only thing that could keep him down, keep him sane and human, making waking up normal, and Tony didn't like it, not at all.
"Come on Tony, we know you're there. Wake up." Natasha.
"Yeah, Tin Man, you're not fooling anyone. Just open your eyes, okay? Steve's frowny face is looking like it's starting to hurt." Clint.
"Hey!" Steve.
"What? Oh, come on, Steve, you know no one can resist the face! Tony especially can not say no to the face." Clint, again. Asshole.
Tony grinned once, flashing them his patented shit eating grin, before sinking back into the fog, which felt a little less like oily smoke and a little more like perfectly prepared bathwater.