The Hamptons' House

2018: Dust

Tony woke up with a start and was grabbing at the tubing that connected his IV to his cannula before he even became aware of where he was. His dreams had been filled with Thanos again. He'd been haunting him for the weeks since the battle on Titan, even while he was dying slowly of starvation and lack of oxygen on that ship. It was always visions of everyone around him turning to dust. Visions of Peter Parker disappearing in his arms. He'd known that Thanos had gone to Earth after leaving Tony to die on Titan, and he'd close his eyes and see the huge purple nutsack slaughtering his friends and family.

He was home now, and as he became aware that he was in the medbay at the Avenger's Compound, and that it was Pepper's hands on him, trying to get him to stop pulling the medical equipment off him.

"Tony... Tony," she soothed. "Relax. It's okay. You're safe."

He was safe. The world he knew had been changed forever, but he was safe. He'd held the kid he'd decided to mentor in the superhero game as he turned to dust, but at least he was home. Like that was some cold comfort. There was one silver lining. Rhodey and Pepper had been here when he got back. He'd been so sure - so fucking sure that Thanos had been punishing him specifically, that when he got back here it would be a barren world and they'd have been taken from him too.

He relaxed back a little. He was exhausted and his head felt muddled. Most of all though he felt weak. Not just weak because he had been starved of food, water, and oxygen for the past few weeks. There was more to it than just the degradation of muscle mass. He felt weak because he had been preparing for this attack ever since the one on New York and he'd still failed to save anyone. He felt weak because he had gotten so used to being alone, and when he'd finally let people in, they'd all let him down. But he had needed them. Even now, he needed them, and he hated that he needed people so much that they could hurt him like this.

Things had started going downhill after the Ultron incident. Pepper leaving him had been a blow, but he'd had his friends and he'd been working on things with Pepper. He'd used BARF as a way to work through some of his trauma and he thought maybe if he could show Pepper that he was serious about retiring from being Iron Man then things would be okay.

Then he'd been approached about the Sokovia Accords.

That was when shit had really blown up. They'd seemed like such a good idea to him. A way to take the pressure off the team so they wouldn't feel so guilty when shit went wrong. And he felt guilty. Ultron; he had done that. Everyone made sure he knew that. The accords would mean that the burden of guilt he was carrying might be lifted. Except that the only ones that actually believed that too, were Vision and Rhodey - and in the end, the accords had cost him everything. By the time the dust had settled, everyone had scattered and Rhodey was paralyzed.

Only two good things had come out of them. The first was taking on Peter Parker as a protégé and the other was Pepper had come back to him. He sometimes wondered if she just felt bad for him - though he tried not to question that too much. He built his nanotech suit as a precaution and started to dig himself out of the hole he was in. He had proposed to Pepper (yes, it had been to get himself out of hot water with the press, but she'd said yes and he was more than excited about it), and he'd just floated the idea of them having a kid and then, fucking Thanos happened.

A nurse came in and Tony was a little surprised to see her. Bruce had been the one that had given him the sedative that had knocked him out, he'd assumed he'd be the one to give him the next dose too. He pushed himself up, ignoring both Pepper and the nurse's insistence that he lie back down. "Where is everyone?"

"Don't worry about them," Pepper said, trying to guide him back on the bed. "Worry about you getting better."

"Pepper," Tony said, still resisting. The nurse injected what must have been more sedative into his IV and things began to feel soft and far off again. He didn't want to rest. He had been lost in space for weeks. He needed to catch back up.