Chapter Text
Don't cry for help
When the mighty river pulls you under
Tonight’s a press party thing. Networking, Fury calls it. An attempt to improve their still sketchy public image with charming conversation and well-rehearsed responses to pre-written questions.
Bootlicking, basically.
It’s been three months since New York. They’ve had a couple of missions together in that time, mostly just small-scale stuff courtesy of local maniacs. But they’re still learning how to function and fight effectively as a team, so even those skirmishes have wracked up enough city damages to garner negative attention from the public.
After their last fight, when Steve had been carelessly tossed into a populated office floor by a too-keen Thor, SHEILD had stepped in and politely forced them to make an appearance at the next party for rich people shareholder fundraiser.
So now they’re in Vegas, crammed into a rented casino already heaving with elected officials and military highbrows. A few of the relevant social elite are peppered amongst them, along with purposely selected members of press.
Tony’s having a fucking horrific time of it.
This is the environment Tony used to thrive in. He’d flirt and fascinate, safe behind the façade of egocentric businessman. These nights used to be nothing but slick charm and easy arrogance, just another heady excuse to get hammered and show off.
Tonight is nothing like that. Tonight is the clamour of bodies pressing in from all sides. It’s a racket of noise and light and jarring conversation, too many eyes laced with judgement and poorly disguised eagerness for Tony to fuck up and provide a good story. The air in the room is thick and fragrant and suffocating. There are endless demands for Tony to state his opinions on government decisions and recent bills regarding extra-terrestrial life. The night is heavy with the pressure to act appropriately, with the expectations for Tony to speak in prose and be articulate and respectable and insightful.
Tonight is shallow breathing and barely suppressed flinches, it’s ringing ears and a shirt collar that feels like it's strangling him. It’s nobody fucking noticing, too distracted as they are by the chance to get a quote from The Avengers.
Except for Bruce.
Bruce notices.
Bruce had known something was up with Tony ever since they’d received their summons to New Mexico. He'd been thrown off-kilter himself by the demand (for a multitude of shitty reasons), so he'd recognised the familiar irritability and poorly hidden anxiety taking over Tony as well.
He’d noticed Tony subtly pre-gaming at the hotel. He’d noticed him avoiding the rest of the group during the briefing, hanging back from conversations and fielded questions. He’d noticed him digging his nails into the pad of his thumbs in the limo that’d taken them to the event.
Now they’re here and Tony’s glass is shaking in his hand and Bruce has a pretty good idea of where this is heading. An overwhelming environment mixed with everyone gleefully asking Tony to discuss what it was like for him to nearly die in space – it doesn’t take Bruce’s lifetime of experience with mental illness to guess what happens next.
But the entire team is tied up in publicity and Bruce can’t get to him, so he watches Tony from a distance. He watches the brief, unnatural smiles he pulls together, hears the too loud laughs and carefully prepared statements, cadence too polished to be anywhere near real. Bruce sees the familiar body blocking movements of someone trying not to be engaged in conversation. All of Tony’s previous natural fluidity with crowds is entirely absent tonight, replaced instead with something brittle and dangerous.
Then, predictably, he disappears.
"JARVIS, get me to the roof."
Tony hisses the words into his phone as subtly as he can, throat tightening as his chest muscles refuse to release their grip on his lungs. He can’t get in anything more than quick, gasping breaths; the phantom feeling of water in his lungs makes his blood turn cold with panic. Tears prick his eyes as JARVIS’ voice replies in his earpiece, clear and strong. Tony clings to it.
“Grey fire door, Sir, two o’clock. Take a path favouring the left, behind the decorative columns. Senator Larson has been trying to work his way towards you for the past 10 minutes.”
Tony veers off to follow the instructions, vision swimming as he tries not to stagger too obviously. He still ends up shoulder checking some people out of the way, pushing on without care to dip behind the cover of a row of gaudy faux-marble columns. He can’t breathe, he’s going to- he can’t keep-
Stiff hands meet the cold bar of a fire exit and Tony crashes as quietly as possible into an empty corridor. The roar of the crowd dulls as the door slams behind him, the sudden stillness disorientating.
JARVIS is back in his ear then, guiding him with that same firm voice left down the corridor, before taking him through a heavy door into the echoing cold of bare concrete and metal. Service stairwell. Privacy. Tony collapses against the railing, dropping his head to lean against his arms, a low whine sticking in his throat.
“Four flights up, Sir” JARVIS nudges. Tony stays gripping the railing for a minute longer, trying to suck in enough air to banish the black creeping in at the edges of his vision long enough to start the climb.