revivalproject

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Had Gladio heard a word he said? Nobody ever did, but there couldn't be a less romantic metal than steel, and the suggestion shocked Tony into raising a delicate hand to his chest like he might faint, returning, "Like for plumbing?" That Gladio could express his affection so easily but seemed to have trouble conceptualizing it as a tactile object was baffling. The thing that his partner could touch should have expressed so much more than ephemeral words. "I can make a robot out of a VCR and a hot glue gun, don't worry about it. There's nothing more important. You're not eager to get out of here because you miss the microwave, are you?"

Different people find different things romantic. He and Noctis were both people who lived by the sword. Of course steel could be romantic.

"Like for swords," Gladio corrects with a laugh. Though he seems more shocked by the concept of a VCR. "Shit man, I haven't seen a VCR since I was a ski. And no, it's not that. I'm just... I'm trying to do right by him."

Tony couldn't think of a steel ring that he had made for a sword; they were for clamps and carabiners, though maybe there was something to be said about strength and support, making his eyes roll up thoughtfully. Not that Gladio seemed to be considering this angle. "You think your relationship with him is like a sword?" Tony prompted, sounding skeptical.

Not steel rings for swords, just steel for swords.

"We're brothers in arms," he says, so yeah, that is sorta how it is. "I was his weaponsmaster and instructor before we were involved. A long time before. A sword is something we share. Sometimes literally trading the blade between us in combat."

That was a dynamic that Tony could understand, and he seemed to consider it less critically, like he might be able to relent somewhat on the gold. It still wasn't going to look as good. Besides, "And you want your marriage to feel the same? Like you're in combat together?" Sometimes, that already felt like an effortless marriage. Which made the times they weren't running the same program all the more painful.

No. No it wasn't the dynamic he wanted either.

"We'll always stand together in conflict. But I want us to be equal. True equals for a change. Astrals know I need that chance for a change."

"So, two of the same, that makes our job easy," Tony wasn't going to argue with. Twin rings for true equals. "Is that why you thought you had to argue with me about the teacher thing? Listen, it's not my fault you put yourself in that position, it's him you've got to be accountable to if you think you need to stop bossing him around and acting like his superior. Couple of rings aren't going to fix that, but can be a good reminder when your wires are all crossed."

"I'm not going back to the whole teacher thing," Gladio says with a sigh. Though he's not going to correct Tony's conclusion.

"I love him, and I want to share this with him. Give him my life in a different way."

Tony didn't need to hear any further proof--he was the last person who anyone needed to justify a relationship to, and he wasn't interested in challenging Gladio on his convictions in maybe this single area. Enjoy the brief reprieve. It was only the rings themselves that Tony was going to stubbornly insist, "Gold. Come on," and it wasn't a cajoling encouragement. He was taking up the wire that he had produced and heading toward the fire for Gladio to follow. "Bring those gloves, you're going to need them. Get that crucible, watch the mess."

Gladio grab the glows and frowns.

"Why would I need them?"

He does start fetching as he's directed to though.

"So you don't burn yourself, come on, keep up," Tony explained impatiently, mumbled around the end of the wire already in his mouth to keep aloft as he was busy taking up the hefty sheers laid against the forge to snip off as much as they would need. A pair of rings wouldn't take long, as long as Gladio was willing to follow, "Hold that up, steady, in the fire. Just for a minute." By the time Tony saw Gladio out of here, he will have made his own wedding bands, adopted a new job title and task, and left Tony with a list of weapons to disassociate over while he crafted them by whatever base code drove him to endlessly produce the tools of destruction. By any measure, Tony should have felt like he finally achieved something. The dread still coiled in his chest, effortlessly mapping for him every way that his brief satisfaction could make the world more bleak.

"Burn myself?"

Yeah he's a parrot at the moment as he follows Tony. When he's told to hold things up, he does, frowning.

"Why am I the one holding these?"

Scoria

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