You wake up only to wonder if you’re actually awake or still asleep. It feels the same, like trudging through molasses while breathing in fog that makes your head spin and eyes water. Your thoughts are sluggish and lazy even though you know you’re still thinking a mile a minute and processing through more information in an hour than your teammate in a day.
It’s not enough.
There’s so much to do, so much to fix. You know it’s on your head because you’re the one who built the killer robot that tried to take over the world. Peace in our time, it had said with massacres in its mind and chaos in its hands, and it was all your fault.
So, now you’re trying to make it better. You pour your energy into designing better gear to your teammate, building and rebuilding neighborhoods your team destroyed, and funding seven different development projects that should make a difference in the third world countries, even though you feel they’re not third. They should be first. They’re vulnerable and poor and you could do so much more.
So you try. And try.
And try again.
Your team give you sideways glances and shake their heads, muttering about working too much. ”You should take some time for yourself,” they say. ”You should think about yourself more.” But they don’t realize, they don’t remember—it all happened because he thought too much of himself.
Textbook narcissism, right?
Sometimes, you’re so tired you fall asleep while showering, shampoo running down in rivulets, stinging your eyes and clogging your nose. You wake up with nightmares under your eyelids and a scream lodged in your throat and shiver even though your AI makes sure the water stays hot. You’d love nothing more than curl up in your too big bed and sleep but you know you can’t. There’s too much to do.
You fuck up and almost get Sam killed but for Vision’s lucky save. After, you get the dressing down from Cap and you stare at the smudged star on the chest of his uniform as he tells you that you need to be more careful. ”Sam’s part of this team, Tony,” he reminds you.
You nod and add new gear to your never-ending list of improvements your team needs.
They remind you it’s Wednesday and movie night and you come up with some flimsy excuse to worm your way out of it. You don’t have the time; Clint needs a new bow, Natasha’s Bites short-circuited the day before, and Cap himself said their long-range comms are glitching oddly. And then there are the updates for War Machine—the ones you bumped up on your list after you heard Rhodey had been hurt on a mission. It was just a busted foot propulsor but still. Better safe than sorry.
You come up for air when you ran out of coffee. You watch the team watch ’Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’ and for the briefest of moments, you enjoy their commentary.
Then you return to your workshop. You’re busy, after all.
Falling from the sky is just a matter of time. It’s been a while since the last time and with all the heavy hitting Iron Man is doing, you’re not surprised. You hit the ground with a grunt and the darkness that envelops you feels almost welcome. It doesn’t last for long, though, because even though the painkillers and forced bed rest, you remember you don’t have the luxury of lazying around. People’s lives are at stake, so you check out AMA, limp back into the shop, and start going through your to-do list.
You switch FRIDAY off when she starts nagging at you.
You walk against the door frame on your way to the coffee machine and stop. ”You should drink less,” Clint quips.
You blink and he’s gone. You didn’t get the chance to tell him you haven’t had a drink in months.
Besides, it probably doesn’t matter.
DUM-E tackles you by accident and you sprain your wrist as you try to break your fall. The pain is a dull throb somewhere behind the fog and molasses and you figure you don’t need painkillers. It’s not that big of a deal anyway.
You turn to your side and curl up on the floor, tell yourself you’re not a quitter if you close your eyes for just a moment. You promise yourself you’ll get up in a minute.
You just want to rest, that’s all.
The press asks you how it feels to be an Avenger. You grin and say ”It’s awesome to be in the same team with me!” And they all laugh and shake their head because that’s what you do when Tony Stark gives a statement.
From behind your shades, the only thing you see is fog.