revivalproject

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Scoria

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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"It's been a while," Billy reminded with a laugh. Four years here, a year on the run before that... The pat makes him smile, even if he didn't look pleased about what followed. "...I don't think telling a bunch of kids they shouldn't play superhero was all the stupid, in hindsight. You look out for us. You always have. So let me look out for you for a minute, okay? What's going on with you? Seriously?"

Tony's intention to look out for Billy and his friends could rarely be called all that successful, and Tony was starting to doubt how altruistic they even had been anymore. He had intended to help Billy minimize the destruction from the volcano, for example, and now they were here. He wilted, and gave a weak gesture toward the armor, because he thought he had explained exactly what he was about to do and been pretty clear about it; that was what was going on. Beyond that..."I'm trying to do better," he volunteered, voice going raw by the end of the short phrase, which sounded even more plainly pathetic than he already felt now that he heard it out loud. He had to amend for both of them, "It's not going well," which was maybe its own kind of improvement, that he recognized the failure. He was getting really good at that part. "I never had to think about it this hard, you know, poor little rich boy, so, hey, that's pretty good, that's a big step for my tax bracket," was supposed to come with a wry grin, but Tony didn't have the energy for it.

Oh. Billy's heart ached for Tony, and he shifted onto his knees so he could pull Tony into a hug. "Heeeeey. Don't say that," he soothed, "Is this just about the volcano, or is it bigger than that?"

The hug wasn't immediately welcomed, Tony going anxiously tense and very aware that his venture to 'do better' had dipped to a new kind of low as he made it Billy's problem and must have been freaking him out to get that kind of reaction. He was supposed to be invincible, or at least let Billy go to bed at night feeling sure that was true. The hug was reassuring, though, convincing him that Billy wasn't flinching away like Tony kept on making Cal and Donnie do, even as he mumbled the same, "Yeah, sorry," into Billy's shoulder as he relented and gingerly held him in return. "It's fine, it's nothing," should have been how he answered in the first place.

"No, no, I-" Billy reflected back on his words and winced, "I didn't mean it like that. I just- we should talk about it." He rubbed Tony's back, "It's not nothing, I want to know," he assured.

That wasn't easy to believe when the problem Tony had gotten himself fixated on was his inability to listen, and every conversation he had since then seemed to get worse every time he let his mouth open. It was the hug that felt honest, not baiting him into revealing his downward trending development, solid where everything else was easily destroyed. Tony still had to ease away from it, to give himself room to build his thought and illustrate it with a twisting hand between them, keeping the other on Billy's elbow while he tried to explain, "I know all I do is hurt people." His hand came up to stop Billy from arguing immediately, so he could get this out, "I've known this, that's the worst part, I've known for a long time--I knew years ago that it was a good thing that I was here, because that meant I wasn't back on Earth to screw things up for a population of billions, just as a matter of numbers. I can't go back. But I keep trying to help, that's what Avengers are supposed to do, and, so--I get you all to come with me to do something stupid and pointless and blow up a building, and the only result, the only thing that happens, is that all of your lives are worse. That's my legacy, that's what I give you.

"So, then, the volcano--Avengers are supposed to help, this is our home. Do you know why I'm an Avenger?" Billy definitely had an answer for that, when he said his thing in high school was 'history', Tony was pretty sure he had a specific area of history that he really meant. He didn't wait for Billy's answer. "When the Mansion came down, and I didn't have the money to rebuild it, that was the end of the team. Everyone agreed, there was no reason to continue. We said goodbye. Most of them, that didn't mean they stopped being heroes--that didn't even mean they stopped working together. They were still doing the necessary work. I spent my time building my company. Building the Tower. And as soon as it was up, and the vault was full again, Cap shows up at the door, saying, let's get the band back together." Tony narrowed his eyes, cocking his head inquisitively, to ask if Billy was following the math. Neither of them could deny Tony's worth to the team.

"I don't have that here. I don't have the vault. I have to protect what we have. And I couldn't do that."

