#tony's so cringefail look at this nerd ough he's so lame

[mr-t-stark]

It’s like you’re punishing yourself for something. Tony winces at that.

He isn't. Not really, at least. He just... He doesn't know what's coming. He doesn't know when, or where, or how. It could come any moment and they'd all be taken by surprise. It's not paranoia. He isn't paranoid. Right?

"Okay, alright." He rummages through the bag. "Look, see? Going through the bag. You got fries?" he asks, before finding some and pulling them out. He pops one into his mouth. Seems Natasha knows his usual order. "You know me so well," he says, still chewing.

"Sir has taken nap intervals lasting approximately fifteen minutes two times the last twenty-four hours. He has not slept in his bed for two days, nor showered during that period."

Yeah, clearly nobody at all is on his side today.

"In my defense--" He has no defense. "I have no defense. But-- but! Listen, these suits?" he gestures to a row of them by the wall. "They're... important to me. It's not an obsession so much as it's a hobby." He grabs another fry to put into his mouth.

At Natasha's... suggestion, however, he stops chewing. "Oh?" he says, "That'd be a very, very effective persuasion."

closed starter for @redxinmyledger

Tony cards an oily hand through his greasy hair. He stifles a yawn, exhaustion creeping into his vision, but he quickly blinks them away to focus on the task at hand.

"JARVIS, turn up the volume, will you?"

The chorus of AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long reverberates through the room. He can feel it in his bones. This is what he needs.

It's a new suit; he's made several blueprints already, all with different uses in case different battles call for a different suit. He needs to be prepared for every possibility. Every one of them.

After the New York invasion and the whole fiasco with Loki and the Chitauri, Tony's been on edge. He's never seen the universe so... dark. A vast abyss.

Tony's a scientist. An engineer, first, but a scientist second, still. He knows the universe. It's endless and bright and filled with so much life. But what he saw out there?

It was terror. Everything spoke of a dark age. Everything spelled an incoming danger.

That's why he needs the suits. They're everything to him. Tony can't protect the world, or his loved ones--Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, the team, and by god Nat--just as Tony Stark.

But he can as Iron Man.

And you may be thinking: Why so many suits? It's not like it's the end of the world, Tony.

Well. To that Tony says: Fuck off, I'm Tony Stark. You don't get to tell me what to do.

So here he is, not exactly remembering when his last meal or his last shower or his last nap had been, cooped up in the lab and tweaking his newest project--Mark... uh, he's lost count--with a screwdriver.

That's when he hears the doors to the lab sliding open, jumping at the sound. He readies his repulsor, aims it as he turns--

Only to land his eyes on a familiar figure. He pulls his gauntlet back down.

"Couldn't have warned me?" The music turns down as if on cue. "Don't turn down my music, J," he says, disappointed, and turns back to his work. "And hi to you too, I guess." That one he directs to the person in question.