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There was a sick light that shone from all directions and a disturbing silence that sounded like the loudest scream to ever be let out.
He never looked them in the eyes, never gave them the comfort. Some unknown blue woman helped him out of the space ship; Tony took a couple steps, head down and hair covering his face, then collapsed in the floor without further ceremonies. Natasha, being the shortest, kept to herself that she was able to see dread and shock in his features as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Rhodey was the one to react first; Thor, unaware of the tension, followed suit, and that was the last anyone saw of Tony Stark as he was dragged to a medical bay he wouldn't leave for six days.
Steve hasn't seen him for three years. He does remember the last time he did; the last time he looked in his eyes and exchanged any words with. Remembered the cold he didn't felt until they leaved, remembered feeling secretly surprised when he shattered the arc reactor with the shild and received no other reaction but a look of pure betrayal by the most expressive pair of eyes a human could possibly have. It felt weird: like there was something missing. It wasn't until a good ton of miles away from Siberia that Steve recalled: the arc reactor was the thing that kept Stark alive (not anymore, but he didn't really know that. No one knew. No one but Pepper and Happy, as no one even looked for him as Tony was exploded in his own home in Malibu. They never looked for him. They never checked. Tony decided they weren't interested in knowing).
Stark didn't have any family, so Pepper made the calls: she didn't want anyone but Rhodey (and Natasha, for a couple minutes and under supervision) coming near him. In all honesty, she didn't really care about the banter, about the betrayal, about her own anger about all the things they left broken and she couldn't repair... At the end of it all, she was the one that woke up countless times to Tony trying to muffle his sobs under the blankets. She was the one to cuddle him to sleep, she was the one to pick up the pieces when he fooled himself once again and trusted people that later on would break his fragile figure to pieces. Because most importantly than that, Pepper just wanted to give Tony the things he craved the most: love, peace and privacy. Some of the things he never had, even as a child, and even less as a grown man.
It's Rhodey to convince her to let them in, six days in: he, that loves Tony just as much and have been protective of him since they met in MIT. It's because he needs to share his pain, he wants everyone to see the small broken man laid helpless in the hospital bed with one more machine attached to his body. He wants them to hear the same whispers that ghosts his head.
He told you so.
He was right all along.
He knew it.
You had it coming.
And they did.
It's too bright. There's too much light.
-He's afraid of the dark. -Rhodey says. They don't really know who said it out loud, but it doesn't matter because it's what everyone thought about anyway. -He has been since he got out of the wormhole.
Steve remembered how he thought that the pained expression Tony had in Siberia was the worst. Seeing him now, laid out, exposed, broken, defeated and beaten to unconsciousness because none of them heard when he said that there was something coming was way worst.
It was silent, but still, they could hear every single word and more.
It was loud.
Tony Stark was an old and torn apart ragdoll trying to cope with it's new stitches sewed by a crying child with unsteady hands.
It was messy and fragile.
But it works nevertheless, and in the seventh day, he is awake. Pepper finds him staring at the ceiling at 8P.M., eyes lost and a trembling chest. She climbs in bed with him and cries her eyeballs out, holding Tony so hard he stops feeling empty: it's impossible, with his insides squeezed so tight there is no space to be left there. And it's good. It's so good, because in that moment right there, he just wanted to feel human.
Pepper asks F.R.I.D.A.Y. to call Rhodey in the morning: he comes in, doesn't say a word and climbs on the other side of the bed. They don't say anything, really. There's this unspoken and yet so loud thing that keeps being said.
I love you and i love you and i love you and i'll protect you and i'll love you more and i won't ever let go of you again.
They feel safe like that. They are a small, shattered family, but in that moment, they don't need much more.
-
No one else really knows what Stark's actual condition is. For all they know, he could be dead, but no one wants to ask. The image is still shocking and scary and disturbing. Tony Stark was always a constant force, sometimes hurt but never defeated. The only person to ever witness the later was Steve, and he still had his problems to knowledge that.
That's why they're all speechless when, in the tenth day, Tony walks past the living room, wearing a suit and acting as if nothing ever happened. Pepper is taking him somewhere, but no one asks.
Natasha knows better. From a young age she learned that the fastest a fallen one comes back to their feet is the worst they actually feel, but she doesn't question. No one does, not with Tony; they never really did. Before, it was because it seemed to be brushed off, but now it is because they don't really know what to say.
-
Tony doesn't want Pepper to come out of the car with him. He needs to to this alone (or at least thinks so).
Although May didn't had any tears as the door was opened, she indeed had the abused face of someone who had been crying hopelessly for days: it matched his. And of all messy scenarios Tony had pictured, none of them lived up to the actual one.
-He was with you. -She knows Peter is gone. When he never came back home, like millions of people around the world. She knew he was one of the choosen.
-He -Tony stops before he makes himself cry again.
-He was with you. Tell me that. Tell me he wasn't alone.
-I held him in.
She doesn't want to hear more. They hug each other tight and hold back the sobs to the tears that stream down their faces. They share the same pain. It's enough.
-
There's this loud unspoken word that everyone understands.
Tony Stark is dead.
No one knows what happened from the moment the satellites lost sight of the iron suit; he won't talk about it, but they know that whatever it was, it killed him. At the end, it didn't really matter how human he looked or how human he felt.
Whatever came back was a ghost. Coming back alive sentenced him to try and kill himself on his way to fix things to their place, like he always does.
Like the mechanic he is when Tony Stark collapses and Iron Man is broken.
And oh, wasn't he ready.