Golden Days✓ Tony Stark [Book 3]

27: Coping.

I hit the punching bag harder than before, ignoring sweat dripping down my body, soaking my clothes until it becomes like a second skin.

The bag, unable to take more of my punches falls to the ground, pouring out its contents.

I pick up another bag and hung it up, ignoring the bruises and aches on my bare knuckles and the other busted bags on the ground. I lost count at twenty.

Turns out, Thanos did me a favour by bringing the rest of the infinity stones. I've never felt so strong and alive, but numb and empty on the inside. Even though I'm running on less than three hours of sleep I got a week ago. I continued to ignore the pull at the back of my eyes from lack of sleep.

It's not like I didn't want to sleep, it's just that I- I can't. Not when I keep seeing them or him. Mostly him. It's not compulsorily the burning ark him, it could be us on Sakar, or what would have been, on Asgard. We could be bickering or arguing and then, I wake up to this reality and then I start to lose whatever grasp of control I had before I slept.

"Do you think we should interfere now or…" Pietro asked as I punched the bag again, with more force.

"Nah, sooner or later, she'll run out of bags." Rhodey responded as the bag fell of the hook, pouring out its contents, like the many before it.

"But still…?"

"Trust me on this one. She's a Stark, obsessive and stubborn are very strong family traits, if you manage to get those bags away, you'll be the next victim."

"What-"

"She can hear you, you know?" I cut the both of them off as I picked up another bag and put it in place.

"Yeah, I think that's kind of the purpose of us standing here. Come on, Violet, you've been here for days."

"Leave me alone." I gritted as my punches got faster.

"You know I can tie you up before you can comprehend, right?" Pietro asks as he zooms up to me.

"And you know I can blast you into next week, right?" I retorted before he grabbed my hands in his, standing in front of me.

"Just-- just for a few minutes, half an hour, just stop punching." He pleads and I glared. "Please."

"Fine." I grumbled.

"Great." He picks me up and zooms upstairs to the front of my room.
"Start with a shower. You stink."

"Hey-"

"It's true. Shower and then dinner." He says and I nodded with a soft smile.

"Thanks for looking out for me, Sonic."

"Meh, I think I prefer Dash." With that, he zooms off.

I entered the room, heading straight into the shower. I don't bother taking my clothes off as I turned it on, robotically setting it to the hottest level.

I stood under it, ignoring the hot drops that hit my exposed skin like bullets. I finally let the tears go.

It's going to be a long, long shower.

🚿🚿🚿

I packed my damp hair up into a messy bun that sat on my head. I walked out of the shower and gasped when I saw Steve sitting on my bed, tray in hand.

"Steve." I breathed out in surprise. We hadn't talked much since- since he who shall not be named. "How long have you been here?"

"Not long. I- uh, brought food and hot chocolate, well warm chocolate, now." He says gesturing to the tray.

On the plate was stacks of pancakes, drowned in chocolate syrup, just how I like it. Breakfast for Dinner.

"Thanks."

"It's alright. I just wanted it to be like before all this." He says with a small smile.

I take the tray from him but not before sitting cross legged on my bed. He watched me as I ate slowly before speaking up.

"Do you wanna talk? About everything that's going on? Or what has happened before, you know?" He asks hesitantly.

"Talking about my feelings is not a me thing Stevie, I'd rather punch it out." I responded and he sighs, making my resolve soften.

"I saw them, all of them." I admitted. I didn't tell anyone that. I only told them what I thought was important. "And it hurts Steve, to see all of them just- just fade away like that, and not being able to do anything about it."

"Lis-"

I let out an humorless chuckle, pushing my tray to the side and standing up.
"You know, I saw it, when Wanda put those visions in our heads, I saw it. You would think seeing it would lessen the pain I feel but it doesn't. Instead, all I want to do is to find wherever Thanos is hiding and make him undo this before snuffing the life out of him. But instead, I take my rage out on as many punching bag as I can lay my hands on because I feel like I might run mad if I don't do something. And there's nothing I can do because, dad is still out there in space and it's been weeks now and I'm really worried because the last time I saw him was in a vision on Titan and everyone around him got dusted. Then, there is Thanos, who walked into a portal that leads to God knows where with the infinity stones, three of which cost the lives of my family, one of them, my boyfriend. God, I think I'm having a mental breakdown and I'm going to lose what's left of my mind before I even reach thirty."

Steve pulls me into a hug I didn't even know I needed.

"It's okay, Lis. It's okay." He whispers as he lets me breakdown against him.
"You know-"

"If you give me any optimistic Steve Rogers speeches, right now, I'm gonna sucker punch you." I cut him off and he chuckled.

"Thanks for letting me rant to you. And for being there for me anytime I need you, Steve."

"Anytime."

"Okay! Emotional talk over, now I'm gonna go back to my food, while you do your residential therapist work." I joked lamely, pushing him towards the door.

"Wait-"

"No, no, no, don't want to hear it. You've seen me, I'm fine. I feel like a billion bucks. I have everything I want. Seriously, there's an half eaten plate of pancakes that tastes like heaven and a mug of chocolate that I'm sure tastes just as good. I'm fine, Stevie." I rushed out as I pushed him out the door and slammed the door behind him.

I leaned against the door and let out a loud breath. I wasn't joking when I said I was fine, I felt better, I just needed time to process whatever just happened.

I headed back to my bed, and picked up the tray as I went back to my food. Luckily for me, no one else disturbed me till I cleared the plate and downed the drink.

I was about to head down when I started feeling vibrations. I frowned as I dropped the tray in my hands on a drawer before looking out the window.

The blinding lights immediately clicks and I walked through a portal that led outside. The Benatar was placed down in front of me and it opens up to reveal dad and Nebula.

"Dad." I cried as I ran up to grab him.

"Oh, Smalls. You're okay." He says with a breathy voice as he holds me to him, and placed a kiss on my head with his cold, shaky lips.

"Tony." Steve says as he runs up to us. He grabs dad from me and helps him walk down the aisle.

"Couldn't stop him." Dad responds as I turned to Nebula.

"Thank you." I said to her and she nods softly.

"I lost the kid." Dad tells us, with a haunted look in his eyes.

"Dad-"

"Tony, we lost." Steve says and dad turns to me.

"Is, uh...?" Dad asks, scared to find out if she's gone too.

"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" Pepper cries as she runs up to us and pulls dad into a hug and his posture sinks in relief.

"It's okay." Dad muttered as they pulled me into their hug too. "It's going to be okay."