Tony realises that yes, all his issues with human contact mainly stem from Afghanistan where the Ten Rings were no strangers to being handsy when they came to torture. It also seems that since he's become an Avenger and an overall not-that-bad-a-guy and stopped selling weapons, every terrorist group/kidnapper on the planet seem to have an on-going bet as to how many different ways they can torture him. 5,000 bucks if you catch him, 75,000 if you can get him to pass out, 100,000 if you can make him beg and leave him with some more band-aid covered triggers and some nice memories to PTSD about.

Another example is when he loses consciousness in the suit, it happens rarely but still happens and his team-mates usually have to pry open his armour, rip apart his metal cocoon to check he's still breathing. If he's lucky he'll stay pass out till they get him to medical or Bruce declares it's safe to move him but there are times he wakes up and he can feel palms over him, holding his shoulders down and pulling off his chest plate and fuck, it feels like the Hulk is sitting on his chest and his head's spinning and why the fuck can he not breathe? Flashbacks of the worm hole and calling Pepper and being freezing cold meld with being held under water and grubby hands grabbing him and forcing him to do things and the sparks from that fucking car battery in his chest and then suddenly there isn't any strange people touching him and he's lying in a pile of rubble while the rest of the Avengers surround him but not close enough to crowd him.

Surprisingly, it was Natasha who got them to back off but then again she is an expert in reading and manipulating people so go figure but he's still grateful for it. He's breathing heavily as the adrenaline works its way out of his system, realising there is no reason for the fight or flight reaction at this moment but his pupils are blown huge and dark with fear as he cautiously sits up with the help of Bruce who keeps his touch limited to what is absolutely needed. They help carry him back to the Quin jet but they avoid getting too close to him and valiantly ignore that their ever-confident genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist almost had a complete meltdown in front of them.

The team steadily ignore the whole panic attack thing but it's like they're treading on eggshells around him and just waiting for the bomb to explode but after a couple of weeks they seem to relax a bit as the expected explosion doesn't come so they kind of go back to how they were. Except when they are happy and getting along swimmingly (well as swimmingly as it can get when two master assassins, a super-human, a demi-god, a guy with some pretty big anger management problems and Iron Man all living under one roof) when his panic attack happens which is a bit of an oxymoron if he ever knew one and fucking awful.

He'd passed out on the bar stool in the kitchen and was not half asleep and drooling into his hand, exhausted after a 70 hour strictly no sleep period spent upgrading his suit, tweaking JARVIS and just generally enjoying tinkering with his new car down in the workshop (well, what he would considered tinkering. Most people would refer to it as 'completely disassembling the latest super car, what the hell?!') Steve had materialised, scrounging for food after a night of diminishing the tower's supply of punching bags and going for an early morning run all before the sun had actually risen. Steve had strode in whistling and rested his hand on Tony's shoulder and saying good morning before starting to snark about something but the genius had jerked awake instantly and then was on the other side of the bar, hand painfully clenching his shirt where is arc reactor lay beneath. Face pale and sweaty beneath his tan, eyes wide and black and scared, all of these Steve instantly took into account.

"Tony?" he says warily, holding his hands out in front of himself and trying to seem smaller and less threatening which is hard when you're a 6 foot plus chemically enhanced human.

The dark-haired man just holds a finger up, head bent down and still clutching his chest with his breath wheezing, "Just-just give me a moment, 'kay?"

Steve just nods wordlessly and shuffles awkwardly, not quite knowing what course of action to take next. Then getting a bit more of a grasp on the situation, quickly grabs a cold wet cloth and a glass of water before rounding the corner of the bar slowly with plenty of noise a warning. Tony's crouched down on his heels now but his knuckles are still white and damp along with his face.

"Hey Tony," he says softly, trying to rid the panic that's flooding his own system at seeing his friend like this "Is there anything you need? Anyone? Do I need to get you to hospital?"

"No" the billionaire quickly rasps, voice rough and grating, "No hospitals." The thought of being left in a cold white box ups his panic even more.

"Okay, okay," Steve quickly soothes, "No hospitals, I understand. We'll just sit here for a bit and when you're feeling up to it you can have some water, alright? I've got a wash cloth here too, you know, to cool you down?"

