#fromthedeskofvpotts

[thefuturistknows]

Turpentine Cyanide | Valentine’s Day 2016

I want to wash out my head with turpentine cyanide, I dislike this internal diatribe when I try to catch your eye, I hate seeing you crying in the kitchen, I don't know why it makes me like this when you're not even mine to consider, erroneous, harmonious, I'm hardly sanctimonious, dirty clothes, I suppose we all outgrow ourselves, I'm a fake, I'm a phony, I'm awake, I'm alone, I'm homely, I'm a Scorpio. Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you

(Part 1)

One of the harder things to accept was how it only ever took one moment – one specific word in someone’s well-meaning sentence, one stray glance at the wrong time, one step toward the wrong place, so many one things that were impossible to control – one single moment. And in that moment, it didn’t matter how good his day had been so far, it didn’t matter if he was in public, it didn’t matter if he was accompanied by people he loved, it didn’t matter how certain he felt, it didn’t matter how structured his plans were, it didn’t matter how many fucking therapeutic worksheets he’d filled in or how many SMART goals he’d set or how many hours he’d spent talking about it, it didn’t matter what he did – it only took one moment. Snapping of the fingers, blink of an eye, and suddenly his will and his mind were only barely his anymore.

That day, it happened while he’d been walking to a restaurant with Pepper, carrying four bags from Babies R Us in one hand, and that hand was hurting, but he needed the other one for the purposes of effusive gesturing to accompany his speech.

“Look, if there’s a world record for cramming the highest number of unintelligible words into a single minute, then that little girl got it –”

They walked past a magazine stand. Tony’s eyes were drawn to a specific cover. The 25 Best NYC Wine Spots for Valentine’s Day.

He didn’t make much of it. He kept walking.

“It was absolutely fascinating, actually. I didn’t even have to say anything, she was the one who answered every single question she asked me –”

Hot Dog street cart. Didn’t sell alcoholic beverages.

“I’m entirely convinced that’s some early display of pure genius.”

Couple of chatty teenagers bumped into him, one of them quickly apologized before heading off.

(Teenagers drink during parties, sometimes, even if they shouldn’t. God knew Tony used to.)

“Anyway, if not, then it was still – a lot of energy, she bounced around so much –”

Restaurant window. Four people drinking red wine, two champagne.

Pepper stopped at the door, holding on to his arm so he’d do the same.

“This is where you made our reservations.”

Indeed. And after walking past their window, it occurred to Tony that he’d be offered a wine list.

He followed Pepper inside. His nails were digging into the palm of the hand holding the bags, he shoved the other hand in his pocket.

Pepper was giving his name to the hostess. There was a couple waiting to his diagonal, the woman was going over the menu. He couldn’t even read it from this far, but he assumed there was a cocktail section.

There were several bumper-sticker type catchphrases people used in those AA meetings.

Think, think, think! was one of them.

It was about recognizing patterns, not allowing oneself to be taken in by the seemingly inexorable inertia of a craving as it creeped in – if he started thinking in terms of alcohol, it meant he was close to landing on a problem.

“Tony,” Pepper called. “Are you awake? Let’s go.”

Only then did he tear his eyes off the menu he was trying to read over the woman’s shoulders.

Think. Think. Think.

“I’m, uh –” He bumped his back against the door when he stepped back. “I’m gonna need a minute.”

“Tony?”

“You can take our seats.”

The hostess was looking. He placed the bags carefully on the floor, and lifted a shaky index finger just as Pepper was about to ask something else.

“One minute. Sorry.”

He headed out of the restaurant, and promptly started walking down the street away from it. He heard Pepper calling out behind him.

“It’s just a walk around the block,” he said over his shoulders, and then kept going without looking back.

Tony had to bump against one person before he accepted the fact that walking with his eyes squeezed shut wasn’t a good idea. Both hands were in his pockets now, one of them was holding on to his 24-hour AA token.

They had a HALT acronym as well.

Hungry. Check.

Angry. Check.

Lonely. Check.

(Triple-check.)

Tired. Giant, eternal check.

Halt.

Think.

Focus. His throat was dry. He wanted to do something very stupid. It was very stupid. He tried to keep reminding himself of how stupid it was.

He’d half-assed the Relapse Prevention worksheets his therapist had given him. List three consequences, the thing had said. Formulate a plan: If I use again, I will…? Tony had jotted down all the immediately obvious textbook stuff. I will regret it. My friends will stop trusting me. I will start over. And stuff like that, nothing else.

He hadn’t half-assed it because he didn’t think those were important considerations, though. No, actually, it was because the things that honestly came to mind were If I relapse: I will binge my way into the grave because I’ll never want to be conscious of anything ever again.

If I relapse: kill me. Just fucking kill me.

That wasn’t something he’d wanted to write down.

Tony stopped by the magazine stand. His eyes were drawn to the wine guide again, because of course they were. He reached out and picked up the magazine, because of course he did, because of course he was madly fixated and he needed to see the pictures –

He figured, maybe if he satisfied the visual longing, he could distract himself from the… other levels of longing –

Pepper snatched the magazine from his hands.

Tony closed his eyes, and released a shaky breath through his teeth.

“I hate when people do that.”

“I hate to be kept waiting,” Pepper said matter-of-factly. “It’s been more than a minute.”

Tony opened his eyes.

“You know, when I say…” He had to breathe in, and out again. One of his hands went back into his pocket. “It’ll only take a minute, sometimes it’s not literally… one minute.”

Another deep breath.

“Sometimes it’s like… two, even three.”

Pepper’s eyes were on him before she dropped them to the magazine cover, and then back.

“Do you want to drink?”

“I don’t want to.”

(Slightly! Slightly.)

He took the magazine from Pepper. He hated that she knew what he was looking at.

“Hey, sorry,” the seller told him as Tony tried putting it back where he got it. “You read it, you buy it.”

Tony stood there, frozen and terrorized by the sense of inherent damnation that came with the idea that he was stuck with this perverse guide–

“I’ll buy it,” Pepper said, taking the magazine from Tony’s hand again.

Tony stepped away. He used a nearby parking meter as support for his back, his hands were back in his pockets. He regretted not having picked sunglasses with darker lenses.

“Valentine’s Day sucks,” he breathed out as Pepper approached him again, like that was the best explanation he had to give.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Pepper replied, like she believed his explanation.

“Where are the bags?”

“At the restaurant. I’ll pick them up.”

She didn’t leave her spot, though.  

Her ponytail tumbled over her shoulder when she briefly turned her head in response to some noise.

The first time Pepper told him she loved him, it was also the first time in his life Tony had ever heard it from someone, in a romantic sense, and it had happened on Valentine’s Day.

Well, not on Valentine’s Day, just the day in January when he gave her a gift that was meant for Valentine’s Day –

Tony swallowed. His eyes were filling up.

He did not give a flying fuck about that whole thing.

He did, however, remember Pepper’s choice of wine that night, he remembered their choice of champagne, and that was what came to mind as he looked at her now, that’s what he was missing, that’s what he wanted to repeat, nothing else, just that –

Ride it out, he reminded himself. Cravings happen. Ride it out.

“It’s amazing,” Tony swallowed. He pocketed his hands when Pepper tried reaching for them. “It empties you out. It just -- empties you out.”

“It’s okay,” Pepper said.

Tony closed his eyes.

It wasn’t okay.

Then he nodded.

“I know,” he said. “It’s fine.”

He was aware of the people watching. Pepper was right in front of him. He had to get this under control. He couldn’t let it show. He couldn’t let anyone down with this, he couldn’t do it.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

First things first: toughen up.

“Let’s go back.”

“Are you sure?”

He opened his eyes. Pepper was still studying him.

Actually, AA also had a “first things first” rule.

First things first: sobriety.

“I’m not sure,” Tony admitted.

“I’ll pick up our bags,” Pepper said. “We’ll go someplace else.”

He shook his head.

“I can’t.”

“Tony.”

“I want to go home.”

He tried to tell himself that this was a good thing. He was told it was okay to remove himself from situations.

Pepper didn’t look like she thought this was a good thing.

“I’ll go with you.”

“No,” Tony said. He straightened his posture. “I’ll just –”

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

“Why not?” He asked, defensively. “Because later on you might find me lying face down on my vomit, is that what you think will happen?”

He waited for a reply, but before Pepper said anything, he could see it in her eyes.

“It is, isn’t it.”

No response from her. Tony looked away as well after she did.

He was feeling something else, now. Complete devastation.

“It’s not like that, Tony,” she said eventually.

It was exactly like that.

“I get it,” he answered. His voice was tight. “It’s fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Well, I’m hurt,” he said. “But I get it. I get it, I spent decades saying I wanted to be alone while I was dying in the background. You don’t trust me. I get it.”

He felt Pepper’s touch on his upper arm.

“I don’t want you to be alone, Tony,” she said. “That’s it.”

Tony didn’t answer. Pepper ran her hand up and down his upper arm, then squeezed it.

I want to be alone, he wanted to say.

I’m overwhelmed.

“I need you to trust me,” Tony whispered, and it sounded pathetic even to him, he’d said variations of this so many times, invariably before doing something stupid.

One of his hands was still in his pocket. When he took it out, he was still holding his AA chip. He passed it on to Pepper.

He hadn’t talked about it, much less shown it to anyone until now. And he’d had no plans to. He wasn’t ashamed, but this wasn’t an accomplishment he needed on display.

“They give you one of those when you get started,” Tony said. “I have two. So far. I have the one for the one month benchmark as well. But it’s the 24-hour one I’m attached to, because it’s the one I can win every day.”

Pepper looked up from the token in her hands, then focused on him. Tony looked down.

“I wasn’t the one who said that. My sponsor did,” he continued. “I see him twice a week, before the meeting. I got to pick the days. Sundays, because weekends are lonely, and Wednesdays, because that’s right in the middle of the week, right, and weekdays are tiring.”

He lifted his gaze from his feet, to Pepper’s hands.

“I will get a gold chip exactly a week from now, it’s for two months.” He closed his eyes. “I’m doing that 90-in-90 thing they recommended. I haven’t missed a day since I started. I haven’t missed a day at the clinic either. I get actual homework from these things. I’ve been doing everything. I’m doing the reading. I called you.”

He looked at Pepper.

“I know you’re fine with me calling, right, so today I was – I mean, it’s Valentine’s Day, right – so, I called you. Instead of just sitting there, not… calling anybody.”

He swallowed, and bit his bottom lip.

“I know this is nothing compared to all the reasons I gave you not to trust me,” he continued. “But – I’m really –”

No. No but’s.

“Just tell me what you need me to do. Tell me what you need to help you trust me.”

Pepper opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. She did it one more time before she closed her eyes briefly, shaking her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re doing everything.”

“Don’t apologize for this. None of it was ever your fault.”

“I don’t need anything else.”

Pepper passed him back the token, and Tony put it away.

“Well, I don’t need anything else beside a ride,” she added. “You drove us over.”

Tony was able to smile after Pepper did.

He still felt like he was being handled like a ticking time bomb, even after Pepper said goodbye. He didn’t know if it was something he’d seen in her eyes or if it was something he was projecting there. What he did know was that he wanted to drink just to drown out the tick, tick, ticking of the clock in his head, and what a fucking ridiculous self-fulfilling prophecy that would be.

Tony didn’t know for how long he sat right by the door of Karla’s apartment. More than two hours, because that’s when he had stopped checking his watch. Still, he didn’t look up immediately after he heard the door opening.

“You’re unsettling the neighbors,” Karla said. Not cold, but disconcertingly neutral.

“I’m Tony Stark.”

“Does being Tony Stark disqualify you from harassment?”

“I’m harassing you?” He actually looked up at that. “Is this weird?”

One of Karla’s eyebrows quirked upward.

“My neighbors think so.”

“And you care about your neighbors.” He said it like there was a sense of wonderment inherent to that assumption. “Sorry. I didn’t want to intrude.”

Again.

“You’re sitting on my doorstep.”

“I know, trust me, I’ve been here for hours.”

“You could have called.”

“I’m sure you were doing something important.”

“You could have tested your theory by calling first.”

He hesitated.

“Wait. I’m intruding.”

“Slightly, yes.”

“I just figured you’d come out eventually, so I’d talk to you when you were in the mood to deal with the world.”

“What if I’d decided not to get out today, you’d have just sat here the whole night?”

“No!” Tony scoffed. His legs had been stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, but now he bent his knees and brought them close to his chest, but not quite touching it. “That would be weird.”

“Right.”

“I didn’t have anything else to do.”

A couple silent heartbeats, and then Karla sat by his side.

“Me neither.”

She wasn’t looking at him, which gave Tony an opportunity to examine her profile. Her eyes were catching the last of the day’s light.

“Is it too much to assume there’s a point to this visit?”

Tony blinked his gaze away when Karla’s turned to meet his.

“Obviously,” he said. “And I mean, it’s not a phone thing.”

He waited for a response, and when none came, he realized he’d been hoping for one, so that he could have gone on some other tangent and bought himself more time to figure out how to phrase any of this properly. Those hours sitting alone out there hadn’t been enough, apparently.

None of that, though.

“It’s just, you know.” He swallowed. “I wanted to let you know that you can go.”

Tony wasn’t looking at Karla, so he couldn’t measure her expression.

“Not that you need my permission. Obviously.”

Even though that’s what he’d just made it sound like. Idiot. He was bad at this.

“I’m just saying, I think I kind of implied that you needed to stay here and do something to prove you’re not batshit evil,” he continued. “And that is kind of stupid.”

“You’re apologizing?” Karla asked. “Was that the point of the flowers?”

Tony cleared his throat, now looking ahead instead of down.

“I’m saying that – I don’t think there’s such a thing as appealing to justice when it comes to trust, you know, there’s no quantitative anything that you can do to be entitled to it.”

Rambling. Get to the point.

“But there is such a thing as basic humanity. And not treating people like they’re nothing but a grenade with the pin pulled.”

He looked down again.

“I could have just stayed away, but I hounded you like you were an impending apocalyptic scenario or something. So, yes.” He bit into his bottom lip. “Yeah, I’m apologizing.”

Karla didn’t say anything immediately, and Tony wished he could see her expression. His self-consciousness won out though, and he didn’t look.

The silence was killing him. It might have lasted three seconds or ten minutes, he couldn’t even tell.

“For what it’s worth,” he continued. “I really didn’t – don’t want you to leave.”

“You said that before.”

Yeah, she was still listening.

“I’m not sure what I meant actually came across the first time.”

“You could try rephrasing it.”

Tony cleared his throat again, then actually turned his head to look at Karla. His eyes met hers, and stayed there for a second. Then it dropped briefly to her lips, and then up again. She placed a hand on one of his knees.

“Do you want to go somewhere?”

The pitch of his voice rose embarrassingly at the last word. God damn it. Karla pulled her hand back and used it to push some hair away from her face.

“Kamala would be heartbroken if I left,” she said, matter-of-fact.

And you care. Tony couldn’t help his smile.

“I meant like, dinner.”

Raised eyebrow on Karla’s part.

“Or lunch. Or breakfast. I mean,” he shrugged his attempted nonchalance, turning his gaze away again. “Whatever your date thing is.”

More silence from Karla. God, this was going to kill him.

“I’ll think on it.”

Tony stood up when she did.

“Good. So you’ll just…”

“Let you know.”

“Let me know,” he cleared his throat. “Exactly. So I’ll – go. Now.”

Karla nodded.

“Nice seeing you.”

He smiled, then turned his back, pocketing his hands like he was feeling relaxed and confident and absolutely not as if he’d just run three marathons.

He had to turn around and look at Karla again, just as she was closing the door.

“Okay, hold on,” he said. “No pressure. But it would be cool if you could make a decision in the next –” He looked at his watch. “Six hours.”

“That’s putting pressure.”

“Right!” He ran a hand through his hair. “Obviously. Of course, you don’t have to.”

Tony started stepping away again, but then he quickly turned back. Karla had been waiting in the same position like she knew he would do that.

“I just can’t help thinking in terms of future,” he started to explain. Or Tried. “It’s just something that I do. Sometimes it serves me well, sometimes it doesn’t.”

More rambling. Not good.

“So I was thinking, you know, in the long-term – if there’s a long-term for us –”

He hesitated. Karla didn’t leave, she just nodded for him to continue.

“It would be kind of cute if we could look back on Valentine’s Day first date.”

[justatrainingexercise]

The Shortest Day // One-Shot

He didn’t dream. He wasn’t convinced he’d slept, even; he remembered, distinctly, the hand reaching into his chest, the screaming pain, his body hitting the ground so hard his bones seemed to rattle in his skin while his mind was still six steps behind trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened...

And then he tried to call for Tony’s position, but instead of opening his eyes to the HUD and finding himself enveloped in metal, he was blinded by searing white light and struggling against cheap cotton sheets, and the best he could manage was deep, painful coughing as punishment for trying to work his lungs so hard so soon. The fight for air forced him to sit up, but even over his own gasping and choking, he heard someone speaking to him. 

Pepper. Pepper was seated on the bed next to him, holding a glass of water, and standing behind her was Steve.

Tony wasn’t there. 

He shook his head at Pepper and pointed past her, to the purse she’d left in her seat across the room. If Tony wasn’t here, he was probably trying to catch Vision by himself  --

Pepper didn’t follow, and Rhodey still couldn’t get his chest to calm the fuck down. He made the universal hand symbol for “phone,” and that did the trick, but it was Steve who dropped a phone in his hand.

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

Shit. How long had he been out? He felt as though he’d swallowed a quart of mica and chased it with battery acid. He dialed Tony, then accepted the water from Pepper and drained half of it as he put the phone to his ear. It didn’t ring but went directly to Tony’s voicemail.

“Where’s Tony?”

Pepper and Steve exchanged glances. They didn’t know.

“We don’t know,” Pepper said. “He disappeared this morning.”

Jim wasn’t even sure what morning it was, but he knew Tony. Tony didn’t disappear unless some part of him wanted to be found; Jim just needed a lead.

“Either of you have an Avengers comm?”

Steve did. Jim accessed the server, and there it was: a video message from Tony, tendering his resignation and otherwise offering assurances that he was fine. Following that was a video for Steve and Thor, but Jim only half-listened, interested solely in an indication of where he was. One of his own residences, clearly, at least at the time of recording the video, but all of them had laboratories...

JARVIS. Steve had primary access to JARVIS.

Or -- Steve had gotten a private message. Jim would bet Pepper had, too. If Tony would tell anyone outright where he was, surely it would be her.

“You have yours?” he asked her. She retrieved it, and they watched through the first video again to see what may come after.

“I’m in the Hamptons house.” 

Rhodey nodded sharply to himself -- and to Tony -- and made to sit up next to Pepper. She reached for him, and he was just starting to nudge past her when Tony caught his attention again.

“I’m fine. I’m safe.”

No, you’re not.

“I mean, you know where I am so you know I’m not lying. I just – I made my choice, and you did all you could. You did all you could, but no matter what you do, there’s a part that needs to come from me, and it won’t, I won’t. I won’t deliver it. I can’t.”

You can and you will, goddammit

“I never will, and, that’s done, and, I’m being honest, so – please, respect that, and just – don’t come here.”

“Like hell I won’t.” He was almost surprised to hear himself speak.

“You were always the best part of me, I need you to know that. And Rhodey, you need to go watch the God damn Star Wars movie, I mean, seriously, I told you we should have gone on the 18th – anyway, just go see it. Please. Please. I’m so sorry.”

Not yet you aren’t, Jim thought, followed immediately by, Me, too.

“I’ll go get him,” Steve said. Jim managed not to click his tongue -- he’d almost forgotten Steve was there -- and made to stand again.

“Thanks, Cap, but I got this.”

Or not, as the nurse would have it. And Pepper seemed okay with sending Steve, so despite every fiber of Jim’s body screaming for him to be the one to find his best friend, he finally conceded that he probably wasn’t in any shape to leave the hospital yet, if only because he’d then be throwing stones from a glass house if he tried to talk to Tony about reckless self-endangerment tonight. When the nurse finally left to fetch a doctor, Jim beckoned Steve over.

“He’s going to try to deflect and tell you he’s fine. Do not leave that house until you are certain he’s safe.”

Steve nodded, and somehow, that inflamed Jim’s frustration further. He knew, probably better than Steve did, how Tony looked up to Steve, how one of Tony’s deepest fears was disappointing people, and how Steve was reportedly pretty upfront about his disappointment to the point of being (almost?) self-righteous -- if not Jim, then Pepper should go, but she didn’t interject, so Jim decided to make the parameters very clear.

“And don’t make it worse.”

He felt Pepper watching Jim as Jim watched Steve, but she didn’t speak until after Steve had gone.

“You’re not why he’s gone.”

