revivalproject

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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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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.

Tony had been too focused on reaching escape velocity, and hadn't considered how sensitive he might have to be to what he might have been teasing Billy about until it looked like he was doing some damage. His flighty hands dropped, settling on his chest while he considered Billy, letting the question hang for a beat, not to draw it out but to let the air change before Tony answered, "If you're worried your relationship won't survive a little flirting, I'd venture the flirting isn't really the problem to be solving."

"...I might've...started a relationship-ish thing. Here," Billy explained with an unsure look, and tried to shake it off, "We don't need to talk about that right now. We're dealing with you." With the suit, and with that bottle. Now wasn't the time to get into the esthetics of dating in this place.

"Did the forge hold up all right?"

'Dealing with you' was definitely a threat that sliced through Tony while he was distracted with the curiosity and concern for Billy's situationship. It made him flinch into drawing back a step, eager to establish and rapidly move past, "Yeah, its fine, made to withstand a bit of fire and brimstone. The suit can go there." That matter closed, see, dealt with, he pressed, "Teddy can't hate you. Not for that. There's a time limit, you know, you can only go so long before you feel like a fraction of yourself, without someone else to fill in those gaps. So--I've had girlfriends get the attention they should have been getting from me in other places. How am I supposed to hate them, when that's my fault?" It wasn't exactly the same, nobody could be at fault for Billy's separation from Teddy, but if Tony could bear the transgression when the stakes were much lower, Teddy surely would understand.

Flushed at the subject so swiftly being turned back to him, Billy magicked the suit safely away to the forge.

His brow creased, finding the same flaw Tony did in that argument. Teddy hadn't done anything wrong. Neither had Tony, but that was clearly a hard point to convince him of.

"...You wanna share?" he asks with a half hearted smile and nod towards that bottle.

He did not, his fingers tightening a little possessively, like it wouldn't quite be the same comfort to not have the full bottle with him. That would be the kind of cagey behaviour of an addict, though, so after a terse nod he reforged himself into a breezy host, handing over the bottle carelessly and teasing, "You've got to get a girlfriend to do this with, I'm only going to give you the most fun advice, which typically doesn't graph onto the best advice. They're opposed. Have you tried hooking up somewhere that you might get caught? Then Teddy's basically with you the entire time, you won't be able to stop thinking about him."

Commiserating at least got the bottle out of Tony's hands for a minute, holding onto it and rolling his eyes at Tony with a small smile. "Pretty sure Kate mostly gives the fun advice too," he counters, "Though she does have better tastes in drinks."

He admitted it carelessly, and then after a beat looked momentarily sheepish, as one should when admitting to drinking while very definitely under age back home- to an adult. But Tony wasn't really the sort of adult he needed to worry about, and then he looked sheepish for looking sheepish.

"...I love Teddy. I'm just...I'm lonely. There's plenty of people here, but I'm lonely, and I want to hold onto happiness where I can find it."

"I have excellent taste," Tony contested, with an offended hand to his chest. "I'm working with limited tools here, give me a break. Back home, I'd be in a one of a kind Raffaniello and you'd be refusing to taste the most expensive bottle your whole family line has ever touched." If Billy was going to dawdle about actually drinking it, he could give it back now, thank you, into Tony's impatiently waving hand.

"I know. What did I say? He'd understand. I'm surprised you lasted this long. Eventually, it feels like there isn't any space left in you, there's this void that gets into your teeth, and there's no filling it. Only someone else can, or you're wishing you could break apart." It the beat that followed, it occurred to Tony that he was still talking to Billy, whose concern began and ended with feeling lonely and not like he was dying, and Tony had to amend, "That's how I convinced Cleopatra to spend the night, anyway."

"You say to the guy who could make you anything you were looking for," Billy teased lightly, and whether on purpose or not he hasn't taken a swig OR handed back the bottle, keeping it close but just out of reach.

That description felt familiar but for a whole different reason than heartbreak over Teddy, and Billy's gaze softened some despite Tony's attempt to brush it off with a joke.

"A void, huh? That's...not a fun feeling," he agreed with a look. "...if I were feeling that way, what would you suggest? Apart from getting laid?"

Now Billy was clearly trying to annoy Tony, leaving him holding out an empty, expectant hand and suggesting magic was the solution, like Tony wanted to drink eye of newt. He only stopped looking like he might lunge at Billy for the trouble under that look, forcing him to go on the defensive instead, closing his arms around his chest and shrugging very nonchalantly. They were talking about getting laid, they weren't solving a problem anymore, just resolving Billy's guilt about it, and Tony took a breath only to glance around wildly for where to start with all of the other ways he tried to fill that void before answering, "A black hole eventually evaporates. Massive, unstoppable power, crushing anything that gets near it, no escape, and then it just..." One hand came loose to dance delicately through the air, dispersal, gone.

Billy was hoping Tony might offer something that Billy could in turn se to help him, but...that answer does feel very familiar. And he knew when he was in that state he wouldn't have been able to cough up a fix for it either. So he reluctantly took a swig from the bottle and handed it back.

"...I don't want to lose you," he mumbled with an imploring look. It was like seeing his mother cry. It felt extra wrong to see his heroes struggling.

They were supposed to be talking about Billy, and the whole time Tony hadn't really considered Billy was only in this unfamiliar position because he had already lost his boyfriend out here, and only had so many familiar faces to keep him tethered. Tony's eyebrows raised with guilty surprise, never really considering what his implosion would mean to someone like Billy beyond admitting an ugly vulnerability. Before now, he didn't think it would have been a welcome reassurance to hear, "Oh, sweetheart, I'm not going anywhere," as he opened his arms to welcome Billy closer again.

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Scoria

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