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From an evolutionary standpoint, anxiety attacks started as a nearly foolproof system.
The sympathetic nervous system had been chosen among many retiring alternatives. Through trial and error, it had been chosen as the best way to keep humans alive in a hostile environment. The principle had been simple: react fast or die. Those ape-like ancestors who had lounged about without a care in the world had been susceptible to the hungry jaguar. Only those who had remained alert and reacted quickly had stood a chance of long-term survival. And thus, anxiety had been born.
The body’s wholehearted dedication to the flight-or-flight response meant that finite supplies were redirected to core power. (Often leaving extremities numb.) The heart began to beat at a terrific pace, revved up in anticipation of a powerful exertion. (Subsequently, oxygen supplies needed to increase to keep pace with the hard-working heart, or shortness of breath would ensue.) The gastrointestinal system ground to a halt, accommodating what would surely be the prime directive of an aspiring human’s life.
Anxiety was a life-saver. It was a brilliant tool that would surely be missed in the kit of any aspiring primate hoping to dominate the food chain.
Incidentally, it was also the bane of Tony Stark’s existence.
But could he blame the torch that guided his ancestors through the darkness for burning him?
Yes, Tony decided, huddled under his desk, wrapped in a tarp that he used to cover his suits. Yes, he could blame the torch. Because it was the kind of trade-off that only an idiot gene would make. Because those genes had no feelings, he thought, frozen hands curled around the edges of the blanket. Those genes only wanted to make things, without thought for the consequences.
That very dilemma had confronted Tony in his own pursuit of artificial intelligence. As an intelligent thinking being, he had to be proactive, in a way that idiot genes, frothing in their primordial ooze, did not. Otherwise, people would accuse him of reckless endangerment. Exasperating. He had to build robots to not develop certain traits, like anxiety, even though it was evolutionarily stable and therefore desirable. No, he did not want his robots to have anxiety, no matter how many times the simulations suggested including it. Why?
Because anxiety was awful.
Tony knew he was sulking, but he was trying not to. He was a grown man, well beyond the age of hiding under things for comfort. Yet, at the whims of his own physiology, there he was. Hiding under a desk. For protection. From what? His anxiety said everything. His rational self thought, Probably something in the lab.
Then his panicked idiot brain gasped at that, interpreting the blip on the radar as, There is danger in the lab. He tugged the blanket over his head. Dammit, he needed to breathe. He needed to convince his nervous system that the lab was not on fire with him inside it.
Or die. I could die.
That almost seemed desirable, he thought hysterically, compared to the alternative, stewing in indefinite, restless, nail-biting uncertainty. At least his ancestors could see the trouble lurking in the bush—except, no, that was the trouble with the trouble-lurking-in-the-bush, it was invisible until it was too late. And so, preemptive warning systems, like anxiety, were contrived to keep humans in a constant state of mild to severe fearfulness.
It was like the horse’s screwed-up back: genes shaping the course of history, because from a gene’s perspective, anxiety was amazing, anxiety was foolproof, why would any animal want to live a life in remote comfort when that meant ending in a jaguar’s jaws?
Except even idiot genes understood too much of a good thing. The ape-like ancestors who were too stressed to breed were suddenly not doing their job at all, disseminating the same idiot genes for future generations. Finding the fine balance between hypo- and hyperactive response systems was key: one ended in the jaws of a jaguar; the other, in the jaws of defeat. From a gene’s perspective, anyway, which Tony thought was for the birds, because his only children were metal and he would revise that truth only with compelling reason.
Stupid, goddamn, idiot genes, he berated, grabbing his own wrist and squeezing it until the skin turned bone-white. The human body was a goddamn wreck of a machine—the legs were too floppy, the spine too erect, and the eyes started life underwater and never forgave their genes for shopping clearance when it came to upgrades. The brain sucked up so much power that it should apologize to the rest of the organs for existing in a chronic state of disappointment.
The human brain was capable of almost unfathomable computational power, yet every single day, Tony was reminded that it was a worthless upgrade as some manifestation of human thought resulted in a heartfelt eye-roll.
See also: the Internet.
Hunched into the smallest ball that he could make himself in in a vain attempt to spread the love from his core to his extremities, Tony tried to bribe his brain into taking a breather so his heart could accept that he was not going to fight or flee from a nonexistent problem, but his brain was off watching gorillas discover self-awareness in the mirror and could not be damned to respond to his petty problems.
Stupid genes. They could not even make a brain right—what kind of manual machine still had a mind of its own?
An idiot one, made by idiot genes, Tony thought, banging his head on the underside of the desk.
And that was exactly when he heard the door slide open. Freezing, mouth shut tightly against any sound—at least the idiot genes got that feature right—Tony listened as Steve Goddamn Rogers said, “Tony?”