Jim frowned. She leaned over to help him adjust the bed and pillows so he could sit upright, and then she took a seat next to him.

“I know I’m not. I didn’t ask the ghost robot to stop my heart -- ”

She shook her head but didn’t meet his eye. Jim settled a hand over hers.

“What happened?”

Her eyes were shining when she looked back to him, took a breath, and began recounting the events of that morning.

[a-man-outof-time]

The Longest Night // One-Shot

[[Immediately follows Blue Christmas and precedes Highway of Fallen Kings.]]

Steve had intended to simply take a walk around the borough -- an hour, tops. The last thing he wanted was to run from her, especially since...well. He wanted to trust that she would still be there...

He was supposed to be past this.

His phone buzzed as he crossed the lobby, and in the hopes that it may have been Bucky, Sam, or Tony -- and vaguely dreading it may have been Peggy -- he pulled it from his pocket. 

Shit, punk…I’m sorry.  She was a good woman, but you know that.  Let me know if you need anything.  Should hopefully be back tomorrow latest.  I don’t know what to say, not really, except whatever you need, you got it okay?

He paused, then stepped aside so he wasn't standing in the middle of the lobby. He knew he could have very easily jeopardized Bucky's mission by calling, but any guilt he might have had about it was vastly overruled by the relief of knowing that Bucky was safe enough to respond. Steve was half-tempted to text Bucky back, or even to call again on the half-chance of hearing his voice properly, but before he could even begin to talk himself out of it, his phone began to ring.

“Pepper?”

“Steve! Oh, thank God. Have you heard from Tony?"

Steve frowned.

"No. I called him a little while ago, but it went straight to voicemail. Is he okay?"

A heady pause, and then: "I don't know."

Whether she couldn't or wouldn't, she didn't elaborate. Steve suspected it was the former.

"Where are you?"

Her answer came in a rush of breath, as though she'd been holding it in anticipation of his question in lieu of asking her own.

"NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Weil Cornell. Rhodey was injured yesterday..."

He glanced back at the elevator as he considered going back for his jacket and boots -- he was still wearing an old pair of loafers that passed as house slippers, sweatpants, and a t-shirt -- but he was already downstairs, and hey, his clothes were clean, even if they weren’t strictly road-appropriate. Or that’s what he told himself, anyway, as he changed tack and headed for the garage.

"Okay. I'm on my way."

Forty-minute minutes later, he arrived at the hospital; another hour and a half after that, he was sitting in morose silence across a cafe table from Pepper, absorbing her retelling of the last twenty-four hours as she recovered from it. From a distance, she might have looked a picture from a classic film -- ankles crossed, hands folded around a crumpled napkin, gaze distant and soft -- but from where Steve was sitting, she looked like she was trying to hold the very world together, and he wasn’t so sure that was an exaggeration.

He watched his own hand flatten against the top of the table, then looked up to her.

“Jim is in good hands and Tony is AWOL. How about you?”

She looked at him as though she’d forgotten he was there.

“What?”

He turned his hand over, palm up and supplicating; she looked down at it, then pursed her lips, looked up at him, and offered him a barely-there shrug.

“I don’t know how to begin searching for him, and even if I did...” She shook her head, sending the locks of hair that had fallen free dancing around her temples.

He understood. If Tony didn’t want to be found, no one short of Stephen Strange was going to find him -- and more, she would be inconsolable until he reappeared. He knew as well as anyone that being safe yourself only meant so much when someone you loved was out of reach.

“Well” He stood and gestured for her to do the same. “We do know where to find Rhodes.”

Around 2, Steve talked Pepper into going home for a shower and a bite to eat; by 3, she had returned with a sandwich for Steve and no news of Tony’s whereabouts; by 4, Steve was starting to get antsy about being in a hospital for so long, but he was still there when 5 o’clock rolled around. Nearing 6, he finally thought to check his phone, but Pepper had been keeping an eye on hers, so he wasn’t surprised to find that Tony hadn’t contacted him, either. 

At 7:34pm, Jim coughed. Then again. Pepper leaped to her feet; Jim raised a fist to his mouth and almost sat upright for how deeply he doubled over, fighting for air as Pepper landed at his side.

“Here, here’s some water -- ”

Jim waved it away, then pointed past Pepper with his free hand to where she’d been sitting. Both she and Steve turned to look, saw nothing but Pepper’s purse and shoes, and turned back. Still coughing, Rhodey closed his eyes, shook his head, and extended his thumb and pinkie finger in an imitation of a phone.

“Oh!” Pepper hopped up to retrieve purse, but Steve beat her to the punch and handed over his own phone.

“Here.”

“Thanks.” The word left Jim as hardly more than a croak. He switched the phone to his other hand, then accepted the glass of water Pepper had re-offered and took a drag as he raised the phone to his ear. Seconds later, he grimaced and pulled the phone away; Steve suspected he’d gotten Tony’s voicemail as well.

“Where’s Tony?”

Pepper and Steve exchanged glances.

“We don’t know,” she said. “He disappeared this morning.”

“Either of you have an Avengers comm?”

Steve did. Moments after he handed it to Jim, Tony’s voice began to filter through the small speaker. He heard Pepper whisper Tony’s name, and she and Steve both huddled around Jim to see that Tony had left a video for them on the Avengers server.

“This is a message to the Avengers, Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy. From me. You know who I am.”

Pepper pressed her hand to her lips. Jim was watching the screen with the intensity of a man with his world in the balance.

“Anyway, I don’t want to joke around with this. It’s important, I just wanted to say –  Due to personal circumstances, I am now tendering my, uh, resignation as an Avenger. Effective immediately.”

Steve inhaled sharply but said nothing.

“Some people just aren’t cut out for it. It’s taken its toll on me. So I’m. Dropping it. That’s it, there’s nothing else. Uhm. A few laundry list items, just in case. Just so you know. You don’t need to worry about the money, or the estate, or the technology. It’s yours. By the time you get this message, our whole database and JARVIS will belong to Steve – I mean, as much as JARVIS can belong to anyone.” 

Pepper glanced at Steve, but Steve kept his eyes on Tony.

“What’s a good cover story for a superhero going missing, anyway? I mean, just. Tell people I died? It’s not like I’d be the first one, it should be fine, right?”

The video ended with a weak laugh from Tony, but after a brief pause, Tony reappeared.

“I’m so sorry.”

Steve and Rhodey frowned in unison.

“Okay, look – I have a complicated relationship with higher power, and the like. But the closest I’ve ever gotten to believing in something – bigger, it’s because of you.”

He wasn’t sure how he knew, but somehow, Steve realized that this particular segment hadn’t been meant for the wider audience of the previous one.

“What are the odds that I’d ever get to meet the two of you and have a clean slate, I mean, how does that happen, how is it that you first heard of me when I was already the best that I had to offer? It’s crazy! It’s crazy, I couldn’t have possibly predicted it, and it’s the one coincidence in my life that doesn’t make me want to bash my head against the wall in confusion, it’s – it’s as close as I can ever get to believing that it means something, that it had to be me, and I had to be alive to see it.”

Why was Tony talking like he had nothing left to give?

“Anyway, Steve, you remember when I told you that… I didn’t want to be a part of fake revolutions anymore.” 

He did.

“It’s my worst nightmare. And the only thing that happened is that – I found out I am one. So I don’t want you to remember me for what I did, I want you to remember me for what I tried. And I tried… really hard.”

“We need to find him,” Jim said.

“And just – enjoy the kids. You know, for me as well as for you.”

This time, Tony was almost smiling when the video ended.

Jim returned Steve’s comm to him, but he spoke to Pepper.

“You have yours?”

Pepper retrieved it from her purse, and yes -- the same message played, followed by another video.

“I’m in the Hamptons house. I know I made it sound like I’m in some really far – but no, I’m only a couple of hours away.”

Jim nodded sharply and started to get out of bed without watching further, but Pepper gently pressed a hand to his shoulder, stalling him just enough for the three of them to catch Tony’s next words.

 “I’m fine. I’m safe. I mean, you know where I am so you know I’m not lying. I just – I made my choice, and you did all you could. You did all you could, but no matter what you do, there’s a part that needs to come from me, and it won’t, I won’t. I won’t deliver it. I can’t. I never will, and, that’s done, and, I’m being honest, so – please, respect that, and just – don’t come here.”

“Like hell I won’t,” Jim growled.

“You were always the best part of me, I need you to know that. And Rhodey, you need to go watch the God damn Star Wars movie, I mean, seriously, I told you we should have gone on the 18th – anyway, just go see it. Please. Please. I’m so sorry.”

There it was again: Tony apologizing.

I made my choice.

“I’ll go get him.”

“Thanks, Cap,” Jim said, and he once again made to leave his bed, “but I got this.”

As if on cue, a nurse appeared to respond to the changes in Jim’s vitals, and Pepper once again reached for Jim as well. After several minutes of heated discussion, Jim agreed to stay put, but he waved Steve and Pepper back to his bed as soon as he was settled in again. He pointed at Steve specifically and crooked his finger, beckoning Steve to kneel by his bedside.

“He’s going to try to deflect and tell you he’s fine,” Jim said. “Do not leave that house until you are certain he’s safe.”

Steve nodded. Despite the urgency tightening Jim’s voice, Steve felt strangely detached, as though he’d simply been briefed for a routine retrieval -- until Jim spoke again.

“And don’t make it worse.”

There was no mistaking that Jim was issuing a warning as much as he was an order. Again, Steve nodded. He pocketed his phone and comm, promised Pepper and Rhodey he would call as soon as he could, and took off.

He left not long after 8pm. Traffic allowing, he would arrive by 10 -- hopefully soon enough to avoid any chance of anyone running another headline about Tony Stark disappearing or dying.

[furyslefteye]

Thanks | Maria & Pepper

Maria arrived at Stark Industries to meet Pepper. Her attire was on point; she got her dry cleaning done the day before and she even did her hair. She had on a navy blue pantsuit, low heels, and a white button down shirt. It wasn’t much, but she felt powerful. Since Shield fell, she had gotten used to lounging around in her pajamas all day. She needed to take a break after that debilitating trial. She didn’t want to stay down for long. She couldn’t, not when she had such a limited timeframe to find a new job.

So she set up the meeting with Pepper. She brought along her entire resume and a gift bag with a bottle of champagne inside. It wasn’t much, but she also had no idea what to get someone who had everything. Gifts weren’t exactly her forte...

The receptionist let her in the office after she checked in. She was still a bit early, but that was better than being late. If Pepper wasn’t ready, she wouldn’t have let her in. Even though this was her first job interview in about seven years, she was very cool and collected. The two were friends, and Maria was honestly just as interested in catching up as she was about the interview.

“Morning, Pepper. It’s good to see you,” She said genuinely. Maria sat down across from her and put the gift bag on the table. “I got you something as a thank you for speaking at my trial. It’s the nicest champagne I could find without going overboard.”

She settled into her seat and continued, “I really can’t thank you enough. I’m sorry again about all those accusations.” Like about how she was stealing their resources. Not cool, not cool at all. It wasn’t true, but it still looked super shitty. She really wished Pepper and Tony didn’t stay the whole trial. It was embarassing enough knowing that her ex was a terrorist, but having other people know made it a hundred times worse. Hopefully that wouldn’t count against her credibility...

[the-devil-without-fear]

Making a Deal With the Devil| Pepper and Matt

“So let me get this straight; you spoke to Virginia Potts.” Foggy stood in the middle of the office, waving his submarine sandwich almost accusingly at Karen. She raised an eyebrow. 

“Uh, yeah? That’s what I just-“ 

“The Virginia Potts.” 

“Foggy-“ 

“AND YOU DIDN’T TELL US UNTIL NOW?” 

“You were out getting lunch; I figured I’d wait until you got back-” 

“Screw lunch, Karen, this is huge!  Matt, tell her how huge this is!” 

Matt paused in hanging his jacket by the door. The summer heat made the office way too stuffy for a full suit, despite the insane amount of fans set up throughout the space. The vibrations were driving him crazy, but it was better than the alternative at least. “I actually don’t know who that is, Foggy.”

His partner whirled towards him, targeting Matt as the new focus of his lunch time rant. Foggy’s weapon of choice crinkled in its wrapper as he threw his arms up. “How do you not know her? She’s mentioned at least once, in like, every magazine there is!"

“I uh, I don’t read a lot of tabloids.” Most of his news came from the local station in Hell’s kitchen, and he mainly kept to the headlines. Fortunately, he had pop culture knowledgeable friends to fill him in on what he’d missed. 

“Virginia Potts is CEO of Stark Industries,” Karen explained, and Matt vaguely remembered hearing about the promotion a few years back. It was pretty by  interesting at the time, how Stark stepped down and gave the position to his personal assistant. At least until an alien army attacked Manhattan and the whole Avengers incident happened. “A while back there was a lot of drama in the papers about her and Tony Stark’s breakup. Paparazzi photos, mistress rumors, the whole thing. Not important. What is important, however, is that Potts is interested in hiring you two to represent the company.” Matt could practically feel the huge smile radiating off of Karen’s face, even if he couldn’t see it. 

“Oh my god. This could be our first big client! We could afford air conditioning, Matt.” Foggy was practically shaking the vigilante as he grabbed his shoulders. “Oh! We could get real office chairs. Those cushy ones that are 1000% times better than the shit wood ones we have now.” 

The lawyer had to admit, those chairs sounded amazing. “Alright, alright. We haven’t even gotten the job yet,” Matt said, but he was smiling all the same.  

“When’s the meeting?”

Stark Industries incorporated way more glass into its design than Matt could possibly deal with. He couldn’t see through it, and because the lobby was absolutely full of it, the lawyer had no goddamn idea where anything was beyond the receptionist’s desk. The trip would have been easier with Foggy, but he’d been dragged into some sort of last minute family event. The whining had been almost unbearable. 

Matt felt his way over to the desk with his cane, and smiled pleasantly in the general direction of the secretary. “Excuse me, I have an appointment with Virginia Potts?” he asked.

[thefuturistknows]

I wake up more awake than I’ve ever been before | Jan. 2016

JANUARY 3, 2016

The workshop at the Tower was already clean when Tony had gotten there. He should have expected that, in retrospect, but it hadn’t occurred to him when he had been silently steeling his thoughts in order to do the clean up himself upon arrival. That turned out not to be necessary. Happy was the one who did most of the work.

The cabinets were empty now, save for the glasses, but Tony wanted to get rid of them altogether. The resolve was cemented the day Steve met him downstairs. Tony was hyperaware of the piece of furniture as they talked.

“I’m gonna need your full attention,” Tony said. He was going to instruct Steve on how to transfer JARVIS’ controls back to him. “It’s fairly complicated.”

“I thought it would be,” Steve answered.

Tony narrowed his eyes, then pointed to a spot that would allow ample movement.

“Stand over there?”

Steve did.

“Okay,” Tony nodded. “Lift your right arm above your head.”

No hesitation on Steve’s part.

“Good. Now lift your left leg, knee bent.”

Steve looked at him quizzically.

“Look, I’m eccentric, just do it,” Tony shrugged. “It’s for the scanners.”

“Right.”

Steve lifted his left leg, as instructed.

“Okay, that’s good.” Tony nodded professionally. “Now, backflip twice.”

“Tony.”

“I’m completely serious.”

Steve stared at him, completely dead-eyed. Tony might have been able to sustain his gaze had it not been for the ridiculous position Steve found himself in. Tony was the first to budge, and the effort he was making to hold back a smile started to show.

“Okay, maybe if you backflip… just once…”

Steve dropped his arm and leg with an amused eye roll. Tony chuckled.

“You literally just have to say it.”

“Say what?”

“Just, you know, communicate your needs, like an adult.” Tony shrugged, pocketing his hands. “Be polite, he likes polite. Like, ‘JARVIS, would you mind going back to Tony?’ He’s gonna ask you if you’re sure.”

Steve hesitated only briefly before doing as instructed, and after all the pertinent scans, JARVIS greeted Tony with a “Welcome home, Sir. Things have been dreadfully boring without you.”

“Thanks,” Steve chuckled. Then he looked to Tony. “That’s it?”

“Yep.” Tony nodded. “I mean, it has to be your voice.”

“All this time, I could have just done that.”

Tony made his way to the main computer screens, to make sure everything was still fully operational.

“You could have done anything you wanted,” Tony said offhandedly. “Honestly, the closest human beings will ever get to being gods is through technology.”

Steve silently approached, stopping when he was as close as he could get to the workbench separating him from Tony.

“I could have killed you.”

Tony looked up.

“JARVIS told me.”

His eyes searched Steve’s for a second. Steve was the one to look down this time.

“I can’t believe you have a kill switch.”

Tony focused back on the computer.

“It’s in the back of my neck,” he said, touching the area lightly. “By the Extremis ports. It shuts down my synapses.”

“Is it safe?” Steve asked. “Isn’t that unnecessary vulnerability? Look at what happened to Vision. Are you sure that’s okay?”

“It’s as safe as anything else,” Tony still wasn’t looking at Steve. “As safe as it can be. Which might not amount to much.”

They were silent for a few moments.

“I wouldn’t ever be able to do that.”

“You would, if it was necessary,” Tony said. “And if it was necessary, I would want you to.”

Tony looked up this time. Steve was the one looking away.

“Not that a whole lot of people always listen to what I want,” Tony added with an attempted smile. “Which is good, I wouldn’t be here if you always did.”

Steve’s gaze met his.

“That’s why the key judgment is yours.”

Tony bit into his bottom lip during the brief silence that followed.

“I’m not trying to win you back over,” he said. “I was just…”

“You don’t have to. You never lost me.”

When Steve smiled, Tony felt at liberty to do the same.

“Well, I lost some other things,” he said, moving away from the workbench. He grabbed his leather jacket from where he’d tossed it previously, on the back of the couch. “Time, for one.” He looked at his wristwatch. “I’m like seven minutes past fashionably late.”

“Late to where?”

“Salvation.”

One of Steve’s eyebrows perked upward in response to the gravitas on Tony’s tone.

“I’m kidding. It’s just therapy.”

“Oh,” Steve said. “Well, that’s good.”

Tony opened the door, allowing Steve to step out first.

“I always knew I was quantifiably insane,” Tony chuckled half-heartedly. “Now I get to see exactly how much.”

***

“What was the verdict, after all?”

Pepper had ordered Italian food. He hadn’t told her he would come over for dinner tonight, but she’d still ordered enough for two. He didn’t know how she could always tell.

“Twenty hours a week for three months,” he said, focusing on the task of putting pasta carbonara on his plate so he wouldn’t have to look at Pepper. “And group therapy comes highly recommended in my case as well. For indefinite lengths of time.”

“As in, support groups?”

“Yep,” he sat down. “There’s something they call the 90-in-90 challenge.”

Tony hesitated. He didn’t elaborate until Pepper asked, “What is that?”

“Ninety AA meetings in ninety days.”

Tony was still focusing on his own plate, so he missed Pepper’s immediate reaction.

“It’s supposed to be harder at the start.”

“That’s a handful of work.”

He shrugged.

“I guess an hour’s worth of conversation with me is enough to get any therapist to scream ‘worst case scenario.’”

Tony looked up briefly, with a smile. Pepper’s eyes were on him, and he looked down when he felt scrutinized.

“Anyway, it’s fine,” he said. “It’s a plan.”

He tried to smile again. He wasn’t hungry.

“It’s fine.”

***

It was fine.

Tony sat in his bed, back against the headboard, tablet in hand. He had downloaded some AA literature so he could have a better idea of what that was supposed to be about.

It’s fine, he thought as he skimmed the chapters of the so-called “Big Book.”

It’s fine.

It’s fine.

He’d been told that there might be moments he would feel overwhelmed, but he would be able to put them back into perspective. Dropping alcohol didn’t get rid of his problems, it just broke a vicious circle. His insecurities were still there, what had changed is that he was facing them without any immediate, chemical buffers. It wasn’t a surprise that he was feeling overwhelmed.

If he ever felt he was slipping, he should call someone he trusted. And even if he had no one, there were crisis hotlines for things like these. He had resources. It was fine.

It’s fine.

“Sir,” JARVIS said, right as Tony tossed the tablet aside and pulled his knees against his chest. “Shall I try Ms. Potts?”

“No.”

He hid his head in his knees.

“No, don’t call her,” he whispered. “It’s fine.”

His chest heaved with the breath he had to inhale to contain a sob.

“No,” he repeated. “No, I’m fine.”

***

Tony was the one who called Pepper. He ended up sitting at her table again, arms folded on top of it.

“I wasn’t trying to lie,” he said. “I just really thought…”

He shook his head, biting into his bottom lip.

“I just really wanted it to be fine.”

Pepper was in her pajamas, elbow supported on the table and chin resting on her hand.

