When The War Dies Down

Chapter 17

AN: Trigger Warning: Effects of an extreme panic attack are described as well as an actual panic attack. Basically, most of this chapter will be about PTSD, triggers, and panic attacks, gruesome nightmares, and the like, so please don't read this is a trigger! I'll safely summarize if you just ask!

This whole chapter is basically dialogue and Tony angst.

Thanks for reading!

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Bucky was worried. Tony was supposed to be home hours ago and it was raining outside. Currently, he was trying to track Tony's phone signal to get the man's location.

Once he found it, he headed down to the garage and got one of the older mustangs. Tony wouldn't mind if this one got a little wet. He listened as the engine started and the location popped up on the screen, a screen way too fancy to be anyone's but Tony's. "Jarvis can you ping Tony and tell him I'm coming?"

"He's not responding to me." Jarvis reported, and his voice sounded more worried than Bucky had ever heard in his almost fifteen years of conversing with Jarvis. After a beat of silence, Jarvis spoke again. "I'm worried for him."

Bucky nodded, as if the AI could see it. He probably could actually. "I am too. How are his vitals?"

"He's going to catch a cold and with the arc reactor as it is, he-" Jarvis couldn't finish his sentence.

"I know." Bucky and the rest of them could handle a sad Tony, a happy Tony, and a drunk Tony (Bucky's personal favorite) but sick Tony was the one he had never taken care of. Natasha always did that, and if not her, Rhodey did. He became clingy, whiny, and cuddly, at least, more than normal.

- -

When he pulled up to the Ferrari, Bucky quickly unbuckled and headed towards the car. He opened the door to find Tony curled up in a ball, shaking back and forth and whining. In Tony's world, that was the equal to screaming your heart out.

"Tony. It's me Bucky. Can you hear me?"

Tony nodded and turned around. Bucky almost gasped. The soldier in him was clawing to destroy whoever hurt Tony, but it was Tony who did this to himself. Tony was worse than Bucky could've ever imagined. His eyes were so bloodshot he almost looked like Wanda when she was angry, his hands were covered in blood from him clawing his face, and red stripes from his nails were all his face and arms.

"Sourpatch?"

"It's me Bucky."

"Honeybear?"

"Sir, it is currently raining outside. You are at your private airplane hangar twenty miles from the Compound. Bucky Barnes is by your side."

"Rhodey?"

"He is not here sir. Right now, his plane should be landing in Austria, where he is going on his honeymoon with Nebula."

That was clearly not the right thing to say, because Tony started to whimper and spiral out of control. He started to claw at his face and screamed. "Rhodey!"

Bucky stood, not knowing what to do. What did Rhodey do? He was always able to talk Tony down from these, and Bucky always tried to give them space, but he had watched at some points. He wished his brain would work.

"Tones." The name felt unnatural on his tongue, but that's what Rhodey always called him.

Thinking it was Rhodey, Tony flung himself on Bucky, holding on and not moving a muscle. "I-I-I was so-so-"

Bucky ran a hand through Tony's hair, and they stood there for nearly five minutes, in the pouring rain, with Tony mumbling incoherent phrases.

"Jarvis, have Strange portal us to the Compound. Get Peter out of the area."