Regrets

Chapter 1 : Tony

Before

Most people underestimated him. Mistook him for just another billionaire wasting countless amounts of money towards absolutely nothing.

And at times, he was exactly that. But then it happened.

The crash, the desert. The huge wave of stress and anxiety. He was only able to save himself with a car battery and a lousy metal suit.

A couple months later, he was Iron Man. And even more months later, he was an avenger.

Living with the avengers was okay, though at times he wished he was alone. Steve was always being an old man, Clint was annoying, Natasha scared him, Bruce was okay, and Thor was too loud.

Until the stupid winter soldier came and ruined everything for him.

With no other place to stay, Steve and his crew came back to live at Tony's tower. It was a hard decision to let the man who murdered his parents and the people who betrayed him live with him, but he agreed out of loneliness. And as expected, things were never the same from there.

After their breakup, Pepper was never as close to Tony as she used to be. They remained friends, but hardly talked at all with the exception of work purposes.

That's why Tony's sitting alone in his lab, working on some shield upgrades, shutting himself out from everything else.

He has officially just broken his record of not eating or sleeping, for 5 whole days. He didn't seem to notice though, being too focused on making his machines work.

"Sir, I must insist you get some rest. You have not eaten or slept for 5 days and 14 hours."

The sudden voice of Jarvis snapped Tony back into reality.

"Not now J, I'm almost done." he grumbled in annoyance.

"My apologies sir, but I worry for your health. According to the department of science, a normal human will die after 2 weeks of no food or sleep."

Once again, Tony sighed at the AI's words.

"Fine Jarvis, but don't ask me again, or I will sell you to some college." Tony stated, trudging slowly out of his lab.

"Understood, sir."

Nobody knew what was really going on inside of Tony. I mean, he's had 40 years of experience with his "paparazzi face" and acting to the public.

But deep down, something was slowly consuming him. Feelings of losing self worth, depression, and anxiety began to overcome him, as he sank into a hole he could never escape from.

As he made his way out of his lab to the kitchen, he noticed it was unusually quiet in the tower. Not that he minded though.

He scavenged through the refrigerator looking for food, when he heard a sudden BOOM.

Tony jumped at the sound, with his anxiety completely taking over. He clutched the refrigerator door as he slowly sunk to the ground, gasping for air, as the events in Afghanistan all came back to him.

"Breath in and out sir, slowly."

He remembered Jarvis's words, and began to slowly breathe in and out. Panic attacks were awful, always hitting him at unexpected moments with almost anything being able to trigger them.