A/N: There's a brief mention of an original character having committed suicide (in the past); I don't think it's enough to bother anyone, but I wanted to flag it up front just in case.

Tony woke up once to use the bathroom a few hours after falling asleep, but otherwise remained completely and blissfully unaware until morning. When he opened his eyes again, the sun had risen but the building felt still. "Friday, what time is it?"

"Six fifteen, boss."

"Anyone else up?" he asked as he shifted to dangle his legs off the mattress before standing.

"Captain Rogers is out-"

"-for a run. Of course he is." He meandered to the bathroom, stripping off his clothes as he went. A quick shower helped relieve the itch of day-old clothes and a careful shave had him feeling more like himself. He wandered into his closet afterward to haphazardly pick out pants and a shirt. He was out the door and into the hallway a few minutes later.

He needed to catch up on everything, but his first destination was the kitchen for coffee. While it was brewing, Friday piped up. "Boss, Wanda Maximoff left you a note on the refrigerator."

The note said simply, There is more if you want it, which could have been referring to any number of things except for the location and probable context. His hunch was confirmed when he opened the fridge to find a cup identical to the one he'd drained the previous afternoon.

He took the smoothie and his coffee as he headed in the direction of the office. As he neared his bedroom again, Friday nagged from his phone, "Boss, your medication."

He rolled his eyes but changed course to go find the bottle. He eyed the remaining pills as he fished one out. "Friday, when am I supposed to be done with these things?"

There was a pause while she checked his records. "Dr. Mann informed the medical staff that you are to continue taking the medication daily, boss. She will determine the appropriate course of action after she has received three more days of blood pressure readings," Friday reported as he swallowed his pill and resumed his trip to the office.

"So I have to go down to medical three more times?" he asked dubiously as he set his beverages down on the desk. He'd just sat down when he realized he'd left the tablet behind. Again. Dammit.

"Yes, boss."

He stalked back to his bedroom, fished the tablet out of the drawer where he'd hidden it, and headed back to the office. Again.

When he resumed his seat, he took a long drink of coffee, then pulled out his phone. It was far too early to call Pepper, so he sent her a message. I'd like to apologize. Call me when you have a minute?

Then he pulled up his messages on the monitor and skimmed the list between slurps of smoothie. The first one to catch his attention was from Dr. Tanya: I'd like to check in with you when you have time to chat. He needed to thank her for the company during his migraine, so that sounded fine to him. Within a minute he had an appointment scheduled for later that morning.

The next message he opened was from Sara, reporting on what she and Steve had managed to accomplish in sorting the documents. Included was a list of items they needed his input on. He started going through them, quickly deciding whether they merited inclusion in the investigation batch, the public batch, or both.

He'd finished those, skimmed the list of files in both batches, and was debating whether to throw the Ross recordings into the public batch when Rhodey rolled in. "Feeling better?" Rhodey asked.

"Yeah," Tony replied. "Tell me, good idea or bad idea: I'm thinking of releasing all my Secretary Ross recordings with the other stuff."

"Bad idea," Rhodey said immediately. "It's time for breakfast, come on."

Tony frowned and checked the time. Somehow he'd been in the office for almost two hours. "I already had some smoothie," he protested.

"You need to eat solid food once in a while," Rhodey retorted, unimpressed.

He sighed and cleared everything from the screen. "Why is it a bad idea?" he asked as he stood and stretched before gathering up his stuff and following Rhodey out the door.

"Some of those conversations mention things that aren't public knowledge. If you hold those back, the rest won't make sense. Plus, you'd want your lawyers to weigh in before you go off and do something half-cocked like that."

"So we redact the classified parts. It's not like that's unusual. Wait a minute, has Ross done anything since the press conference?"

"No," Rhodey said flatly. "That's the other reason you don't want to release those yet. We're still waiting on his next move."

"Are there any bets on what that might be?" he asked as he stepped out of the elevator.

"We have a list but not a betting pool," Sam replied, pausing on his way through the main door to hold it open for them. "You're feeling better?"

