Peter parker & Avengers// One shots

Every little part of me//Tony

Anthony Edward Stark is one of the most insecure people. Although you wouldn't know it, not matter how close you got to him. He's spent his whole life building armor, not just for his body but for him mind. The walls of which are inches thick with the strongest mental matter, because the worst thing he can think of is someone finding out just how insecure he is.

Hands
He hates his hands, can't look at them without feeling his breath hitch in his throat. The scars that litter the palms from one too many 'accidents' in his fathers lab. Various cuts and scratches and chemical burns. They still sting when he looks at them too long. He sees the cracked skin over his knuckles from endless punches thrown to dissolve the hate he has inside. His skin rubbed raw where he pretends to have callouses. That's all people see isn't it, the strengths, the callouses. They like to think he's calloused, but in truth, he's anything but.

Chest
He hates his chest, the arc that keeps him alive is a large and unnatural addition to the far too pale and scarred skin. The edges of the reactor still pain him, where metal meets flesh. The arc is life, it keeps him alive but with a price. Pain, life brings pain, and for Tony it's physical and metaphorical.

Face
He hates his face, the lines he's acquired from age. The tiny grey spots from all the stress of living dotted in his beard. He likes how it looks but not what is means. It means he's worked very hard in his life, only to keep working. It seems as though someone who has put as much time and effort as he has should be enjoying life. Yet somehow he's stuck in the same place he's been for a long time, and there's no way out. The bags that have only grown and grown under his eyes, they show the sleepless nights. With the reminder of little sleep comes the reason for it, nightmares.

Which brings him to the next thing he hates,
His mind,
Yes, his mind is a beautiful thing. Smart, generous, witty and quick thinking. Yet that's just the surface, buried far beyond that which people care to look is the pain. The nightmares and the thoughts, the insecure nature of his brain makes it a dark place. A constant whirlwind of self hatred, it's all he knows.

But nobody knows that, and nobody will every know that.

Agent Phil Coulson, well, he has other ideas.

"Remind me why you called us in Fury?" Asked Natasha from her seat at the round table.

"Coulson has something he wants to talk about" vague but when isn't he vague? Tony thought to himself as he tapped away on a stark pad. Checking and rechecking the schematics for Natasha's new retractable and hide-able knife set.

"I'm here, sorry I'm late sir" announced Coulson as he slipped in the room. He looked around the room quickly before walking over to Tony and plucking the tablet from his hands.

"Hey!" Tony called, now he'd have to check again.

"Now" he started ignoring Tony's expression of distaste, "I have called you in because with careful inspection of recent footage I can tell you are not a team. At least in the metaphorical sense, you don't know each other"

"Excuse me Agent but we do know each other" Steve started.

"Then tell me what Starks biggest secret is." Phil said simply.

"Ugh, I don't know" he admitted.

"I know! He's making weapons again" Clint called out, he may have said it as a joke but to Tony it stung. Just a reminder of what his hands and head had done in the past, as well as all the lives he ended.

"No, but that's why I am here. We at Sheild have created a new machine, with help from off world operatives of course. It can tell us the darkest secret from each mind it reads." The doors locked around them and they stared blankly at him.