There was darkness.

And pain, a lot of pain.

It was like both of them were stuck in an eternal loop of routine, not leaving unless it is absolutely necessary too. Too scared to stop in the fear that if they did, the cold reality might slap them on their face and they would be again drowning in the endless sea of grief and suffocation they are floating in, barely above the water.

Tony was doing better in a sense.

One month had passed to that haunted night, and to some extent he had been able to make up his mind, come to terms with his life–the cruel reality that felt no less than a nightmare. The gnawing emptiness was still inside him, making him believe for once that maybe he really didn't have a heart. Though it hurt a bit less now, the edges had stopped shredding him to pieces long ago.

It was just a numb ache.

Almost like his body was getting used to it.

His days had long blurred into each other, having no sense of day or night or what was happening outside his safe sanctuary. It was all the same routine, using his hands, making new tech, repairing the old one– sometimes even breaking one just so he could repair it again. Anything, everything to keep his mind off the reality.

The attached bathroom to the lab, and the refrigerator were the only places he would leave. And thanks to Bruce, he didn't have to leave his lab for new clothes or food too, because he would get them by his door every week with a letter about how worried everyone was about him – a letter he hadn't bothered to read since the first one.

Because when the first one came, he did read it and as soon as his gaze fell on the word– her name. He had felt all the pieces of him–pieces that he had gathered very difficultly again falling apart. His head in his hands, as he rocked back and forth trying to regain what seemed to be like the last of oxygen, feeling his lungs, his heart– that gnawing emptiness being squeezed making him dizzy and nauseous.

It had been hours before he had managed to gain some semblance of control back.

After that, he hadn't risked reading any word on that letter again. Any letter again.

His thumb brushed across the small picture that was framed in a golden frame. Feeling the emptiness tightening its edges, as he watched the golden sunlight in the frame lighting his mother's face, her soft hand resting on his shoulder while he smiled. A real smile.

The memory seems so far away now, yet so close.

Like December and January.

He remembered the distant memory of the day this was clicked, it was his fifteenth birthday and Howard had yet again stood him up, whole day and he hadn't even received a cold 'happy birthday' to him. He was used to it, but it still hurt, nonetheless. It was then his mother had grabbed his hand ushering him out, taking him to his favorite restaurant and got him a new tool box which he would later use to tinker with stuff whenever he would feel overwhelmed. He remembered the ice cream cone they had bantered over, before finally eating half and giving half to his mother.

He was happy.

His hands were propped up on his desk, as he leaned his head on the photo, hands trembling a bit while he forced himself to inhale a deep breath.

Nora had lost her mother too.

He felt a sudden shortage of oxygen as his thoughts wander back to her but he forced himself to remain calm and not lose control just because he was thinking about her.

He was getting better at this.

And even though he didn't want to, he couldn't help but let his mind remember her, and wonder if she was going through the same agony as his, days blurred into each other– each feeling more burdensome than the next. If she was also torn between missing people from both sides, one who can never be beside her now, her warm embrace giving way to coldness, while the other within her reach, but the distance between them more than there was between two galaxies.

His hand clenched, when he felt his eyes moistening. God she was suffering, wasn't she? Even though he had almost two decades to get accustomed to the void her mother had left in his heart. He still couldn't face reality before feeling a part of him crumbling. And she? She had just remembered that loss, that gruesome night and what followed.

How she might be holding on? When she knows that those agents not only broke her physically and mentally but also took away every last shred of her dignity. It felt like a bitter pill to swallow, to think about what happened to her– it was difficult because even now when he thinks about it, he feels hot blood pulsing through his veins.

What if she was blaming herself for it? The thought sent a sudden wave of anguish through him, what if she was thinking that it was her fault because she was vulnerable, because she let her guard down even though there was nothing she could have done in that situation. Tony knew she never saw her as someone beautiful, even when his eyes she was- is the most beautiful woman he had ever known, what if now, in this twisted cruel situation she would look at her reflection with disgust, had she started hating her skin, looking at her scars knowing that some of them might be from that dreadful night.

He couldn't bear that thought.

He should be with her.

Help her.

Hold her.

He should-

He slammed his hand on the table when he felt his head throbbing with the memory of his dreadful night, when he remembered the look his mother's eyes must have had when she left the world.

He was trying, God he was.

Only he knew how much.

He was so desperately trying to remove that memory. To remove his thoughts, his anger, his hatred any other feeling than love he felt toward her. He knew she didn't have any choice or way out in that just like she hadn't when her innocence had been shredded to pieces. He knew she wasn't that person anymore, she was Nora not Erica, she was Nora, his Nora.

But the other part of him– the son part of him was thrashed a bit- a lot actually. But he would be able to get past that, he knew that. That's what he had been doing for the past month, to make his ever logical brain listen to logic one last time. To tell himself that it wasn't her fault, that she was outside that door hurting as same as him, if not more.

He knew it was not possible to go back to as they were, even if he would be able to get out of this door and see her. They both had now more wounds than either of them would care to count and as heart wrenching it was to think, he knew that most of them had been renewed in the past month, the gashes again bleeding profusely, and that was because of them. That is what they had done to each other. That is what he had done to her.

But he would like to try.

To start from the start, from the small things, to let her fill the void that had again been craved in his chest, because he knew she would fit perfectly there like she was meant to be there.

He wanted to hear her tinkling voice that he knew would give him again a reason to breathe, he wanted to hold her knowing that it would all he would ever do if he would get to do that. But that all was only possible when he would trust himself to be with her.

He was hurting.

She was hurting.

And he doesn't want to go in front of her only to let his grief– his son overpower his emotions, and say things, do things that would break her more which in turn would shatter him.

He just needed a little time more, to be sure he could seal his grief for the meanwhile and look at her, tell him how terribly sorry he was for that night and how he plead to her to give this, them, a fresh chance again.

***
He listened blankly as Fury ran over the briefing of the next mission.

It was again a big HYDRA base and that's why they needed everyone on board, and that was why he was here.

He gave himself a chance, a chance to briefly flicker his eyes to her figure only to feel his heart clenching and bile rising up to his throat. She looked terrible, the dark circles under her eyes were as dark as ever, it pained his heart to see her wrists that seem so fragile now, her neck– all of them so thin, her bones visible. Her eyes had lost their shine, he had let himself imagine that when he would see her again maybe her eyes would be the same frigid emerald they were when she came to the team.

But they were not even frigid anymore.

They were just in a weird blend of numbness and agony.

And though he was sure he didn't look any better than her, he can't help but blame himself– he was the reason she was like this; he was the reason they both were like this.

It's all his fault.

He can look at her, alright. This mission, just this mission, and then he would try to reconcile, to not just break down holding her in his arms but reconcile like mature people.

He would.

Surely.

Only God knows, that he would desperately need to if he would want to save her from all the new torment that mission was going to bring.