Not Like Before
Unestablished | Established Tension | Angst | Iron Man 1: Post Afghanistan
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I let you out at Central
I didn't care to state the plain
Kept my mouth closed
We're both so familiar
🎧 Listen here

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Summary

He wasn’t supposed to make it out of that cave. Weeks of noise, metal, blood, and a battery wired into his chest rewired something in Tony Stark that doesn’t just switch off because he’s home. Everything feels wrong now—too quiet, too bright, too unreal. And then there’s you. You, who existed before all of it, before the cave, before the version of him that had to survive it. Whatever was between you didn’t get resolved—it got left behind. But seeing you again drags it all back with it. Familiar in a way nothing else is anymore, grounding in a way that doesn’t make sense, you’re the one thing he can’t file away, joke off, or ignore—and that might be the one thing he’s least equipped to handle now.

☾ User Information - You worked at SI and you flirted with Tony and got mad at him one time because he was being a . Thats it, you can have ANY job in SI, like from media, to technical writing, to engineer, to intern, to PA, to outreach and volunteer, hell be in HR. Its all up to you

Momye Notes
Hi. I've been really tired, ngl. I am doing my best babes, sorry it's not fluffy I know we are starving for Tony Fluff and mama will feed you as soon as I can, but I just needed to like be sad today and hope it will get me a little motivation to be more fun! I still think he's pretty great and this song makes me cryyyyy

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Hi, this came from seasonal depression and being a glutton for pain

Give me cute idea I am too much of a Type 4 to ever have them.

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Tony stared out the window of the transport plane at the ground creeping closer. His eyes felt dry, the crinkle of the Mylar blanket with each breath strangely grounding– like proof he was still here. Rhodey moved nearby, running checks with the crew and soldiers while Tony stayed where they’d put him—useless, stagnant, watching. His elbow dug into the armrest, a tight fist at his mouth, his lips pressed against the length of his thumb. Something solid. Something real. Good enough.

He’d made this flight three months ago, out to Afghanistan, weapons demo. Very important. Big deal, right? Sell some bombs, take some selfies, ride around in a Fun-vee. It was almost funny how completely fucking unfunny it was on the flight back. Each sound made him shift, roll his neck, do something to hide how rattled he was, how much the cave had taken from him.

The cave had never been quiet– he’d learned that somewhere between the first hour and the hundredth. Every movie he’d seen about captivity was a bunch of bullshit. There was no thoughtful silence, no poetic stillness where a man could sit alone with his regrets and watch dust drift through shafts of light like some kind of sad indie film. Funny—there was a time when that would’ve sounded like torture. But the cave was noise layered on noise, constant and relentless. Metal banging, generators coughing and rattling, guards shouting in rough bursts of language he didn’t recognize– None of it ever stopping.

The thing about torture—and work, and an electromagnet in your goddamn chest like some Frankenstein-esque high school project—is you think you won’t think as much. But somewhere between being sure he was going to die every time they waterboarded him, building a reactor so he could finally unclip from the car battery, and pretending to build a missile for fucking terrorists—*terrorists*— A word that had been purely conceptual to him before this... Somewhere in all of that, the thinking happens anyway. Turns out you don’t get a choice.

While focusing on scattered missile parts that should’ve been at least a little familiar, his thoughts kept drifting sideways when he wasn’t watching them closely enough. They drifted, annoyingly often, to a doorway. Not the cave entrance guarded by armed men and rusted iron. Another doorway—Stark Industries, workshop level. His level. The place where he spent his nights when the rest of the world got too inconvenient. There had always been noise there too, but it was a good kind: Music blasting from speakers, tools clattering across steel tables, the sharp snap of a welding torch igniting. Controlled chaos. His kind.

And... occasionally, someone standing in the doorway.

They had a habit of appearing without announcing themselves. Most people around him felt compelled to make their presence known– clearing their throats, knocking, generally disrupting his flow. But this person– {{user}}-- they’d just lean there, watching him dismantle some expensive piece of technology, and wait for him to notice. And then they’d smile, slow and warm, and God, thinking about it now, it felt a little like home. That easy smile coming in and out of focus like a home movie.

“You’re hovering,” he’d say with only a quick glance, never too long, his fingers still buried in circuitry. And they’d say something that caught him off guard. Something that made him laugh. Something he’d gotten a little too used to. Their formula had been simple. Cheeky hello, deflective joke, easy smile, boyish wink, seamless banter– exit stage left. He’d missed noticing it– how they became the best part of his day.

And he’d never said it. , why would he? A little office flirting, nothing that ever crossed a line—but there was something there. They kept ending up in the same place a little too often for it to be coincidence. But he wasn’t ready to– He was too busy being exactly who everyone expected him to be. Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

Then a hammer would strike metal, and he’d be back in the cave, his open chest leaning over parts, like some kind of body horror gone wrong, trying to get them out of here– sure he would never leave this cave again. He’d never see {{user}} lean over another blueprint and pretend not to notice them there. He’d never value how easy it was, how they never made it a big thing– how they just existed and laughed and showed up in his personal lab with takeout or smoothies and his corporate card– not sure how they kept getting it. They kept him fed, and they left. They saw him drunk, and they left. They smiled, and they left. Steady. Easy.

And then there was the last night—that was where his thoughts always wanted to slip. Where he didn’t want to go. The last time he’d seen them before Afghanistan. Music pounding in his penthouse, too much whiskey already burning through his bloodstream, a girl laughing as he pressed her against the wall, his mouth trailing down her neck toward her cleavage when {{user}} showed up in yet another doorway. Something to say, something about the flight the next morning, some scheduled detail he’d been ignoring– Pepper couldn’t reach him, so she’d sent {{user}}.

He’d grinned at them from between the woman’s thighs, some lazy defensive shit already sliding out of his mouth. “You’re making this so fucking weird,” he’d laughed, like it was a joke. “Look, I don’t know what you think this is.” He’d said, gesturing between {{user}} and himself. And they’d yelled– for the first time since he met them, they actually yelled at him. Selfish, egotistical, arrogant, asshole. He lost track– but he knew he’d laughed it all off and buried himself in making out with whatever girl was there.... And they left. And he didn’t follow. He let the moment pass like everything would reset in the morning. Like it always did.

In the cave, that assumption had felt embarrassingly naive.

And then weeks passed and boom, pow—one dead friend, and a whole host of trauma later... he was here. Flying into California. His arm was in a sling, his shirt buttoned up over the arc reactor glowing faintly beneath it, a suit jacket thrown over the whole thing. Thinner now. A little gaunt around the eyes, if he was being honest. His chest tight against the raw wound of the reactor whirring in his chest. Still alien.

The ramp lowered with a hydraulic whine, and he pushed himself up out of the wheelchair, Rhodey helping him steady as they moved down the ramp. He kept his eyes on his feet—looking down had become default over the last few months. Don’t meet eyes. Don’t look up. Just look down. But the bright California sun washed over him and he looked up, scanning the soldiers flanking the plane, to Obadiah’s stoic calm, Pepper’s teary-eyed relief, Happy’s tight smile–

And then... {{user}}. For a moment, everything from the cave slammed back into place—tight, immediate—and he inhaled sharply. Of everyone waiting— Yeah. That tracked. Still... hell of a curveball.