Oh, oh, good, it’s Steve, this isn’t mortifying at all. To be fair, Steve had no room to talk about mortifying experiences: he poured milk before cereal, and that was an abomination against God. And if there was one thing Tony could argue more spiritedly about than idiot genes, it was God. No Man upstairs could disappoint or frustrate him more than the ones downstairs.
Behold: Tony Stark hiding under a desk, Tony thought, a nuisance of a thought that he swatted out of existence just as Steve asked pointedly, “Is this a bad time?”
Yes, it’s a bad time, Tony snapped back, holding very still and keeping very quiet, even though Steve—damn him—could probably hear him breathing, maybe even hear his heart racing.
Peak of idiot genes, Tony thought, which made him swallow a noise that might have been a laugh under better circumstances.
“I can come back,” Steve offered. Tony wondered who he was pretending to talk to—Tony could watch the security feed later, but where was the magic in that?—but remained committed to his survival strategy of staying very still and very quiet. Then Steve said, “I’ll be upstairs,” and started to leave.
Realizing Steve was about to leave him with whatever monster had likely slipped into his lab and was camouflaged on his ceiling waiting to devour his soul—I hate you, he thought, flashing a real middle finger at his unthinking, unfeeling genes responsible for all the mucked-up feelings inside him—Tony bleated, “Wait.”
It was small. He repeated it: “Wait.”
Steve lingered, painfully still—he could hear Tony but Tony could not hear him and it was unfair—and Tony sighed noisily through his nose. “I. I may be here,” he said. It was amazing he was speaking, all told. But some people needed it spelled out, and Steve was one of them. “In this room. I’m. I’m just a little.” He struggled to put the words into a configuration that left him more satisfied than ashamed. “I’m very fine, I’m just. Stressed.”
Stress was fine; stress was anxiety’s cool older brother. When life got hard, an excellent survival strategy was to get harder. Stress was a boss that got shit done; anxiety was a coward that thought ants were crawling all over him.
Tony was stressed about timelines, namely deadlines, and he was anxious about the imminent, real, terrifying possibility that he could drop dead, at any moment, without warning. Some goddamn guarantees in life would not go misplaced, when one thought about it existentially. At least eighty years would be agreeable, preferably in outstanding health. Was a hundred so much to ask? Was two hundred? Tony Stark was a dreamer: he would gladly live to be a thousand years old so he could terrorize whatever whippersnappers invented Twitter’s inevitable sequel.
He would be great at it. He wanted to live a thousand years, because it would remove a solid fifty percent of the stress that was simply, We are going to die in the future and that future is one day closer every day.
Steve’s face appeared under the desk. Tony yelled in alarm; Steve retreated, frighteningly brisk, more wraith-like than human. A moment later, Steve reappeared, hands on his knees. “Would it kill you not to be wholesome?” Tony snarked, opening move. Good one, Tony, smart move, makin’ a move, congratulated his inner voice, and he drop-kicked that voice over a fence because he was hardly winning life when he was huddled under a desk.
“You okay?” Steve parried.
“Yes, why?” Tony replied, because if he was quick enough, it did not matter if he won the argument. He would still win. “Do I not look it?”
Mistake. Flinching deeper into his huddle, he tried to recover, babbling, “I. Am not. This is for my health.” The concrete was murder and the desk was hardly a better place to hide, but at least it was sheltered. Even the dumb blanket he had snatched was helpful; protection.
Steve looked at him for a long moment, waiting for him to break. Tony did not, glowering back at him. Then Steve sighed—I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed—and said, “C’mere.”
Tony stared at him, doe-eyed. Get it together, he warned his own anxiety. They were going to die. No matter how pretty or nice or good Steve Rogers was, there was no getting around that treacherous thought. His genes would be the only Tony Stark was here trace left, assuming he disseminated them.
Which he would not. Out of spite, he sniffed, horrified that he did so out loud, panicking that he was crying on the outside as he brought a hand up to his face, then covered his dry eyes gratefully.
“C’mon, Tony,” Steve murmured, low and easygoing, like they were two guys having a beer and not two apes, one peak of human perfection, the other a sniveling mess camped under a desk, struggling to make sense of their strange metal world. “Just—come out, for a second.”
That seemed reasonable. Tony scooted forward, then scuttled like a terrified hermit crab into Steve’s arms, gripping onto him. “Don’t go,” Tony begged, burying his head against Steve’s chest.
Steve sat on the floor and hugged Tony to himself. His chin tipped to rest on top of Tony’s head. “’Course not,” he murmured. “Where else am I gonna go?”
Tony clung to him, comforting himself with the fact that Steve had unusually acute senses. If there was any danger at all, Steve would be the first to sound the alarm. But Steve was calm; there was no danger. Steve was calm. There was no danger.
