Tony was in his lab again. Not something uncommon for him, really, but on hour 43 of no sleep, he was pushing his limits. He'd been drinking, like he had every night for a solid month. Before the Avengers, he had been somewhat of an alcoholic. Now, almost 31 days after Bruce Banner's death, he seemed to be sinking back into his old coping habits. No one had the guts to say anything to him, not while they were still trying to battle their own demons.

Clint still hadn't been heard from since his outburst at the funeral, besides for a few "Still alive" texts sent to Natasha at a scheduled time every other week. She replied in kind, and they went their separate ways. Nat buried herself in work, taking mission after mission with barely enough time for a shower in between. Thor spent half of his time at the tower with Tony and Steve and the other half with his girlfriend. The demigod seemed to have trouble coping, as even when with company, Thor would stare off into space and barely keep up his end of the conversation. Steve threw himself into managing the media, lining up false Hulk sightings and answering endless questions about the doctor's absence. SHIELD had said to say he was on leave. The Captain didn't understand it, but then again, he didn't need to understand orders to follow them.

But after completing his latest suit, Tony was bored. There were only so many useless equations he could run before he got tired. It was times like these that he missed Bruce even more. The physicist had seemed to have no end to projects and ideas, and he was always happy to have Tony's help. Now, the lab seemed too empty.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Tony pulled out his part of Bruce's ashes. He had enclosed them in a pocket-sized capsule for safe keeping, and since then, the polished metal surface had become his own personal worry stone. The billionaire stared at the ashes in his hand, an idea surfacing. If Bruce wasn't here to give him ideas, maybe studying the gamma radiation from the scientist's remains would help Tony feel closer to his former friend. He knew, somewhere in his logical mind, that the idea made no sense. But, fuck it, when had Tony Stark ever needed justification for his insane ideas, anyways?

Carefully, Tony opened the capsule and let the tiniest portion of ashes fall onto a glass slide, which he promptly suspended with a drop of water and pushed underneath the computerized microscope.

"Jarvis, do an analysis of these for me, will you?" Tony asked, watching the slide click into place through the computer's monitor.

"Of course, sir. Analyzing the properties of the sample now, results will be displayed on the monitor," the AI replied dryly. From his tone, Tony guessed he didn't really approve of treating the doctor's ashes that way, but he was beyond caring. He hadn't spent months bringing Jarvis back online just to get offended at the AI's every opinion. He lazily watched the graphs flicker across the monitor, not really bothering to try and decipher anything until after the analysis.

"Sir, there appears to be some mistake," Jarvis spoke up at he same time the computer monitor stilled, showing a graph consisting of the properties of the ashes, as well as a close up picture of the particles. For a moment, Tony thought he had been tricked. But no, he had taken the ashes out of Bruce's urn himself, straight from the bag they received from SHIELD.

"Jarvis, explain to me how a simple cremation would somehow neutralize a radioactive specimen," the billionaire gasped, looking over the results again. Not a single decimal on the radioactive scale. The remains were human, alright, but…

"It can't, sir."

Tony couldn't quell the beating of his heart as it thumped wildly in his temples, nor did he care about the icy shard currently trying to tear through his gut.

It couldn't be true. Fury wouldn't….

It was.

"This isn't Bruce."