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Spirited Away	By : AkumaKawa Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Avengers, The Views: 3922 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Nothing of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron, The Avengers, Thor belongs to me, no money made

Chapter List
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A/N: I re-wrote the previous chapters. You need to go back and read the new chapters. Parts of this used to be part of chapter 1.

Friday August 17, 2012 T minus 266 Days
It was nearly a month after the hallucinations started that Tony realized his current game plan was not working.
He tried so hard to ignore them. To dismiss them as his PTS acting up. But it was getting more difficult as the hallucinations kept getting worse and occurring more often.
They had started out once a week, or least Tony thought so since the first one he noticed happened on July 19^th and then the next was a little over a week later (7 days) on July 26^th, but then the next one was August 1 (6 days), then August 6th (5 days), then August 10^th (4 days), then August 13^th (3 days), and now on August 17^th the hallucinations are appearing just about every other day and Tony has a feeling that soon it will be every day.
The increasing occurrence of the hallucinations is giving Tony the feeling that something more is going on here. They come without warning. They come when he is busy and focused, quiet and thinking, and once when he was pleasuring Pepper with his head between her knees when he heard the bell twinkling in his ears. There is no trigger that sets them off. They just happen.
Tony is coming a to horrible realization that these 'hallucinations' are a) not tied to his PTS and b) might not even be hallucinations. It's the last bit that has Tony worried and triggers an old almost ancient fear from his youth to reappear and the very thought of it happening sends Tony spiraling into an impromptu anxiety attack.
Even though Tony was dead set on ignoring the hallucinations something within him told him to pay attention and he had a document recording each instance of the hallucinations and other odd behavior that he was attributing to his PTS to try to figure out what was 'triggering' his anxiety attacks and nightmares and trying to find solutions or least treatment to lessen his reactions to them.
Thus Tony found himself in the middle of the night on August 17^th gazing with trepidation at all the data of his anxiety attacks, nightmares, possible triggers, and the visual and audial hallucinations.
Looking at the research he's done on PTS and hallucinations and had JARVIS dig up information on himself the data that Tony is looking at is showing him that it's not PTS. At least, not everything that is wrong with him psychologically can be attributed to PTS. The data is showing a pattern and not just some randomly appearing pattern of causes and triggers, but something more methodical.
Tony adds another symptom to the data, 'the feeling of being watched' with a tired resignation.
Almost as if Tony called the presence's attention the second after he typed the last letter for the new symptom to his data list, Tony senses the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up as he feels something brush past him, flicking his hair. If Tony wasn't below ground in his workshop lab he would swear it was the wind from an open window. Goosebumps break out across Tony's arms and a flicker of a shadow is spotted out of the corner of his eye. Fuck.
It's not hallucinations. God help him and Tony wishes at this moment he did believe in a theistic God that could intercede in mortal lives and save him from this, but he doesn't and it can't and he is so fucking fucked than he's never been more fucked in his life.
Tony could feel his breath becoming shorter and more haggard, his palms began sweating, a headache appearing, pounding at corner of his brain, and he knew he was about to have another anxiety attack the second time that week brought on by his terror.
No. Not now. NOT NOW GODDAMNIT!
Tony refuses, abso-fucking-lutely refuses to have a goddamn anxiety attack caused by them and have them fucking witness his weakness. So he forces himself to push everything to the back of his mind as he orders JARVIS to turn up his music to the highest level.
AC/DC blasts through his surround sound system as Tony hunches over his worktable with the palms of his fists tightly coiled and he takes deep breaths. He forces himself to focus on the here and now, the goosebumps on his arms, the hair sticking up on the back of his neck, the sweat glistening down his body, and the thump thump of the bass from the music calming the rapid pounding of his heart against the arc reactor as he unconsciously syncs the beating of his heart to the music and slowly he feels himself drift away. It's strange the first few moments away from an attack, by forcing himself to focus on the present he pulls his mind into a meditative state that momentarily feels like he is floating above his body. Slowly his hands unclench as he steps farther back from the cusp of an attack.
Tony isn't ignoring things any more. He's finished with that mode of coping. He has to face reality. No matter how much he wants to do like the proverbial ostrich and stick his head in the sand or the child pulling the blanket over their heads as if it is a magical barrier to keep all the bad things away, he can't. This is his reality.