Billy wanted to interject. Multiple times. But he quieted himself and listened. He sat with it for a beat, and it was a strange moment, old enough now to see his heroes as real and vulnerable people, just as unsure as him.

He wondered if Kate ever felt that way as their benefactor. If he'd ever left her feeling that way. If he'd ever left Tony feeling that way...

"...I know it doesn't take away from what you said, but- there's a whole world of people who see you as a hero, with or without the vault. With or without the suit... You're worth more than what you can give. And place- it's never going to let us win. I couldn't touch the thing with my magic. We were never going to win that. But...we tried. That's what makes us Avengers. Not the vault. Not that-" he nodded towards the suit.

He felt like Cap would have done better with the speech, brows creasing anxiously.

Tony had spent a lot of time and money convincing people that Iron Man was a hero, and that Tony Stark had replaced the bombs with a brighter future. That didn't make it true. This felt about as meaningful and dismissive as Jon telling him about the action figure that didn't matter when Tony tried to talk to him, and that was his own fault, for selling the toys in the first place then acting like he had anything to complain about.

"I've been in a lot of fights that nobody thought we could win," he pointed out, with a small smile that was supposed to be impishly encouraging, but in the context he had to drop his gaze and give a brief shake of his head in apology because it sounded more like he had no excuse for letting it go on this long. None of those other hopeless battles had been so drawn out.

"...I know," Billy admitted. He was a living encyclopedia of Avengers trivia after all. But he understood on a more intimate level as well.

"It's still hard. No matter how many impossible fights we win. It's hard every time..." He paused, not sure exactly what he was trying to say. "...I'm glad you're here, Tony. Even when you're mad at me, I feel safer when you're around."

As much as he wanted to, it was hard to argue that Billy did understand, both as an Avenger and as someone who had been in this situation even longer than Tony had. He just managed not to be falling apart about it, or at least had iron enough to appear that way, and Tony shot him a glance of guilty apology that only lingered in a fist that he brought up against Billy's shoulder for having to be the resilient one. Maybe Tony shouldn't argue with Billy's claim about having him around then, either, but that was a much more difficult one to believe, because he didn't think he'd made anyone any more safe, and what he did apparently keep managing to do was make the kids feel insecure. "I'm not mad at you. I'm never mad at you," he tried, without a good explanation for why it felt that way.

"Heh, I know," Billy soothed, "I meant back when we first met." This lifetime. "You and Cap trying to stop a bunch of kids from getting themselves killed. You guys were probably softer on us than we deserved. But...I mean, even before I knew you, you're amazing. I'd watch you on the news and dream about getting to be like you..."

Sitting here with Billy now, it seemed to Tony like they had been unreasonably worried. All of them were clearly capable, brave and generously kind, and it was a good thing they were also too stubborn to let Captain America discourage them. If Tony had played some small part in forming that determination and inspiring another Avenger, that was at least one good thing he should have been able to acknowledge that he had made. A path to a clearer future. His smile was still brief and small, but he nodded without trying to argue this time, a bloom of approval easing some in his chest before he remembered to be ashamed of it.

"Tell me those dreams were more exciting than this," he encouraged, hands open to the room and Billy bravely battling Tony's misery, or the lonely planet they were stranded on. "My dreams when I was fifteen involved a lot more skin."

Billy laughed and flushed, biting at his lip, clearly not willing to share details even in jest.

"...it's not all on you, you know," he reminded softly, "You've done more than enough for all of us. Just try and remember that when you're feeling low. Okay?"

It felt like all Tony did was take a thorough sock of everything he had done, and it hadn't left him with the impression that he should be comfortable with the person he had become. If this conversation went on any longer, he was going to ruin the one success either of them could point to, and leave Billy rethinking his inspirations. So Tony bit his lip with a nod, then wrapped his arm around Billy's shoulders again before he could press the issue any further, trying to seal it with a kiss to his temple.