“Tony, no one’s expecting you to –”

“I know what the expectations are.”

He exhaled as he shook his head again. Then he hid his face into the crook of his elbow.

“What unsettled you?” Pepper eventually asked.

Tony didn’t answer. He waited for her to pull the tablet from under his elbow.

“What if it doesn’t work?”

His voice came out muffled by his arm, but it was still clear enough to prompt Pepper’s reply: “What if it does?”

“That’s not the scenario I need to worry about, is it?”

Pepper was silent for some moments after that. Tony worried he might have scared her, he felt his eyes starting to water.

“I’m so sorry –”

“Tony, if this particular model doesn’t work, we’ll look for another one.”

His chin started quivering, and he was grateful his face was hidden.

“Do you know how many times I tried to change?”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t,” he shook his head lightly, without lifting it still. “I don’t even know.”

As far as he could remember, he’d been trying to find a way to become even remotely comfortable with himself. To the point where he didn’t even know who was the person that existed beneath all of those attempts. The only thing Tony knew for sure about that person was that he was part dead, and part screaming. Always.

“You’d think it would get easier,” he continued. “But all it gives me is accumulated evidence that I just can’t…”

Tony couldn’t continue the thought immediately. He swallowed.

“I don’t know for how much longer I’ll be able to do this,” he added. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me if it goes wrong again.”

“You’re suffering over something that hasn’t even happened yet.”

Pepper started brushing her fingers through his hair. Her hand lingered on the nape of his neck for a second before she pulled it away. Tony wished she hadn’t.

“Did you ever finish reading this?” She asked eventually. “Did you get to the promises?”

Tony didn’t answer.

“Read them out loud for me,” Pepper said. “Look up. No Extremis tricks.”

Tony waited another ten seconds before following Pepper’s instructions. He took the tablet from her, and started reading the text she indicated.

“Say it,” she prompted.

Tony looked at her before returning his attention to the tablet.

“I am…” He bit into his bottom lip. “I am going…”

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t say it. He skipped that one.

“I will… I won’t…”

We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

“Tony?”

Tony shook his head, swallowing thickly.

“I will…”

We will comprehend the meaning of the word serenity and we will know peace.

“It’s normal that I’m crying,” he told Pepper, squeezing his eyes shut again. His eyelids were heavy with tears. “They said that feeling overwhelmed is…”

“You don’t need to justify it to me.”

Tony wiped his cheek with one hand, and went back to the tablet.

No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see that our experience can benefit others.

He dropped the tablet and hid his head in his arms again.

Please, he thought.

Pepper put her hand on the nape of his neck again.

Please.

“I will comprehend the meaning of the word serenity,” he whispered eventually. “And I will know peace.”

JANUARY 19, 2016 

It was right in the name. Tony didn’t know how come it hadn’t occurred to him sooner.

Anonymous.

This wasn’t for him.

He had come wearing a hoodie, and he’d taken a seat in the very back. Most people had put their hoods down after the meeting started, except for a single guy, and Tony took that as permission to keep his own hood on.

He passed on the opportunity to introduce himself.

You know who I am.

The words echoed cruelly in his head. He couldn’t bring himself to say “hi” to anyone, because he didn’t want his voice to be recognized. He spent most of the time looking at his own feet. He felt eyes on the back of his neck even though he knew, rationally, that there was no one standing behind him.

What a joke that he, of all people, had forgotten the tiny detail that he was Tony Stark.

Tony Stark was a brand, first and foremost, at least among people he didn’t know personally. He didn’t get anonymity. He didn’t get a clean slate. He didn’t get to share something, anything, all he got to do was to confirm people’s bad pre-existent ideas of him, or fail to live up to the good ones.

He didn’t even have to say anything. Just the fact that he was here at all –

Oh. Tony Stark is a drunk. Of course. It figures. I knew that.

Iron Man is a drunk? Seriously? No. I thought he was stronger than that.

If those echoes were in his head, they must be in other people’s.

Tony passed on the opportunity to share, and he shook his head when it was his turn to read from the AA Big Book.

Kathy, who was the main speaker that day, closed the meeting by apologizing to those who didn’t have time to share today, and advised them to look for someone to talk to before leaving if that’s what they wanted.

Tony had long given up on looking relaxed, he was hugging himself instead of just keeping his arms folded. And he was so disheartened he couldn’t even leave his seat. He wouldn’t have, even if his heart didn’t feel so heavy, because he didn’t want to walk past anybody else. He would wait until they were all gone.

The initial plan had been to be a part of this. There was an insistent voice in his head telling him that now that this hadn’t worked, he wanted to die.

Kathy was still there organizing the chairs after the floor had emptied out. Tony noted she hadn’t asked him to go.

After some deliberation, he walked up to her. As far as he could see, she was the closest thing to authority, at least in today’s meeting. Tony knew that the main speakers fluctuated.

“Hey,” Tony said. “It’s Kathy, right?”

She stopped what she was doing to smile at him.

Somehow that hurt him even more.  

“Am I allowed to be here?” He asked.

“Right now?”

“I mean,” he closed his eyes briefly. “During meetings. Am I allowed to come to them.”

“Desire not to drink is the only requirement,” Kathy answered.

Tony nodded. He swallowed. He almost said nothing, because saying anything would be a waste, but then he couldn’t help himself –

“Let’s just get real for a second, okay?” He said. “You know who I am.”

Kathy didn’t answer. Tony took that as a confirmation.

“And we need to be realistic about this,” he continued. “I’m a liability. Okay? Just being here. I can jeopardize everything, for everyone, all it takes is one guy with a camera.”

He swallowed, then had to take a breath to stabilize himself.

“Plus, I don’t get to do this,” he shook his head. “I don’t get to do this. It doesn’t work if it’s me.”

Kathy dropped down on one of the seats, nodding to the one next to hers.

“Keep going,” she said.

Tony sat down.

“I thought I might get this one thing,” he admitted, and his voice was close to breaking. “I thought there was going to be one place – where I could – and where there was no pressure –”

He stopped, squeezing his eyes shut.

Kathy was the one that broke the silence.

“And then, what happened?”

Tony looked at her. She nodded for him to keep going.

“You’re doing great. Go on.”

He realized she was walking him through the typical sharing procedure – what did it feel like, what happened, and what does it feel like now.

“The meeting was over,” Tony answered. “I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t be a part of it.”

“What does it feel like now?”

He hesitated. His nails were tearing at the fabric of his sleeve with how hard he was bracing himself.

“I’m so lonely.”

Kathy nodded.

“What’s your name?”

“Tony.”

“And?”

“I’m an alcoholic.”

Kathy smiled.

“Thanks for sharing, Tony.”

Tony blinked at her. He was a little bewildered, this wasn’t where he’d been expecting the conversation to go.

“Do you mind if I share something with you now?”

“What?”

“I didn’t have time today before the meeting was over.”

Tony nodded.

Kathy’s speech glided easily through the three questions, and it sounded like something she had indeed prepared and planned to share during the meeting. When she was done talking, Tony hesitated.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” he admitted.

“There’s nothing you’re supposed to say,” Kathy replied, standing up. “Thank you for listening, Tony.”

“Thank you for sharing.”

Tony followed Kathy with his eyes when she started walking to the table in the back of the room, the one with coffee and cookies.

“You think you can help me put this away?” Kathy asked over her shoulder. “One thing you’re gonna learn about me real fast is that if you linger, I’m gonna try and borrow you.”

Tony chuckled.

Her statement suggested it was okay for him to come back.

“Hey, Eddie,” Kathy called out loudly as Tony approached the table.

A dark-skinned man in his fifties, maybe late forties, re-entered the room. Tony recognized him as one of the readers for today.

“Tony, this is Eddie,” Kathy said. “He’s been volunteering as a sponsor for years now, haven’t you?”

“Doing my best,” Eddie said.

“You mind showing him the ropes?”

“Do you want to know the ropes?”

Tony’s gaze traveled from Eddie to Kathy, and then back.

“If that’s all right,” he said.

Eddie smiled warmly at him. Tony smiled back.

JANUARY 20, 2016

Tony met Eddie the next day, before the meeting.

Principle over personality, that’s the first thing Eddie talked about. It meant that out of common courtesy, every steady member agreed to adhere to a code of conduct while every meeting was in progess, and those rules governed no matter who you were, and no matter who was talking. No interruptions, no advice-giving, no “you” statements, no assumptions – and of course, the confidentiality rule. What was said there was supposed to stay there, and it’s not topic of discussion once the meeting is over.

Tony still couldn’t say anything that time. Eddie called him to the back of the room after the meeting was over and the group had started dwindling.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as soon as he was close enough to Eddie for a private conversation.

“It’s a lot to take in,” Eddie said. “Remind me when you decided to get sober?”

“It was the 21st,” Tony answered. “Last month.”

“We have an anniversary tomorrow, huh?”

Tony shrugged his smile.

Eddie beckoned for Tony to follow him when he went to pick up a plastic box from the cabinet in the corner. Tony recognized the box, it was where the tokens were kept. They were poker chip-sized keepsakes, color-coded to represent sobriety benchmarks. There was one for beginners too, but Tony had passed on the chance of getting his because he hadn’t yet been able to speak up when the secretary asked if there were any new members present.

“Gold is for two months, green is for three, blue is for six, purple is for nine,” Eddie explained, keeping the box open for Tony to see what was inside. The tokens were separated by colors. “Bronze is for yearly anniversaries. We call those ‘heavy metal.’”

Tony smiled.

“The red one is for one month,” Eddie continued.

Tony tried to slowly reach into the box, but Eddie clicked his tongue.

“Of course, you’ll be able to get it when you come in tomorrow, and speak up when Kathy asks about anniversaries,” he said.

Tony drew his hand back.

“Okay.”

He watched as Eddie closed the box, and stowed it away. Then he looked to the side, he was ashamed of himself. The feeling was always there.

“Now I’d say that this one,” Eddie continued, “is long overdue.”

Tony looked at him again. He was holding another box open, but this one was completely filled with the silver chips for beginners.

“That’s the most important, if you ask me,” Eddie said.

Tony looked at Eddie and waited for permission before he reached into the box and grabbed one of the silver coins.

“The 24-hour token. That’s the one we can win every day. I still carry mine with me.”

Tony smiled briefly.

“No, you keep that.”

Eddie closed the box just as Tony motioned to return the chip.

“You won that, what, some thirty times already.”

JANUARY 21, 2016

Tony was lying down on the workshop couch. He had been revolving the silver token in his hand for over an hour now, the tips of his fingers would have memorized every detail even if his mind couldn’t – which it could, of course.

Eddie was right, there was something inherently fascinating about the silver coin. The red one was resting on his stomach.

“Easy back there, you two,” Tony said, lifting his head briefly to look over at where U and Butterfingers had gotten into some kind of an argument.

By the time his head settled on the pillows again, DUM-E had rolled over closer.

“You want to see it?” Tony asked, tossing the chip upwards and then catching it on the back of his hand.

He looked at the back again, where the serenity prayer was engraved.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

“I won this thirty times,” he told DUM-E, quirking a smug eyebrow. The bot chirped. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

He looked at what was written on the other side.

To thine own self be true.

And the three pillars – Service. Unity. Recovery.

“Those aren’t bad choices to make every day, right?” Tony asked DUM-E. And himself.

Service. Unity. Recovery.

Serenity. Courage. Wisdom.

He smiled.

“Not bad at all.”

(What does it feel like now? He was proud of himself.)

[thefuturistknows]

Deliverance | Dec. 23, 2015

Dr. Su Yin was one of the trusted private physicians Stark had on call in the New York area, in case of Avengers-related emergencies. Pepper called her in, and Tony was in bed when she arrived. He had no snark or resistance to offer during the physical examination, and he let her draw a blood sample from him with no words of protest. He already knew Dr. Yin and he was feeling too unwell to do anything but comply – until she showed him a small plastic cup with a pill inside.

Tony looked at her with anxious inquiry in his eyes.

“This is chlorodiazepoxide,” she explained. “It will alleviate your anxiety, tremors, and other withdrawal symptoms so you can have some sleep.”

“I know what it does,” he whispered. It took a great deal of silent effort, but he managed to sit up so he could press his back against the headboard, to get as far away from the doctor as he was physically able to. “I could get addicted to that.”

“Not if you stick to the dosage and instructions I’m prescribing.”

He would have chuckled sardonically if he could.

“Oh, you don’t know me.”

“Yes, I do, Tony.”

She usually called him “Mr. Stark,” but this time she dropped formalities and emphasized his first name, as if to remind him of their long-standing doctor/patient history.

Tony shook his head.

“I can’t.”

His breathing was starting to grow shallow as he contemplated the possibility of adding another addiction to his plate – and hell, that might be the best case scenario, he wouldn’t put it past him to purposely overdose on the thing in this state –

“I can’t do it.”

“You’re about to have an anxiety attack as we speak,” Dr. Yin pointed out, reaching to touch his shoulder. “This will help you. It will be in your best interest to be well-rested when your treatment options are discussed.”

“I can’t know where you’re keeping them. You can’t tell me.”

“I will leave Ms. Potts in charge of keeping them safe.”

Tony hesitated, but eventually he nodded. He needed Dr. Yin to hold the cup of water for him.

He woke up at around 4:00 PM. Pepper found him struggling with the buttons of the dress shirt he was trying to close.

“What are you dressing up for?”

Stark looked briefly in her direction, she had come in with a cup filled with juice and a plate with something to eat. He didn’t pay attention to what it was before he turned to the full-body mirror again.

“Aunt Peggy’s funeral.”

Pepper didn’t say anything. He heard her placing the plate on top of the bedside table.

“Tony, you missed it,” she said softly. “And even if you hadn’t, you couldn’t have travelled to DC –”

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”

He knew he’d missed the funeral. He kept trying to button up his shirt anyway, but now his hands were even more unsteady because of self-consciousness and the reminder that his original plan for the day had all gone to waste.

Pepper eventually walked up to him, gently turned him to face her, and took over the task Tony had been struggling with.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” He asked.

“You can’t be in an airplane now, Tony, or armor – especially not armor –”

“I’m the one who decides that –”

“Also, I didn’t even know you intended to go,” she said, eyes on his. “Does that explanation suit you?”

He’d never told her. Tony looked to the side. Pepper dropped her hands from his chest after she was done buttoning up the dress shirt he had no reason for wearing.

“I’m sorry,” Pepper said.

Tony closed his eyes. Then he shook his head and he quickly wiped a stray tear from his cheek and walked away from Pepper.

Aunt Peggy had been one out of various childhood relationships of his – like Jarvis and his wife, Elizabeth Ross, his cousin Morgan – that Tony had left behind and never, or almost never, willingly contacted again after his parents’ death. He had called it “moving on,” but really it was just because of how repulsed and scared he was of that first part of his life.

“She probably didn’t even remember me, anyway,” he said. He was in his closet, contemplating his tie options. He didn’t know what else to do. “In fact, I know she didn’t. I visited her early in 2010.” After he’d found out about the palladium poisoning. “She thought I was my father.”

Jarvis had already died by then. Jarvis had died while Tony was still –

He picked a black tie.

“I never went back after that, I was –” A coward. “She didn’t miss me. So, you know, there’s not…”

Tony swallowed. He was having trouble with the tie knot, of course.

“… much of a relationship there. There hadn’t been one for years.”

Another person whose last memory of Tony Stark was probably one of disappointment.

“But I should have been there,” he continued, more shakily now. “I should have been there for Steve.”

Pepper touched his shoulder, and he turned to her. He had expected her to finish his job with the tie, but what she did instead was to pull it off his neck and undo the top three buttons on his shirt.

“He came all this way for me. And I would be dead if he hadn’t,” he swallowed, now that his neck was free. “I wasn’t there for him.”

“No one’s keeping score, Tony. He understands.”

“I’m never there,” he shook his head. “Steve. Rhodey. Vision. You. I’m never there.”

Over four full years of a romantic relationship with Pepper, and he couldn’t remember a single time she had approached him about something personal. I’m scared. I’m alone. I don’t know what to do. Anything. He couldn’t remember.

And maybe Stark himself didn’t approach her, he didn’t approach Rhodey – but they reached for him. They always had.

He didn’t.

“And I would have helped, you know,” he continued after trying to breathe. “I hate to think of people going through things alone, it’s not that I think anyone else deserves it. I was just – so self-absorbed. I always am.”

“It’s not being self-absorbed, Tony. You were struggling. You still are.”

He closed his eyes, and shook his head.

“I’m not asking for comfort,” he said. “I’m not. I’m not even asking for forgiveness, I’m just making a promise.”

Pepper’s hands had been on his shoulders. She moved them up to entwine her fingers on the nape of his neck. He had a nape of the neck weakness.

“I’m never letting it happen again,” he continued. “It’s not ever going to be like this again, ever, ever again.”

He ended up in the front seat of Pepper’s car as she drove him to this luxury rehab place in East Hampton called “the Dunes,” so they could “take a look.”

“In the spirit of not running away from people,” Pepper started. She seemed invigorated that Tony was in the car with her at all. “When are you going to call Rhodey?”

Tony looked at Pepper. She raised an eyebrow, still focusing on the road.

“He’s been haranguing me, so…”

“Deflect and absorb, don’t transmit it back to me.”

It was supposed to be funny. Pepper just looked at him from the corner of her eye.

“Tony.”

“Right.”

“My phone is in my purse.”

Tony reached for Pepper’s purse on the backseat, and found her phone. He knew her access code. He also knew that JARVIS was the program that ran her phone, but the AI didn’t manifest in response to Tony’s fingerprint as it usually did.

“Be honest with me, because I need to be prepared,” he said, after swallowing the lump of something that had gathered in his throat. “How much do you think he hates me?”

The question seemed to break something in Pepper’s veneer. She looked exhausted again.

“God, Tony, he doesn’t hate you.”

He continued to look at Rhodey’s contact information on the phone screen.

“You’re frustrated.”

“I’m not frustrated, I’m just…” She sighed. “Is that why you haven’t called yet?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s dying to talk to you, I’ve been telling you that.”

“I’m sorry.”

Tony kept looking despondently at the phone without taking any action.

Silence settled in the car. Pepper was the one who broke it.

“The moment you saw me, you assumed I wanted to hit you,” she recalled. “Is it always like this, every time you do something that upsets people? You just think, ‘that’s it, it’s over’? Like you already know there’s going to be a tragic tipping point and it’s going to be your fault?”

“I’m chemically imbalanced right now.”

“You sure are, that’s probably why this is all coming up.”

Tony still didn’t look up.

“So, is it?” She insisted. “Is it always like this in your head?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

Something about his tone made Pepper’s questions stop coming.

Tony still didn’t call Rhodey. He stared into the screen until it went black.

“I do believe people like me. I think you do, I think Rhodey does.” He swallowed, finally looking up from the phone and into the road ahead of them. “I just can’t understand how, or why. I try to take it in without questioning it. It doesn’t always come easy to me.”

It didn’t ever, but sometimes he was able to. He used to be more able to. He unblocked Pepper’s phone again, and hit the call button on Rhodey’s number.

“I guess it feels suspiciously like having faith.”

Pepper started to say something, but Tony was able to avoid whatever it was by pointing to the phone by his ear and mouthing that it was ringing.

Rhodey had picked up before Tony could even drop his free hand.

“I can’t believe it took you this long to get back to me.”

Tony transferred his phone from his hand to his shoulder so he could pull up the long sleeves of his shirt. Shit.

“You’re mad at me.”

“I blacked out during a fight with a brainwashed ghost robot, woke up in a hospital to find you not there after pushing Pepper out and making headlines and quitting the Avengers – do you see how this looks from this end? I’m not just mad – ”

He was very mad.

“I’m sorry –”

“—I’m worried sick! How are you? Are you hurt?”

“What?”

“What did Steve say? I have to assume it helped.”

“You’re worried about me?”

Pepper gave him a look.

God, of course Rhodey was worried about him. When did he ever not worry? Tony squeezed his eyes shut to push past this whole elaborate assumption he had made that what would be at the forefront of Rhodey’s mind was how much he blamed Tony for Vision and for not being there when he woke up when Rhodey himself had tirelessly looked for him in the desert for three months –

“Of course I’m worried about you! I’ve been trying to squeeze information out of Pepper, but why trust spy organizations or code firewalls when you can have Pepper keeping your secrets –”

“I heard my name,” Pepper immediately chimed in. “He’s complaining about me, isn’t he?”

“At least I can be sure you’re doing something she approves of, she’d have told me otherwise, she’s got no regards for what you think when she hates what you’re doing. What are you doing?”

“I’m, uh…”

Getting sober. How on earth did one put this without sounding repulsive and weirdly sanctimonious at the same time? He’d have to make a joke of it.