If Tony wants to survive this he NEEDS to acknowledge the truth and start to come up with a plan of attack.
He just can't do it now. At the moment Tony doesn't feel safe enough to think about what was going on let alone to talk about it to JARVIS. Not when he can still feel eyes pressing into his back as he works on another suit. Later, Tony tells himself as he reaches for the blow torch to work on the finishing touches of his newest suit. Later.
It's several hours later as Friday night is turning into Saturday morning that Tony finishes with his work and orders JARVIS to put it with the others that he takes a break. The music is still pounding and drowning out any other sounds. It's soothing to his mind and he feels safer so he calls up the data once more. A misbegotten hope that his paranoia over the situation had him leading to the wrong conclusion.
It would be infinitely better for Tony if everything that was happening was just Tony going crazy. That the hallucinations are really just hallucinations from the PTS. Or that after everything Tony has been through and all the emotional and physiological damage in addition to the drinking and drugs he would do that his mind is just losing touch with reality. Anything really is better than what Tony thinks is going on and which drives an atheist man such as himself to the brink of prayer in the hopes he's wrong.
However, the growing cold gnawing pit of fear in his stomach feels heavier than ever as he looks over the data and he knows it won't be that simple, that easy. Not for Tony Stark.
Swallowing his fear down once more Tony makes a decision. He needs to know.
"JARVIS," Tony called out as he taps the table with one of his hands in nervousness.
"Yes, sir?" Tony can hear the uncertainty in his voice. JARVIS has been watching him this whole time and he's seen Tony's behavior change throughout the past month.
"We need to do some blood work." Tony answered as he walked off to an area in his lab where some syringes and an elastic tourniquet were stored.
"Blood work, sir?" JARVIS questioned, curiosity and fear in the tone. Probably wondering what crazy idea Tony was going on about now.
"Yes," Tony uttered muffled as his teeth held one end of the tourniquet and his other hand was tying it off. Tony then thumps the vein in the crook of his elbow and slowly slides the needle in to draw out a blood sample. It would be the first of four vials to be filled with Tony's blood.
"I assume by your actions, that it is to be your blood then? What shall I be looking for, sir?" JARVIS asked in his typical deadpan tone when Tony is up to something. Tony could almost physically feel the condemnational judging of JARVIS' tone as he probably thought Tony was about to do something reckless again. Given Tony's record he can't blame JARIS as harshly as he wants to for the accusational tone; JARVIS does have a point and JARVIS is usually the one who has to rescue Tony from his haire-brained antics.
"Any abnormalities." Tony informed JARVIS as he finishes drawing the last vial of his blood. Once Tony places the last vial down he extracts the needle from his arm and places it on the table next to the vials of his blood. He then unties the tourniquet with a quick wrist movement and places it near the needle.
"Understood, sir," JARVIS responded with a tone showing he is questioning Tony's behavior but that he will follow Tony's orders anyway. Tony could hear the worry in his voice but JARVIS keeps his inquires to himself as he has the equipment up and running by the time Tony finishes cleaning the injection site and placing a band-aid on it.
"Ready, sir," JARVIS voice called out to Tony pulling his attention once more away from the prepping of the equipment readying itself for blood samples to be tested.
"How long do you think it'll take?" Tony asked as he deposited the blood samples into the devices that will test the blood for any sort of aberration.
Tony's lab is fully stocked with any and every type of blood testing device there is. The majority of them leftover from a few years back when he was dying from the palladium metal poisoning and was desperately monitoring it and searching for a cure.
"At least four to eight hours sir. Perhaps up to a day or two, as you have not given any specific criteria, of which I am to look for." JARVIS answered back snarkly as he began the tests. From his tone Tony could tell that JARVIS was frustrated at the lack of direction and Tony's dearth of answers as to why this was needed.
Tony ran a hand through his hair as he stares out into the distance in the workshop seeing nothing. A day, maybe more. Then I will know.
"Sir?" JARVIS queried his tone filled with as much concern as that one word can convey.
