Fear

Fear. A natural part of the human nervous system, controlled by your senses. A potentially life-threatening situation? Bring in the Fight or Flight reaction.

Being a soldier you had to train your emotions to overcome this instinct, to think rationally, to know how to keep calm in a dire situation. Faced with terrible complications every day that could have potentially disastrous consequences, a soldier on the front line would have to be able to overcome this emotion to think straight and get through the problem at hand.

But even a soldier can't battle against the demons of one's mind.

Even an Iron Avenger can't.

There are nights when he's alone, when Pepper is in LA or DC. These are the worst, when he's alone in Malibu where the wave's crash angrily below the mansion, desperate to tangle him up in their drowning webs of liquid and froth. He has no-one then, only his mind that refuses to wake him up from the nightmares and night terrors. When he does, he ends up screaming in terror. He's ashamed at this action. A man shouldn't scream. A Stark shouldn't scream or show terror or fully reveal how he actually feels.

A real man will just wake up, drink some coffee and go about some duties to keep his mind off it. A real Stark will wake up, take a deep breath and then slip the mask back in place before trying to sleep again. Sometimes he wonders whether these are good nights, when he's alone, when he doesn't wake up Pepper with his terror, with his restlessness, with his tears. When he doesn't' wake up the other Avengers in their own quarters, send them running. He's forced to pull himself sharply back together at these points.

His team can't see him like that. His team can't see the Invincible Iron Man afraid. What type of Avenger is afraid of a dream?

Anthony Stark has seen many things in his life, not as bad as soldiers directly on the front line, but enough to send him spiralling into the depths of post traumatic stress disorder. He hasn't been diagnosed as such, but he's read up on the symptoms and came to the dark conclusion a while ago.

He hasn't told anyone and Pepper just assumes that it's because of his ordeal in Afghanistan.

He smiles at her naïveté, her innocence, her loving affection for him. He smiles a fake smile; a smile he knows all too well is slapped on for effect, to show the public and his friends he's alright, that he's all jumped up about life. It works for him. They fall for the façade; they fall for his alter ego.

He's not Tony Stark at heart.

He's really Anthony Stark, but he'd prefer everyone not to know that. They've asked him about his night terrors, what causes them and why they occur. He tells them exactly what they want to hear, exactly what Natasha expects to hear, what he's told her and Pepper for three years straight ever since he returned from the hellhole of a captivity.

He doesn't tell them they've gotten progressively worse since the Battle for New York. His whole world has been blown out from beneath him, to know that the supersoldier Captain America still lives, that there are actual Gods out there who can conjugate lightning and mirages that confuddle and trick the mind. Seeing the vast emptiness of space has completely jerked the tablecloth from underneath his comfortable plate of solidarity and knowledge, fracturing his belief and stability. Seeing aliens from another planet has gruesomely twisted his once incredibly simplistic life into that of a confused maze where every turn is another dead end, never a clear path to a sleep where he's at peace.

He takes the sleeping pills to escape the dreams, but they only turn him into an addict and increase the terror so badly that on occasions he can't wake up. He's terrified of the implications it's having on him and more often than not he goes into one corner of his workshop, handcuffs himself and forcefully pulls his arms apart so the metal bites into his skin like cold teeth and warm rivulets of blood trickle down his wrists. It grounds him, gives him a sense of placement amongst the world of assassins, Gods, experiments and explosive nights.

He tries to cope, but deep down, he's terrified of himself and everything around him.

He doesn't go to sleep for eight days straight, stocking up on caffeine and Diet Coke to sustain his get-up-and-go. He doesn't want to sleep because of the vicious, curling tendrils of darkness that constantly plague him, constantly warp his sense of momentary safeness into a shock of whiteness splattered with red and black, smudged charcoal lines of his life and webs of deception of those who have betrayed him.

