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WHO: Tony and...you?
WHERE: The forge, the hospital
WHAT: Dealing with Iron Man
WHEN: Mid-September
WARNINGS: Tony's depression is a rich bouquet of alcoholism and self-destruction. It's a touch gory.

a. forge
This wasn't a completely unusual scent in the close air of the forge. The acridity was standard, the taste of coal and slag even before the regularly singed hair. It was the richness, like oil that shouldn't have been so close to the mouth of the fire, that Tony could taste in the back of his throat and had him blinking out of his distant focus to finally feel the sear that seemed to reach straight to his heart. He sucked in a sharp, wakeful breath, any other sound cut off by the metal clanging to the ground as he dropped the crucible, tearing the deadened skin of his palm with it and leaving him still again as he watched silver spread across the floor and held his scorched hand shakily aloft, struggling to remember what his intended next step was meant to be. His glove dangled from his other hand, along with a glass, chosen primarily for its cleanliness as he searched through the Deep End, and was now smudged liberally with fingerprints as Tony endlessly twisted it at his side.

The criteria for the bottle he had taken had been significantly different, though no less straightforward; as long as it wasn't a terribly lurid colour, it would probably do the job. Tony backed away from the fire, to return to the bottle on the workbench, dropping the gloves and the glass alongside it to consider his blistering hand with a sigh of disappointment. It did hurt a little more when he tried to stretch out his fingers, and he couldn't quite bring himself to, instead leaving it with a glare and propped up on the table as he searched carelessly through nearby boxes and baskets for something to wrap it in so he could keep working. Not that he was going to get much further. Dedicating the amount of resources that he had in the first place to the Iron Man had been a profound waste, and now anything else was best applied to regrouping and rebuilding, and actually protecting them against a future disaster. If he was going to build something like the armor, he was really going to have to recycle what he already had. Which meant he was going to have to go get it again.

b. hospital
When a gentle knock returned only silence in the darkened hallway of the hospital, and Tony easily pushed the door open to a largely empty room, there was an unspooling of disappointment in his chest. Not that he was exactly prepared for what he might say to Wesker, but it didn't seem like he'd have to carefully calculate the kind of provocation that would get him pinned to a wall. A cheerful 'good morning' would have been perfectly effective. Leaving a small puddle of water behind, Tony went drifting into the abandoned room, and slowly sank down onto his knees in front of the lumpy rag that he knew when he tweaked up would reveal the slightly battered scales of the Iron Man. "Morning, dear," he mumbled to it in lieu of someone that would punch him, and slid the scattered pieces he'd dredged out of the fountain alongside it. They jangled delicately, while the bottle he set down at his other side clanked on the ground with conviction. Now what? It wasn't like he could lift the imposing weight of the full set of armor and cradle it back to the forge to be melted. It wasn't even all here; there were more parts yet, glowing like embers behind his eyes, somewhere further down the hall, the full list of their individual destructive power and itemized armament scrolling endlessly at the back of his skull like white noise drowning out everything around it. He was squeezing the glass in his lap, and had to take a deep breath to release it again, and shake out his stinging, bandaged hand. He could have at least filled it with water while he was at the fountain, so he could also have something to sip.

He unstopped the bottle, so he could watch the pour, just a couple inches, then carefully set the arrangement aside. He could just ask the armor to assemble and walk itself out of here. It was probably fine. What was the worst that could happen? Plenty of people could have one drink. He wasn't doing anything anyway. He took another breath so he could push himself back up, and set out for those last few pieces. Once the full set of armor was together, then he would have to think about tearing it apart.

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His retort in annoyance turned into an "Ow!" as he tried to pull away. His cheek was still tender but the scratches and bruising were faint if not already faded. His neck however was still protesting to certain angles.

"I didn't let her do anything, she had me pinned!" Donnie tried to explain around the intrusion of space. "But as soon as I felt her teeth, she disappeared!"

His eyes flicked to the side at the sound of things being knocked over. "DATA, careful with that stuff!"

Not immediately seeing any notable vampire signs wasn't entirely reassuring; Lestat didn't have any of them, either. Tony didn't have any reason to keep a hold on Donnie, though, so he could draw away easily as Tony brought his hand back to his chest, drumming anxiously as he continued to study Donnie's face like he could see through to the infection. DATA was not so easily deterred, rolling a bundle of bandages toward the edge of the table in much the same way he had rolled the other camera, with the delicate push of two legs.

"I think something happens to them, when they get their teeth in you..." Tony was formulating, now that he had this new data point, having never been able to rationalize why Lestat had thrown himself in the fountain. "Or--" It wasn't a great formulation. Every other time he had been at risk, it wasn't the risk that went away, necessarily. "Something doesn't want us to die," he was at least sure about.

