⚠️minor panic attack⚠️
Tony woke up with a blinding headache, which made sense considering he's had the worst panic attack he'd had in a while last night. The sunlight through the curtains was blinding him, it agitated his head so he buried his face further against the object in front of him.
The object moved as if it was breathing, and Tony risked the pain to see what it was. His half lidded eyes opened to reveal Steve.
"Morning Tony, how do you feel"
"Fine" he responded automatically, if there's one thing about Tony Stark, it's that he's incredibly stubborn. He wouldn't have let Steve know about his panic attack if he were cognizant.
"You sure? You look very pale, do you still feel sick?" Actual raw concern was painted beautifully across his face. It was an unusual sight to the genius, he wasn't used to concern.
It might have been the pain or maybe the way Steve looked like he really cared, but Tony answered truthfully.
"Yeah, my head hurts" he muttered out, closing his eyes against the harsh lighting.
"Alright, stay here and I'll stop down at the reception and see if they have any headache pills?"
"Mhm, thank you" he pulled the covers over his head and tried to quell the pain.
It seemed like seconds later when Steve returned with an unopened bottle of painkillers and a bottle of water. He helped Tony sit up after closing the curtains and gave him both.
"Are the others up?" Tony asked, his headache no longer blinding.
"Yeah, they're taking showers and stuff"
"Ah, that sounds like a good idea" he smiled slightly, now more present he didn't want to show his pain.
"Yeah, go ahead. I'll take one after" Steve smiled and let Tony grab his clothes and head to the bathroom.
Tony stepped into the pristine marble bathroom and locked the door. He closed his eyes for a moment, thankful that the light didn't agitate his headache too much any more.
He slowly stripped of his sweat soaked clothes and felt the cool metal of the shower. He turned the water on and put it on the hot setting.
He didn't realize his mistake until he stepped under the water.
The panic he felt last night was too fresh in his mind. His thoughts twisting to associate the warm water on his neck and back, with the cold water of Afghanistan.
He felt as if the floor was torn from under him and he slid down the shower wall. Not having the strength to reach up and turn the water off, he was pushed further into a flashback.
His head was held under the dirty water as the wires connected to his heart were shocked. Pulsing electricity through his body. He convulsed as the men held him down, letting him up for air when the pain faded and shoving him back down to start the pain again.
He was shaking and cold.
*BANG*
He was pulled from the flashback by a knock at the door.
"Tony you good in there?" Steve called from the other side of the white door.
"Y-yeah" he called back, pulling himself onto shaky legs. He grabbed the shampoo and cleaned his hair quickly. Shaky hands combing through his hair.
He blinked rapidly, trying to erase the black dots swarming his vision. He cleaned his body and turned off the water. Releasing a breath as the dreaded sounds stopped.
He dried off and changed into more comfortable clothes. A pair of black sweatpants with a stark industries label on the top of the right leg. He pulled on a t shirt, just a simple white one, before putting the wet towel in the basket and walking out.
Steve gave him a questioning glance but Tony just smiled. Fury's words popped into his head 'that smile may fool the paparazzi and your team but it doesn't fool me' fury would see right through his mask. It's because he cares enough to look past the surface. Tony thought, packing up his clothes and sitting on the bed. He stared at his hands in his lap, and didn't notice when Steve walked out of the bathroom.
"So I'm going to drive today if that's ok with you" Steve said without looking at Tony.
Tony nodded and realized he couldn't see him, "sure"
"Ok great and you can have the passenger seat" this time he turned and smiled brightly at Tony who suddenly felt unreasonably insecure. He shifted his gaze to his bag and willed himself to stand up.
He wrapped his hand around the coarse fabric of the bag. He stated at the space between Steve's shoulder blades as he followed him to the main room.
"Ready to go?" He asked the group, they all nodded and headed to the cars.
Tony stayed to the back, feeling very insecure. He often felt this way after a panic attack. He knew it didn't make sense but it was just made worse by the knowledge that Steve knew.
At least he hadn't asked him to talk about it.
Because Tony was pretty damn sure he would've said everything, and he really didn't want to do that.
Bruce slipped into stride next to Tony.
