Innocent Bystander | T. Stark ✔️

ONE

Tony didn't get the girl. He didn't wake up each morning feeling satisfied and proud of the sweat and blood he had poured into making people safe. He couldn't even bring himself to enjoy whatever temporary peace he had managed to secure.

And maybe he wasn't supposed to; maybe what his life had turned into was all too good and too terrible to be true.

Pepper had been at his side for years. It was only natural that some part of him would fall for her. He had been foolish enough to dream that she had felt the same way.

He hadn't dwelled on her rejection for long. She had taken over the company and he had buried himself in his work. They'd went their ways, separate while still in close quarters. Originally, he thought it would be easy.

Tony Stark thought a lot of things, probably too many things. Since he'd flown through the gaping worm hole above New York, he couldn't seem to stop himself. His thoughts rolled over him in never ceasing waves.

All of it seemed too big, too much for one or even six people to bear on their shoulders. But sometimes there wasn't a team of extraordinary people around him. There were times when it was just him standing against whatever delusional freak stepped out of the shadows next.

He knew if he let them, his worries would swallow him up. Apparently Pepper thought so, too. She'd hired him a nurse to live with him, to help him get back to normal after everything that had happened in New York.

Normal wasn't something Tony had ever known and he certainly wasn't capable of it now. Besides that, the idea that he supposedly needed someone to look after him was terrifying. It made what was happening -the intense fear that he couldn't ignore - in his mind real. Yet there was a small part of him that ached to know if it was possible.

If there some way to fix him.