The turtle did draw back, tightly at first as he fixed Tony with a look of disapproval for the extra handling before his eyes once again settled upon the man's hand. He reached for it, pausing just short of grabbing it, his own inspection fresh in his mind. Instead he left his hand open, waiting.

"Better than bringing us back from the dead," he mumbled, brow furrowing. "The guy with the mullet said that when he was stuck with some fleet thing before all this, people who died just...got brought back. Not completely unscathed, but they didn't have a say in the matter."

Maybe it was only fair now that Tony aborted his move to recoil, leaving him suspiciously poised, glancing between Donnie's hand and his face like he thought this was some kind of test. Eventually he decided the solution was muttering again, "It's fine, look, doesn't even hurt," and biting his tongue while he flexed his stiff fingers.

Besides, "What mullet...?" was much more important, and Tony might have been able to figure out who might have had this experience with the Atroma if he wasn't immediately distracted by a shiver running through him like he was back int that blowing snow with Felspring dragging him cruelly back to life. Not being allowed to die did sound like torture, but getting that much closer was worse.

The continued stubbornness had Donnie blowing out a frustrated sigh, nose wrinkling at this standoff as it started off anew. "Not fine, only going to get worse," he warned. "It's like you think I'm going to do surgery or something. ...do you not think I know what I'm doing, is that it?"

This wasn't supposed to be such an exhausting thing. It felt that more often than not for every two steps he seemed to achieve in whatever this relationship was, he was knocked back three just when he thought things were comfortable. But he could be stubborn too, and right now he was more worried about Tony potentially messing his hand up permanently.

"Black hair, outdated hairstyle, somewhere between you and me in age." They kind of breezed over names and Donnie had neglected to scroll through the directory to find it.

"What? I--" Tony started indignantly, baffled by the accusation until it became abruptly clear that arguing with him and cutting him off did sound a lot like the way Howard would speak to Tony. That sick clench around his heart did not make him any more eager to burden Donnie with this other broken part of him, but now he had to say something, and all of the tools and repurposed camera parts weren't cutting it. "I think you're the most capable person in this room," was probably not the most glowing of endorsements, Tony was going to have to work on that.

More immediately, he had to quickly decide who might have had outdated black hair, and landed on, "Gladio?," then immediately, "You think Gladio looks younger than me?" Horrifically, another realization struck Tony even as he was talking; Gladio had never mentioned the Atroma. "You think Reeve looks younger than me?"

It couldn't be helped. "You need to leave. Right now. Take him with you, don't even look at me," he demanded, flicking an accusatory finger at DATA, who stared back at him innocently.

It wasn't very convincing. The pause before it already stung, and Donnie had no idea what Tony's thought process was, but the words didn't mean much when he was still refusing help.

He rolled his eyes with an exasperated sigh, taking the opportunity to grab at the man's hand again. So help him, he was going to fix this even if Tony got mad at him, was already mad at him, he figured, even though he wasn't sure why.

"I'd keep such insecurities to yourself," he said, sharper than he probably meant it to be, but Donnie wasn't the greatest at potentially delicate issues. Granted he wasn't being fought against or forced out, he was going to resume his efforts in cleaning up the blood around that burn with careful application of the rag. If Tony didn't believe him, he'd just have to prove it. He'd had plenty of practice; when you lived with brothers like his, there was no way around not learning first-aid, especially when you didn't have casual access to a hospital or a doctor.

"I know who Gladio and Reeve are. I mean someone else. He was mapping out stuff too. DATA, can you pull up the directory?" Could he? Sure, the ball had some rough patches when it came to how he did things, but he'd grown on Donnie ever since their odd stand-offs at the beginning.

The snatching made Tony grimace, though he again didn't resist but put the other hand up in caution, which he had to slowly draw back as he complained, "Jesus, what is this, you're terrifying," for all of Donnie's pushiness. It only became difficult not to yank his arm back, making him clutch tightly into the front of his shirt, as Donnie proceeded so gently. It certainly wasn't a gentleness that he deserved, or that he wanted Donnie to think he needed, or that should have been Donnie's responsibility in the first place. Tony had done it to himself, he should have had to live with it, and now he had to hold himself uncomfortably still as he stared, unseeing at the table where DATA obediently projected an array of images from the network directory.

"Yeah, yeah," Donnie muttered, fixated on this self-appointed task. To him it wasn't a matter of who deserved what or whose mess it was. It was what made sense at the time. Some things didn't need to be thought out so deeply, and it was nice having tasks that he couldn't or had no reason to overthink. Besides, Tony was already giving him plenty in that department, but if there were any issues with his ability, then Donnie hoped to settle that matter here and now at the very least.