"Hey, are you ok?" He asked, looking forwards, but Tony could see concern on his face.
Since when is everyone concerned for me?
"Yeah, I'm great Brucie how are you?" He answered, plastering on the Stark charm.
"I'm good, Tony if you ever need to talk...I'm always here ok?" He stopped walking to face Tony.
"I know" Tony smiled, and continued walking.
They reached the parking garage and piled into the car, all in the same seats they arrived in.
"Breakfast." Clint announces, buckling his seat belt.
"Yes definitely, what do you all want?" Steve asked, pulling out of the garage.
"IHOP!" Clint yelled before anyone could answer.
"Everyone alright with that?" He looked at the group in the rear view mirror.
"Fine by me" Bruce said, the rest nodded.
Tony just focused on the trees that passed by them. Letting his eyes unfocus just enough so that the colors blurred together.
The others were talking, he didn't care about what. All he cared about was the trees. And Jarvis and Friday. He'd almost forgotten that they'd been offline, he felt the compartment in his shoe for the flash drive. It held ever important piece of information about shield, Avengers, and Stark industries. It made his mind chuckle lightly, the secrets that so many people were trying to get, were shoved in his slightly oily shoe. It was really ridiculous.
"Jarvis, Friday? You guys there?" He asked, tapping the earpiece he never took out. The first thing he'd made sure to do, was make it water proof. Not water resistant like most of the 'waterproof' tech now. But actually, completely water proof, like 'if one were to be water boarded while wearing it they could still call for backup' water proof.
"Here sir"
"Here boss"
"Ah it's good to hear you guys, any information on whose hacking?"
"Not yet sir, we have launched bots to distract them hackers as we slip in and figure out who and where they are but it hasn't been successful yet"
"We're sorry boss"
"That's ok guys, it'll work with time. I'll let you get back to it"
"Bye"
"Goodbye"
He smiled sweetly, they were like his kids. Granted they were unbodied intelligences. But Tony didn't care. He then thought of DUMME and U, he'd had to turn them offline as well. Powering them down completely, because as useless as DUMME usually was he couldn't risk the hackers manipulating him into spilling information. Of worse, downloading his footage to their servers. It wouldn't really hurt anyone, as there wasn't much valuable information on there. But it would bruise Tony's ego, DUMME had a back for only filming the moments when the suits refused to work and sent him flying. Or DUMME's personal favorite, when he sprays Tony with the fire extinguisher despite there being no fire in sight.
Steve pulled the car into the IHOP on the right side and found a parking spot. They all put on their 'disguises' before Natasha brought up the point that they were going to walk into a small restaurant with a giant god. They all took the hats and glasses off, only Tony keeping his blue tinted ones on. They could call the suit if it really came to that, only as a last resort because the hackers could gain control while the suits were online.
They walked into the IHOP and were seated in the corner. It was a small enough town where everyone seemed kind enough not to bombard them. Although three little kids did ask them for autographs. Which they were happy to do.
They were eating in peace. At least until a man and a women walked over and took the table directly across from theirs. At first they just seemed like regular people until they turned to the Avengers.
"Soo, j have a question. You guys reversed the snap, how?" He had a snap to his voice that none of them liked. It seemed as if he wanted to start a fight.
"Tony here found a way to time travel basically, and we retrieved the Stones from the past. It was on the news, we did an interview" Steve responded.
"So you're telling me you were able to time travel and you're not going to tell anyone how?" He had turned his body to fully face the avengers.
His posture and body language playing out the idea that he wanted to argue.
"That kind of information is incredibly dangerous, you can't simply travel back and interact with yourself. It would cause loops in the timeline, the whole future would change" Tony explained, sipping his coffee and clutching at the mug to ignore the thoughts that had popped into his head.
"Well, I can't say I didn't expect it. You avengers cause more damage than you heal" the man seemed done, much to the groups relief, as he had turned back to his wife. She looked just as mad as he expressed himself to be.
Natasha slid the knife slowly back into its place on her thigh. Not this time.
"Alright" they all ate in silence and left quickly. Starting up their journey yet again. This was definitely going on Tony's list of strangest missions.