"I am. Thanks," Tony said, waiting until Rhodey had passed him to go into the common room. He had to answer variations of that question several times before he made it to the table with more coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs, courtesy of Rogers. He made a mental note to put himself back on the food rotation. They must have taken him off when he was supposed to be taking it easy, but there was no reason he couldn't do his fair share now that he was on his last day of restrictions.

"So what has made it on the list?" he asked when Wilson took the seat across from Rhodey.

"I'd rather wait to talk shop until after breakfast," Sam said evasively.

"That bad, huh?" Tony continued conversationally.

"The options range from bad to worse," Natasha replied from a few seats down, managing to simultaneously answer the question and fail to reveal anything of use. He should have her do press conferences.

"Let me guess, me being arrested under some pretense is on there. Probably toward the less bad end, since I think most of you wouldn't mind being rid of me for a while." He took a bite and pondered while he chewed. "Being arrested and clapped up on the Raft would be worse than that. Which begs the question, is the list in ranked order, or just in the order you thought of them?"

"Give it a rest, Tony," Rhodey admonished, nudging him with an elbow.

"If you were absent for an entire day, wouldn't you want to know what dire outcomes they've imagined for you?" Tony retorted.

"Not all of it directly pertains to you," Rogers said, taking a seat next to Sam and across from Tony. "If you were arrested, it seems likely Ross would find some reason to take us into custody, too."

"He sure would," Tony replied, taking another bite, followed by a long swallow of coffee. "So what's the worst possible outcome you guys thought of? I'm curious if what I'm thinking is better or worse." He was thinking a lot of things.

"Some of us prefer to look on the bright side," Rogers said dryly. "The list will wait until we've eaten."

"Of course it will, but I have somewhere to be in-" he checked his watch, "-less than ten minutes."

"Why, you have a hot date with someone you met down in medical?" Wilson said with a wink.

"Bite your tongue, I wouldn't do that to Pepper," Tony replied dismissively. "I'm just going to have a chat with Doc T."

"Have you talked to Pepper recently?" Rhodey asked curiously.

He managed not to wince. "I, ah, not since, um, Tuesday night. But this morning I asked her to call when she has a minute. Why?"

"Ross making some sort of move against her or the company is on the list," Rhodey said matter-of-factly.

"I would have extremely strong words for my lawyers if he does," Tony said vehemently. "They've assured me repeatedly that Pepper and the company should be safe from Ross." He realized how ridiculous that sounded even as he said it. As if he needed a reminder how powerless he was.

He mentally reviewed his other connections for vulnerabilities and a knot formed in his stomach. There was someone who was most certainly not safe from persecution: all that stood between Secretary Ross and Peter Parker was the fact that no one save Tony and Happy knew who Spider-Man was.

"Excuse me, I just remembered I need to make a phone call," he said faintly, pushing back his chair and almost pushing it over in his haste. He gulped the rest of his coffee as he took his dishes over to the sink, then fled the room.

"Hey boss," came Happy's voice after two rings.

"Happy, I need you to keep a close eye on the kid," he said urgently, his pace slowing, though he continued down the hall.

"Sure thing, boss. Did something happen?"

"More that I'm trying to keep something from happening. Let me know immediately if it seems like there are government types on his tail." He paced just outside the door to the stairs, mindful that stairwells were excellent for eavesdropping.

"You got it. You want me to step in if they get too close?"

"No," he said emphatically. "Notify me, but do not intervene. If they come sniffing, our best shot is to stick to the internship line, and there is no way we can make the head of SI security monitoring an intern seem normal."

"Right. Anything else, boss?"

"That's it. Thanks, Happy," he said, ending the call. He looked at his phone for a moment, briefly considering whether to try Pepper, but he had literally two minutes before he was due at Doc T's office and he expected the conversation to last longer than that. Or at least he hoped it would. She would be quite justified in ignoring his request to call after the way their last conversation ended.

He made it with a few seconds to spare. Doc T was at her desk, doing something on her reassembled computer, but when he arrived she looked up and smiled. "Tony. I am glad to see that you can endure normal levels of light again."

He closed the door behind himself and sank into the nearest chair, then dropped his phone on the table in front of him as an afterthought. "And sound," he said. "I'm back to normal there, too."

"How could I forget about sound?" she said lightly, moving to her usual seat across from him.

