Respect | S. Rogers [1]

39 | THINGS FROM OUR PAST

July 2011
Stark Tower, New York

After lying still for too long on her bed, Rose decided to take a walk. She grabbed her slippers and put them on walking out of her room.

She walked the hall of the penthouse reaching the main room illuminated by the city lights.

"Jesus!" Tony jumped, scared of his aunt appearing out of nowhere, the apartment was silent, and he still hadn't been able to hear her. "You can't do that Aunt Rosie... almost gave me a heart attack."

"Sorry," she walked over to stand by the window next to him.

"Can't sleep, huh?"

"No, I did a lot of that anyway, so..." It was weird. Mentally, she was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, but when she tried, she just couldn't. "How long have you been here, I thought you went to bed like 5 hours ago?"

"A while... I don't sleep much." He surprised himself with what he said next: "Nightmares." It had always been easy to talk about anything with her.

She was shocked pleasantly about his confession. "Do you what to talk about it?"

"Not really." He didn't want to relive his dreams where his loved ones died, again, and he wasn't able to protect them. She must've been staring too hard at that glowing circle in his chest because he added: "You can ask about it you know?" he offered, although it sounded more like a statement or a demand, as if he wanted her to ask.

"I don't want to push you to talk to me about things, Tony. I understand you need to be ready to tell them, but you can talk to me if you feel too overwhelmed by them."

"God, why are you so nice," he grumbled and she chuckled amused.

"I think you are one of the few people that think that... Alright then...what happened?" Tony started to move around trying to distract himself, he ended up by the bar.

"I got captured by terrorists."

Rose's breathing got caught up in her throat. "What?"

"I was doing a weapon launching in Afghanistan," he carried on, not visibly acknowledging her question, "then got kidnapped by a terrorist group called the Ten Rings that had caused an explosion that ended up with me having a piece of shrapnel in my chest. There was another person captive, a scientist, he saved my life building this thing that kept my heart safe. I escaped and managed to improve it, there were some complications, but it works now."

"Tony, I—," she paused trying to structure her thoughts. What was she supposed to say?

"It's fine Auntie, I'm fine." She didn't believe him by a second. A lot of things started to make sense, his mannerisms, his avoidance of touch; to the average person it might seem to be because he was egotistical, but she didn't think it was the reason, she might have missed plenty of years of his life, but she could still read him, this was the reason.