icarus

~

Tony hadn't slept. Not that he usually does of course, but this time it was different. Usually he stays awake out of purpose, a burning drive to finish a recent project or to tinker with the cars out of boredom. Sometimes Tony doesn't sleep because he's thrown awake by the ringing in his ears and the hot Afghan sand making his skin raw, or the icy dread enveloping his body as he plummets through the worm hole. His insomnia isn't picky, but he's grown used to it, learnt how to deal with it and sometimes managed to expolit it. This however, this isn't the same. It's not a feeling that can be subsided through sleeping pills or the comforting warmth of a body lying beneath his own, because Tony's not sure he could feel anything even if he tried. He felt like he'd surpassed tiredness, so exhausted that there's nothing left of him, like he doesn't even exist.

A few days ago, Tony's world ended. He physically felt the shift, the exact moment when time stopped and the earth itself just melted away. His eyes had narrowed on the figure falling from the sky, his peripheral vision red and blurred. The breath was knocked violently from his lungs as he watched Rhodey fall, the realisation that he wouldnt reach him in time slamming into his chest as if he had just smashed into a wave of icy water. A fitting metaphor, he thought, as the gravity of the situation lay heavy on his shoulders, drowning him. Maybe on another day, in another life he could joke about how Rhodey had resembled a fallen angel, descending almost with grace and elegance. It was nice to let his thoughts wander there, Tony decided. Imagining Rhodey as a product of heaven rather than a comotose body eased the pressure in his throat and the pain in his heart.

He didn't register the sound of heavy footsteps approaching echoing quietly in the deadly silence, or maybe he did. Maybe he doesn't care at all or maybe he's not even sure what's real and what's another sick incarnation of his fucked up mind, because this cannot be real. It can't be happening. None of it. Rhodey isn't supposed to get hurt, and Tony isn't supposed to be helpless in saving him.

"Tony?"

The familiar voice strikes a hot pang of fury in Tony's damaged heart, followed almost instantaneously by the kind of deep rooted sadness that Tony knew possessed the dangerous power to easily push him over the edge of whatever boundary he was teetering on. Suddenly every single nerve on every inch of Tony's body feels like it's on fire, searing and burning like he's being branded, his lethargy the only obstacle to prevent him erupting like an exploding star.

The space around him shifts as the presence cautiously sitting to the right of him becomes glaringly obvious. He doesn't even need to look, as there are some people recognisable to Tony purely by the way in which he can breathe around them. It's one of Tony's favourite things when his love enters the room and suddenly everything is a bit lighter, and the air feels freeing and clear. This was not one of those moments. With Steve's entrance, the air filling the confined waiting room physically wrapped it's hands around Tony's neck and was squeezing harder and harder. He wanted to speak, to make sense of the letters and words rattling around his skull but he was being suffocated, and the noose tightened with each passing second.

"I know I'm the last person you want here right now, but I had to come. You have to know this wasn't supposed to happen."

Tony wasn't sure if he wanted to let the permanent stream of tears behind his tired eyes flow freely, or to scream and cry until his throat was raw and he was coughing up blood. He wanted to say, 'What was supposed to happen? What were you trying to achieve?' But the words slipped away as quickly as they rose as he felt his eyes flutter shut involuntarily and his body return to the dull, familiar ache of indifference.

Steve's eyes were on him, boring a hole into Tony's temple that felt too much like a migraine. The captain scanned his features, and Tony shook away the temptation to scratch away the crawling under his skin.

"Pepper told me you love him." He pauses, lost for words. "I always knew you loved someone. I could see it in your eyes." He turns his head to the ground. Tony can't see him clearly in the corner of his eyes but makes no attempt to move, too concentrated on tuning out the rushing of blood in his ears. Steve speaks softly, barely an octave above a whisper. "I didn't know it was him."

That was it. Tony's face crumbled as he dropped is head in his hands, releasing everything. Everything is too loud and too painful and he hears his ragged breaths and strangled cries distantly, long before realising he is the source. His shoulders shake painfully violently and he can feel himself falling apart, feel his body breaking and seizing up at the cold contact of the hard floor. Hot, endless tears paint his face as he can somehow feel everything in the universe and nothing at all at the same time. This is it, he thought. This is how I die. Not torn apart by bullets or metal but of a broken heart, caused by the broken man with the broken bones he was distraught to call the love of his life.

Steve's sickly musings where white noise he tuned out in a desperate attempt to stop feeling. He decided to do the only sure bet he had in calming himself down, and that was to picture Rhodey's face. Not the blood stained, frozen corpse that kept flashing into Tony's mind every time he closed his eyes. No, not that one. The one with blinding smile Tony was greeted with whenever his love was most excited or truly happy. Or that warm, fond look in his brown eyes that watched intently as partner stretched his aching, grease stained muscles in the midnight light of his lab. Or Tony's favourite - the gently snoring, soft features of the man he loved, washed out by the pale morning hue streaming onto their bed. Tony adored this Rhodey; the Rhodey who was peaceful and serene and effortlessly beautiful. The Rhodey moments away from squinting open his bright, bright eyes and sighing deeply as he wrapped his strong arms tighter around Tony's waist. It felt like Tony was just remembering that yes, that's the face of the love of his life, that's the reason he's alive. His hands still trembled and his eyes still stung but all of a sudden, he didn't feel numb. For the first time in what felt like eternity, he didn't feel so empty anymore.

It was that moment when the nurse walked in, her eyes casting a sympathetic gaze to the crumpled mess of a man once hailed the merchant of death. She exhaled a short breath and began talking, speaking words that Tony couldn't hear at all. It was only the small, relived smile she drew as she looked at Tony that told him maybe, just maybe, everything could turn okay.