Tony relaxed into the hug, the kind worth its weight in gold. Did not matter that it would be a lot of gold—Steve was a big guy, and that was part of what made his hugs so good—Tony would gladly pay it. He loved the We’re dating privilege of being able to latch onto Steve at any moment, soaking in some sunshine. Guy was magnetic, made of something so pure it was hard not to bask in it.
Slowly, like the Moon danced ‘round the Earth in perfect synchronous orbit slowly, Tony’s heart began to beat at a normal rate. Then everything else fell back into its place. His breathing calmed. His hands and feet warmed. His whole reached a more even keel. The danger had left him, and he had survived, and Steve was still holding him.
On a scale of one to ten, everything was right in his world.
With a soft huff, Tony said, “You’re a—walking good luck charm,” as he disengaged, patting Steve firmly on the back, like that would salvage his pride. Steve watched him as he released his death grip on the blanket. Then Steve followed Tony to his feet, one hand on his hip, gentle, guiding.
That was the other weird thing about Steve Rogers: he was so gentle. A lot of people shook hands as hard as they could, throwing their weight around; others had a tendency to see Iron Man as indestructible, hanging onto his arm and pulling him aside when he was tired, in need of a drink. But Steve Rogers did not seem share the public view—which, Tony thought, huddling against him, soft marble musculature and all, was refreshing. Steve was simply kind, careful.
Steve was patient, slinging an arm around his back—just one arm, like he knew that Tony would skitter and squirm out of his hold if he wrapped both around him, panicking over nothing except I don’t like to be held down—and waiting out the last few ripples of panic, of cold fear. Tony could not even say what caused the attack, except something must have. That brought him a strange sense of peace. Something always caused the attacks, even if the cause never revealed itself to him.
We are ugly machines, he thought, comfortable in Steve’s embrace. We are broken in ways we cannot repair. Separating themselves from the bad removed the good—there was simply no way to eradicate all traces of junky software without eliminating the vital forces that had saved them from extinction. It was a learning process. Life is tough. So are you.
He pulled back, wanting to say something insightful and witty—about evolution, maybe, how they were made of stardust that amalgamated into thinking, thoughtless genes, accidental entities whose sole drive was to stay in existence, somehow, some-way—but only managed, “Thank you.”
Steve murmured, “Any time.” Then: “Wanna watch a movie?”
Tony frowned. “It’s two o’clock.”
Steve’s expression softened, and Tony knew, instantly and gut-wrenchingly, that it was not two o’clock. “How about,” Steve said, letting him discover with a surreptitious glance at his watch that it was after eleven, “we watch a movie, I’ll make some late dinner, you want some dinner?”
Yes, Tony thought, weary and beleaguered and grateful that he had a Steve in his life. Everyone needed a Steve, he thought, planting his forehead near Steve’s sternum in gratitude, worship. The world would be a better place if all the terror could be quelled the way it was when Steve was in the room, projecting the simple but unequivocally comforting message: It’s okay. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.
No wonder his troops had loved him, Tony mused, nodding and trailing after him, even though he knew following was on Steve’s no-go list for stressful times and anxious places. Steve was relaxed and calm and could not care less about exposing his back to Tony in his right mind. Tony enjoyed the freedom to watch without being watched, to reach out and grab his shirt without compunction.
The idea of Steve in a war hurt his heart as much as the notion of imminent, amorphous death—it was easy to see the rightness of a soldier in a war, like a picture-book fill-in-the-blank set of premises. It was hard to imagine Steve Rogers—the apple pie sweetheart who helped old ladies cross the road—in constant, unassailable danger. In war, there were no safe places, nowhere to hang up one’s coat that felt like home on the Front.
Tony knew that feeling—every day in Afghanistan was a life-or-death ordeal. It should have surprised him less that it still affected him. He had tried so damn hard to leave it behind. But he supposed if Steve still walked with a soldier’s gait, it was only fitting that Tony still had sand in his shoes, too. Some things barely changed with time.
Steve was as good as his word, cooking up fresh pasta before sitting down to watch Casablanca, both their feet propped up on the long ottoman. Tony made a valiant effort to pay attention—they had harangued Steve relentlessly on Disney nights that there would be quizzes, it was only fair to return the favor for movies Steve would recognize—but the fatigue he had been sword-fighting for the past twelve hours suddenly pounced on him. Between one line and the next, Tony was nodding off.
It was still nice to be together, in whatever shape it took. That was the one foolproof protection against anxiety: togetherness. Safety in numbers.
Everything will be okay, Tony thought, awaking briefly to take in his environment: Steve’s chest, rising and falling slowly, while his eyes were still fixed on the holographic screen, dutifully projecting the film from the Forties. A tiny smile curved Tony’s lips before he shut his eyes again, buried his face against Steve’s shoulder, and signed off.
Steve would protect them. He always did.