Billy gave a bashful laugh and smiled.

"So...can I help you with any of this?" he asked, nodding towards the suit. "I can pretend I know anything about engineering. I do a real good nod," he added, showing off a thoughtful nod.

"That's very good, professional standard," Tony encouraged, muttered as he considered exactly what he could bear to ask anyone to do for him, even when the help was freely offered. At least it wasn't really an engineering problem--not the kind of billion dollar one it took to put the suit together. It was much simpler, though Tony was still reluctant to say, "I just have to get this back to the shop. Its heavy."

Oh. Well that's not a problem. Or less of a problem at least. Billy's face brightened, head tilting as he held back from the obvious magical answer.

"I'm stronger than I used to be," he teased lightly, "Or uh...you could let me make it easier on both of us."

Magic was not Tony's first choice, and still drew a twitch of discomfort to his jaw despite the much faster results that it promised. In this particular case, he did have to admit, "Doesn't really matter." There wasn't any making things worse, and the only reason he had to get the pieces back to the forge was to melt them anyway. If the magic had some unintended effects, they'd be slag by the end of the day, so Tony flicked a hand in invitation.

"Always wondered how heavy these things were actually," Billy said, getting to his feet and lifting the pieces with a wave of his hand. "No wonder you're so ripped, walking around in this." Billy wasn't sure he'd be able to move at all if he wore the suit. Just a living statue.

The image wasn't so different from Tony manipulating the pieces with their repulsors to suspend themselves in the air, just missing that glow of their power, replaced with Billy's casual wave, and it was enough to make Tony uneasy and have to remind himself that any foreign influence on the suit was going into the fire with it. Billy wasn't going to take advantage of this control over it, and it wasn't going to be used against him, and the anxiety that had him holding an arm around his chest and making sure he had the bottle up close with him as he stood as well wasn't going to bear out as the armor tearing him apart. "Careful," he warned, a little hoarse before he continued, "Keep hitting on me holding my clothes like that and you're going to be having some awkward conversations with your boyfriend."

Billy flushed, an alarmed look of surprise and a quick bashful look on his face that he tried to shrug off. It was more than just his usual shyness. Tony had hit on something, and Billy only belatedly realized he (probably?) meant Teddy and not-...

"And with yours," he deflected with a laugh.

Billy's shock wasn't entirely out of place, Tony was intending to rock him off balance with the accusation. It was the tightness lingering in his voice, and the unjust retort that nagged at Tony's focus; Teddy wasn't here to be jealous, invoking him was more like a reminder of home than a threat. Jon was next door. Not sure what to do with that incongruity yet, Tony tried to joke, "Oh, does he still talk to you?," which definitely sounded funnier in his head. Out loud, it was pathetic. Quickly, he tried to cover, "Don't worry, he doesn't really get jealous, you'll be talking about cats in no time. Is Teddy jealous? I can't imagine, looking like that, like anything he wants to, King of space--not much left to be jealous of."

Jealous? No. That's Billy. He's the jealous one. Teddy's sweet, and loving, and oh there was that guilt again.

Billy's so caught up in his own head that he almost missed that not very funny at all joke. His brows belatedly creased and he gave Tony a soft questioning look. "...you two good?" he asked casually as he can manage.

This conversation had been humiliating enough, Billy should have been able to extrapolate that Tony's failures were profound and all-encompassing so Tony didn't have to do it for him, and the first pressure release he spotted was the fact that Billy had avoided answering his question, too. "Who, me and Teddy? I think so, why, did he say something? We've never really been alone together, maybe he won't be able to help himself, turns out you're the stronger one," Tony said, rapid fire and very animated.

That guilty look only grew stronger and Billy tried to laugh it off. "Heh, I uh-..." But he wasn't as practiced at hiding the truth as he wanted to be. "...do you think he'd hate me?" he asked a little more seriously, clearly not just a worry in this pretend scenario anymore.

Scoria

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...I don't know how i lost this

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