"I'm fine JARVIS." Tony quipped back as he turned and started to walk towards the stairs. "Just let me know when the tests are finished. I'll be upstairs." Tony ordered as he reached the top and left the workshop.
JARVIS' voice confirming the order, "Understood, sir"
As Tony walked out of the lab he realized he didn't know what to do for the time he needed to wait. He couldn't, didn't want to go back and stay in the lab. He didn't think he'd be able to handle remaining in that room as JARVIS conducted the tests that would confirm his worst fears and change his entire world. It just isn't something that he's able to handle not even with a few drinks in him.
Since he was a child and he lost his cousin this was the greatest and deepest fear he's ever had. It's one thing to face the reality of death and dying, but it was another to face this...this curse and what the end will be.
Children the world over grow up hearing fairy tales nowadays through the medium of television and movies mostly by Disney that puts it into kid's heads that magic is fascinating, powerful, and a force for good it can be. It makes them wish that it could exist in their lives.
The stories told in the films never cover the dark reality of magic and curses and how the old fairy tales were stories to warn kids away from magic and the unknown. That they informed them about the threat that magic could be and instead of wishing that it could exist you should wish that it doesn't exist. That one dark night with the moon hidden that creatures from another world won't decide that you belong to them and suddenly you are taken from everything you know and love and will never return.
The reality isn't like world of Harry Potter it is more like the world of the old fairy tales that contained warnings about how humans are the playthings of other beings and how to avoid becoming their toy for they are greedy and possessive and would rather destroy than let what they 'own' go.
The dark thoughts caused Tony to crave a drink to put them at bay but they kept coming back. So he stood by his wall of glass and gazed out at the ocean. The surf was surging in and out by the to and fro of the moon's gravitational pull. It was beautiful and peaceful and watching the rhythm of it all was like a pendulum swinging in front of his eyes and Tony could feel all his stress and his worries leave him as he stood there feeling the ocean's heartbeat. Thump. Bathump. Thump. Bathump.
The sun had already set by the time Pepper came home. She didn't think anything of the house being dark figuring that Tony was still in his workshop working on another suit and oblivious to the world around him and simply asked JARVIS to turn on the lights. As she walked into the living room area with the ceiling to floor glass windows she was startled to see Tony standing there as still as can be gazing out into the darkness beyond the windows.
There was no moon that night so there was nothing to see but the stars but even out here they are dim caused by the light pollution. With nothing to see out there Pepper didn't understand why he was standing there in the dark gazing out into nothing.
They had just reached the fifteenth month mark since the Battle in New York and just about a year since Tony started to delve deep into PTS, his obsession of his Iron Man Legion and he still wasn't getting any better.
In the past month she's noticed his behavior getting progressively worse. Now, finding Tony standing spaced out in his mind it's just another sign that something is really wrong with Tony.
It might be time to seriously consider getting him professional help.
"T-Tony," Pepper called out softly. Her voice was gentle and low, filled with her fright and worry.
Frustrated at herself for being agitated at nothing she called out his name again, louder this time, like she normally would.
But like before, Tony doesn't answer, doesn't move, he remains standing still and unmoved as if he is a wax figure or an apparition instead of a man made of flesh and blood. A chill ran down Pepper's back for some reason she can't explain. An unspoken fear she's unable to name. Some strange feeling as if she is glimpsing a future without Tony in it.
Pepper swallows down her fears and steels herself up and walked to Tony, slowly, her heels clacked loudly against the floor. There is still no response from Tony at the sound of her loud echoing steps. She stops when she is within inches of him and lift up her shaking hand, half fearful that as she goes to touch him it will instead pass through his form. Her hand makes a solid connection and it is only with that feeling of someone touching Tony that he makes any sound or movement as the glass in his hand falls to the ground and shatters.
Tony was lost to the nothingness of his mind when he was gazing at the ocean and only became aware that there was someone else in the room when Pepper touched his arm. It was a sudden shock to his system as he went from a peaceful meditative state to full awareness of his surroundings and it caused his heartbeat to skyrocket and his hand to lose its grip on the glass.
"Pepper," Tony mumbled in a hushed hurried almost breathless timbre. "I didn't realize that you were home."
