A/N: Apologies to those who initially read this chapter with the last line cut off (you were only missing a word, but still...). Sigh.

Whatever he had hoped to accomplish by encasing himself in the armor and having Friday immobilize it, he failed.

For a little while, it seemed like a success: though the hunger did not abate, knowing he was physically incapable of giving in made it a little easier to keep the urge at a distance. He could hear it and study it without succumbing to it.

He took deep breaths and let himself relax into the suit's embrace.

Then, for a brief moment, he forgot himself and tried to adjust his stance. When he could not move, panic flared to life. His heart raced and he struggled to breathe as memories reawakened.

Being buried underwater by fragments of his house, unable to move while water seeped into his suit.

The arc reactor stolen from his paralyzed body.

Losing power and consciousness in the cold void of space.

Suddenly he was falling, crumpling to the floor, the shock of it startling him into taking a deep breath. He curled into a ball, his arms up to protect his head from whatever was coming.

Nothing happened.

As his breathing slowed he became more aware of his surroundings. "Friday?" he questioned, his voice sounding small and frightened.

"The suit was disengaged in response to your prolonged distress," she replied blandly.

He shivered, the chill of the floor seeping through his sweat-damp clothes, and awkwardly pushed himself to his feet, his entire body aching. He wavered unsteadily in front of the suit as he recalled why he'd been inside it in the first place.

Rather than return to his cocoon, he sank onto his rolling chair, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.

Friday interrupted his reverie. "It's time for breakfast, boss."

"Of course it is," he said with resignation, but did not move. "What's the ETA on the quinjet?"

"One hour, seven minutes."

He just had to make it through the next hour, then he'd have outside influences to help combat the hunger.

But he'd already endured hours of this and his resistance was worn threadbare. It would give way at any time.

Still, he had a last resort and, as much as he wanted to be strong enough not to need it, he was out of options.

It was either this or give in, and he'd resisted too long to give in now.

He sighed deeply, then reached for his phone. He could have simply told Friday to make the call, but admitting it aloud felt too much like failure.

As soon as the phone started ringing, he wanted to hang up.

"Good morning, this is Dr. Jones."

"I have a question," he said without preamble.

"Go ahead, Tony," she encouraged when he hesitated.

"What am I supposed to do when it's time to eat and I need to eat, but I know that if I start I won't be able to stop?" he asked in a rush of words.

"That's a good question. Why don't you tell me what's going on?"

He told her everything, and finished, "What I should be doing is making breakfast for everyone, since I'm here, and they've been out all night, but . . ."

"What would you like to do?" she asked gently.

"I don't know," Tony said miserably. He was exhausted from the night, from the anxiety attack or whatever that was, from this absurd battle with his own mind.

"Take a few deep breaths and then I want you to do something for me," Dr. Jones said.

He closed his eyes as he breathed. "What's that?" he asked when he was finished.

"You have gone surfing, correct?"

He snorted. "Not lately."

"Think of the urges to eat like they're waves in the ocean. Now imagine yourself surfing these urges the way you surfed the waves. They're there, but you move over them and past them. Right now you're trying to stand against them, and they're overwhelming you."

He could appreciate the metaphor, but he had trouble applying it to the clamoring of the empty hollow. Dr. Jones talked him through it for a while, patiently coaching him, but in vain. He just wasn't getting it, and he despaired of ever being able to resist of the itch to fill himself, much less get rid of it entirely.

If he was going to have to endure this struggle continually, perhaps it was better to just give in and live in peace between binges, his waistline be damned. He said as much to Dr. Jones.

Her response was not what he would have expected. "You could do that," she agreed. "But I think you'd find that those peaceful times in between would gradually shorten and then disappear entirely. And I'm not going to promise that you will ever be entirely free from thoughts of overeating. You won't. But the time between those thoughts will increase and the thoughts themselves will become less powerful as we work together and as you continue your life without bingeing.

"Now I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to give me an honest answer: has there been any amount of time, no matter how short, in the last few hours where you weren't thinking about this urge to eat?"

He had to think about that, and still his answer was hesitant. "Maybe?"

"As you get better at riding these thoughts, you'll find that what feels now like a large, constant need is actually a series of smaller urges that are easier to handle individually than they are collectively. It will take practice and time, but you will get there. You are already ahead of the usual course of treatment."

That startled him. "How can I be ahead when I'm failing so miserably at fighting this?"

"If you had failed, you would have stuffed yourself hours ago," she pointed out. "And I often don't even talk with clients about resisting binges until around this point in the process because they aren't ready, but you were ready to think about it and talk about it from the beginning."

He didn't know what to say. His stomach growled and he sighed, his shoulders slumping. "It was so much easier to give up drinking."

"You don't have to drink to live," Dr. Jones said sagely. "Now, you still need to eat something. What's your plan?"

He didn't have a plan, but she briskly prodded him until he came up with one. Part of it included checking with the team about breakfast preferences, so Dr. Jones bade him farewell. "If it would help to call me back at any point, please do," she said just before hanging up.

Tony took a steadying breath, then said into the comm, "Knock, knock, anybody home?"