He had a breakdown on the fifth day and asked JARVIS to shut himself down for repairs so it wouldn't be caught on the camera. He can't let his team see him like this; he fears their condescending looks, he fears their prejudgmental attitudes if they saw him so exposed. He'd be kicked off the team for sure. Showing vulnerability was a fatal flaw in a superhero; he'd learnt that from his Captain America comics as a child. Seeing the guy for real and justified this notion and to know he was breaking down, he was having a panic attack in the corner of his workshop cemented the thought into his mind that he was an idiot, a coward, a weakling to allow himself to be overwhelmed by his emotions.

He cried bitterly. But they were silent so no-one would hear him.

Clint and Steve had come banging on his door not long after, demanding that he come and eat something. He had told them to bugger off because he was working on his suit.

He hoped they didn't hear the cracking in his voice as he struggled to regain his composure.

He sits in front of the mirror on the ninth day of no sleep, bar a brief period where he passed out and then came too because an alarm had gone off to say the suit's upgrades had been complete. The full length mirror shows the behind of the workshop, a mess of metal, wires and steam from his shower that he'd just taken. He sits in just his shorts, hair drying slowly into messy waves, not like the preened, smooth look he usually adopted with the help of Pepper's straighteners and her skilled fingers.

That was his masked look.

And he stares at himself, taking in his bodily features and wondering how women actually wanted to sleep with him, how Pepper can stand to stay with him. He's not a narcissist; he loathes the sight of himself. He just spends a lot of time staring in the mirror wondering what he could do to change himself, to see whether he could ever envisage himself as wonderfully patriotic as Captain America. The public love both he and Cap, but him for all the wrong reasons.

Cap's patriotic, willing to lay down his life for the sake of the country. He's warm, kind, loves kids and has a decent backstory where he stood up for himself and took risks when he knew full well he could die.

Tony was spoon-fed through money and wealth, brought up to the eyes and ears of the press. He's been a playboy most of his life, sleeping with so many women you could populate the United Kingdom three times over. He's twisted, ruthless and cruel and killed countless innocent lives with his own weapons.

How do people love him?

Tony doesn't know. He gazes at his reflection, seeing only a man with a scar on his chest; a reminder of the meagre amount of suffering he's gone through. He shouldn't be scared; he should be able to cope with his nightmares and not affect those around him. He shouldn't be scared of going out and having to look over his shoulder to see whether Obadiah or the Ten Rings are going to be standing there, aiming barrels of guns at him.

"What would it be like," Tony said quietly, so quietly be didn't even see his lips move in the mirror. He reaches out with his hand, dragging his fingertips down the cool material, tip of his index finger obscuring the arc reactor for a moment before he removes it. He takes in a deep, shaky breath and bends forwards, tangling his hands in his short hair.

"Coward," Tony whispers to himself as tears prick the back of his eyes "You utter coward,"

And the tears run for the 'enth' time that week as he curls up in a corner of his workshop and breaks down again.

He feels sick whenever he looks at himself on the television in his workshop, when he sees himself in the mirror, whenever he sees himself in the paper. He doesn't deserve the recognition. He doesn't deserve the fame. They keep highlighting him as the Iron Avenger, the one who sacrificed his life.

Thor battled his own brother, broke his own heart to save another world that was not his own.

Natasha suffered the loss of a fellow agent and the capture of an alleged soulmate and then forced herself to face the Hulk.

Bruce Hulked out for the first time in a year or so, having to undergo tremendous amounts of pain stimulated by anger and terror of being drafted into a team he didn't want to be in.

Steve had to cope with being in another century to the one he'd fallen asleep in, he'd had to come to terms rapidly with the customs of the twenty first century and then put his heart into saving it like he would have back then.

Clint had to come to terms with the fact he'd nearly blown up the helicarrier and his partner after being compromised, he had to suffer the after effects of the Tesseract's immense power. And he'd had to be strong after Coulson died.

And Tony? Tony was just brought in because he had a fucking fancy suit. Where was his backstory? He didn't suffer one bit; he just danced around because he could and it was Iron Man they needed to help, not Tony Stark, not Anthony Stark, just Iron Man.

