Imagine If You Assembled The Avengers: Volume 2

Water Under the Bridge (Stark x reader)

If you're not the one for me

Then how come I can bring you to your knees?

If you're not the one for me

Why do I hate the idea of being free?

And if I'm not the one for you

You've gotta stop holding me the way you do

Oh, honey, if I'm not the one for you

Why have we been through what we have been through?

"So, you're going?"

"Can you tell me why I should stay?" Tony answered back, his voice cracked and sounding nothing like the man who normally exuded confidence that could fill any room. It was one of the things that drew you to him on that very first day when you met, but now, even after years together, you couldn't find a trace of that man in him. His shoulders hung in defeat as he packed his bag, weakly putting item after item inside as if each piece hurt him more than the one before, touching them as if they burned his skin.

"Because we love each other?"

"Do we?"

The harsh gasp that escaped you carried a pain within it that caught you both off guard; you could feel the air being forced from your lungs and a pain spreading from your center with such force that you thought that you might black out. He so readily had the question spilling from his lips, with his eyes darkened and dull as they looked at you. The fights had gone on for too long, and they had become too vicious, cutting each other down in ways that only you knew how. In this murky water that you were drowning in, it was a valid question that only made you realize that you were unwilling to save each other.

"Tony..."

"Yeah, I didn't think so."

"I didn't answer yet."

"Sweetheart, you don't have to." With a loud zip to close his pack, he tossed it carelessly towards the door so that it would be ready to make his quick getaway when his emotions finally cracked. He couldn't leave without a proper goodbye, but with such a fractured resolve to do it, it wouldn't take much to change his mind. "Come here," he whispered, moving across the room to you with his arms open, awash in terror at the idea of feeling you within them and how it would break him further when there was barely anything left.

"No, Tony, you can't just hold me and apologize for leaving and think that this is okay," you spat angrily, standing to get away from him. "Since when do you quit anything? You're quitting us, and we promised each other that we never would."

"We were blind, (Y/N). There's just...it's too hard. It's untenable."

Your mouth hung open at his words, listening to him in full disbelief that this man found anything to be too much for him when he claimed to have the answer for any problem thrown his way. For him to say that it was too hard and that he couldn't make it work, it had to be true; Tony Stark could fix anything, but he couldn't fix this. He couldn't fix you, and you could feel your will to fight slipping away.

It's so cold out here in your wilderness

I want you to be my keeper

But not if you are so reckless

If you're gonna let me down, let me down gently