Wounds cleaned to the best of his ability and just as carefully dabbed dry, the turtle looked over at the spill on the table, reaching for the jar of ointment so he could smear some liberally over the burns. "...are you mad?" he asked quietly as he worked, feeling the need to break the silence weighing on them. He wasn't even really sure what he thought Tony might be mad about but given their conversation he figured it could be anything between his supposed picking fights with vampires to getting attacked by one to...well, trying to be the responsible one.

Finally he reached for the bandages DATA had sorted out for him earlier, offering the little bot a thanks as he started winding it around Tony's hand. "-that guy," he said as one of the projected images caught his eye, glancing over his shoulder to point at Keith's entry.

Donnie had very plainly just told him not to talk, so all of Tony's calculations of his talking:not talking ratio were already critically failing before Donnie's quiet question. It snapped Tony's focus back from its vague middle-distance, inquisitive and panicked, realizing he must not have been listening again. His hand felt painfully stiff from where it had been crushed against his heart as he untangled it to brush reassuringly over Donnie's head and he said, "Of course not, sweetheart." With his wrist still balanced on Donnie's shoulder where he could keep a grounding hold at the edge of his bandana, Tony assured him, "No one's mad at you."

Well, Keith might be a little mad. Without anyone else around for the task, Tony had to defend, "His hair doesn't look so bad."

The reassurance eased the knot in his chest, a spot of discomfort Donnie hadn't realized had been there until then, something that had never really let up since they'd left the underground. This time he didn't mind the invasion of space, the pat on the head, the lingering hand. He looked up from the bandages, managing a ghost of a smile in silent relief.

Finishing up the job with a quick trim and securing the loose ends, Donnie set things back on the counter before splaying his hands as though he were showing off some fancy new gadget and not just a bandage job. "Ta-daa~" It was the meekest little thing, but he was done and at least Tony wouldn't be oozing and bleeding all over the place.

He snorted, his expression turning critical as he turned his attention back to the image. "Well...okay I guess it's not terrible."

Edited 2023-09-18 00:51 (UTC)

That wasn't a very encouraging smile, and Tony's was tight and brief in return, and when his lips did part he quickly lost confidence in anything else he might say to push away all of this anxiety without making it worse. He watched Donnie while he worked in silence instead, drawn taut with the unnatural stillness and glad the kid at least was focused so Tony didn't have to look him in the eye while he tried to figure out how to apologize. He had to keep holding until Donnie's dubious celebration, until he was very sure the job was done, then he was very abruptly snatching his arm back to cradle against his chest with a shudder that he tried to suppress in the tight clutch he had around his elbow. The whole process had only hurt a little bit, anyone else wouldn't have even noticed, it wasn't Donnie's fault that he was so brittle.

At least he had the broken camera in front of him to anchor onto, and even then he aborted, "This--," recalculated, polishing away all of the grit that Donnie didn't want to hear. "I can leave you some specs?" he concluded, voice turning up awkwardly as he belatedly realized it should be a question only part way through.

Not being mad at him was only one wrinkle ironed out. Donnie still felt like he'd disappointed Tony somehow and he wasn't sure where to go with that. Seeing him pull his hand back so fast made the turtle wonder if maybe he screwed something up there too, and it made that little furrow between his brows reappear as he looked away, deciding in afterthought to busy himself with cleaning up after DATA's mess.

The question just confused him all the more as he tried to collect whatever scattered points of their earlier conversation in an attempt to connect dots. Did he do something wrong? Or maybe he was overthinking things as was his tendency. With Tony's hand messed up it was clearly not going to be easy to do anything. That seemed a better line of thought to go with, but the other still nagged at him. Donnie looked down at the broken camera pieces.

"You don't have to..." he said, cautiously as though he were stepping around those bits like broken glass.

Questioning if Donnie needed help definitely hadn't been the way to assure him that Tony believed in his capability, and Tony was quick to nod, already backing away with his mobile hand up in surrender. "No, yeah, of course, you got this," he readily replied. He started moving his hand back and forth, scanning across the workbench and anything around it, trying to come up with the least combative way to tell Donnie he was welcome to it, and calculating that thinking he needed to say that at all was part the problem. "I'll--yeah," he repeated, thumbing toward the door instead. There were redundancies built into his own interface in the library basement that Donnie would probably put to better use; Tony could extract them before he bothered with the Iron Man, and maybe wasn't even lying when he said, "I'll be quick."