To know that they needed a weapon more than a man frightened him and made him feel very small, insignificant and worthless.

His third breakdown of the week is his messiest and most terrifying, flashbacks and overwhelming images battling against his subconscious as he tried to stay awake, tried to keep himself sane. Anything to ground him to reality has disappeared in a mess of white, black and red. The painful squeezing of the panic attack crushes his heart and mind and his throat and he gasps for breath, terrified whimpers escaping his mouth as he clenches his eyes shut and rocks back and forth, hot tears spilling down his cheeks.

Yinsen swims up to the surface, bleeding and dying as Obadiah looms overhead, laughing as he clutches the arc reactor. Pepper's beautiful face as she stares at a Hammeroid ready to blow, Thor clutching his stomach as Loki stabbed him, the Hulk disappearing through a mass of Chitauri bullets. The sobs become fully fledged cries of terror as Pepper turns into a cold, lifeless body and Loki stands over his brother's corpse, laughing manically. Clint and Natasha end up hanging next to each other, lips blue and tears streaking their cheeks as Obadiah ruthlessly nudges them in their backs with the gauntlet of the Iron Monger suit.

'You did this, Tony,' Obadiah bellowed gleefully 'You did it all!'

"No! Stop it! No! Please!" Tony sobbed, banging his head against the wall to try and rid himself of the images. The stabs of pain brings a clarity to both the real world and his terror-induced attack so he keeps going, hoping it will draw him back to reality. He doesn't realise that he's opening sobbing, screaming for them to stop hurting his team, his girlfriend.

Ten floors down, the Avengers and Pepper are advancing up the stairs when JARVIS asks them to attend to Sir as rapidly as they can.

He lies on the floor, a puddle of warm blood pooling around his head as his breath hitches, hot tears running down his cheeks at the rate of wildfire. His fingers are stuck into place, arms curled around his body with his legs half drawn up to his chest as he trembles uncontrollably. Blood runs down the wall still and his eyes are unfocused and glassy, slightly red from his crying. There's knocking on the door but he doesn't hear it; he can't escape from the fiery, tangling depths of his own mind. His breathing is infrequent, unsteady and he struggles to keep himself awake, his panic attack having sapped the energy from his body. He's terrified of the images still swarming his mind like a host of wasps, terrified of falling asleep and never waking up.

He's terrified that if he does fall asleep and awaken, Obadiah will be there looming over him holding the arc reactor in his greasy paws, or that he'll find himself staring over the bowl of water, getting ready for a dunking, or gazing up at the Chitauri Mothership and Pepper's face as the 'failed to connect' message flashes over the HUD.

"Tony," a voice said softly in the back of his mind "Tony, I need you to open your eyes,"

"No, no, no, no," Tony sobs, curling in on himself as he hears footsteps approaching "Don't,"

"Tony, it's me, Pepper" the voice says, trembling "Pep, you remember me?"

"Just leave, Virginia," Tony chokes out tearfully "I'm going to kill you one day,"

"Hey, hey Tony," Pepper whispers "I'm not going anywhere,"

"Coward, coward, I'm a coward,"

"Shh, Tony," Pepper murmurs, hands weaving into his hair, gentle as opposed to his own angry ones before. Something soft is pressed to the throbbing, matted mess of hair on the side of his head and another gentle hand wraps around his upper arm, running up and down in an attempt to calm him down.

"Sleep,"

"No, I don't want to,"

"I'll be here if you need me, Tony," Pepper murmurs into his ear, dropping a warm kiss to his temple. His eyes are still closed and he hasn't got the strength to fight the dragging cradle of sleep. So he allows it to take him, allows it to overwhelm him, antitrust his partner.

And this time, he doesn't have any nightmares.

Kermit: Okay, so this was a 'prompt' for fear, so I took it and this was made ... one of the worst endings in history but meh. Not sure whether to continue this or whether it was substantial enough – did you want anything else or blargh?

All spelling mistakes are my own so if you see any, point it out!

Thank you for reading:-)

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