“… I’m cleansing myself of my impurities.”

“What, as in, getting sober?”

“Sounds dirty and weirdly sanctimonious when you put it like that –”

“Wait, that’s really good.”

Tony smiled.

“I can’t believe Pepper didn’t tell me that.”

“Oh, there it is again,” Pepper said. “He’s complaining about me.”

“When will you be discharged?”

“Today.”

“Already?”

Silence.

“I’m working on that.”

“Tony, tell him to stop harassing his doctors –”

“—Pepper keeps saying I’m harassing the doctors, but obviously she has a very loose definition of what harassment means –”

“Hold on,” Tony connected the phone to the sound system of the car. “You’re on speaker, Jim.”

Pepper was the first to take advantage of the fact.

“Stay in bed until Saturday minimum, that’s what the doctor said.”

“I think it’s the same doctor who told you to relax?”

“I am perfectly relaxed, I did yoga this morning.”

Tony closed his eyes, tuned out the meaning of the words exchanged between Pepper and Rhodey, and just focused on their voices. It had the same effect as listening to rock music in the workshop, potent and alluring and he loved it. He could spend the rest of his life listening.

The property was isolated, and enclosed by white gates. Pepper gave her name, and the doors opened so she could drive in.

Tony was impressed by the size of the land. There was a lake and gardens and a field, he could see stables. Pepper pulled over by the main building, a large two-story house, surrounded by greenery. This admittedly looked way less like the daunting hospital-like structure Stark had been expecting, but he hesitated in the car anyway until Pepper prompted him to come out because people were waiting for them.

And indeed they were. Tony was given a tour of the facilities, which at a first glance, looked pretty idyllic. So much so, in fact, that he felt like he was inside a dystopian movie or something, he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It did when he was shown to one of the bedrooms in the medical unit. The bed was neatly made, but Tony could see how it could be fitted with restraints. He squeezed Pepper’s hand tightly.

Eventually, Tony was introduced to a Dr. Veronica Benning, a psychiatrist who was ready to see him for an initial assessment.

“I never scheduled anything.”

“He’ll be up in a minute,” Pepper said, turning him to look at her.

“Did you…”

“It will be okay.”

Pepper smiled at him, and kissed him on the cheek. He didn’t smile back.

He hadn’t been the only one with secret plans for today, it seemed.

There were bars on the windows. Tony could see the shadows behind the curtains in Dr. Benning’s office.

He was nervous and sweating again. He dodged the first few of her questions with a (probably unhealthy) dose of snark, and using his reputation as a crutch for avoiding sincerity. You know who I am. Can’t you Google that? Pretty sure I answered that during a Vanity Fair interview once. And things like that. It used to work with the annual SHIELD psychiatric evaluations. But then again, especially after Hydra, it became abundantly clear that his mental health wasn’t actually a priority to them.

It was when Dr. Benning asked for how long Tony would say he’d been abusing alcohol that he stopped being able to make eye contact.

“Mr. Stark,” Dr. Benning said eventually, removing her glasses. “I think this experience will be more rewarding for both of us if we behave as though I don’t know who you are.”

Tony swallowed.

“And I don’t,” she continued. “But I would like to.”

He reached for one of the stress balls the doctor kept inside a basket on top of her table.

“Why not profit from this opportunity to share your side of the story?”

Tony stayed silent, turning the rubber ball in his hands. Well, not a ball. It was heart-shaped.

“What do you mean by abusing alcohol?” He eventually asked.

Dr. Benning slipped her glasses back on.

“Drinking patterns that have placed you in physically unsafe situations, that have hindered your work, study or other responsibilities, and that continued despite ongoing relationship and legal problems caused by it.”

Tony looked down again.

“I was… since I was…”

He closed his eyes.

“Fifteen.”

He kept his eyes closed, waiting to be severely admonished. His shoulders and neck were aching with tension.

Dr. Benning didn’t react, though. She just continued: “And for how long would you say you’ve been alcohol dependent?”

Tony opened his eyes, but still didn’t look up.

“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “I – I got… consistent. After my parents died.”

“Which was when?”

“December of 1989.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I don’t think I was dependent – I mean, I didn’t feel – I always had something close at hand. And people usually didn’t think it was bad. Most people couldn’t tell I was drunk unless I’d had… a lot.”

Tony closed his eyes again. He could feel his cheeks burning up with shame.

“So when did you realize you have an addiction?”

(He noted she used the word ‘realize.’)

“May 2013. It was my relationship anniversary1. And my girlfriend’s – now ex-girlfriend.” He bit into his bottom lip for a moment. “I forgot about it. She was upset. She didn’t want anything to do with me. But I begged. I knew she would bend. And she did. We had sex. I don’t think she was into it.”

He still hadn’t opened his eyes.

“I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t drunk. I felt guilty. I said I was going to drink less. And then I didn’t. I didn’t know what else to do. About…”

He stopped.

“About what?”

“About my bad dreams. And when I can’t sleep at all. And the flashbacks. And…”

Tony tried to breathe the way Yinsen had taught him. He didn’t succeed. He was squeezing the stress ball.

“Next question,” Dr. Benning said.

Tony nodded eagerly. His eyes were still closed.

“How long since you’ve had your last drink?”

“It was this, uh… Tuesday.”

God.

One day. It had only been one day.

“I have been in touch with Dr. Yin. She reports you have been experiencing strong withdrawal symptoms.”

He nodded.

“Is this your first time?”

Tony hesitated.

“I don’t – I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Tony shook his head, finally opening his eyes again. He still wouldn’t look up.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not being helpful.”

“I wasn’t making an accusation, I was asking for confirmation,” the doctor specified. “You’re doing very well.”

Tony didn’t say anything.

“Do you think you can elaborate?”

He nodded, but it took him a few more seconds to speak:

“I was a P.O.W. For three months.” Closed his eyes again. “I remember writhing in bed, sure, but there was more going on than just – this2. And anyway, I could still work. If it happened, it wasn’t this bad.”

“Previous history with withdrawal could explain why your symptoms are so strong this time,” Dr. Benning pointed out.

Tony looked at her hands. She dropped the pen she had been taking notes with and picked up a file with his name on it.

“These are the results of your most recent blood test,” she said, opening the folder. “You have hypokalemia.”

“Potassium deficiency.”

“It can be caused by heavy drinking. Does this surprise you? Have you been keeping a balanced diet?”

Tony swallowed. He shook his head.

“Potassium deficiency can help account for weakness, fatigue, muscle cramps, exacerbated depressive states…”

He nodded. It’s weird how it never occurred to him that his dire physical and psychological states could be somewhat explained by factors other than his own shortcomings. Then again, he guessed that the “not eating healthy” thing was also his fault.

He noted that in her notes, Dr. Benning checked a box specifically corresponding to “hypokalemia.” She had checked a lot of boxes. She was looking for something specific, Stark wasn’t too sure he liked this.

“Besides PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder, and persistent depressive disorder,” Dr. Benning started, and Tony grew defensive at this indication that the doctor had been lying about not knowing him. She’d had access to his medical history. She’d just been trying to get him to trust her. “Have you experienced any other psychological conditions?”

“Drug-induced psychosis and fugue states3.” He actually lifted his chin to look at her, emphatic and defiant. “I’m a hot mess.”

Dr. Benning seemed unimpressed. All she did was ask what drug.

“Experimental.”

“Elaborate.”

“I’m an Avenger, I deal with weird things.”

She looked at him in silence for a few moments.

“There’s no record of that in your medical history,” Dr. Benning pointed out. A-ha. “Was this a self-diagnosis?”

“My AI diagnosed me. He has all pertinent data.”

“Can I have access to that?”

“Sure.”

Dr. Benning added a few words to her notes. Stark tried to tell himself that he had accomplished something with his defiance, besides giving the doctor exactly what she wanted.

“Mr. Stark,” she called for his attention again, dropping her pen and removing her glasses. “Taking your age and history into account, you are at a high risk of experiencing what we call delirium tremens.”

Delirium. That wasn’t good.

“DT is the most severe form of ethanol withdrawal. It typically manifests within 48 to 96 hours after the last drink, and is characterized by altered mental states and autonomic hyperactivity, which may progress to cardiovascular collapse if experienced without adequate medical care.”

At Tony’s request, she started listing the symptoms he should expect. Tremors, agitation, irritability, confusion, unstable mood, sensitivity, restlessness. Fear. Paranoia. Hallucinations. Seizures.

“Fortunately, our medical facilities and staff are more than prepared to receive you…”

He remembered the bed with the restraints.

“… I am confident that our residential program…”

There were bars on the windows.

“… outside contact will be limited during the initial weeks, but…”

For the first time since Monday, Tony made an effort to harness Extremis. He mapped out the floor plans, looked for all emergency exits.

“… you will be under the care of experienced professionals…”

There were bars on the windows.

Tony inhaled so sharply Dr. Benning stopped talking.

“Mr. Stark?”

“I need to have a word with Ms. Potts.”

Tony stood from the chair as soon as Pepper came in, and walked up to her as soon as she had closed the door and they were alone. He took both of her arms and peeped behind the thin curtain that covered the glass panel separating the office from the hallway to make sure there was nobody listening in.

He turned to Pepper when he could be sure there was nobody waiting to drug him outside.

“We have to do something,” he whispered to Pepper. “They’re not gonna let me leave.”

His eyes were already scanning the room for objects that could be used as improvised weapons, if necessary.

“Tony,” Pepper placed her hands carefully on Tony’s waist. “What did Dr. Benning say?”

“I’ll have some type of psychotic break,” he recalled. His breathing was shallow. “Paranoia, hallucinations. They’ll pump me full of drugs. They’ll chain me to one of the beds.”

Pepper looked alarmed.

“She said I’ll have to be locked up here for months –”

“Oh, God, Tony,” Pepper shook her head, smiling lightly. “It’s not like that at all. She probably recommended you their inpatient residential program.”

Tony pulled back slightly.

“That’s what she said.”

Pepper continued to smile. Tony swallowed thickly.

“They’d just have you live here for a little bit,” Pepper continued. “It’s not bad at all, you’ve seen the land. It’s beautiful. They’ll take care of you here.”

His eyes started filling up.

“Until you’re feeling better.”

“Don’t do this to me.”

“Tony?”

He shook his head, squeezing Pepper’s arms tighter.

“You’re going to leave me here4,” he mouthed. His voice wasn’t coming. “You were planning it all along, you’re going to leave me here.”

“I wasn’t planning it, Tony.”

“Please don’t leave me here, I’m so sorry –”

His breath started hitching in his throat. Pepper tried to show him to a chair again, but he stepped away from her, and then back to her. He took one of her hands pleadingly in both of his.

“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, don’t leave me here –”

“Tony, honey, calm down…”

“Don’t leave me, please!” He found his voice again. It was shaky. “I understand it now, I’m so sorry – I’m sorry, I’m sorry about the things I said –”

Don’t apologize. Make amends5.

“I’m so sorry! I’m gonna fix it –”

“Tony, sit down.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call Rhodey!” He was tearing up by the time Pepper finally got him to sit down on the chair from before. He didn’t let go of her hand. “I’m sorry I hurt him! I’m sorry I lied to you – I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Extremis, I’m sorry I didn’t give you the armor when you wanted it, I’m sorry I proposed and then un-proposed, I’m sorry I forgot our anniversary, I’m sorry I didn’t pass the test with the wonder twins and I’m sorry you were waiting at the table and I never came back for you at the balcony –”

Pepper had kneeled on the floor in front of him. He kept pressing her hand against his stomach.

“Tony, it’s okay –”

“You said you didn’t hate me, I trusted you –”

“I don’t hate you –”

“I trusted you!”

Tony let go of Pepper’s hand, and kicked back his chair when he stood up and stepped away from her.

“I trusted you! Don’t do this to me! Not you –” His back hit the wall. “I trusted my dad when he said I needed to go to a place that was going to fix me – I trusted my mom when she said it would be fine even when I knew she didn’t think it would – I trusted Obie but then –”

He broke. His back slid down against the wall and his face in his hands.

“She thinks maybe this happened already in Afghanistan – it was supposed to have fixed me, I was supposed to be fixed –”

Tony felt Pepper’s arms on his shoulders. He immediately leaned forward to hide his head in the crook of her neck.

“What did I do? I ruined – I’m so sorry – I’ll find a way, please, I’m sorry –”

At one point, he couldn’t say anything anymore. He only tried to control his sobbing again when he heard the door opening.

Pepper turned her head and assured the staff she had everything under control. It was a harsh awakening, Tony tried to rein it all in again. He was scared someone was going to try to drug him.

“Tony, remember what you said about the symptoms Dr.Yin and Dr. Benning said you might experience,” Pepper started eventually, massaging the nape of his neck. “Anxiety and paranoia are a couple of them.”

He pressed his forehead harder against Pepper’s shoulder. He was shivering.

“It wasn’t so bad, I promise. She was just recommending an option. There will be others,” she continued. “And Tony…”

She tried to get him to lift his head. He was too embarrassed to look at her at first, but she waited until he did.

“This is nothing like what your father and Stane did.”

Tony’s chin quivered again.

“I – But…”

There are bars on the windows.

“I know,” she nodded, even though he couldn’t say anything of substance. “I’m sorry. I forgot. I can forget, the whole world can.”

He pressed his forehead to her shoulder again.

“You don’t have that luxury,” she continued. “I understand. I’m sorry.”

When they were with Dr. Benning again, Tony chose to remain standing with his back against the farthest wall, arms folded tightly across his chest. Pepper was the one sitting across the table from the doctor.

She emphasized that the impatient residential program was her first choice for Tony, but she also discussed the intensive outpatient one as an alternative. After detoxification, he would be required to put in anywhere from 9 to 20 hours at a clinic per week for at least two months, but he would be able to live at home. This set up demanded exceptional motivation and commitment.

It was when Dr. Benning said she wouldn’t recommend this to patients who didn’t have a supportive family that Tony looked to the side and his chin started quivering again. Dr. Benning was the first to notice. She waited a moment before calling his name. Pepper looked as well.

“Tony?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t have that,” he admitted. He was talking about a family. “That’s not going to work for me either, nothing’s ever –”

“Yes, you do,” Pepper said, and this time he could feel a degree of outrage in her tone. “What do you think I am? What do you think I’m doing here?”

Tony just looked at her. Pepper turned to Dr. Benning.

“He does have a family,” she reassured her. “We all have jobs, but we can set up a good rotating schedule. That won’t be a problem.”

Tony shifted uneasily where he stood. He didn’t want to be a burden.

“Will you be staying in East Hampton, Mr. Stark?”

He hesitated. He thought about Pepper and Stark Industries.

“Is there a place in New York that you would recommend?”

“The Hazelden Betty Ford outpatient treatment facility is highly regarded.”

Tony didn’t say anything at first. He just nodded, then closed his eyes, and then frowned.

The initial plan had been not to tell anyone else.

Stark expressed the anxiety. He didn’t want people to know. And if he was going to this place in New York every week, then people were going to know.

“Mr. Stark,” Dr. Benning started. “I can’t recommend outpatient treatment to someone who’s not willing to fully commit to it.”

“It’s not like that,” he shook his head. “I’m willing to commit. I wasn’t talking about normal – I was talking about…” He hesitated. “People hiding in bushes. And stuff.”

He looked down. The rest of the world wasn’t playing the “Let’s pretend Tony Stark gets to have privacy” game.

Pepper was the one to point out that the residential approach would limit exposure. Nothing was going to be perfect, he would have to pick an option and deal with the consequences. He picked outpatient.

“They will want to perform their own assessments,” Dr. Benning said. “Given how advanced your withdrawal symptoms are, you will need to be admitted into a medical facility as soon as possible.”

“No,” Tony interjected.

“Tony.”

“I can’t go to New York like this,” he told Pepper. He would have pointed to himself to emphasize his terrible physical state, but case in point, he didn’t want to unfold his arms and reveal his trembling hands. “It’s one thing to deal with everyone when I’m stable, but I’m having a breakdown – every five minutes –”

Christ, he might have another one just to think about it. His eyes were filling up.

“And besides, I can’t… do –”

The sentence trailed off.

He didn’t want to be sedated, or drugged, he didn’t want people surrounding him and watching him, he didn’t want to wake up in some unknown place with wires all over him –

“Mr. Stark, DTs have an alarmingly high mortality rate if experienced without medical assistance.”

He tried to swallow.

“I know.”

His breathing started growing shallow again.

“Can this happen at home?” Pepper asked. “Could we set up a temporary medical station at the house? We can afford personal care.”

Dr. Benning recommended a team of private-care professionals that would suit their needs. Tony would be expected at the treatment center in New York during the first week of January, after his system was clean.

He had walked out of the place with a plan, sure, but he also felt unbearably like the spoiled rich brat Howard used to say he was. The first half of the ride home was silent, until Tony asked: “Did it sound reasonable to you?”

Pepper spared him a brief smile before looking at the road again.

“It sounded good to me. Why? I thought you’d liked it.”

He hesitated.

“To me, it sounded like I’m too…” Weak. “… complicated. For the conventional programs.”

Pepper didn’t say anything at first. Tony thought she might stay quiet for the rest of the trip until she clicked her tongue.

“To me it sounded like you have an opinion on what happens. And that you want to make sure you’re prepared to embrace the consequences. This isn’t bad.”

Tony didn’t look at her.

“Am I wrong?”

He shook his head.

After a few more minutes, Pepper chuckled.

“I’m also fairly sure of what’s the first thing you’re going to do about this, when you can –”

“Oh, my God,” he groaned, massaging his forehead. “God, I’m gonna inject so much money into tailored rehab programs for people who can’t afford to –”

“I thought so.”

“So much money, and when I’m back there people are gonna think – I’m gonna sound like this weirdly sanctimonious –”

He waved his free hand vaguely, looking for the right word, then he gave up and dropped his hand again.

“—And you know what?” He shook his head. “I don’t care.”

PAST DRABBLE REFERENCES

1. “May 2013. It was my relationship anniversary.” (Isolation | Tony & Pepper) 

2. “I remember writhing in bed, sure, but there was more going on than just – this.” (Flowers For a Ghost) 

3. “Drug-induced psychosis and fugue states.” (Writing Challenge: Halloween) 

4. “You’re going to leave me here.” Tony’s reaction to the idea that Pepper might leave him at the rehab facility echoes his reaction to his parents sending him to boarding school. (Isolation | Tony & Pepper, Excessively Detailed Headcanon Meme)

5. “Don’t apologize. Make amends.” Tony first hears this from Howard the day he is leaving the house to go to school for the first time. (Isolation | Tony & Pepper)

[thefuturistknows]

Deliverance | December 22, 2015

Pepper and Happy arrived in the afternoon.

By that point, Stark had taken a shower, changed clothes and shaved. He did it more for them than for himself, he figured that if Pepper was going to spend her holiday with him, then the least he could do for her was to not look and smell like a dumpster.

It didn’t mean a lot to him. It felt grimly like falling back to a status quo, actually, polishing the shell he used to pretend everything was fine.

Happy was the first one that spoke once Tony opened the door.

“Hey, boss.”

“Hey,” he replied with a quick, fake smile. “I’m not your boss.”

“I know, it’s, it’s – huh, habit.”

Pepper was actually standing in front of Happy. Tony couldn’t hold her gaze.

“I meant it as a figure of speech or – or, well, no, as a term of endearment – it’s a nickname?”

“Sure.”

“I always called you that.”

“I know,” Tony nodded. “It was just a comment.”

Pepper continued not to say anything. Tony hadn’t talked to her since the previous day – well, not directly, anyway, he’d sent her the video. He hadn’t expected to have to face them ever again after all of that, this was terribly awkward.

He stepped aside.

“Well, you’ve been here before. You know how the place works.”

Happy was the first one to move, he pushed past Pepper carrying her bag. He seemed anxious to leave the scene, and Tony didn’t exactly blame him.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay in New York?” Pepper asked.

(He didn’t want to risk being seen by people. He had an idea of what awaited him.)

“It’s probably going to take more than one trip to clean this place,” he said, sidestepping the original question.

“Right.”

“I mean, I figured – I assumed you’d want to –”

“Of course.”

“I’ll help you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

He hesitated.

“You think I’ll change my mind.”

She hesitated.

“Of course not.”

He thought so too. Maybe. He wasn’t sure. His eyes were filling up.

“I’ll just be in the, uh –”

“Lab?”

“Bedroom.”

Pepper smiled.

“That’s better,” she said. “That’s better, you need to rest.”

There were armors in the lab. He still couldn’t bear to look at the armors.

He realized Pepper was clenching and unclenching her fists.

“You want to slap me,” Tony said. He looked into her eyes for the first time.

“What?”

“Or punch me, or scratch me, or… something. I mean…” He swallowed. “For yesterday.”

