"We fight. I blow off Barnes' metal arm, Rogers cracks the reactor with his shield my father made and gave him." Which was five kinds of fucked up every which way. "The whole time leading up to the Bunker I was trying to get him to listen. To talk to me, with me, to fix the mess we were in and he didn't budge an inch. Didn't try to listen, didn't want to. The one thing he actually heard? Was me telling him that shield didn't belong to him. He left it, shuffled out with Barnes over one shoulder and left me in Siberia in dead armor."

Vision came as soon as Friday alerted him in the middle of the fight but- it'd been an uncomfortable stretch of time trying to determine if he was dying or not. At least he'd gotten out of there before frostbite kicked in. "...one new sternum and a fresh set of braces for Rhodey to try later? I get a package. A bullshit apology letter and that phone."

That he'd carried in case Rogers would ever reach out. A reminder to not trust so easy, to not crack himself open at the promise of stability. That everything he built? Didn't fucking matter to people that weren't him. So fuck them. Storytime over Tony peeled away to pour himself a mug of water, dropping to sit next to Bruce on the table, sipping. It was awful. It was a fucking mess. It was...what Tony should've seen coming. "I thought, for a very brief moment-"

Because despair was fucking pervasive and this? This wasn't something he'd tell anyone but Rhodey and even then it took half a bottle of scotch and a promise of absolute silence from the one person he could trust with that shit. Bruce would understand, maybe. "About killing the homing beacon in the armor. Just. Letting it end."