"Thanks," he blurted before she could say anything else. "For your company, and . . . everything. Have you had migraines? You seem to know the drill pretty well."

"I have not, but my sister started suffering from them when we were quite young."

He felt ashamed that he'd never given a moment's thought to her family. "Does she still? Have migraines, I mean."

"Every so often, but not like she used to. The medications they have now have worked well for her."

There were so many questions he wanted to ask. "Do you have other siblings?"

"We had a brother. He was ten years older."

It was difficult to miss her use of past tense. "What happened to him?"

"He committed suicide a number of years ago," she said evenly. "He was in the military, went to Vietnam. He never talked about what he saw, but his note said what he went through haunted him until he couldn't bear it anymore. He's the reason I wanted to become a psychologist and work with veterans."

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said automatically, then added, "But you left the V.A. Why? No, wait, you don't have to answer that. You didn't ask me to check in so I could demand personal details."

Dr. Tanya laughed. "It's all right. Let's just say I was unprepared for the politics involved in working for the government. Still, I made the best of it for as long as I could."

"Politics will be the death of us all," Tony agreed, nodding. "And your parents? Are they still living?"

"My father succumbed to cancer not long after my brother died. My mother says the grief drove him to an early grave. She lives with my sister down in Virginia, where we were raised."

"And being reasonably close to them would have been a perk of working in DC," he mused. "If they ever need anything, just say the word. It won't be a problem."

"I appreciate that, thank you. Now I have a question for you. In the discussion with Steve earlier this week, you referenced giving a home, money, and technology to the team. You also mentioned funding the Avengers in your press conference. Would you elaborate further on what, exactly, you have been contributing?"

"It's not a big deal," he started, then provided a brief summary of his history with the team, starting with Fury's appearance at his home in Malibu and ending with the Accords, concluding, "You already know what happened after that."

"I see," she said slowly, her thoughtful expression not giving him any hint of what she was actually thinking. "So your contributions have been voluntary?"

Of all the possible questions she could have asked, he wasn't expecting that one. "Yes, of course," he said somewhat defensively. "I don't give things to the government when they're demanded of me."

"Why have you chosen to invest yourself and your resources so extensively into this single group of people?"

He shrugged and waved dismissively. "I have to spend my money somehow, and this is more constructive than gambling. Though honestly, I get more for my money when I gamble, but at the end of the day saving people's lives is pretty satisfying."

She studied him for a moment. "If saving lives was all you were interested in, there are charitable organizations all over the world that would be worthy-and grateful-recipients of your dollars. Yet you have poured your money and yourself into the Avengers and continue to do so despite misgivings about your place on the team. Why?"

He sighed. "Space aliens, that's why. Only a fool would think that they are going to leave us alone, and we're going to need the best people we can find and the best tech we can develop to have any hope of defeating them again. It was mostly luck that we managed the first time."

"I am trying to understand why you were willing to remain associated with the team even if only two people out of eight expressed support for you personally," Dr. Tanya explained. "I have heard many 'for the greater good' arguments, but I have to say, yours is one of the most extreme I've encountered."

"Thanks?" he said hesitantly when she fell silent.

She sighed. "That's not really a compliment. People who do things for those kinds of reasons tend to burn out, or die trying."

"Oh." His phone began to buzz on the table. He watched it vibrate its way across the smooth surface for a moment before picking it up to check who was calling: Pepper. He thumbed it silent and tapped out a quick message: Talking to the doc, I'll call when we're finished. He put the phone down again as he said, "Sorry."

"What happens now, Tony?" she asked quietly. "Two days ago you weren't sure how much longer you could do the team-player thing except for world-ending threats. Are you telling me you've changed your mind?"

"Yes. No. I don't know," he stuttered. He sighed deeply and ran a hand over his face. "I don't know," he repeated. "I still- it still feels like I don't quite belong, but they're with me on the Ross thing, so I can't just quit now."

"Why not?"

"Because they need the tech and all that. Nobody else can make that happen."

"No one else can do it quite the way you do, perhaps," she corrected. "Their armaments came from somewhere, and in most cases it didn't start with you."

"Mine are better," he said staunchly.

