Here Stands a Man

1

Tony was unbreakable. Always had been. His father had made sure to beat all traces of fragility out of him, not with his fists but with his words. Words that tore deep gouges in Tony and hurt him so much more than physical blows ever could.

But it worked. Any weakness Tony had been born with was gone by the time his parents died. It was a good thing, too, because the loss of his mother, the only person in the world who had ever really, really loved him, would have ruined him. Nothing could ruin him now. That's what unbreakable meant.

But.

When he saw the date on that tape, saw the unmistakable road, something chipped inside him. Something important. And when he watched Barnes's hand close around his mother's throat, squeezing the light out of her eyes, that chip turned into a crack. And the harder something is, the faster the cracks spread.

He spends the next few weeks denying it, but he knows. Knows what he won't admit to himself. Knows that the dusty, unassuming tape had done the one thing he thought could never be done. It had broken the unbreakable. He, Tony Stark, is broken. And he has no idea in hell how he's supposed to piece himself back together.