“No.”

“I think you should,” he continued. “If it’s going to help. If it makes it better. If it means that I’d get to –”

Pepper reached for both of his hands. Tony wasn’t looking at her anymore.

“– I’m sorry.”

She squeezed his hands.

“Thank God you’re okay.”

It’s the same thing she’d told him last morning.

“I’m not.”

She hesitated, then stepped closer. Maybe she wanted to hug him. But she stopped. She waited.

When Tony moved, it was to let go of her hands and step back.

“I’m going to be, uh –” He shoved his hands in his pockets, shook his head. “You know where I’ll be, I said it.”

He nodded, tried to smile, and stepped away, leaving Pepper at the door. He couldn’t breathe again until he was in the bedroom with the door closed behind his back.

He’d heard about how addiction made sober emotional interactions seem overwhelming, and he could definitely confirm this was true.

He wished Pepper would have held him, even though he couldn’t meet her halfway. He thought maybe she would have, before yesterday.

He thought maybe he broke something.

Pepper had come in with this talk of how she had arranged a tour of a rehab clinic for him tomorrow. She had wanted to go today, but Tony assured her he would be fine for the night. She went with it, likely because he didn’t argue against her plans for the next day.

Her plans, not Tony’s. He didn’t intend to go. Tomorrow he was driving back to New York for Aunt Peggy’s funeral. He’d find some way to do it. He would cross that bridge when he came to it.

As for Tony’s real plan – that was simple. It didn’t have to be that complicated, he told himself. He would stay here, he would go through withdrawal, then he would go back to New York when he was ready to successfully pretend none of this had ever happened. He wasn’t going to drink ever again after this. The end.

By 9:00 PM that night, he had changed his mind.

He was sweating, his Pink Floyd T-shirt was sticking to his back. His hands were so unsteady he worried that he might not ever be able to hold precision tools ever again, and the thought made him extremely anxious.

Pepper was in the living room, reading a magazine. The TV was on.

He told her maybe they should go out and buy a new bottle of wine or champagne to – celebrate.

(He had secret stashes in the house. He didn’t tell Pepper about them.)

Because it was normal to drink socially. And Pepper was there with him, so this was “social.” And he was going to get better, so that was something to celebrate, right?

His whole problem was that he drank too much, he didn’t have limits, so he would just – give himself limits. Like, just one glass tonight. It was fine. It would be fine. He promised. It was something that everybody did. It was something that Pepper used to do with him during dates. It was fine! It would be fine. It was normal for other people, it would be normal for him.

“It can’t be normal for you, Tony.”

She sounded exhausted.

Tony was trying to look cool and reasonable, but he was hugging himself. He looked more wounded than objective.

“Why don’t you think I can do it?” He asked. “Why can’t you trust me? Why don’t you think I can control myself?”

(Well, because clearly he fucking couldn’t.)

Pepper didn’t say anything. She hadn’t looked up at him yet.

“Fifteen minutes,” she said eventually, flicking pages on the magazine.

“What?”

“It’s 9:00 PM. Let’s suppose we have a dinner reservation at 9:15. We’re driving over.”

Tony looked at her.

“A normal person would be able to wait fifteen minutes.”

“You’re testing me.”

Pepper shrugged.

Stark went back to the bedroom, invigorated by the solid short-term goal. Prove to Pepper that he could wait fifteen minutes. That was fine. He could do that.

He sat on the bed with his head on his hands.

It felt hellishly like captivity anniversaries, when he was trying to count minutes and line up events in his head like the task was crucial to his attempt to reconcile his entire life1.

Tony showed up in the living room again once the fifteen minutes were up. Pepper was still reading the same magazine.

“Ten more minutes,” she said. “The traffic is bad.”

“What?” Tony’s face fell. He shook his head. “No --”

“You have every right to be upset,” Pepper continued, seemingly unfazed. “I know how you get, you hate traffic, and you’re nervous about ruining dinner.”

She looked at him for the first time.

“That’s why you’d be upset, if you didn’t have a drinking problem.”

Tony swallowed.

He went back to the bedroom and picked one of the wristwatches in his closet. He came back with it in hand, and sat next to Pepper.

“Ten minutes are up.”

“We got to the restaurant, but our reservation is gone. It’s a forty-five minute wait.”

“We can wait in the bar.”

“It’s too crowded, I don’t want to go there.”

“I’m Tony Stark,” he gritted his teeth. “They won’t make me wait forty-five minutes. They’ll bump someone else back.”

“You’re Tony Stark,” Pepper put down the magazine. “You’re not gonna let that happen.”

“I’m Tony Stark. I’ll pick up the tab of whoever’s behind us in the line, they’ll be honored.”

Tony looked at Pepper, she looked back at him. She was the first one to blink.

“Five minutes,” she hissed. “For them to prep our table.”

Tony leaned back on the couch, eyes on his wristwatch. Pepper picked up her magazine again.

“How long has it been?” She asked.

“Two minutes.”

She waited a moment.

“A couple walks in. They have children.”

“It’s an open-bar restaurant, children aren’t allowed.”

“I never said it was that kind of restaurant.”

“I’m saying it.”

“I provide the scenario. You make the choices.”

Tony bit his tongue.

“It’s twins. A girl and a boy. The girl’s hair is actually shorter than the boy’s, because she’s in that phase where she wanted to test the scissors on her own hair.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I know,” Pepper smirked. “It’s adorable.”

“It’s imaginary,” Tony scoffed.

“Anyway,” Pepper continued. “The hostess calls your name. But so does the little girl, she recognized you. Her brother looks as well. Their parents are telling them not to point, it’s not polite. Normally they would have listened, because they’re good kids, but this time it’s you, and it’s their first time seeing a live superhero, so there’s some whining.”

Tony didn’t say anything.

“You’re Tony Stark,” Pepper said. “What do you choose?”

He swallowed.

“I pretend I didn’t see it. I go to our table.”

Because he was Tony Stark. The name felt bitter to him, again.

Pepper didn’t argue, but she bit her bottom lip.

“Five minutes until the drinks arrive.”

Stark focused on the watch again. Five more minutes, and then he would win this.

It didn’t feel like victory.

“Are the kids seated?” He asked.

Pepper immediately put the magazine away and turned her whole body to face him.

“No. Wait time is one hour.”

“I’ll go talk to them,” he tried. “After I get my drink.”

“The family will have left by then. One hour is a long time, they’re discouraged.”

“You can’t keep throwing those curve balls.”

“I can do whatever I want.”

Tony turned his body to face Pepper as well.

“You said five minutes until the drinks arrive. I’ll spend them with the wonder twins.”

Pepper almost smiled.

“The girl has this really long, convoluted, seventy-percent-made-up story about her dad, who is a pilot. It’s going to take her fifteen minutes to narrate the whole thing. Then her brother will want just as much attention, that’s another fifteen minutes.”

Tony closed his eyes. He had a headache, he felt disgusting.

“How long has it been since my last drink in that scenario?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Pepper said, raising her eyebrows. “You don’t have a problem, remember? You don’t think on those terms.”

Tony didn’t say anything. He looked to his watch again, and waited.

“Five minutes are up.”

Pepper didn’t move.

He covered his eyes with one hand.

“Pepper.”

No answer.

“Pepper, please.”

Silence.

“Just one dose of anything, it’s not going to hurt me.”

She clicked her tongue.

“It’s not going to hurt me more than being without it.”

Tony finally felt Pepper moving on the couch. He dropped his hand. She had picked up the magazine again, it was open on her lap. Her eyes were glassy.

“I think,” she started, “I think that you would have listened to the wonder twins talking for half an hour.”

He exhaled. He looked at the watch again.

“At least.”

“Pepper.”  

“You would have told me it would only take a minute. Then you would have stayed there. It would be endearing to watch for the first ten minutes. But then –”

Pepper was the one who exhaled shakily this time.

“Then, what?”

“I’d resent you.”

“What?”

“You never have time for me, and when date night finally works out, this happens.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You could come with me.”

“I wish you were talking to our kids. But I know you don’t want children, and I know I don’t want children either,” she swallowed. “I mean. Rationally. Just like you.”

Tony was silent. He wasn’t sure where this was going anymore.

“Maybe I’d been expecting you to propose.”

It hit him that his… failed proposal anniversary was in two days2.

To her, anyway. The proposal failure was two years old for him. He’d almost done it before3. But he hadn’t, because he knew he shouldn’t.

“But you didn’t, this was just a regular date, that as usual, ended up going terribly wrong.”

Tony cleared his throat and looked away.

Well, if the game was meant to make him feel terrible about himself, then this thought experiment was clearly succeeding –

“And wonderfully right.”

He looked up. Pepper was looking down to the magazine, smiling a little bitterly.

“Because it’s so you, I mean. It’s so Tony Stark. You probably don’t even know it’s been thirty minutes since you went away. And I love you for it. I loved you when I found out you left me in the balcony to go save a city. I loved you when you asked me to help you defeat Stane by pushing the button that might have killed you. I loved you when you left me alone in the planet the day you disappeared into a black hole.”

Tony swallowed, and looked away.

“And I would have loved you for leaving me waiting because you didn’t have the heart to stop the wonder twins from talking. Because that is what all of this looks like when the armor is not making it super-strong, super-impenetrable, and super-human. It just looks like your heart is carrying you away.”

Pepper looked at him this time. He dropped his gaze again.

“I could accept losing you to that. I can see how that’s what’s bound to happen in the end. I could move on. I could be perfectly happy. I’m strong enough. God, it’s been a year –”

Tony wanted to take her hand that was closest to him, but Pepper pulled it up to massage her forehead, closing her eyes.

“What I can’t accept is losing you to something that’s destroying you. You’re not the destroyer, Tony, you’re not the monster of this story. You never were. You’re the one who’s being destroyed. And you’re the only one who can fight it.”

He hugged himself tighter, and shifted on his seat.

Pepper cleared her throat to recompose herself.

“The waiter just got here with the wine list, and the couple is about to leave with the wonder twins.”

He wanted to throw up.

“You’re Tony Stark. What do you choose?”

Tony could tell himself he believed in Pepper’s story for a few hours.

How successful was he? Well, enough to convince Pepper. But not enough to spark up anything new in him. Back at square one: he would get clean, and then he would get back to New York in time to pretend nothing had ever been wrong, and he would never drink again.

He started getting worse through the night. Pepper didn’t want him to leave her sight. She wanted to call a doctor. Tony kept using fake promises to deflect her. He would go to the clinic tomorrow, it would be fine.

Pepper herself was exhausted. Tony could tell. She probably hadn’t blinked an eye since Rhodey, and she had actually gone to work since then. She eventually started giving him warnings – “If I fall asleep, and you need me, please wake me up. I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all.”

Stark waited for her to fall asleep on the couch. He had absolutely no plans of waking her.

He went to his bedroom instead, and locked the door behind him. He knew this was stupid, but it was his usual M.O. He was more comfortable going through these things behind the scenes.

He lay down on the bed, tried watching some TV. He made it until almost 3:00 AM before that time came, even for him – and boy, did it come for him – when he had to allow his body to make every almost inhuman sound it wanted to make. He would have never thought himself capable of making them.

By 4:00 AM, he was dry-heaving in the bathroom.

He was going to have to be pragmatic about this. There was no way in any hell he would be able to attend Aunt Peggy’s funeral in this state.

Clearly he would have to be drunk for it.

Focus. New plan. He was going to drink, but he would do it completely in secret. This was nobody’s business, anyway. And it wasn’t forever, just for as long as it took for him to figure something else out. He needed to be able to function. It would be just like when he was dying of palladium poisoning, it was fine, no one had to know. It was fine.

Tony crawled to the cupboard under the bathroom sink, opened it, pushed aside a few unopened bottles of shampoo and aftershave, and there it was. One out of seven bottles he had hidden in unexpected places. It wasn’t the good stuff, just cheap Jack Daniel’s, but it would suit his purposes.

He grabbed the edge of the sink, to give himself leverage to stand up. If he was going to do this for pragmatic, dignified reasons, then he was going to do it standing.

He caught his reflection in the mirror.

Why the fuck did this have to keep happening?

He let go of the sink and hit the mirror with the side of his fist. It cracked.

Tony hugged his stomach with one arm, doubled over, lost his balance and fell to the floor again. He hit his head on the edge of the sink in the process.

Stark men are made of iron, his dad used to say. But there he was, he was crying.

Proof that Tony Stark has a heart, Pepper wrote. Maybe, but it was weak and rotten and toxic.

Steve had come back for him. Steve believed in him.

This was never going to work. The last thing anyone would ever remember about Tony is how much he had disappointed them.

He just kept lying and lying and lying, lying about how he would get better, lying about how disgusting he felt. He kept building up people’s hopes just in time to tear them down, he didn’t know what he was doing.

“Oh, God, what am I going to do?” He mouthed the question to himself, hugging his knees against his chest and pressing his forehead against them.

It always came down to this question. He’d asked it to himself during captivity, when he was done building the arc reactor, he asked it to himself after New York, when the thought of the experience started to overwhelm him4.

Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark?

You’re Tony Stark. What do you choose?

How is it that other people managed to say his name like it stood for something strong?

Don’t disappoint me, Anthony5.

His father, on the other hand, had always known how to make his name sound like a statement of imminent failure.

(His mother called him “darling.” “Tesoro.” “Antonio.”)

Weak. Coward. He could feel everything now.

(His dad was drunk, Tony told himself. He was drunk.)

Idiot. Brat.

Hopeless case.

If I dropped him on the side of the road he wouldn’t know how to feed himself, he’d cry his way into starvation or until someone picked him up6.

He lifted his head and picked up the bottle again, pushed his back against the wall and stretched his legs.

He felt pretty dropped on the side of the road and there wasn’t a single bit of his father’s statement that hadn’t turned out to be true.

He’d even wondered about starvation.

God, he couldn’t even be picked up. People kept trying to pick him up and he kept falling back down.

How had he managed to be even worse than his dad had predicted? How had he managed be even worse than his father himself? He’d never seen Howard crying or begging and falling and whimpering and moaning –

He’d never seen his father go through this.

Not successfully, anyway. He was a drunkard up until he died.

Tony’s arm was raw from compulsive scratching, but he stopped.

It was kind of obvious what this was. Thinking about it. All of this, it was withdrawal. He knew what it meant in biological terms, he was cutting off the supply of something his body had become dependent on. He was readjusting. It was obvious. That was obvious. It was a stage.

He remembered it. That one moment in the cave.

This isn’t a prison door.

This is an obstacle.

Tony Stark thrived in overcoming obstacles, and that door would be no different.

It would be overcome7.

He crossed his legs.

Neck long. Back straight against the wall.

(“It’s hurting me,” he’d told Yinsen. “I know. Straighten your back.” “It’s hurting me!” “Do as I say.”)

(“Try to relax. I will show you how you need to breathe.”)

Tony closed his eyes.

Diaphragmatic breathing8.

“Pepper.”

She opened her eyes, then started awake, immediately sitting up. It might have been because his face was so close to hers, he had to kneel by the couch. He couldn’t stay standing for too long.

“Are you okay?” She asked. “I fell asleep. I’m so sorry –”

“It’s okay.”

“Oh, God, Tony, your arms –”

“It’s fine.”

She looked at him.

Tony hesitated before he said, “Pepper, I think I’ll need a doctor first thing in the morning.”

She seemed startled that he’d ask that. He didn’t blame her. He kind of was too.

“I’m not feeling well,” he barely mouthed the words of explanation. And when that was out there, tears started gathering in his eyes. “I made my choice. I don’t want to ruin it just because I’m hurting.”

He wanted to be better.

He got to the bottom him, and that’s what he found there. He wanted to be better. He was willing to do anything. He was willing to go through this in ways that his father never could.

He was going to find his own definition of strength.

And he was going to breathe.

(Dead for over five years. Still teaching him to breathe.)

God, he was going to stop drowning, and start breathing.

PAST DRABBLE REFERENCES

1. “It felt hellishly like captivity anniversaries, when he was trying to count minutes and line up events in his head like the task was crucial to his attempt to reconcile his entire life.” Each year on May 3rd, the day he was captured, Tony tries to retrace his own past steps in his head in fruitless attempts to piece together the exact time of death of the soldiers that were with him in the Humvee. (A Heartbeat Drives You Mad) http://thefuturistknows.tumblr.com/post/84882085637/a-heartbeat-drives-you-mad-self

2. “It hit him that his… failed proposal anniversary was in two days.” Tony proposed to Pepper on Christmas of 2014. (I Hope My Love Can Blind You) http://thefuturistknows.tumblr.com/post/106153230323/i-hope-my-love-can-blind-you-christmas-2014

3. “The proposal failure was two years old for him. He’d almost done it before.” Tony intended to propose to Pepper on Christmas of 2013, but he ended up donating the ring he had bought her and she never learned about it. (Christmas Miracles) http://thefuturistknows.tumblr.com/post/71193399132/christmas-miracles-writing-challenge-5

4. “It always came down to this question. He’d asked it to himself during captivity, when he was done building the arc reactor, he asked it to himself after New York, when the thought of the experience started to overwhelm him.” (Flowers for a Ghost) http://thefuturistknows.tumblr.com/post/110799275822/flowers-for-a-ghost-pepper-drabble

5. “Don’t disappoint me, Anthony.” Howard’s last words to Tony, spoken over the phone when Tony was in London taking an active Stark Industries role for the first time, two days before the accident on December 17th, 1989. (Remember December) http://thefuturistknows.tumblr.com/post/83077154753/remember-december-one-shot-flashback

6. “If I dropped him on the side of the road he wouldn’t know how to feed himself, he’d cry his way into starvation or until someone picked him up.” Seven-year-old Tony overheard his parents arguing about whether or not he should be sent to boarding school. (Flowers for a Ghost) http://thefuturistknows.tumblr.com/post/110799275822/flowers-for-a-ghost-pepper-drabble

7. “This isn’t a prison door. This is an obstacle. Tony Stark thrived in overcoming obstacles, and that door would be no different. It would be overcome.” (Iron Man by Peter David, p. 75)

8. “Diaphragmatic breathing.” When Tony was in pain following the arc reactor surgery and the waterboarding, Yinsen took his time to teach him a more effective and less painful way to breathe. (A Goodnight Song for the Restless) http://thefuturistknows.tumblr.com/post/78003967784/a-goodnight-song-for-the-restless-writing

[thefuturistknows]

You’re Alive but You Know the Wire Under You Is Bending | December 21, 2015

12:35 AM

Rhodey hadn’t woken up since they had gotten to the hospital.

Pepper had already dropped by. Stark was wearing the clean clothes she had brought him: loose fit jeans, one of his Star Wars graphic tees (surely to celebrate the premiere of the new movie, and Tony tried, with dubious success, to just focus on the fact that she’d remembered even though she didn’t care for Star Wars, and not on the fact that he and Rhodey were supposed to watch this movie together), a hoodie, and an extra leather jacket in case he needed to step outside.

She had put together a whole care package as well. Clothes for Rhodey, toiletries for the two of them, Gameboys, healthy snacks and candy bars and a thermal cup filled with coffee – no idea how she had managed to sneak outside food into the hospital, but hey, it was Pepper. He couldn’t decide if she’d just scratched and elbowed her way past security, or if she’d managed to sneak past unseen, or if she had talked people into letting her have her way, or if she’d just decided to donate a lot of money to the place.

Tony could picture her putting the care package together, probably in this frantic state of needing to do something to help. That was the only reason why Tony played with the Gameboy for some five minutes. Besides that, his clothes, and the coffee, he didn’t touch anything else in the bag. Pepper had done an amazing job including everything but the one thing Stark would have asked her to sneak in – liquor instead of coffee. 

6:20 AM

“You haven’t moved.”

Tony looked to the door of the room when he heard Pepper’s voice. He was sitting on a chair by Rhodey’s bedside.

Her assessment was technically inaccurate. Tony had paced around the floor close to 3:00 AM, when the adrenaline from yesterday started to die down and was replaced by the edginess of the lack of alcohol, he’d gone to the bathroom and that was the one time he almost broke, almost, because he saw himself in the mirror, then he came back to Rhodey’s room and paced inside it as well, hating himself because he knew that the least he could after almost getting Rhodey killed was to stay with him until he woke up, but he might be hoping that would happen at least partly because then he would be morally permitted to finally run to a fucking liquor store.

He didn’t say anything.

“How is he?”

Stark looked at Pepper again. She was dressed for work. She probably hadn’t slept either.

“Serious but stable,” he quoted one of the doctors.

“So nothing new.”

Tony shook his head.

