Written for the following AvengersKink prompt:

"Tony betrayed, Team Angst, Attempted suicide - A while back I read a fic for another fandom in which the main character is imprisoned for his own safety.

So what I want is: A telepathic villain makes threats against the Avengers, specifically Tony. SHIELD and the Avengers decide that Tony is safer not knowing about the threat, because he'd go off on his own and try to fight the villain. SHIELD comes up with the idea to place Tony into a room with protected walls against telepathic attacks, essentially isolation. SHIELD agents do a in-the-middle-of-the-night kidnap thing and Tony doesn't know why this is happening to him. The rest of the Avengers are reluctant but ultimately agree. It won't be anything like Afghanistan, Tony will be getting three meals a day and no one will be hurting him. He'll be fine right?

Tony needs interaction, he needs to ramble and to tinker and to create. He's not only isolated, he doesn't know why he's there and he thinks his team is going to come and get him. But they never show and he starts losing it. So, the only logical thing to do is to hurt himself, so he can get some medical attention, and if he happens to die in the attempt, well, that works too.

He's elated to see the Avengers in the hospital. Until he discovers that they knew. What happens next? Does Tony ever forgive them?

Lots of angst and guilt, happy ending is OPTIONAL!"

Time is very fluid in this story, with multiple flashbacks, time skips, half-truths and skewed perspectives.

Main title and chapter titles come from John Casteen's chilling poem "Night Hunting"

Steve knows that the moment, that one time he would snap, was inevitable. It's everything to do with Tony (he's missing, gone, and they search and search and they can't, they can't find him) and that his team is in shambles, falling apart at the seams like an ages-old toy.

Clint doesn't mean it, he's upset too, it's evident in the dark shadows under his eyes, the fact that he's missed a target twice in the last week.

It starts like a normal talk and then it escalates, building up like a volcano that's been dormant for too many years.

Something, something that Clint says but doesn't mean (not with the pain in his eyes), some off-hand comment, more out of hurt but he doesn't take it back, not when Steve asks and not when Natasha puts a hand on his shoulder.

"He ran away that's what he did. He's good at running away."

Coulson is stepping into the kitchen, all placating gestures and phrases of "calm down" and "let's not do this," but Steve itches, and Clint follows up with more burning words,

"He's a coward."

and somewhere in the white-hot fury, Steve lunges.

Clint punches back, Steve returns the blow, parries a kick, pushes Clint to the floor who pushes back, knees him in the stomach but Steve doesn't falter as he shoves back and Clint moves, twisting to the side as Steve hangs on, Clint's hands slipping around his neck.

By the time Natasha and Coulson and Thor manage to pull them apart, both men's chests are heaving, eyes wide, wondering just what the hell is happening to them all.

Tony settles in a little town a few miles from Akathiyoor, a city of about three-thousand in India. It's a long way out from where Bruce was staying, once upon a time, and Tony feels secure in the strange faces and surroundings. He buys an auto repair shop and keeps the assistant already there.

The woman can speak fluent English, and she seems capable enough.
She raises an eyebrow the first time they meet, regards him with a searching gaze that lingers for only a few seconds before she shakes her head and resumes her work on the motor of a dilapidated car with no windshield.

"I'm not going to ask and I'm not going to pry. I just want to work."

"Good. I hate to fire people I've just met. Unless they're complete assholes. Or incompetent. You any of that?"

"Nope."

"Great! Let's get started…uh, what city is this again?"

It was only a matter of time until word got out, until everything came to light. Tony Stark doesn't just disappear without the world questioning why or how.

And he certainly doesn't fade away from the mind of the young man he'd taken under his wing. The young man he'd sought to protect, sought to make a part of the Avengers, despite all of SHIELD's hesitation and reluctance.

But Steve had never expected that Peter would show up in the middle of the night, swinging straight through an open window, fury written deep into every sharp motion, the quick yank of his mask revealing young, turbulent eyes.

Because Peter had been the only one they'd ever lied to, the lie they'd deemed necessary. Pepper and Rhodey had gotten the truth and Peter had received the lie and Steve knows that whatever condemnation comes out of the kid's mouth will be deserved, as much as it will hurt.

Peter turns at a sound behind him, lithe body spinning, eyes tracking Natasha as she closes the window, Coulson as he re-caps his water bottle, Clint as he sags against the wall.

"Where is he?"

The question is simple, the answer is not, and Steve desperately wishes that he knew what to say.

Peter laughs, brittle and angry and accusing, gloved fingers flexed in a powerful grip around his mask.

"Where the hell is he?"

"Peter–"

Peter spins again, mouth a straight line, almost imperceptibly trembling with repressed emotion.

"You all lied to me, you told me that he'd agreed, that he wanted to be there, and all this time! All this time!"

Steve knows what Peter means, that what he really wants to say is this;

"Why did you do it?"
"Why did you lie to me?"
"Why did you hurt him, why didn't you tell me, why didn't you let me stop you?"

Peter's shoulders slump, and he shakes his head, like he wants to dispel a bad dream, eyes alight with pain and Steve thinks, in a realization so strong it burns inside his chest, that Tony wasn't the only one betrayed. And Peter just smiles, wan and tired and oh so disappointed,

"Hadn't he bled enough for your trust?"

Tony thinks that he's getting better. Enclosed spaces don't send his pulse running and he doesn't taste the sands of Afghanistan or dirty, warm water as often anymore.

His hands still shake and somewhere underneath the metal his heart longs for the tower, for Thor's ridiculous ballads, Steve's constant battles with the microwave, Bruce's spicy tea, Natasha's gruff morning voice, the scratching noise above of Clint traversing through the ventilation system as Coulson shoves post-op paperwork on Tony's cluttered desk.

"Pepper and I have an agreement, Stark. Don't make me disturb her morning meeting."

Tony can see him, hear him, and there is something, something about remembering Coulson (He can hear Clint begging, "Tony, this isn't you.") that sets his brain on alert and running.

His hands shake, badly, as the wrench slips loose from his fingers, the clattering noise bringing him back to earth.

Official Transcript of Post-Op. Evaluation: EXCERPT 037

Patient: Stark, Anthony E.

Psychiatrist: Dr. Samson, Leonard

Samson: Can you tell me about the relationship between you and the rest of the Avengers, Mr. Stark?

Stark: Wow, what a question. Now I don't want to regale you with a long, harrowing tale of our adventures. Summarized, they're my family. Who knows how the hell those bastards ever got past JARVIS, and the drinking and the jokes, but they made it, like champs. It's just…they're my family, as fucked up and broken and bloodstained as they are...It's stupid really, really and actually stupid because I should be over that. I stopped trying to find out where I fit when I was like, five. I mean really, I thought I grew out of needing, out of wanting…that… and then they came along and just…I guess we're flawed like that, we can't help it can we?

Samson: [silence] Help what Mr. Stark?

Stark: Learning to love what we can lose.

Reviews are gold!