"Good morning, shellhead." Barton greeted him entirely too cheerfully.

"Same to you, birdbrain," he retorted. He stood up from his chair and swore reflexively. "Holy shit, ow."

"Does thinking really hurt that much?" Barton teased.

"Laugh it up, you'll be old someday too," Tony grumbled, gingerly straightening and carefully walking making his way toward the elevator despite all the bits that were stiff and sore and scolding him for his over-exercising.

"Was there something you wanted, or did you just miss me?"

"You wish. Two things: what's your ETA and is there any consensus on breakfast?"

"We're about twenty minutes out and we haven't talked breakfast. Steve and Sam are the only ones awake."

"So you're flying in your sleep?" Even with his slower movements, Tony had almost reached the common areas and the motherlode of temptation.

"You don't have to make breakfast, Tony," Steve said, barging in on the conversation. "I can make pancakes when we get there."

"I need to eat something now, so I might as well get everything else started," Tony replied. He stopped on the far side of the kitchen island to gather his courage. He took a banana from the stand; he'd successfully reached step two of the plan.

"Do us all a favor and get some bacon going, then," Sam said.

"Fine, but it's going in the oven. You want it any other way, you do it yourself," Tony said around a mouthful of banana as he turned the oven on and began pulling out the appropriate pans.

"I don't understand why you like that limp ass bacon," Sam complained.

That launched a debate about the merits of floppy or crispy bacon, which other members of the team joined in as they woke up. Tony didn't say much once it got started; his position was clear and anyway he had things to do.

With two pounds of bacon in the oven and the coffee brewing, he started finding and setting out the other stuff they'd need. Creamer for the coffee, which he didn't personally use but he had to smell and taste it to make sure it was still good. He may have poured a fair bit into a cup in order to taste it. Drinking out of the carton was disgusting with so many people sharing it.

Griddle, bowl, whisk, baking mix, and on and on for the pancakes, including chocolate chips. Not that Cap's pancakes needed chocolate chips, but Rhodey had a sweet tooth and sometimes Wanda liked them that way, too. He had no idea how long the bag had been open, so he poured some into his hand to do a taste test. They were fine.

When he turned to pour himself some coffee, he realized he'd not stopped with the taste test and had consumed almost the entirety of the chocolate chips. He eyed the scattering of chips at the bottom of the bag, then shrugged, tipped the rest into his mouth, and shoved the empty bag beneath some other trash in the garbage can before going back to the coffee.

He was torn between the temptation to throw up his hands and give in now that he'd slipped or feel proud that the infraction was a relatively minor one.

The part of him that was ready to give in was starting to win, but then he heard the quinjet landing outside and the chatter in his ear he'd been ignoring stopped completely.

The few minutes it took for the team to appear seemed interminable. He busied himself with checking on the bacon-god, it smelled so good-and setting out enough coffee mugs for everyone. When that didn't take long enough, he started scrambling some eggs so he had something to do with his hands that he couldn't directly eat. And someone would eat the eggs, surely.

In the space between one breath and the next, the empty stillness of the room around him was filled with tired but triumphant Avengers. Well, mostly triumphant. Nat was certain there was a catch or something they'd missed, and Sam was good-naturedly arguing with her about paranoia.

Steve materialized next to Tony, his practiced hands mixing the pancake batter without hesitation even as he leaned toward Tony slightly and asked, "Everything all right?"

"Mostly," Tony answered, scraping the scrambled eggs into a bowl.

Steve might have continued the line of questioning but the timer for the bacon went off so Tony moved to retrieve it and then there were others passing in and out of the kitchen and the moment was lost.

Tony focused on dealing with the bacon, listening to his teammates but feeling somehow detached from the goings-on around him despite his physical proximity. He moved the bacon and the eggs into the cooling oven to stay warmer while the pancakes cooked, but not before he ate a piece of bacon. Then he stepped aside to stay out of the way as the others moved in and around the kitchen.

It was like watching a play or a carefully choreographed dance, each person moving according to their part and somehow not colliding with anyone else even as their paths crossed in complex ways. Rhodey was setting the table, Vision brought him the plates and silverware and whatever else he needed, Wanda was retrieving the butter and juice and other cold things from the fridge, Barton and Natasha were pouring coffee and doctoring each cup according to each team member's preferences, and Sam was frying another pound of bacon in the skillet while Steve continued flipping pancakes, the finished pile next to him quickly growing.

And he didn't seem to fit into that smoothly operating machine.

He didn't seem to fit anywhere anymore. It was a lonely thought. It made him want to eat, and that was a correlation he was going to have to contemplate some other time.

Steve enlisted Vision to help take the food to the table; Tony thought he could help, but before he could find the oven mitts to retrieve the bacon and eggs, Vision had reached in and grabbed them with his bare hands. There were advantages to being an android built with vibranium.

He drifted over to the table. Rhodey rolled his wheelchair into place at one end, so Tony took a chair immediately next to him. He nervously scanned the table and especially the plate of pancakes just in front of him; it would have been much easier to resist eating too much if the food was on the counter. But he might be all right as long as none of the serving dishes ended up by him.