And so it began. Pepper started fussing over him instead. “Have you eaten?” “Have you slept?” “You still have some dry blood on your face.” “Did your test results come back?” “You need to go home.” “You need to take a shower.” “I’ll come back during lunch, don’t worry, you need to rest --”

Her concern for him wasn’t out of character in the slightest, but the second the nurse stepped into the room, Pepper instantly assaulted him with questions as well, which confirmed that her anxiety was at least partially due to her inability to do anything about Rhodey’s situation.

Stark listened as the nurse repeated the same vague non-responses he’d heard all night, the same list of internal injuries and careful speech about the chances of recovery. Except that Pepper actually argued against it, she wanted more answers, more specificity, more guarantees – Tony sympathized with that, but he had stopped talking to anyone hours ago unless explicitly prompted to because he was starting to feel too sick to speak.

And now he knew he was too sick to hear as well. He stared at Rhodey while Pepper asked her questions, as if that way he could will Rhodey into waking up and laughing and sarcastically asking Pepper to “relax,” and that’s when Pepper would really go ballistic on everyone in the room –

Rhodey wasn’t waking up.

Tony pushed his chair back and stood up. He didn’t think he’d been noisy – actually, he’d been hoping to sneak out – but rather uncannily, Pepper turned her head to look at him so quickly her neck snapped.

“Where are you going?”

Bar. Liquor store.

“Uhm. Breakfast.”

Pepper smiled.

Oh, no.

“Excellent! I saw a lovely-looking diner across the street, I’ll go with you.”

What a fucking dumb mistake.

6:50 AM

Pepper took his arm as they were crossing the street. Tony wanted to pull her closer, but he didn’t, because he felt disgusting, in a very physical level.

“Thank God you’re okay,” she whispered, running a hand up and down his arm.

“Rhodey isn’t,” Tony said, and it was a cruel thing to say because he knew it overruled whatever sentiment Pepper tried to express.

She didn’t respond at first, not until they got to the other side and she repeated, “Thank God you’re okay.”

She tried making small talk as they sat across each other on a corner table. This was one of those places with laminated menus with pictures of the dishes on them, so Stark had to put it down immediately after he was faced with an illustration of eggs and bacon. He was felling nauseous.

Tony put his cell phone on the table, out of a weird hope that Rhodey would call him.

He let Pepper order her drink first. It was white tea. She loved white tea. That’s what she kept in her office.

(She was sitting right here, and he missed her so much.)

Tony interrupted when she started ordering a coffee for him.

“What’s the most –” He tried looking casual, and avoided Pepper’s eye. “What’s the strongest alcoholic beverage you have over here?”

“It’s not even 7:00 AM, Tony.”

Tony continued not to look. Their server – the nametag read Barbara – answered promptly, but he could tell she’d been caught off guard as well.

“We have beer.”

“Excellent.” Ugh. “Like… canned?”

“Yes.”

Fucking depressing.

“I’ll have that.”

“Which kind? We have –”

“Whatever sells best.”

Stark tried to feign normalcy by smiling at Barbara. The young woman promised their drinks would be there soon before she walked away.

“You hate beer,” Pepper observed. “Why will you have that this early?”

Tony snatched the menu, and tried to focus on it.

“Tony. Why are you drinking –”

He dropped the menu again with a scoff.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m asking a question.”

“You know the answer.” His tone grew low and corrosive. “You think that forcing me to admit it out loud will make anything better? What kind of ‘Coping with Torture 101’ Internet hell hole did you stick yourself into this time1 –”

Pepper put her own menu down, and leaned forward, narrowing her eyes.

“I just wanted it to be crystal clear that you have a problem.”

Tony leaned forward as well.

“I, Tony Stark, am drinking beer at seven in the morning because I wanted to go to a liquor store, but then you dragged me into this stupid diner with fucking – polka dot seats, so canned beer will have to do.”

Pepper turned her face away, scrunching up her nose in disgust. It was probably his breath. Tony leaned back on his seat.

Her voice was cold when she spoke again. “You’re having something to eat.”

“I’m not going to.”

“You’re not having a drop of alcohol –”

“Pepper, I want to throw up, and believe me, it’s not just because of what you’re saying.”

Pepper had been about to say something, but then Barbara arrived with their drinks. Tony smiled at her, so fake but so practiced it might have even looked real.

She opened the can in front of him, and started pouring into a glass. Longest five seconds of Tony’s life. He took the glass as soon as she was done.

“Bring me another one when you can, dear,” he said.

“Tony, no.”

“Make that two.”

Barbara went away again.

Tony cleaned his first glass in one go – God, he really hated beer – then he set it down carefully against the table and then picked up the can so he could pour in the remnants of the drink, down to the last drop. He didn’t look up at the sound of Pepper dropping her tea spoon onto the table.

“Tony, do you expect me to just watch this?”

She sounded less cold, more exhausted. Tony still didn’t look.

“I expect you not to project your Rhodey anxiety onto me.”

“What?”

He drained his cup again.

“You know what.” He cleared his throat. “Stop fussing over me just because you can’t help Rhodey, I can tell that’s what you’re doing.”

She actually laughed, but it was a sarcastic, outraged sound.

“Oh my God,” she said. “First of all, how dare you –”

“I’m just stating it.”

“—how dare you use this against me, and use Rhodey, of all people –”

“I’m not using Rhodey – don’t you –”

“—to deflect attention from the fact –”

“—don’t say that –”

“You’ll lose him, Tony, you’ll lose everything!”

Tony actually looked at Pepper this time. His lips were still parted with the ghost of whatever it was he was trying to say before Pepper caught him completely off guard by enunciating one of his worst nightmares.

(She was the one who used to reassure him.)

“You’re always so scared of losing everything, and it’s exactly what’s going to happen.” Pepper’s voice grew unsteady, she rubbed at her forehead. “If you don’t stop this, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

(He couldn’t stop it.)

“I know that,” he said.

“Then why won’t you –”

“—Of course I tried –”

“Mr. Stark?”

It was a small voice. Kid’s. Tony immediately turned his head to the source of the sound. Indeed, it was a boy in some private school uniform. He had a paper airplane in his hand.

“I’m Damien,” the boy went on.

Tony’s next drink arrived just as he was about to ask the kid how he was doing, but he got anxious about chit-chatting while Barbara refilled his cup so he just caught the paper airplane from Damien’s hand instead.

“This is really neat, you want me to sign it?” He didn’t wait for confirmation before taking the pen from the front pocket of Barbara’s apron and scribbling Iron Man on the paper. “There we go.”

Tony handed the plane back to Damien. By that time his cup was already full and he drunk from it.

“Tony,” Pepper said.

He looked at her. She nodded her head to indicate the boy that was still standing there.

“Oh.” Tony turned his attention to him. “Hey. You’re still here.”

“I made it for you,” Damien said, offering the origami again.

Tony hesitated, but he eventually took the gift.

“It’s the Quinjet,” Damien’s voice perked up once the plane was in Tony’s hands. “I drew all of the Avengers inside, look!”

“I see that.”

“But not you, I drew you right here on the outside,” Damien reached to show him where, “Because you’re flying outside the jet. Because you have the armor. The Wasp is flying too, here. But she’s really small.”

Tony nodded, but didn’t say anything at first. He just swallowed and continued to look at the drawings. He had mindlessly written his name close to one of the windows, it made him miserable, but he tried to muster a smile.

“Hey, I’ll tell you an Avengers-exclusive secret about the – What on earth do you think you’re doing?!”

Damien was startled by Stark’s tone, and immediately looked up from the cell phone he had in his hand. It was Tony’s.

“I was trying to see what games you had –”

Tony dropped the plane and snatched the phone from the kid, roughly enough to prompt Pepper’s alarmed, “Tony!”

“No, don’t you ‘Tony’ me,” he spat before turning back to Damien. “What the hell were you thinking, this is dangerous!”

“I’m sorry –”

“Where’s your mother?”

“Tony, he apologized, that’s enough –”

“I don’t care how sorry he is! My armors are in here, everything is in here!”

Damien’s mother – or so Tony assumed – arrived then. She quickly took the boy’s shoulder and pushed him behind her.

“What is your problem?!”

“My problem?”

Tony actually threw his chair back and stood up. Pepper immediately stood as well.

“His problem is, he had a terrible night.” Her tone was fierce enough for Tony to look at her. She was looking back at him, eyes blazing, before she turned her attention to Damien’s mother. “I’m terribly sorry. We’re on our way out.”

“That’s bullshit –”

“For God’s sake, Tony –”

“The kid doesn’t get to be an idiot just because I’m feeling bad!”

Tony stopped at the sound of crying. Damien wasn’t standing there anymore when he turned, he was in the woman’s arms and they were walking away.

He stood stock still for a moment, completely unaware of all the eyes on him. He didn’t register it when Pepper said that he didn’t get to be an idiot just because he was feeling bad. All he could hear was the crying.

He tried going after them, but when he caught up the woman snapped at him before he even dreamed of saying anything, and threatened to call the police if he came any closer. Damien was still whimpering into her shoulder as they walked out of the diner.

Tony walked back to his table, then dropped onto his chair.

Pepper was still trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t understand it at all. The sounds were blurring together, he tried focusing on his breathing.

Your grades may say you’re a genius, but you act like an idiot! – One of the earliest memories Tony had of his father.

“Oh my God,” he exhaled. He needed a paper bag or something, instead, he grabbed some napkins and bunched them in one of his hands. “Oh my God, what did I do –”

He’d called the kid an idiot, and that was just a part of it. The paper airplane was still sitting on the table.

He let go of the napkin and reached for the glass. Pepper tried to slap his hand away, but in trying to secure the drink, Tony spilled it on himself. It soaked his jacket, the hoodie inside, and his pants.

“God!” He covered his eyes with one hand. It was trembling. So was his chin.

“There’s a change of clothes in the hospital.”

“I hate beer.”

“Clearly you’ve had enough.”

Tony tried and failed to take a deep, calming breath. He gritted his teeth instead, and dropped his hand.

“Clearly I haven’t.”

He ignored Pepper’s “Tony, please” as he grabbed the third, still unopened can he had ordered previously.

“I’m going after them,” he said. “Take care of the bill, I’ll pay you back.”

He didn’t stick around to hear Pepper’s word of protest, and he was done with the beer in time to toss it into the first garbage can he could see outside.

He couldn’t spot Damien and his mother, of course. Both were long gone. He wanted to cry, so he bit into the sleeve of his leather jacket instead2.

Tony was paralyzed in shame-infused terror, up until a small crowd across the street caught his attention. Unsurprisingly, people were gathered around the armor he had parked in front of the hospital.

(He’d gone off at a kid for taking his phone, but he was fine with leaving his armor exposed like that. God.)

He took advantage of the slow traffic to cross the street without paying attention. Unfortunately, Pepper did the same to get to him faster just as he was reaching the armor.

“Oh, no,” she was saying, out of breath but noticeably angered, “Oh, no, you’re not stepping into that, you’re not okay to fly.”

Okay to fly. Somehow the expression managed to rip a sardonic laugh out of him.

“Oh, God, Pepper –” he started. “Do you really think this is my first time flying drunk?!”

Not a good thing to announce in public, but he didn’t care.

“You’re dangerous.”

“You’re so impossibly naïve –”

“You’re making a scene!”

He drew blood from his tongue with how hard he bit into it. He didn’t have to look away from Pepper to motion his arm in the direction of the suit. The armor responded to the movements and mental commands. He pointed to the sky, and the armor followed.

“It’s like an extra limb, remember,”3 he said through gritted teeth.

The armor exploded mid-flight when Stark closed his fist. It happened close enough for him to feel the heat from the fire where he was standing, and he drew gasps from passers-by.

“Yes, I’m making a scene.”

Pepper was speechless.

“And yes, I’m dangerous, so stop following me.”

He turned his back to her.

And she still tried to stop him and take his hand—

“DON’T TOUCH ME!”

He was so loud his throat felt raw immediately afterwards. He didn’t have to pull his arm away, because Pepper let it go.

“Stop following me, stop touching me, stop talking to me, stop looking at me!”

Tony turned his back again after succeeding to drive Pepper to tears.

“Don’t look at me,” he hissed again, because he still felt hounded, but when he turned, he didn’t see just Pepper – still standing on the same spot, she hadn’t been following – there were other people standing behind her.

“Oh, unless you don’t know me, of course,” he said, bowing his head in mock courtesy. “In which case, please, feel free to snap your million-dollar picture! -- dark-green hoodie over there caught my best angle, so I suggest all of you go sell your shit to magazines before he does--”

8:02 AM

Stark had managed to find an alley deep enough to suit him. He walked past a dumpster and pressed his back against the wall.

Almost two thousand contacts in his phone, and there was no one he wanted to call to take him back home. Maybe because he didn’t want to go home, and that’s where anyone would want to take him.

(Rhodey hadn’t called him.)

He wanted to summon a suit, but not through Extremis, because his head was screaming, he didn’t want to deal with it – but he couldn’t bring himself to call a suit using his phone either. He was stuck on the home page.

He did have a game for kids on this phone. Well, not a game, technically. It was one of those notepads you could draw on using your fingertips, with different colors and brushes. And then in the end, the picture could be saved to his online album. He had a lot of drawings like that, and little virtual notes from kids.

He’d forgotten Damien’s plane in the diner.

I don’t care how sorry he is!

God –

Don’t apologize. Make amends.

He’d sounded just like his father.

Tony’s phone suddenly started vibrating. Steve’s name and picture were blinking on the screen.

He almost laughed. It fucking figured that Steve, of all people, would call him now. Stark was scared that he had somehow heard of everything that had just happened, so he just dropped his phone on the floor, then tried crushing it with his foot.

His heel only needed to hit the device twice before the screen cracked, and then one more time before it went blank, then black, then one more time for good measure.

He had a flash of Lucy Cervantes doing this to his previous phone, or trying to anyway – she was so tiny4. Yet, she’d still managed to almost sneak away with the key to Tony’s car.

It’s okay, he’d told her, while she cried on his shoulder, terrified that Iron Man thought she was a terrible person. It’s okay. It’s all over now.

No, you’re not bad.

I forgive you. I’m proud of you.

It’s all over now, it’s okay.

Hey, lovely.

There were stray tears on his cheeks just before he pressed his back to the wall again and hid his face into his hands.

Up until today, Tony had wondered if maybe his father had been right. Maybe there was a reason. Maybe he’d been an awful child, maybe he had deserved it, all of it. But as he recalled that shit spilling from his own tongue, he knew that no, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t. It never was. He’d been so young. Too young. No one that young could have ever done something bad enough to deserve this. No one that young had seen enough to even be someone that deserved this. It was all just drunken ravings, some piece of shit human being suffering and using someone else as a scapegoat.

And Tony got to figure out how hateful the whole business was just in time to hate himself for becoming that person.

Pepper hadn’t followed him. She hadn’t called. He remembered the look in her eyes.

God, he’d seen all of this before.

And all of those promises that he’d made – that he would never talk to his mom while drunk. He would never marry anyone, he would never put anyone in the position to share this tragedy with him5. He wouldn’t do it, he wouldn’t destroy people, he would stay far, I can’t protect you from the world, Pepper, and I know that, but I can protect you from what that does to me – all wasted6. He’d done it.

He took it in like there was some inevitability to it.

It’s all over now. It’s all over now. It’s all over now.

(God, no, he smelled like beer--)

11:12 AM

He wasn’t sure what surrender was supposed to look like.

At first, it just looked like standing there, with his back against the wall. Then it just looked like sitting on that same spot. Then it looked like laughing alone at how ridiculous his life was, and then it looked like biting into his fist to keep himself from crying and then crying into his hands because he wasn’t strong enough not to.

Finally, it looked like standing up and walking out of the alley because it had been three hours and he needed another drink.

Stark hired a taxi. Not that he was feeling too responsible to fly an armor in this state, it was more like – he couldn’t bear the thought of looking at Iron Man.

“Where to?”

“How far do you go?”

“In which direction?”

Tony shook his head.

“I don’t… just to…” He didn’t know. “The end of. Something.”

“Can take you to East End.”

Hamptons.

How pathetic – he wanted some great escape or whatever, and the driver would only take him to the Hamptons. What sort of rich boy nonsense –

“I have a house there.”

Tony provided the address.

“Would you stop by the first liquor store. Or bar. Or something.”

“Can’t hold it together for a couple of hours, huh?”

Tony caught the driver’s eye on the rear view mirror. Smiling. It was a joke.

He just shrugged, settling his back against the leather seat.

“I gave up trying.”

He wasn’t joking. Something about his tone kept the driver from trying to make small talk again. He didn’t speak until a few minutes later, when he pulled over by a store, per Tony’s request.

Fucking finally.

He walked out of the store with a bag containing a couple of travel-sized bottles of Johnnie Walker.

“That for Christmas? New Year’s?” The driver asked once the door was closed. “Celebrating something?”

Stark chuckled. “Celebrating the end.”

“East end, you said?”

“Sure.”

“What are you doing over there?”

Tony didn’t answer the question, he just scoffed.

There was some form of relief that came with accepting defeat, he would acknowledge as much. Now he got to rest in peace.

Scratch that, actually. He got to… whatever. In numbness.

(He exhaled through his nose because he was scared he would start crying again if he did it through the mouth.)

“Hey, man,” a few minutes into the drive, the driver claimed his attention while Tony busied himself opening one of the bottles. “Joke’s a joke, but no drinking in the car.”

“I’ll pay you extra.”

“No’s a no.”

Murphy’s law was really active today.

“I’ll pay you a lot extra.”

“If you don’t close that, I’ll have to ask you to step –”

“A lot extra, as in –” Stark angrily pulled out his wallet and showed his black American Express to the driver. He made sure the name on it was visible. “That much extra.”

“You’re Tony Stark?”

The man’s shock denounced how absolutely terrible Tony must look.

“No,” he shook his head. Hearing the name made him sick. “I’m not.”

“Quite a dead ringer then. Walking around with that card.”

Now the guy sounded suspicious.

“No, I am, I mean, just don’t –” He showed his ID. “—don’t call me that.”

The driver waited for the next red light to examine Tony’s ID. Tony took the opportunity to take a swig from the bottle he’d opened.

“Iron Man or not, no drinking, man, I mean it.”

“Don’t drive off.”

Tony opened the door, stepped out, and took the bottle to his lips. He stepped back in and closed the door again.

“I won’t do it again, just be fast.”

“Are you okay?”

“Just fucking drive me,” His voice broke when he leaned forward to support his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands, “Please. I just want to go home.”

2:15 PM

“What are you doing over there?” The driver had asked Tony.

He had no. Fucking. Idea.

First things first: JARVIS let him in. There were messages awaiting him, Stark had them deleted. He was halfway done with the bottle from before by that time, and even though he had another one in the bag – because oh, yes, he’d forget gifts from kids, but God fucking forbid the alcohol is left in the taxi – he grabbed a big one from the fully loaded living room bar and took it with him to the lab.

For later. It was called forward-thinking. Because, you see, he was a futurist.

A whole row of Iron Men was staring at him in the face when he got to the workshop. All those little pieces of hell he’d brought back to the surface with him, when he – theoretically – got out of the cave, and then he’d spent years dreaming that the shells would take him to heaven somehow. He didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or to cry, so he did neither. He dropped the bottles on one of the work tables and looked helplessly around for a moment – What are you doing over there? – until he caught his reflection against the glass door.

It wasn’t surprising that the cab driver hadn’t recognized him, he looked wrong and disheveled. But he saw something there, something familiar, an echo from old nightmares7, and he knew that if he hadn’t given up already, then he would have probably tried to break that glass.

He was hungry. But his first thought wasn’t, what am I going to eat. He just idly wondered if it was possible for a rich man to starve himself to death inside his own house. Maybe he should try it. But well, he wouldn’t, because it was a really slow, terrible way to die – not to mention boring, when he had all these fancy weapons everywhere, and a full bar. And maybe that was exactly how he would die, an alcoholic coma with nobody to come and find him –

(-- like his first time drunk ever, the very day he turned fifteen, passed out on the floor of his father’s study, and nobody found him --)

What are you doing over there?

He tried to picture himself walking out of this house. He couldn’t.

He guessed he was going to die here.

I guess it doesn’t really matter.

I guess I don’t care.

3:30 PM

What happened over there?

I had my eyes opened.

(He had died. He had died, and whatever was left of him was still screaming.)

6:00 PM

The only reason why he decided to leave a message to the Avengers was because, well, they were the Avengers, and if one of their own just disappeared, then someone was bound to come looking, and he didn’t want to be found. Not like this, anyway.

(And it was always really ironic, how the moments he wanted somebody the most, were also the moments he was the most ashamed of.)

