A Dad of Ir⎊n Will || Marvel

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Tony hasn't slept in days.

The bags under his eyes are dark purple bruises smudged there like a second grader doing an art project. He thinks about the dream he had before all this, about having a kid. Another kid, his brain supplies. His head thunks to the desk and his eyes flutter closed for what feels like the third time.

"Mr. Stark...I don't feel so good."

His eyes snap open. He's running on caffeine patches and nightmares, but he pushes himself back up into a sitting position and wedges a screwdriver back into the slot he was working on before he nodded off.

"Boss," calls FRIDAY as she lowers the volume on his speakers. "Ms. Potts would like for me to remind you that you are needed in conference room 4."

"Yeah. Thanks Fri, I'll be right there."

When he still doesn't seem to have made any move to just get up and get going, Rhodey is walking into the lab in a t-shirt and jeans, his leg braces creaking as he makes his way to Tony's side.

"Hey, Platypus," Tony says rubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands. They come away wet but he doesn't remember crying. "I was just on my way up."

"Don't worry about it. No one else was really feeling up to it either," Rhodey says, sitting on one of the metal stools next to Tony. They both know it's a lie. "We were hoping you had an idea on where to start."

Tony shakes his head and let's his eyes fall closed, propping himself against Rhodey's shoulder.

"Mr. Stark, I don't know what's happening!"

He snaps his eyes open again, but he isn't on Titan. His head is still resting on his best friend's shoulder. He clears his throat.

"I just got back; how would I know?"

"You're a genius, remember." Rhodey hopes it'll pull a laugh or a chuckle or a smile or something out of him. It doesn't. He huffs out a breath of his own. "You know the kid hates when you blamed yourself."

"I'm sorry."

"Well he's not here is he? And that's my fault. We should have taken care of Thanos before now. I should have known what to do. I—" he says, stopping to shake his head against his friend, who had now thrown an arm around his shoulders. "Do you know the kid apologized? What did he have to be sorry for? For d-dying?" The word tastes like bile in his mouth but he forces it out anyway.

"For leaving you," Rhodey corrects quietly. "Have you looked at the list of who's missing?"

Tony shakes his head again and Rhodey must see something on his face because he doesn't start listing them off.

"Do you want to know?"

"I want a plan. I want something I can fix. I can't—" Tony is looking at his hands in his lap, clenching the left one while he rubs at it with his right. "Pete said that sometimes when you have the powers that you do and don't do anything and bad things happen it's because of you, but we tried as hard as we could, Rhodey, and we lost. And there's still no way I can spin that where I don't feel like it's my fault."

Rhodey's arm tightens around his shoulder and he lays his head on top of Tony's, rubbing his hand up and down Tony's arm.

"You really shouldn't be holed up down here, alone, Tones. C'mon. Let's at least get some food in you."

"Not hungry."

"When's the last time you ate? Or slept?"

"Einstein only slept—"

"Three hours a year. Yeah, you keep telling me. But you, my friend, are not Einstein. You have people who care about you too much to let you isolate yourself that way."

"Fair enough," says Tony, pushing himself into a sitting position again. "Thanks for the talk, Honeybear. Still not hungry."

"Hey, FRIDAY. When's the last time Tony ate?"

"You don't have to answer that, Fr—"

"Boss has not eaten in approximately 26 hours and counting."

"Better than I thought, but you're still eating," Rhodey says, leaving no room for discussion as he stands up, pulling Tony with him. "Now."

When the doors of the lab are behind him and Rhodey asks nicely for FRIDAY to keep them locked until Tony has eaten something and slept for more than 10 minutes, Tony has to work to keep his breathing even. He hasn't been out of the lab for anything other than bathroom breaks since he's gotten back. It's farthest from the alcohol cabinet and it keeps him busy.

He tried sleeping with Pepper his first night back and woke up from a nightmare only to immediately have an anxiety attack. She held him as tight as possible because the pressure helped. He spent the night redesigning and trying to fabricate a weighted blanket up to Stark Standards.

It still hadn't helped him sleep.

"Tony?" Pepper's voice is concerned but she knows better than to run over to him. Immediate movements have him on edge and the lack of music outside of the lab reminds him of the silence after everyone had—

"Hey, Pep." He walks over to her and kisses her cheek, running a hand through her hair to ground himself. "What no ponytail? Are you off today?"

"It's Sunday," she reminds him softly and he tries not to look surprised.

"Sunday?"

"Yeah. Date night, remember?" she jokes, but he's still focused on the fact that it was Sunday again. They had landed on a Sunday. Had it really been a week? He sucks in a breath. He needs to plan. He needs to work. He needs—

"I— The lab. I need to—"

"You need to eat," Rhodey says from behind him and Pepper agrees.

"I ordered Thai," Pepper says and he wants to cry because that was Peter's favorite. They'd order in and watch movies or tinker down in the lab or he'd help the kid study for his exams. Pepper steps closer and wraps her arms around him, her face in his neck. "We miss him too. We didn't know what had happened up there. We thought you had both..."

"I'm sorry," he says because he doesn't know what else he can say. It should have been me. He was just a kid. He should of came home.

"I talked to May," she continues, fixing his plate and sitting it in front of him when he plops into a seat, heavily. "She doesn't blame you. You know that right? You did your best. And we're going to figure this out, because that's what you do best. You fix things." She kisses the top of his head. "But you can't do it alone."

-§-

hey futher muckers
new fic
whats up

i really hope you lot like this
it's been nice and therapeutic to write during these tough exam times

lemme know what y'all think, okey?
love y'all

-- angel janeé xoxo 💋