Steve took the chair across from Tony and everyone else settled in and started passing the food around the table. Tony started eating quickly, hoping the three pancakes, four pieces of bacon, and spoonful of eggs would be enough to satisfy his physical hunger. No amount of food would be enough to fill the hollowness.

Then a half full plate of bacon came to rest between his plate and Steve's. "Please don't leave this over here," he said, pushing the plate toward Vision, who sat beside him.

Sam was next to Steve and pushed the plate back. "There isn't room to put it somewhere else. Just leave it."

"Move it. Now," he insisted as he reached out and took two more pieces, shoving one into his mouth whole.

"What the hell? It's your stupid oven bacon, it can stay by you."

"No, it can't." He was already chewing the second piece he'd taken and was willfully stopping his hand from moving toward the plate again.

Whatever conversation had been happening at the other end of the table stopped abruptly as they turned to see what the argument was about.

"Why?"

"Because I'll eat it all," he said through gritted teeth, then ate the last extra syrupy bite of his pancakes.

"So? Somebody needs to because I sure as hell won't," Sam said. "What's your problem, Stark?"

"It's called a fucking eating disorder. I've had a rough morning and I just need to not have this staring me in the face, all right?"

Complete silence fell.

Tony fixed his gaze his empty plate, idly swirling the tines of his fork through a puddle of syrup, unable to stomach seeing the team's reaction to his weakness.

Rhodey reached out and laid a hand on his arm. He glanced at it, then Rhodey's face; all he saw in his expression was concern. He nodded slightly, and Rhodey removed his hand.

"I'll take more bacon," Barton said cheerfully into the silence, and that seemed to be the signal to resume the meal. Steve passed the plate down and asked for the syrup in return, and the clatter of eating was the only sound for several minutes.

Tony was thinking about excusing himself since he was already finished and shouldn't have any more, but then Rhodey said, "We missed having you with us for the mission."

"You've got a suit. You don't need me," he replied.

"It's not the same," Steve said in agreement.

"You've got the tech genius. I've just got the guns," Rhodey added.

"And nobody else continues my jokes," Barton said from his end of the table.

"Sometimes that's a good thing," Sam said under his breath.

"Your contributions are unique and valued," Vision said sagely.

"Okay, you can stop now," Tony said wearily. "I don't know what you're trying to do, but it's not a good look."

"They're trying to say you have a place on the team no matter what is going on with you," Natasha said. "But, being male, they're bad at it."

Tony stared at her, then cleared his throat. "Right. Well, I need to shower. Excuse me."

No one tried to stop him, and he heard the soft murmur of conversation resume as he left the room.

He tried not to wonder if they were talking about him.

.

Tony made it through showering, getting dressed, and shaving before he again felt the pang he associated with the itching hunger and the bottomless hollow. He tried the mental image of surfing that Dr. Jones had suggested and maybe it helped, it was hard to be sure.

He also recognized a feeling of loneliness that he countered with what had been said at breakfast, though he wasn't sure he really believed it. Still, that was more than he had before and he needed all the help he could get.

He crawled into bed and quickly fell into an exhausted sleep.

.

Tony slept the rest of the morning, waking to his stomach growling for lunch. The other hunger had quieted while he slept; the stiffness from his frenzied exercise had gotten worse. He'd take being in pain at the simplest movement over the post-overeating misery any day.

He wasn't sure what to expect at lunch but knew better than to delay eating in hopes of avoiding his teammates. Once again they surprised him: the only reference to what had happened at breakfast was Steve coming up beside him while he slowly assembled his sandwich and quietly saying, "If there's anything we can do to help, tell someone. We'll spread the word if you don't want to have to talk about it in front of everyone."

Tony nodded briefly. "Thanks," he said, and meant it.

This time it only took him a day to realize they were back to the never-leave-Tony-alone routine. Rather than feel stifled like he did the first time, he felt oddly touched by the gesture, fruitless as it was. It wasn't a good use of their time, now that he was back on his food plan and feeling pretty good about it.

So Tony did something that would have been unthinkable even two days earlier: he told the team the barest details about his disorder and about the scheduled eating times that were meant to combat it. "So you don't need to continue with this follow-Tony-around nonsense. As long as I'm eating when I should, odds are I'm doing fine."

"And if you aren't?" Rhodey asked seriously. He'd already taken Tony to task privately for not telling him what was going on earlier.

"I'll tell you," Tony promised.

Rhodey snorted. "I'll believe that when I see it," he said, but he was smiling a little.

Despite the conversation, Tony found he was in the company of one or more teammates more often than not. He also found he didn't mind.

His next chat with Dr. Jones was the following day. He found himself looking forward to talking to her about that morning two days ago. It's not that he was proud of eating those things he shouldn't, but he'd done a hell of a lot better at keeping the eating under control than he'd ever managed before. Surely the next time would be easier still to manage.

Dr. Jones greeted him the same as always. "Hello, Tony. How are you doing?"

His usual response was a perfunctory "Fine." This time, he said, "Good. I'm doing good."