Decades of faking it had led him to this moment. He made himself look presentable – combed his hair, even put on a white dress shirt. It was untucked, though, because the lower half of his body wouldn’t appear on the video anyway – he chose to make it a video because it was the easy way to guarantee legitimacy, and maybe somebody else was secretly as paranoid as he was, too paranoid for e-mails or voice messages –

(-- and that was an almost hope he had left, hope that it would take more than a written or spoken message to get people to stop looking for him.)

He was doing this in the lab.

“If my drink appears on any shots, I want that cut out,” he told JARVIS. “Voice should be stable. Recipients are the Avengers Prime, Avengers, Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy.”

He was using the camera on one of his screens, so he could see himself on it.

All the more reason not to look. Thankfully he was a natural, he knew how to go for television dynamism without keeping track of how the video looked.

“This is a message to the Avengers, Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy. From –”

Tony Stark.

Fucking God. Tony Stark.

“—me. You know who I am.”

He spared a brief smirk to the camera.

“Anyway, I don’t want to joke around with this. It’s important, I just wanted to say –”

He cleared his throat, switching to serious press conference mode. He started pacing.

“Due to personal circumstances, I am now tendering my, uh, resignation as an Avenger. Effective immediately.”

Due to the fact that I am a drunken degenerate, I am ditching you.

“Is that even how you’re supposed to say it? I mean, isn’t it weird that we don’t have a protocol for these things?”

He tried going for a smile, then ended up sipping from his glass instead. He would check to see if JARVIS had edited this out later.

“Seriously, what I’m saying is – I just need a break, I guess. I’m safe. I’m fine. Don’t worry. It’s been a long time coming.”

Leave it at that.

“It’s happening right in the middle of the Vision debacle, I know, it’s just – for the best.”

Leave it. At that.

“I almost got my best friend killed. And a few weeks before that I almost led an entire team to certain ruin because I couldn’t keep it together in the face of aliens8. And before that I almost wanted to kill the new guy Scott9, who’s a father and also came to be a valuable member of the team – and before that two of our properties whose security systems I designed couldn’t hold up against your typical supervillain explosion plot10, and before that I got myself captured on some backwards ass attempt to save Steve11 which really only ended up turning into an opportunity for Pepper to risk her life, and then I didn’t kill the guy who caused all of this, so then he killed Jane12 –”

Stop.

“Anyway. You catch my drift.”

Deep breath.

“And even before all of that – I was never meant to be part of this anyway. I don’t have the, uh --” He closed his eyes briefly. “Personality. And I knew that before Natasha said it, I knew it from day one.”

I’m not the hero type – clearly.

“Some people just aren’t cut out for it. It’s taken its toll on me. So I’m. Dropping it. That’s it, there’s nothing else.”

Maybe he should stop there. He looked to the side, caught a glimpse of one of the armors.  

Tony swallowed back… something.

(Today, he’d already considered buying the definite one-way ticket to hell by using the repulsors.)

“Uhm…”

(He thought it might be grimly poetic.)

“A few laundry list items, just in case. Just so you know.”

He cleared his throat again.

“You don’t need to worry about the money, or the estate, or the technology. It’s yours. By the time you get this message, our whole database and JARVIS will belong to Steve – I mean, as much as JARVIS can belong to anyone.”

“Sir –”

“Don’t talk, J.” He raised the glass to his lips then brought it down again. “I’ll transfer some money – a lot of money – for you within the next few days. It will be under Jan’s name. That’s the Avengers fund, I trust her to relocate it wisely.”

He swallowed again. It was getting harder to keep his voice steady.

“Happy, talk to Abby St. Clair, she runs the New York Haven – I need the Maria Stark Foundation to be in good hands, all right, that’s the most important thing – that’s where we do the most good.”

His eyes were getting glassy now. Damn it. He blinked.

I never answered Lucy’s most recent letter. It’s in the workshop. She sent a picture. She designed this armor that’s all made of cardboard.

Someone needs to tell her I’m sorry.

“What’s a good cover story for a superhero going missing, anyway?” He asked. “I mean, just. Tell people I died? It’s not like I’d be the first one, it should be fine, right?”

He laughed half-heartedly.

“Special cut just for Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy now.”

God. He hoped Rhodey had woken up.

“I’m in the Hamptons house,” he suddenly blurted out. “I know I made it sound like I’m in some really far – but no, I’m only a couple of hours away.”

(What a joke.)

“I know I have the whole world, I just don’t really…”

Care.

“Anyway, I’m just letting you know because –” He felt his throat really thickening for the first time. “Pepper, that was awful. This morning, that was awful. And I didn’t want to just disappear, and then turn up dead, after all of that – I mean, I don’t want you to blame yourself. I don’t want any of you to. I just want you to know that –”

Deep breath again. Drink.

“I’m fine. I’m safe. I mean, you know where I am so you know I’m not lying. I just – I made my choice, and you did all you could. You did all you could, but no matter what you do, there’s a part that needs to come from me, and it won’t, I won’t. I won’t deliver it. I can’t. I never will, and, that’s done, and, I’m being honest, so – please, respect that, and just – don’t come here.”

He ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair.

“You were always the best part of me, I need you to know that. And Rhodey, you need to go watch the God damn Star Wars movie, I mean, seriously, I told you we should have gone on the 18th – anyway, just go see it. Please.”

Please, be okay.

“Please. I’m so sorry.”

Tony drained the glass, then set it down on the table.

“JARVIS, this one’s for Steve and Thor, now.”

He rubbed his eyes. Counted to three. God, this was exhausting.

“I’m so sorry.”

Damn it.

“Okay, look – I have a complicated relationship with higher power, and the like. But the closest I’ve ever gotten to believing in something – bigger, it’s because of you.”

Was that creepy? He didn’t want to be weird.

God, this whole video was weird.

(His father left him one. He just remembered it.)

“What I’m saying is, I was honored to have this – opportunity – I mean, how does that even happen, right? I have this God awful history and all those awful things I did and somehow – Steve, you were fucking sleeping through it, and Thor, you weren’t even in this dimension –”

(Why did he have to be so much like his father?)

“What are the odds that I’d ever get to meet the two of you and have a clean slate, I mean, how does that happen, how is it that you first heard of me when I was already –”

Good.

No.

“—the best that I had to offer? It’s crazy! It’s crazy, I couldn’t have possibly predicted it, and it’s the one coincidence in my life that doesn’t make me want to bash my head against the wall in confusion, it’s – it’s as close as I can ever get to believing that it means something, that it had to be me, and I had to be alive to see it.”

He paused. He almost wanted to smile, but that didn’t last long.

“Anyway, Steve, you remember when I told you that… I didn’t want to be a part of fake revolutions anymore.” He looked down. “It’s my worst nightmare. And the only thing that happened is that – I found out I am one.”

Maybe he’d always known.

“So I don’t want you to remember me for what I did, I want you to remember me for what I tried. And I tried… really hard.”

He bit into his lower lip, then shook his head.

“Thor, seriously, about the whole Mjolnir worthiness spell thing – you need to look into the history of that, and see if there are any enchanted Asgardian weapons – specifically a sword – that are called something like Excalibur, or Caliburn, or something that sounds like that. I’m not kidding, this could be very historically relevant. I mean, to Earth, anyway. And just –” He managed a half-smile. “Enjoy the kids. You know, for me as well as for you.”

7:01 PM

“Do you think they sound too much like suicide notes?” Tony frowned as he looked at the screen playing the fully edited videos. “I mean, should I wait to send them after.”

“Sir –”

“Don’t go all Directive 4 on me, JARVIS, I’m not in the mood13.”

“Well, Sir, you did allow me to prioritize Directive 4 over Directive 1: Humor me.”

“Your personal request14. I remember that.” Tony’s lips twitched, he almost smiled. “You got any more of those?”

“I believe not.”

Tony was silent for a few moments, idly watching himself in the muted videos.

“Send them. And drop D4,” he said eventually. “I’m gonna go for the Blackout Protocol in this house and all my personal devices.”

The Blackout Protocol was an extreme variation of Directive 13 – it didn’t only transfer JARVIS’ controls to Steve Rogers, it also completely cut Tony off them. It was meant to make him impossible to track down via JARVIS.

Stark shook his head tiredly as soon as JARVIS protested.

“Please don’t make me force it on you, JARVIS, you know I can.”

He waited for acknowledgment from the system.

“The Blackout Protocol requires you to say ten specific words or phrases in the order last updated by you on October 24, 2015.”

Tony stood up and walked to the main holotable in this lab. He made sure it projected the live hologram of JARVIS’ coding – his heart, in theory.

(It was golden. It could show up in whatever color he wanted, Tony chose gold.)

“I got this, boot up the scanners.”

He saw red as JARVIS ran a retinal scan.

“Now the password. It’s…”

Deep breath.

“Maria – Malory -- May 3rd, 2009 -- Captain America  -- 1616 – Satine -- Ruota gigante...”

(Ruota gigante. Ferris Wheel -- in the end, he never went on a Ferris Wheel.)

“Shaken, not stirred. The Cipriani.”

(He never went on a Ferris Wheel, or a merry-go-round.)

(He missed the Santa Monica Pier.)

“Marika.15”

(He would have taken her to the Pier. She was the one person he would have personally taken there.)

“Sir, are you sober?”

Tony closed his eyes. He would have taken this personally if he didn’t know this was part of the protocol.

“No, I’m not.”

“Do you wish to continue?”

“Yes.”

Tony kept his eyes open this time, for the sake of the scanners. Also because he was saying goodbye. JARVIS’ coding fluttered like a heartbeat, Stark watched it with his arms folded across his chest.

“I will miss you, Sir.”

“I didn’t program you to say that.”

“No, Sir, you did not.”

Stark waited.

“Sir, it has been a pleasure.”

That he’d programmed. He was supposed to say a set response to fully activate the protocol.

He bit his bottom lip again. He was going to cry.

“I’ll call you when I get to LA.”

(That was the last promise he’d made to the real Jarvis.)

(He hadn’t kept it.)

“JARVIS, take care of the bots,” he said, as JARVIS’ hologram flickered.

It went out.

The full blackout came three seconds later. All the lights died, along with the screens, the heat, everything.

Another few seconds, and the lights turned on again, thanks to the independent house systems. But all of the screens stayed black. Everything that used to glow blue stayed black.

“JARVIS?”

It was no big deal, technically. He had backup AIs, assuming he’d even want one or need one again.

“JARVIS.”

Plus, he had Extremis. He could hack in, with some work. He could break into JARVIS.

He, Tony Stark. Break into JARVIS.

He dropped onto a chair, massaging his forehead with one hand.

(He almost hoped whatever free will JARVIS had started to develop had been strong enough to make him stay.)

“You know what’s funny? It’s that –” He put his hand down, then reached over to the glass and the open bottle of scotch of the table. “Did you know that the name ‘Marika’ is like – it’s an East-European variation of…”

Tony focused on pouring himself a dose.

“-- It’s a diminutive for ‘Maria,’” he continued. “And that’s the name I’d give to a daughter, if I had one, right? And it’s already Marika’s name.”

No one was answering. His voice was thickening.

“It’s like it could mean something, right? If I hadn’t let myself be ruined.”

But he had.

“It could have meant something, that I got out, and I made it.”

I shouldn’t be alive. Unless it was for a reason.

It didn’t mean anything, in the end. Because if he could do what he’d done – if he could have let this sickness he had destroy him – then he shouldn’t have made it. Then it should never have been him. Then he had never been worth saving.

Then being alive had no meaning, after all.

PAST DRABBLE REFERENCES

1. “What kind of ‘Coping with Torture 101’ Internet hell hole did you stick yourself into this time –” – Tony has been paranoid and self-conscious about the possibility that Pepper might be trying to figure him out via the Internet ever since she accidentally mentioned reading about coping mechanisms after Tony returned from Afghanistan. (The Things We Lost in the Fire) 

2. “He wanted to cry, so he bit into the sleeve of his leather jacket instead.” Tony developed an anxious compulsion to gnaw on his nails and sleeves during his first few weeks of boarding school (Excessively Detailed Headcanon Meme). He dealt with it on and off until he was twenty-one and Obadiah Stane promised to give him a watch as an encouragement for stopping, and the compulsion had all but disappeared until his anxiety made an explicit comeback after New York. (There’s Gonna Be a Food Fight | Betty & Tony)

3. “[The Armor]’s like an extra limb, remember.” When instructing Pepper on how to mentally command her new armor, Tony points out that the basic idea is that the armor responds to voluntary but not necessarily conscious commands, not unlike a limb. (A Drug that’s the High and Not the Pill) 

4. “He had a flash of Lucy Cervantes doing this to his previous phone, or trying to anyway – she was so tiny.” When Tony met Lucy Cervantes (a young Iron Man fan, codename: Gadget), he asked her for help destroying his cell phone after an unpleasant conversation with SHIELD. The girl’s sticky fingers managed to pry the keys of Tony’s Ferrari out of his pocket, but he forgave her once she came forward and apologized for what she had done. (My Heart is Cold but My Hands Are Cold). 

5. “And all of those promises that he’d made – that he would never talk to his mom while drunk. He would never marry anyone, he would never put anyone in the position to share this tragedy with him.” Tony takes back his proposal to Pepper on Christmas of 2014, after remembering a promise he had made himself when he was seventeen years old and already convinced he should never marry anyone, to make sure he wouldn’t force someone else into having the same life as his mother’s. (I Hope My Love Can Blind You) 

6. “He wouldn’t do it, he wouldn’t destroy people, he would stay far, I can’t protect you from the world, Pepper, and I know that, but I can protect you from what that does to me – all wasted.” Tony used these words when breaking up with Pepper on New Year’s Eve of 2014. (Flowers For a Ghost) 

7. “But he saw something there, something familiar, an echo from old nightmares.” Tony has recurrent nightmares in which he is tormented by a demented version of himself that he attributes to his past and addiction(s). (Intimate Enemies , And the Knights Are No More). 

8. “And a few weeks before that I almost led an entire team to certain ruin because I couldn’t keep it together in the face of aliens.” (Hell’s Bells Across the Sky | Avengers) 

9. “And before that I almost wanted to kill the new guy Scott.”  (New Avengers Assemble | Avengers) 

10. “And before that two of our properties whose security systems I designed couldn’t hold up against your typical supervillain explosion plot.” (Prayer , Something Out of Nothing) 

11. “And before that I got myself captured on some backwards ass attempt to save Steve.” (Coup de Main | Tony & Steve , Dear Agony , Disposable Heroes | Tony & Steve). 

12. “And then I didn’t kill the guy who caused all of this, so then he killed Jane–” (Herculean Labors | Tony, Steve, Thor, & Jane , The Golden Ghost Wins , In the Dead-Dry Land of Make-Believe). 

13. “Don’t go all Directive 4 on me, JARVIS, I’m not in the mood.” Directive 4, “Permission to use any means necessary to preserve my life should I be incapacitated to do so,” is the first of numerous JARVIS commands activated by Tony’s direct order. (JARVIS Control Directives). 

14. “Your personal request.” After briefly connecting to Tony’s mind via Extremis, JARVIS is able to generate his first truly self-motivated desire, which is to prioritize Directive 4 over Directive 1, aka be able to act so as to protect Tony’s life even against his direct requests. (This Isn’t My Identity) 

15. “Marika.” Tony met Marika in 2009 while tracking Ten Rings movements across Eastern Europe. She was six years old at the time, and incapable of speech since accidentally surviving the brutal murder of her family. Tony bonded with her, and she inspired him to bring back the Stark Expo in 2010, as an attempt to leave behind a brighter future for the following generations. (Coney Isle, Miracle on Miracle) 

[thefuturistknows]

You Must Know Life to See Decay | December 17, 2015

And I won't die alone, and be left there. Well, I guess I'll just go home, Oh, God knows where. Because death is just so full, and man so small. Well, I'm scared of what's behind, and what's before. And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears. And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears. Get over your hill and see what you find there, With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

He woke up sitting by the toilet (again), back against the wall and forehead resting on his bent knees.

First thought, worst thought: God, I need a drink. He had missed the toilet yesterday when he threw up, at least initially, he could assume that thanks to a small puddle and drops on the floor. They weren’t too far away from the vomit that had missed the toilet last time, and that Tony knew because he hadn’t cleaned the floor and he could still see the dried traces of his bile on it. The fresh batch from last night would probably suffer the same fate. The rug he was sitting on was putrid beyond saving as well.

This bathroom was a mess, he was disgusted with himself. Still, the only personal desire he seemed to have motivation to act on first thing in the morning was the desire for liquor in whatever form.

He started by filling the glass with ice, to dilute the scotch a bit, like maybe that would help him cheat himself out of drinking too much in the morning – weird how the last shreds of hope that he still had would show up in moments like these – but then, JARVIS got started on the morning updates about the weather and such.

December 17th.

Tony’s threw the ice in the sink so he could fill the whole glass.

He managed to find a parking space right in front of his usual flower shop. Normally he would call it luck, but today he called it a terrible cosmic joke because he knew just how drunk he was and he remembered how he’d promised himself, a long time ago, that he’d never see his mother when he was drunk – and he’d broken that promise several times, but he’d figured he’d have the decency not to do this on her death anniversary, of all days.

(Clearly his response to regret was to drink more from his flask while sitting inside the car contemplating the seemingly unstoppable dirty inertia of his life.)

Truthfully, he didn’t want to go to the grave yard this year. He wasn’t feeling particularly respectful. Funny, after he’d moved to New York with Pepper and started visiting his parents’ graves yearly, he did wonder how come he’d managed to ditch the remorse of not visiting them for so many years while he was living in California, and yep, this was it. Now he remembered. This was precisely it, he felt like his legs were more likely to take him to a club than to the flower store right across the street from where he was parked.

He hated the feeling.

He didn’t look both ways before crossing the street, didn’t mind the way drivers blew their horns in response. He didn’t stop until he was standing in front of the window of the shop.

Tony knew his mom had loved him. Maybe that was the worst part. Of all the ways he could disappoint her, this – this, the way he’d turned out, the flask in the pocket of his coat was already a quarter empty – this was unbearable.

He took a step back and away from the window. Then another. He was about to turn his back when he chanced to look further to the side and catch sight of a young woman sitting there with her back against the wall of the building next to the flower store. There was a McDonald’s cup in front of her, she was begging for money.

Tony approached the window again, biting his thumb nail through the leather of his gloves.

“What flowers do you like?” He asked, loud enough for her to hear.

The woman didn’t answer at first, but Tony locked eyes with her so she’d know he was talking to her. Then he nodded to the window.

“I was thinking about buying, like – pink roses.”

She didn’t say anything at first. Stark dropped his hand into his pocket.

“Who are they for?”

“Someone who will never forgive me.”

The woman snorted.

“You fucking cheated on her, it figures.”

Tony swallowed. “It’s my mom, she’s been dead for twenty-six years.”

“Oh.”

“Pink roses were her favorites.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

He kept looking silently at the window. There was no indecision keeping him here, just a longing he couldn’t act on.

“For what it’s worth,” the young woman started, “She may not be able to forgive you, but since she’s dead, I really doubt you can still hurt her.”

Tony’s forehead creased, and he actually turned his head to look at the woman this time. He couldn’t help a sardonic chuckle.

“Please don’t ever write Christmas cards.”

She shrugged.

Tony walked out with a couple dozen pink roses, wrapped in festive paper and tied together with a white ribbon. He walked over to where the woman from before was still sitting, and offered her the bouquet. She stared up at him, quizzically. Her eyes were young and sharp. She was probably in her late twenties.

“I got them for you,” he pointed out, in case it wasn’t clear.

“I thought they were for your mother.”

“I don’t know if she’d like them from me today,” he answered, feeling his voice thicken for the first time. “She doesn’t like much of anything, like you said, she’s dead.”

“I don’t need flowers either.”

“Nobody needs flowers,” he swallowed. “But some people get to want them. Do you want them?”

The woman raised an eyebrow at him.

“Like a Christmas present.”

“I don’t do Christmas.”

“Happy Holidays, like, in general, then.”

She finally accepted the bouquet. Tony smiled, then promptly sat by her, cross-legged.

“What on earth do you want?”

“I want to take you somewhere, my car is over there.” Her eyes widened and she motioned to stand up. “No, I mean, not in a creepy way, I just know this shelter that’s not far –”

She scoffed, and suddenly the bouquet was on his lap.

“Is it a money thing?” Tony asked. “Because we also run job placement programs that could help you earn –”

She was glaring at him. He’d said something wrong.

“You think I haven’t tried everything, you think I chose –”

Definitely said something wrong.

She pushed aside the spare jacket she’d been using to cover her lower body and revealed just how pregnant she was.

“You think anyone’s prepared to hire me now, hotshot?”

Tony cleared his throat. His eyes focused on the empty travel-sized bottle of no-brand liquor that slipped from underneath the jacket when she moved it.

