Chapter Text
He had replaced the roof in his lab. Nobody asked him why. They assumed it was just another one of his periodic outbursts of trying to find something in his perfect life to change.
No, that particular habit of his was as stubbornly intact as ever.
His new roof was metal because he got nightmares.
He never told anyone that, obviously. He liked to think they already knew.
He would never complain because he had no right. It was part of the deal, part of the job. He couldn’t get kidnapped, decide to spend the rest of his days fighting villains, and whine about bad dreams.
A runner couldn’t finish a race and cry that they were thirsty or that their heart was thrumming too quickly. That was expected. Everyone knew it, and nobody cared, so the runner just had to smile and take photographs with their cheap medal, and wait to get a drink, afterwards.
Because that’s how it worked.
Tony got kidnapped. He got nightmares. It was expected, and nobody cared.
So he worked every day, every second of every hour, because don’t waste your life, Stark.
His ceiling was metal because it used to be plaster, and it used to make the air seem just a bit too thick whenever his experiment would malfunction, and tiny little specks of dust would fall onto the table. His eyes would spin a bit too much and his lips would be pressed a bit too tight, because it looked like the rock crumbling around him every time he would strike a hammer in the unstable cave.
It was easier not to complain when he fixed his own problems. He made it easier to stay in the lab for days at a time, free from the constant reminders of why he was in there in the first place.
Sometimes Pepper would storm down the stairs and look ready to shatter the locked glass door standing between Tony and the cup of tea she held, but Tony would flip down his welding mask, and it would be like she wasn’t there at all.
But then came the days when he began to forget that the thrifted sofa in the corner of the room was supposed to be a last resort. Then came the days when he almost forgot that he had an actual bed in an actual room with an actual girl who waited for him every night.
Then came the days when he would take a sip of water and spit it out, because he hadn’t finished a glass of plain, pure water in months. He had been drinking the occasional cup of harsh, black, instant coffee for weeks, because he had almost forgotten that the water coming out of the sink in the corner of the lab, was a drink all on its own.
He had reached the days when he would call for Jarvis’ name, hoping he could force himself to unlock the lab. Jarvis would always respond, and he would always choke out a panicked request insisting that what he wanted was a simple change of the song.
“Are you sure that’s all you want, Sir?”
“I’m always sure, J.”
Making new scorch marks on his too-tall ceiling wasn’t enough, anymore. He wanted to unlock his doors and sleep in a bed and drink water, but he did it to himself. It was expected. Nobody cared.
“Jarvis, I think I’m going insane.” He had announced, once, to his empty lab. His voice hadn’t been used for days, and his mouth was painfully dry, but his words were surprisingly solid.
His AI had remained silent, so after a moment of waiting, Tony had nodded with tight lips, and returned to hammering a nail into a 2x4 he was sure he didn’t need.