The Hamptons' House

2012: Part 2

Tony woke with a gasp and his heart hammering. There were hands on him and he struggled against them for a moment before the realization about where he was dawned on him. He stopped struggling and flopped back on the bed, his eyes squeezed shut and his heart still pounding hard against his fragile ribs.

He was back through the wormhole again with the whole void of space before him. Spacecraft that were so large they would block out the sun if they came to Earth. Creatures that made even the Blue Whale look small flying through the vacuum of space like that wasn't breaking every law of nature he knew. His suit was running out of air and the wormhole was closing behind him, trapping him forever in the cold empty reach of nothingness.

The nightmares had been getting worse lately. He'd thought it was bad after the cave. Apparently, too much space was worse than not enough. Every time he let himself sleep he returned to that same place again and again, and every time that hole got closer and closer to closing and sealing him out there for good.

Consequently, he hadn't been sleeping, and for a guy who barely slept as it was - that was saying something. He would spend two or three days straight not sleeping until he'd become delirious and he couldn't modulate his voice. Then only a few hours later he'd wake up again having a nightmare. It was putting a strain on his relationship with Pepper, and it had taken him so long to get to the point that there was even a relationship with Pepper in the first place, he was desperate to stop it from blowing up.

He rubbed his eyes with the balls of his hand. "Tony, honey," you said, caressing his neck. "It's okay. You're safe."

"Yeah, man," Kurt soothed. "Safe in bed with your cookie."

Tony let out a breath and opened his eyes. "Sorry," he said. "I'm okay."

You gently caressed his chest as you looked down at him. "Nothing to be sorry for," you assured him. "They're worse than before?"

Tony sat up and ran his hands through his hair. Once again he was bottling things up that maybe he shouldn't. He didn't know how to tell people this kind of shit. At least he couldn't while also preserving that mask of control that he liked to wear. You were the only one he'd ever let in like that but he wasn't sure if he could do it with Kurt here as well. On top of that, a lot of what had happened had been covered up. People knew about the alien attack and that the Avengers had stopped it. They didn't know about the nuke that the American Government had sent to wipe out the city and they definitely didn't know about his brief sojourn into space to stop that from happening. He'd have to start from scratch and he wasn't sure he could relive it so soon.

He ran his hands down his face and let out a breath. "It's - New York. There's shit people don't know. They tried to nuke us."

"The aliens?" Kurt asked.

"No. SHIELD. The government," Tony said. "They decided we couldn't stop them, so they were going to just flatten the state."

"What the fuck?" Kurt gasped, the outrage dripping from his voice.

"Tony, how... how did you stop it?" you asked.

"I grabbed the missile and carried it up through the wormhole the aliens were coming through," he said, wincing as the words spilled from him. "Cookie... it haunts me. I was in space and there were these ships. We aren't ready. If they come again, I don't know how we can stop them. And my suit gave out and I fell... but the wormhole was closing..." He stopped and looked at you, taking your hand. "I nearly got trapped up there."

"Oh, Tony," you said and wrapped your arms around him, holding him close. He clung to you, letting you support his full weight. "You saved us all. And you're here. I've got you."