“It’s probably not gonna help if you spend your money on –”

“Don’t you dare.”

“I’m not trying to – I’m just saying it because I know that that’s what I would –”

“Of course Iron Man would,” she sneered. She’d recognized him. Suddenly Tony felt a million times more self-conscious. “A walking billion-dollar bill –”

“Billion-dollar bills don’t exist –”

“– clearly knows jack shit about counting dimes to afford rent and food –”

“What I was saying is even if I had nothing, I still would –”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she hissed. “Because the world isn’t your playground when you have nothing –”

“I’d do it because I’m a drunk!”

The girl closed her lips. Stark looked down and started fidgeting with the stem of one of the flowers.

“I saw the bottle and I jumped to conclusions. I’m sorry,” he swallowed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, it’s the first thing I always notice. Anywhere, I’m sorry.”

“Even if I was a – which, I don’t know, I’m –”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’d still need the money.”

They were both silent for a moment. The paper wrapping the roses made cracking noises as Tony fiddled with it.

“You mentioned rent,” he said eventually. He reached for his checkbook inside the pocket of his jacket.

“You carry your checkbook with you?”

“It’s for situations like these.” Tony still wasn’t looking at her. The first thing he did was sign the check, his thigh was the closest thing to a flat surface he had available. “How much do you want?”

The woman hesitated.

“Three… months… worth.”

“More ambitious. I was thinking like – five.”

“Months?”

“Years.”

“No.” She cleared her throat. “Five months.”

“Four years.”

“One year.”

“Three?”

Silence.

“Okay.”

“How much is that?”

“Per month, it’s –”

“No, just – give me the total.”

“Why? I don’t know –”

“I trust you.” His eyes met hers when he looked to the side. “And I want you to feel free to ask for extra without my being able to tell.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” he looked down again. “And I wouldn’t know.”

Stark waited for a moment, no response.

“Do you need a calc--”

The girl chuckled.

“Twenty thousand dollars.”

Tony nodded, pouting contemplatively.

After filling in the value, he ripped out the check and handed it over to the woman.

“You just need to put in the recipient. What’s your name?”

She took the check from him, wide-eyed.

“Gretel.”

“Do you need my pen, or will you do it later?”

She looked at him.

“I was – I was kidding,” she started. “About the twenty thousand dollars. It was a joke, I didn’t think – I can’t take this.”

“Uh, I already spent some time on it.”

“I was testing you.”

“I made my handwriting special, I don’t want to waste that.”

“No! Oh my God.”

“Yes!” Tony tried smiling. “Please. And then you get to go back home, right, at least for today. It’s cold.”

“It’s not that cold.”

“I know, the weather’s so weird this year.”

Tony grabbed the bouquet of roses with one hand and then stood up, offering Gretel his free hand. She took it and he helped her up, stood by her while she adjusted her spare jacket on one arm. He offered the flowers when she was ready.

She hesitated, but eventually took them.

“Thank you.” She smiled at him.

“I’m sorry I was clueless.”

She kept smiling. Her eyes were a little glassy. Tony smiled back.

“I’m just going to –” She cleared her throat. “I’m going to – go now, I’ll… Go.”

“Sure. Have a nice one.”

“Thank you.”

She hesitated, then turned around, and started walking away. She turned on her heels again at one point, realized that Tony was still looking and spared him a nervous smile and a flustered wave. Then she turned her back, and seemed to be texting someone as she turned around the corner.

Stark’s smile faded, and he pressed his back against the wall. He eventually sat down again, on some steps nearby, because that gave him a better angle to support his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands. He closed his eyes and massaged his temple with his fingers until he felt a careful poke on his shoulder. It was Gretel.

“Hey,” she said.

“Is something wrong?”

“I think you should keep them.”

She offered him the flowers again, he smiled sadly up at her.

“They’re yours. And I don’t like being handed things.”

Gretel pulled the roses closer to her body and looked down at them, then back to Tony.

“I wasn’t sure I’d still find you here,” she said. “Why haven’t you gone? Can’t you go home?”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Somewhere else?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t feel like going anywhere.”

“Doing… something?”

It was hard to keep the smile plastered on his face.

“I don’t feel like doing anything, I’m just –” Fading. “Waiting for someone.”

“Oh. Okay.” Gretel smiled. She bought into the lie. “Okay, so, I’ll go. I mean, for good.”

Tony nodded.

Halfway down the street, she turned around and came back again.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “One more thing – you are Iron Man, right? I’m not getting that wrong.”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Stark expected her to ask for an autograph or a picture, but instead she just said, “Howard Stark was your father, right. And your mom –”

“Maria.”

“I knew that. Aren’t they buried here? In New York?”

Tony nodded.

“Okay.”

Gretel stepped away.

“She’d have forgiven you,” she said. “She’d have liked the flowers.”

Tony smiled.

“She can’t see them.”

“She would have liked them.”

Stark ended up retreating into his car. He sat there for hours until he decided to buy more roses. His flask was empty, and he took the subway to the cemetery instead of driving.

He still didn’t want to go, but he thought he had to, like it was some form of penance. He spent the entire ride apologizing inside his head.

As he walked down the cobblestone path leading to where his parents laid buried, he was also confronted with the sheer meaninglessness of it all, the fact that he was just torturing himself and his parents weren’t keeping score because they were dead. He would never be able to settle any of this. He’d become everything Maria hadn’t wanted him to become, and it didn’t even matter, she wasn’t there. She wasn’t even there. She wasn’t even watching. His life was his own worst nightmare and she wasn’t watching over him.

Other people had left them flowers as well. That wasn’t surprising, Tony knew that there were others who remembered December 17th. Plus, Howard and Maria’s gravesite was a bit of a touristic spot, he guessed.

Something specific caught his attention, though. A couple of pink roses, tied together with a white ribbon identical to the one on the bouquet he was carrying. He knew they were from Gretel.

Stark bit into his lower lip, and blinked back his tears.

Damn it. He wanted to thank her. But all he had was a first name he wasn’t sure how to spell, and no last name. Maybe he could track her after she’d cashed the check. He could track her using Extremis. Maybe –

He tried heading to the chapel. She wasn’t there anymore, that was way too much to hope for – but he could tell that she’d been there because of the pink rose on the altar.

Tony took a deep breath. Considered praying. He was desperate enough for it, wasn’t he, but then he decided against it because he was also too desperate to believe it would work. But he went to the stand with the little candles people could light for themselves, and decided to put one up, because well, he was already there anyway.

Next to the wood box for donations, there was an open notebook with a plastic pen resting on its spine. The heading was asking the reader to “share his prayers with our brothers and sisters” – he supposed that the intent was to get people to pray for one another’s wishes.

He skimmed the first few pages, even if he wasn’t entirely sure that was appropriate. For my brother. For my mother. Eric’s health. Kendra Anderson’s soul. For the children in the world.

Tony grabbed the pen, and turned to the last page. He hesitated, considering his options.

First thing in his mind was “peace.” For my peace. That I may find peace. Sounded atrocious.

Happiness. Love.

Rest.

That something will put me out of my misery. Painlessly. Soon.

God.

He dropped the pen, and blew out the candle he’d lit previously – extinguishing the flames of two other random candles in the process.

“You’ve got to be fucking –”

He heard a gasp.

“You can’t blow out the candles!”

Tony looked to the side, and then down. The kid who talked wasn’t even tall enough to reach Stark’s waistline.

“It was an accident.”

“You can’t do it.”

“I know, it’s bad.”

The little boy nodded.

Stark looked towards the pews. There was only one more family in the chapel, he assumed it was the boy’s. They were in prayer.

“Ever lit one of those before?”

“Are you…”

“Iron Man? Yes,” Tony held out his hand. “Help me fix this situation.”

The kid took his hand, and laughed when Tony picked him up.

“Gabe!” A woman suddenly cried out from the pews.

Tony turned.

Fuck. Okay.

“I’m not kidnapping him, hi, it’s Tony Stark,” he smiled. “Iron Man. As in, the Avengers. You can check my ID –”

“It’s Iron Man, mom, I’ll help him fix the candles.”

“He was helping me fix the candles.”

When all of it was settled, Tony turned to the stand with the candles again.

“Let’s put like, two more to make up for the slight.”

“You have to pay.”

Gabe was hooked to his side, and Tony picked up his checkbook and wrote a check for one hundred dollars with his free hand. Gabe was the one who helped him rip off the page, fold it, and place it in the box for donations.

“Okay, I think I bought at least four candles.”

He lined them up on the stand, then picked up one of the wooden sticks they had available. He gave it to Gabe, and helped steady his hand as he lit up the tip of the stick and used the flame to light the other candles.

“Be careful with the ones I ruined, they’re the special ones. Hey.”

“What?”

“Don’t ever let strangers pick you up like this, all right?” Gabe nodded. “Watch the fire. There we go.”

“What about that one?”

“That one’s mine. I was going to get rid of it, it’s fine.”

“You can’t do that to the candles.”

“It’s okay.”

“I want to light it!”

“Gabe.”

It was his mother’s disapproving tone. Gabe was being noisy. This time, he just whispered, “I want to light it.”

Tony whispered back. “Okay.”

He looked at the prayer notebook while Gabe struggled with the candle.

Something caught his attention, halfway through the page. His name.

For the baby, Tony Stark, and those in need of forgiveness.

“I did it!”

Tony swallowed, and looked up to the candle again.

“You did. Great, that was –” He cleared his throat. “Nice job. You saved the day.”

“Are you almost crying?”

“No. No, I just, uh –” He took the stick from Gabe’s hand, and put it back in place. “Help me write something in the book now?”

“I can’t write.”

“Don’t tell me your problems,” Tony pouted teasingly as he handed Gabe the pen. “Draw a picture, it’ll be fine.”

“What do I draw?”

“First, do something for you and for mommy. Like your Christmas wish.”

“Not the one I asked Santa, but the one God gives, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I know all my prayers.”

Tony smiled. “Good job.”

“Some of them.”

“You’ll get there.”

Tony lowered himself at an angle that would allow Gabe to scribble on the book. It was comfortable for him during the first seven or eight seconds.

“Don’t move!”

“You’re being slow.”

“I’m drawing a door.” Tony realized Gabe was drawing a house.

“Right. Can’t rush art, yadda yadda yadda.” Gabe laughed. “Are we done there? I’m old, my back hurts.”

“You’re Iron Man!”

“I’m decrepit.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means like, really old.”

“Depreckit.”

“Almost.”

“What’s the other drawing that you want?”

“Ah, finally,” Tony sighed in mock contemplation. “Okay, first I want a heart.”

“Hearts are for girls.”

“You ever tried living without one, squirt?” Gabe tried looking at him. “It’s not nice. Don’t do it. Draw me a heart, I want one.”

“That’s easy.”

“Good. Now I want a flower next to the heart.”

“Oh, flowers are for girls.”

“Flowers are for people who think the world would look boring without them, do you know what a desert is?”

“No.”

“Boring place without flowers.”

This one took Gabe longer than the heart. Tony put him down with a sigh as soon as he was done.

“What does it mean?”

“I met someone today and I want her to stay safe.”

---

Tony went to the flower store again, and bought a third bouquet of roses. These were yellow.

“Can I have those delivered?”

“Of course.”

Tony provided Karla’s address.

“Can they come with a message?”

“You can write a note over here.”

“No, uh – it’s really easy, it’s something the delivery guy can just say.”

The old lady handed him the pen and the festive notecard.

“Right.”

Tony swallowed.

“She can’t know it’s from me, you guys do, like, anonymous deliveries, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

She was going to know it was him anyway.

Tony hesitated before scribbling down: Hey! Happy Holidays. Don’t call me.

“That’s a terrible note!” The lady said.

“I told you I didn’t want to write a note!” Tony complained, covering it up defensively.

(The other option was some really corny line about forgiveness or something, but he thought that might be too heavy and weird.)

“It’s not romantic.”

“I’m not trying –” He sighed, then rubbed his forehead. “I can’t afford this stuff right now, but she deserves flowers.”

He did include the note.

The lady let Tony have another single rose, and that one Tony personally delivered to Pepper when he was back to the Tower. He met her at night, in her apartment.

“It’s creamy-yellow on the outside and then red on the inside,” he pointed out as Pepper examined it. “Like your hair.”

She smiled.  “You’re never letting that go, are you?”

Tony smiled back at her. It didn’t hold up very long, he eventually looked down.

“I know what day it is,” she said. “Are you –”

“No.” He shook his head.

Pepper sighed. “I just wanted to ask if you were okay, Tony.”

“I know. I know, that was my –” He swallowed again. He still couldn’t look up. “Answer. That was my answer. I’m not okay.”

He felt Pepper’s hand on his cheek. She was trying to get him to look at her, he didn’t.

“I’m terrible.”

“You’re not terrible.”

“I feel terrible.”

“That I believe.”

Pepper’s hand dropped to his shoulder.

“I’m terrible,” he repeated.

“Tony.”

“But I love you.” He looked up to meet Pepper’s eyes. “Not in the, uh – complicated – I mean, of course it’s complicated –”

He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. Pepper just said, “I know.”

“What I mean is that,” he tried swallowing down the thickness in his throat. “I still have that, right, I haven’t lost it. I still have that capacity to feel something that’s not…”

Tony couldn’t sustain eye contact. He looked at his shoes again.

“… and maybe it’s more. I think I feel it more. Than the other – things, maybe I feel it more.”

He tried clearing his throat and lifting up his chin so he wouldn’t look quite so dejected.

“I know it’s not enough. I know it doesn’t change anything.”

“Tony, it means everything.”

Pepper reciprocated in kind the feeble, glassy smile he had to give her.

(He knew how much his mother had loved him. He knew how much Pepper had loved him. And Rhodey. And Happy.)

(Unfortunately, he also knew love had never been enough to save him. It was never enough to change anything.)

“I just think that maybe it’s enough to keep the flowers coming,” he said. “I just think – whatever has to happen will happen, and I don’t – but then maybe when I’m gone, maybe someone will still bring me flowers.”

Pepper pulled him in for an embrace. Tony let her.

“I don’t care what kind, I don’t have a favorite,” he was saying. He tried blinking back his tears before hiding the stray ones in the crook of Pepper’s neck. “But maybe pink roses.”

[thefuturistknows]

I am crying over Adele’s new album, pt. 2

1. River Lea

Everybody tells me it's 'bout time that I moved on And I need to learn to lighten up and learn how to be young But my heart is a valley, it's so shallow and man made I'm scared to death if I let you in that you'll see I'm just a fake Sometimes I feel lonely in the arms of your touch But I know that's just me cause nothing ever is enough When I was a child I grew up by the River Lea There was something in the water, now that something's in me Oh I can't go back, but the reeves are growing out of my fingertips I can't go back to the river But it's in my roots, in my veins It's in my blood and I stain every heart that I use to heal the pain Oh, It's in my roots, in my veins It's in my blood and I stain every heart that I use to heal the pain So I blame it on the River Lea, the River Lea, the River Lea Yeah I blame it on the River Lea, the River Lea, the River Lea I should probably tell you now before it's way too late That I never meant to hurt you or lie straight to your face Consider this my apology, I know it's years in advance But I'd rather say it now in case I never get the chance No I can't go back, but the reeves are growing out of my fingertips I can't go back to the river

2. I Miss You

I want every single piece of you I want your heaven and your oceans too Treat me soft but touch me cruel I wanna teach you things you never knew, ooh baby Bring the floor up to my knees Let me fall into your gravity And kiss me back to life to see Your body standing over me Baby don't let the lights go down Baby don't let the lights go down Baby don't let the lights go down Lights go down, lights go down Lights go down, lights go down Down, down, down I miss you when the lights go out It illuminates all of my doubts Pull me in, hold me tight Don't let go, baby give me light I miss you when the lights go out It illuminates all of my doubts Pull me in, hold me tight Don't let go, baby give me light I love the way your body moves Towards me from across the room Brushing past my every groove No one has me like you do Baby you bring your heart, I'll bring my soul But be delicate with my ego I wanna step into your great unknown With you and me setting the tone Baby don't let the lights go down Baby don't let the lights go down Baby don't let the lights go down Lights go down, lights go down Lights go down, lights go down Down, down, down I miss you when the lights go out It illuminates all of my doubts Pull me in, hold me tight Don't let go, baby give me light I miss you when the lights go out It illuminates all of my doubts Pull me in, hold me tight Don't let go, baby give me light We play so dirty in the dark Cause we are living worlds apart It only makes it harder baby It only makes it harder baby Harder baby, harder baby

3. When We Were Young

Everybody loves the things you do From the way you talk To the way you move Everybody here is watching you Cause you feel like home You're like a dream come true But if by chance you're here alone Can I have a moment Before I go? Cause I've been by myself all night long Hoping you're someone I used to know You look like a movie You sound like a song My God, this reminds me Of when we were young Let me photograph you in this light In case it is the last time That we might be exactly like we were Before we realized We were sad of getting old It made us restless It was just like a movie It was just like a song

[justatrainingexercise]

WC9: Screaming Silence

For a month solid, Jim had been following the HYDRA/SHIELD situation, but even now he couldn’t resent it; he’d insisted on responding when SHIELD first went into lock down and had barely taken his eyes off the HYDRA hunt since. He didn’t doubt that the superhero squad was probably on it as well -- and were probably doing a better job of it then the military was now that they were free of all the governmental red tape, though whether that was a blessing or a curse Jim had yet to decide -- but he still needed to know, firsthand, what was happening. Tony and Pepper both had made connections in SHIELD, and who knew what kind of information on them HYDRA could have gotten its hands on...

Jim propped both elbows on his desk, pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, and prayed for Tony to pick up the goddamn phone. This was Jim’s third try tonight, and if this had been a couple years ago Jim might have assumed Tony couldn’t hear his phone over a wild Halloween party, but between JARVIS and Tony’s techno-brain-thing, he had no excuse --

The call went directly to voicemail. Jim bit back a curse as he sat back in his chair.

“Listen, Tony, I know” -- I hope -- “you’re listening to this, and I’m not trying to be a sourpuss here, but I haven’t heard from you in a while, and --”

I’m sorry I haven’t been there

“ -- I’d be thrilled if you just, you know, called me back or texted me or, hell, have JARVIS answer the phone, I don’t care.”

Jim sighed and leaned back onto his elbows, his free hand now cradling his forehead.

“This HYDRA thing has been a mess on my end, and I’ll bet it’s been a lot worse on yours. I just wanna know you’re okay, all right? Please. Just...gimme a call.”

He ended the call and set his phone on the desk. He managed to wait about twenty seconds before picking it back up again to call Pepper when his landline rang, so he opted for a quick text instead.

“Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes.”

can’t get hold of T, is he ok?

“Rhodes, it’s Talbot.” 

Jim grimaced and set his cell back on his desk, face-down this time. A call directly from a brigadier general was either really good or really, really bad, and Jim was pretty sure he knew which to expect from Talbot.

“Yes, sir?”

“Got some news I thought you might want to hear. Remember Senator Stern?”

In the privacy of his pop-up Pentagon office, Jim allowed himself the luxury of rolling his eyes. Stern had been a pain in the ass all around a few years ago when he’d called a congressional hearing on Tony to try to get him to surrender his Iron Man tech, dragged Jim in and tried to censor his testimony, pretended he was concerned about public safety when he really wanted to hand Tony’s tech over to the government’s new weapons contractor...

“Yes, sir.”

“Turns out he’s HYDRA. We caught him today.”

Jim’s stomach turned.

“You’re sure? For how long?”

“Says HYDRA got him into office in the first place.”

Stern had been elected in 2008, two years before Tony’s hearing, then reelected in 2014 despite the public embarrassment thereafter. Seven years as a senator, and who knew how long he’d been HYDRA before that.

Jim sighed silently through his nose.

“Thank you for letting me know, sir.”

“Sure. And hey -- take a break or something, will ya? You’re no good to us dead on your feet. Maybe go to a party and unwind a little.”

That was a riot. Jim closed his eyes, smirked, and nodded to himself.

“Yes, sir.”

He hung up and leaned back in his chair again, far enough to drop his head back and glare at the ceiling. His first thought was that he should tell Tony; the second was that that would require being able to get hold of him, which reminded him of his text to Pepper. He snatched his phone off the desk as he sat up, turned it over --

No response. The call with Talbot had only taken a few minutes, though, so that wasn’t particularly unusual. Besides, if Tony was partying, Pepper was probably there, and if he wasn’t...well, hopefully she was there anyway. Either way, Jim was sure there was nothing to worry about, that the stress of watching the nation’s intelligence agency disappear almost overnight thanks to a hidden uber-Nazi faction was what was keeping Jim so strung out...

He stood, pocketed his phone, and closed up shop for the night. Maybe a hot shower and an early bedtime wasn’t such a bad idea.