"I noticed," Pepper replied caustically as she glanced at Tony and the way he was leaning against the window and spotted a wideness in his eyes as if she scared him. It reminded her of the fear she had moments ago. "Tony," Pepper whispered as she raised her hand to his cheek, "are you all right?"
Tony's tongue metaphorically froze in his mouth as he felt the simultaneous urge to speak and give voice to what is worrying him, what is scaring him, but he also the need to keep it all to himself, that he can't burden Pepper with groundless worries. Even though Tony is nearly sure what the results will be he can't bring himself to speak of it to anyone else without physical confirmation. Not when he is doubting his own mind as he has been this past month. Not when it is when it's just his fear of what it could be. Instead, Tony raised his hand and softly brushed Pepper's cheek. "I'm fine Pep, just lost in my thoughts. How was your day?"
Pepper Potts is many things but a fool is not one of them and she knows that something else is going on here and that Tony is hiding something from her. However, she decides to let it go, for now.
Later on she will remember this moment and bring it up to Tony when she decides to confront him but right now it's not important.
Pepper gives Tony a smile, hooks her arm into his and they walk over to the couch sitting down as they decide to leave the glass shards to be cleaned up later. She curls up next to him and she tells Tony about her day and how Stark Industries is doing. It's all meaningless chitchat that she knows Tony isn't really interested in and she knows Tony is deflecting but seeing how Tony has been coping since New York she allows herself to be his distraction this time.
Ever since Thor's brother came to Earth and attacked with his army of Chitauri, Tony has been jumpy and erratic. It reminds her of the way he was when he first came back from Afghanistan. Which is why she thinks his behavior is something to be expected considering everything that happened that day and how close she came to nearly losing him, again.
The night that Tony told her what happened to him with the nuke and how the Hulk's roar brought him back, was one in which she held tightly to him and had to force herself to not cry and give him an ultimatum to give up the Iron Man gig. She loves this man so much but it drives her insane the amount of worry she has for him every time he does his Iron Man stuff because she knows one day he's not going to return. Pepper thinks its because of Afghanistan, that like Tony has his own emotional scars, she has her own. For three months Tony was held captive and tortured and she thought him dead. Every time she sees Tony in that suit it reminds her how many times she's nearly lost him and that was before they became a couple and her love for him only grew.
Which is why Pepper's been giving Tony the time to get his thoughts back together and build himself back up. She knows that he should be seeing a professional about his issues, but she also knows that Tony would never do that unless things reached a critical level to where he couldn't make science anymore. That rock bottom critical level is something that Pepper can't even imagine or want to see. It's why Pepper was allowing Tony to pull himself back from the business and public life and retreat into his lab to build his suits. It's his coping mechanism and as long as it helps him recover she has no issues with it.
Tonight, however, was making her re-think her decision. In the past month he has been getting worse, more jumpy, more violent nightmares in which he wakes up screaming, shouting, shaking uncontrollably with cold sweat clinging to his body, and now she found him spaced out standing in front of the windows. Maybe it was time to look for professional help.
When the nightmares first happened Pepper tried to touch him to calm him down but that only made things worse. Now she just turns over in bed watching as he crawls into the bathroom and wondering what she could do to make it better, what she can do to help heal him.
Pepper fears that by enabling Tony she's doing everything wrong and she wonders how much longer it will take for Tony to start to be who he once was before New York. Or if he would ever be who he once was again.
Pepper loves Tony with all her heart, but that night as Tony lay sleeping, exhausted, after she took him, strapped down to the bed accepting her domination of him, she laid in bed next to him watching him sleep wondering what haunted him that he couldn't speak to her about. Was it New York? Or was something else entirely brewing up inside Tony?
Pepper had never seen him so out of it as she did when she came home earlier that night to find him standing in the dark.
Pepper laid her head upon his shoulder and wrapped Tony tightly in her arms. She wants to protect him so much from the rest of the world and the nightmares that tear him from his needed rest, but she can't. It's that inability to protect Tony that hurts her more than anything.. That and a looming fear she was going to lose him.
Which is why she is really starting to hate his need to be Iron Man and do his ridiculous saving the world stunts that endanger his life. She can't lose him. Not like that.
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Spirited Away