"I never said they weren't," she said with a smile. "But let's say the aliens come back and you sacrifice yourself in the name of stopping them. What happens then? Will there no longer be a need for the Avengers?"

"No, they'll probably need to stick around."

"But you won't be there to outfit them with gadgets. What then?"

"I'm sure they'll figure something out. Maybe find a smart kid who can take over." He said it carelessly, but in the back of his mind he was thinking of high tensile webbing concocted using high school chemistry equipment.

"What if you started that ball rolling now?" she suggested.

"Like succession planning?"

"I was thinking more like making the distribution of duties a permanent thing, rather than just while you were sidelined. But yes, starting to groom a replacement wouldn't be a bad idea. You're not as young as you used to be and you won't be getting any younger."

"Hey," he protested. "I'm years away from aging out of the suit."

"Assuming you don't have another heart episode or something like it," she said mildly. "Or a catastrophic injury."

"You may have a point," he conceded grudgingly after a brief silence. It's not like he hadn't had similar thoughts in the not-so-distant past. "We've got more minions now, so that will help."

"As long as you remember that your 'minions' are only human, too." She sounded amused. "As you think about how to shift responsibilities in ways that are sustainable, I want you to carefully consider to what extent you will be involved with this team in the long term and how to maintain those boundaries no matter what happens."

"You mean, you want me to figure out how not to get drawn in again."

She nodded. "I wouldn't have put it in those terms, but yes. I believe your instinct to put some distance between you and the team is wise, under the circumstances. Even if it's only temporary."

"Which part of the circumstances makes you say that?" he asked wryly.

"All of it," she said lightly. "But especially the part that you aren't sure you really want to be here. I think you need to listen to your gut and figure out what that means for your future."

He found himself glancing at his phone as she spoke.

She must have noticed, because she added, "I suspect part of you already knows what you want. You just need to listen and decide how to shape your future."

"I've got several possibilities that seem most likely, with another half dozen backups and contingency plans in reserve. I'm always thinking ahead." He spoke confidently out of habit, mentally calculating how many plans he actually had. It wasn't that many. He shifted uneasily. "I normally do, anyway. Everything that's happened has made some things impossible or irrelevant."

For once, she didn't force him to elaborate on what had changed. "But do you know what you want to happen? What you want from life should be part of the equation or you're never going to be satisfied with the life you live."

"I've been living on borrowed time so long . . . All I can ask for is a little more time to try to make things right," he said wearily. "Satisfaction has nothing to do with it."

"What makes you say that you're still living on borrowed time? I thought your cardiologist was about to clear you for duty."

"Yeah, probably, but that just buys me however long we've got until the next end-of-the-world threat. I don't have a future beyond the next big fight, so why would I get my hopes up?"

"You have survived every fight so far, why are you assuming the next one will be the end of you?"

It sounded like he was vexing her. He huffed a chuckle and shook his head, staring down at his feet rather than look at her. "Because it should have been the end at least three times already and a guy like me can only get lucky so many times before the universe decides to even the score."

"Tony," she said softly, moving closer and resting her hand gently on his arm. "Then don't you think you should give it all you've got while you're still here? Let's say this is your last year. What do you want to have happened before you shuffle off this mortal coil?"

His immediate thought had the advantage of being something he was already working on. "I want to get right with Pepper. I . . . I don't know what that will mean, what we'll end up being, but I need to make things right."

"That's a good start," she said. "Take some time to think about whether there's anything else, and I'll ask again the next time I see you. I have every confidence that you can think big about this the same way you do about other things."

"Well, thanks for the pep talk," he said with forced cheer. "Does that mean we're finished?"

"Unless there's something else you'd like to mention," she said in a way that was inviting without being pushy.

"I think I'm good for now, thanks," he said quickly, picking up his phone and gesturing with it. "I should call Pepper back."

"Yes. And, Tony, I would also like you to think about having another conversation with Steve. I believe more dialogue would be beneficial for both of you."

"While you're there to supervise?" he asked as he moved toward the door.

"I would mediate, yes."

"I'll think about it," he said shortly.

"That's all I ask."

Her words followed him down the hall and seemed to echo in the stairwell. It was a big thing to ask.

He had a lot to think about.