Why were they even doing this strange little dance? Donnie looked at Tony oddly then, confusion jumping into a mild panic when it became clear that the man was more or less excusing himself.

"-you don't have to leave," he said, maybe all too quickly even as he pulled his own arms close around him, anxiously fingering his own bandages. Was it him? Maybe it was him. Not being smart enough, not figuring out all the angles, potentially inviting trouble- the vampires can't get through a security door, can they? He sucked in a breath as his hand tightened too much around his wrist, shoving both into his hoodie pocket.

It kind of seemed like it would be better for Donnie if he did and made sure the kid had less damaging people around him; the incredibly low bar that Tony set for himself to just not make things worse was proving embarrassingly unmanageable. Maybe he'd manage it if he could ever figure out how to listen, and so far the most simple equation seemed to be to accept, "Okay," and keeping all of his other aggravating impulses to himself. Dad, and then Sunset had both been clear about that when he was still a kid, and his childish instinct to rail against it had long since ceased being charming. He'd have to make himself both useful and out of the way, so he strayed a little closer again, to gather up those gloves that Donnie had struggled with, then a basket from under the bench to quickly take away so Donnie could get to work. The gloves would be easy enough to modify to fit him more effectively, Tony should have done it months ago.

It wasn't any better, that anxious energy still sitting there in the space between them, the awkwardness that had no name to it yet insisted on hanging around like a cat who always wanted to invade your personal space.

Even when Tony more or less gave Donnie the run of the place, the turtle remained where he stood, contents of the first-aid kit still not completely replaced. His attention finally focused on them again before he dragged his hands out to finish his task, glancing at DATA before giving the bot a brief pat. Robots were much easier to deal with.

Talking about his feelings was never easy. They were some muddled mess and he wondered when things had gotten so complicated. But he was afraid that if this wasn't bridged sooner than later, things would never be repaired.

"...you know, no one really seemed to care much about the technical process of everything back home just so long as the result was cool? I always had to do everything myself, but... I didn't mind it. But then I met you and...and it was nice? Being able to work with someone who was actually interested in everything in between. Having someone encouraging me to try some new methods, and just...being proud of what I could do.

"I don't want to lose that. But it feels like I did something wrong and disappointed you somehow and... well, maybe I'm not smart after all because I can't figure out what it is, otherwise I'd have fixed it by now."

His breath caught on the words of that last sentence, the bandage roll in front of him blurring in his vision, and he scrubbed the back of his sleeve across his eyes in annoyance.

The last thing Donnie needed was Tony's approval. He had come into this place guns blazing, easily besting Tony's security, and since then Tony had just been chipping away at his confidence, until he was reduced to this shaking voice. Tony didn't even know why he did it, but for the rotten core of him that needed to destroy, where he was supposed to have a heart.

"Don't do that," was probably not the gentlest way to manage tears, but they really should not have been wasted on Tony just because Donnie hadn't yet figured out how to ignore everything he said. That came with experience. Tony had to shove aside his gathered tools, freeing his hands to take Donnie's cheek again, this time not to search his eyes but to swipe carefully for him, so Donnie knew what he meant without all of Tony's words getting in the way. "I'm just some old guy who's had every privilege possible, and you're still running laps around me. Your only job is to get better every day, to know that the future is bright because you're in it, and you've been doing that at light speed. When you got here, you didn't have your shell; yesterday, you didn't have this computer," he said with a loose gesture toward the parts scattered across the bench that Donnie was going to pull into something he'd never made before. "Tomorrow, you're going to get us out of here."

In that it was probably unfortunate that he'd latched onto the man so readily, so starved for adult attention as he was. Donnie had been too eager to try and impress. He hadn't quite managed to work out the varying states of Tony Stark, and sometimes it was difficult to tell when the man was being sincere or not. Not being very good at understanding other people's emotions in general didn't particularly help either. The turtle could explain chemical reactions and their part in causing emotions but all the other bits attached to it made things messy in ways he could not put into words.

Donnie stiffened briefly, his normal response to any surprise contact, although this time was more out of fear that any false moves would make his eyes leak. Tony was already taking care of those tears. How dare, who put those there!

"...you're not that old," he said, an attempt to lighten the mood even if his smile wasn't as confident where it pulled at his lips, but it wasn't forced either. But Tony's words still stoked some of those errant embers, fanning them back into flames. Yeah, he did manage those things, even if he had some help, but Tony never took away from what Donnie could already do.

That particular tomorrow still seemed like a good ways off, but Donnie was still determined to get there somehow, and so he nodded. He hadn't forgotten why they were brought here, although the longer he stayed, the more complicated it got. Just more things to work out. Just more reason to keep going.

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Scoria

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