Tony nods weakly and feels something other than blind hysteria in his chest, a kind of appreciation towards Steve for putting up with his shit, for not cringing and running away but helping him. No one ever helps him aside from Pepper, Happy and Rhodey. The only people in the world he trusted implicitly but now there was definitely a little more trust towards his team who ground him and keep him stable.

"Breathe Tony," Steve says quietly, sounding like he's speaking to a spooked horse, "You're doing great, just ride it out."

A few minutes or perhaps years have passed and it's like an eternity before Tony's posture seems to relax but barely, only his knuckled fists unclenching slightly and shoulders beginning to slump but his breathing sounds struggled at best and a little voice in the back of Steve's head reminds him that Tony does suffer from chest problems, who wouldn't after having shrapnel embedded in their heart and having completely untested technology plugging the wound, and any strain a normal person would have must be amplified ten times over.

"Y'know for a guy out of his time you're pretty good at dealing with this," Tony wheezes, head buried between his jean-clad knees.

"I don't know what it's called now but a lot of guys in my squad had battle exhaustion pretty bad, used to call it shellshock before that I think. Load of them used to wake up screaming in the barracks in their sleep and if you tried to wake them they'd think you were attacking them. We kept it quiet, you know? Anything to stop them from getting sent to the nut house I guess."

Steve always speaks with an unhidden longing for his life back then but it's times like this when he tells horror stories of the war that make Tony infinitely grateful he spent 70 years as a popsicle because what if he'd stayed then? Would he have become some high ranked officer in 'Nam? Most likely because Steve was like that, the self-sacrificing son of a bitch, and would probably be a whole lot more broken now if he'd seen the way the soldiers who had fought through jungles and guerrilla tactics and the terror of being attacked at any given moment, who had survived and made it back to the fabled 'land of the free' only to be tossed aside like rubbish.

"Same thing," Tony manages gruffly as his chest muscles finally; finally begin to expand, "Just a fancier name. Called PTSD now, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Brain thing, you probably have it too, Cap."

"Most likely," Steve murmured, thinking of the way his body instantly froze at the thought of ice and explosives. "Think you can manage some water?"

Tony nods eagerly and almost guzzles the whole content of the cup in a matter of seconds before blowing out a shallow breath of air. Steve hands him the wash-cloth but is careful about the skin to skin contact, wary of setting Tony off again.

After swiping down his sweaty face with shaking hands Tony tries to explain, "It's not - I don't mind touch usually it's just the whole shoulder thing."

Steve frowns.

"I, my dad's right hand guy, Obadiah Stane, he really pulled a number on me a while back. Ordered a hit on me in Afghanistan, ended up with this," he taps the glowing surface of the arc reactor through his shirt, "But alive. Obie wasn't happy with that and he wanted the reactor but nobody else was able to recreate it, obviously not I am a genius after all, so he decided to take it from me himself."

Steve finds himself suddenly furious towards a man he never knew, well, if what he is imagining is coming next in Tony's story.

"He drugged me, I wasn't out of it I just couldn't move, couldn't speak. And I just remember-" the quick-witted brunet pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut tightly before continuing hesitantly, quietly, and a lot broken, "I kept thinking that I was safe, I was in my own home and he could still hurt me and he'd had his hand on my shoulder pretty much my entire life and it was so familiar except he was ripping out the thing that was keeping me alive."

"It's not really a combat issue but it sometimes happens if I'm in a place I think that I'm-"

"Safe." Steve says flatly through gritted teeth and he has to concentrate on his breathing, perhaps joining Bruce a couple of times on his regular meditation sessions would help.

"Look I understand that it's stupid and I wasn't in a war or anything, hell it was only one guy and a couple of months in a cave and then the whole I'm-the-guy-who-cuts-the-wire thing but you don't have to sound like that about it." Voice full of hurt and defence and Tony can feel the invisible hackles rising on the back of his neck.

"No Tony! That's not what I meant," the blonde haired leader says, "I meant that it's even worse for you. We all signed up for the war, we knew the consequences. You were in your home, he violated that." He let out a world-weary kind of laughing sigh, "Please tell me these people are dead."

"What?"

"Tony I'm trying very hard not to go and tell two of the most dangerous assassins in the world who just happen to live with us their names and ordering a hit on them."

"Aw Cap, I knew you appreciated my eccentric ways."

"Tony?"

"Mostly, that alright for you Spangles?"

"It's good enough."