help

exhausted

Welcome to the Aftermath :)

So I like to call the rest of Help the aftermath because that's what it is. It's the aftermath to everything that has happened so far in the fic.

I just have to say a few things:

THANK YOU FOR OVER 1K READS ILY <3

Second, thanks for your patience. I was going to wait a little longer to post but I'm sick right now (which fucking sucks because I was supposed to see No Way Home but NO my body just had to be an asshole and be sick for the first time in years) and bored so I decided to just post it sooner. Also, I normally post on Friday's but this Friday is Christmas Eve so I won't really have much time :)

Last thing and then you can get on to your reading I promise

I hope all of you have a happy holidays, this chapter (which is like the longest chapter I've ever written) is my early gift to you :)

Tony was exhausted. He hadn't slept normally in a while now, mostly due to the nights working with the scepter. And if he did end up passing out of sleep deprivation, a nightmare would wake him up shortly after. Coffee and alcohol had become his best friend. They would never tell him to get his ass to bed or stop working.

Loki had been freed from mind control, and everyone had felt the weight taken off their shoulders. The Other was dead, or at least Thor had told them he watched Loki brutally stab him a lot. Thor had briefed them all on the events that had happened in the mind of Loki, or at least everything he knew that happened. And then Tony informed everyone about the move.

Let's just say they weren't the happiest bunch of campers. Thor asked a million questions about whether Loki would be taken care of well at the tower. Tony had responded saying that he had more resources than SHIELD and was a fucking billionaire, so anything the god would need could be handled. Tony believed Steve was most likely going to go whether Tony allowed him to or not to be there for Thor. Clint and Natasha were assigned by Fury to keep watch over Loki and report back to him daily about what was going on. Even if this entire situation hadn't happened, Tony planned on inviting Bruce to stay with him for a while. He had grown fond of the doctor. Bruce was the only person on this damn ship with an actual brain, besides himself, of course.

So now, as he sat in a quintet, getting closer to his tower, he felt his nerves increasing. He was going to see Pepper, which was the one person he wanted and didn't want to see at the same time.

He wanted to see her because he loved her. He knew that he did, had for a while. No person could make Tony feel as sane as he felt with Pepper.

But he didn't want to see her because he hadn't talked to her since before the battle. He had texted her to tell her that the Avengers would be staying for a while. But besides that, he'd been ducking her calls.

Which was fucking stupid.

He knew why he had done it. Pepper would have called him out on his bullshit, and he wasn't in the state of mind to hear it. But hell, he'd never be in the state of mind. She was going to give one look at him now and then tell him to get to sleep, lay off the drinking, and we'll talk in the morning. Then he'd secretly sneak down to the lab. He'd fall asleep, she'd catch him, and they'd argue. Tony could see the entire thing playing out in his mind, knowing that there was no way to avoid the argument that was to come.