revivalproject | Ghostriders In the Sky [Catch-All Event Log]

That was a sweet sentiment that Tony had to give Donnie a pained smile for trying. It didn't last long. This blind spot that Donnie was maintaining just kept exposing him to being hurt again. "I've been dodging the consequences of my own actions for my whole life," Tony said. "I put on a shiny metal suit and told everyone I was a hero like that could bring a thousand people back to life. I can't keep doing that. You have people here that care about you enough to make sure I don't get to lie to you like that."

So far as Donnie could figure, it seemed the best analysis of the situation. Things had seemed- had been fine. And there had been ups and downs, but things always smoothed out after, so he had no idea why it hadn't just bounced back like before.

"So helping me when we were stuck in that weird reverse dimension was a lie? Or making me rocket boots so I could get around when the world was burning up? Helping me build a battle shell to protect me? You weren't even going to let me go back out into the zombie hordes. I know I'm bad about reading people, I'm not like Leo, but if me thinking you cared was all actually a lie then I don't know what to believe anymore."

He held his breath, trying to will away that annoying prickly dampness in his eyes.

"But then, maybe I want to believe that lie."

"This is me trying to care for you," Tony replied, caged hand tapping over his heart, trying to pull out the parts of it that functioned. "That I can't even express that, that you hear something different that makes you feel like you're a bother or that I'm disappointed, that's my problem. As soon as someone else was there to see how I treated you, you know--You got yourself out of that awful place. You made the shell. You're extraordinary, sweetheart, and you shouldn't be letting me take any of that credit."

"Is it? Because I think it's me. I think I've been the problem all along. I did something stupid and you tried to fix that, and that...that messed everything up. And I am so sorry that you had to go through that."

Donnie swiped the back of his sleeve across his eyes, dragging in a breath that was just as quickly expelled in a sigh.

"I didn't do any of that without you, so stop selling yourself short. Because you are a hero. It sounds really lame to say, but it's no lamer than my brother wanting to be called our champion."

The argument didn't really fit together, but while Donnie made it, Tony had to politely find somewhere else to look until Donnie could hide the dampness in his eyes, his own mouth set in a tight smile against an apology he didn't deserve and the vivid feeling of panic in his chest when he lurched out of his own stasis. Donnie, of course, wasn't equipped to see those missing pieces, where he wasn't the common denominator. It was Tony that couldn't hold a conversation without someone seeing that he must have been some kind of predator, selfish and stupid, and it wasn't everyone else that was wrong. He wasn't willing to take that risk, at least, with these kids' safety.

"He is your champion," Tony had to agree with Leo, finding some softness at the edges of his expression, and didn't see how either designation was lame. "He doesn't make you feel that way, does he? That you're the problem. I'm, genuinely--I can't figure it out, what it is that I do that convinces you that you should feel these awful ways about yourself. It is so hard for me to imagine that anyone else could treat you that way, that they don't act like you hung the moon."

"...he is," Donnie admitted, the faintest of smiles stubbornly tugging at the end of his lips. He shook his head. Leo had never looked at him as the problem, but Donnie had sure felt it was his responsibility for his brother shrinking in upon himself, distrustful of everyone and doubting his own ability because he couldn't keep Donnie from getting hurt.

"Stop trying to avoid me. Every time you try to excuse yourself, even if you're believing you're giving me space, it's... It's not what I want. It's like I have the plague or something. And then I get paranoid when we talk, and maybe it's just my misinterpretations and your not saying things straight."

He made a face. "Maybe we're just both. Really, really bad at this."

There was no way Donnie didn't hear it that time, how he still couldn't respond to Tony without putting himself down. Tony tipped his head, a pleading gesture with a sigh, not sure how many more personality defects he could handle inspiring. What Donnie wanted was as healthy as Tony wanting a drink.

"You're asking me to put you in danger," he reiterated. "The solution that I have right now is not getting involved. And, okay, maybe it's selfish, maybe I'm just trying to avoid the oncoming train that I can see, the next time it's really bad, and Wesker, or the Soldier, or Tae has to take me down. I don't know. My wires are crossed, that much is clear."

It didn't seem to him like he was putting himself down when he was describing something akin to symptoms. It was cause and effect, and it really did start to seem to him that maybe it was a double-ended problem of lacking comprehension.

He couldn't help for the exasperated sigh and roll of his eyes as Tony pushed. "When have we not been in danger? You are not responsible for any of the threats I've gone through. None of our previous encounters have ever been life-threatening, and as mentioned before, you even helped me get through some of those."

"I know I'm not the engineer of all of the world's evils!" Only most of them. That was still a different conversation, a willful ignorance of the same impulse that had Donnie telling himself it was his own fault he felt terrible about himself whenever he talked to Tony. "I, personally, with my hands, would have killed you if your brother and Wesker didn't intervene. To this day, I don't believe I would do anything different if we were standing in that room again, and I'm sorry for that, I don't know what is wrong with me. People have their kids taken away for less."

"I would've done the same thing!"

For a split-second Donnie looked like he regretted yelling back, but he doubled down on it.

"So maybe we'd both accidentally kill someone and feel terrible about it, but in the moment, you were doing what you thought would work, you were trying to open the pod! Cutting the energy would in theory work, but unfortunately nothing of the tech and information for anything make sense because some stupid entities figured it was better separating knowledge and understanding of things that otherwise have informational overlaps but for whatever reason it doesn't translate that way when we rewrite our brain with their preprogrammed information!

"So I can't be mad at you for doing what you thought would work, because you were doing what you thought you could. And maybe things would have turned out terribly if Leo and Wesker didn't do anything, maybe I wouldn't be here yelling at you. But I am, and things worked out one way or another. You keep talking about something that's already happened, that you wouldn't do anything different. I get that. But if it happened again in the future, would you still do it, knowing what you do now? You're focused on the wrong thing. Stop beating yourself up over something that almost happened. Wesker already did that for you."

The yelling only made Tony purse his lips, asking if volume was really how Donnie wanted to make his point. It didn't make him flinch or shrink, though, and his gesture might have even been looser as he splayed an annoyed hand at Donnie's question, eyes incredulously wide. It wasn't that Donnie wasn't listening the eighteen times that he had already said it was his brain that was the problem, because he had just made the same argument that Tony kept having with himself--he was trying to open the pod, and yes, it would still do that. No preprogrammed information would tell him that opening the pod was a bad idea.

"And I deserved it. This isn't in my head; he thought so, you thought so, Tae thought so, Steve thought so--I was doing my best, sure, I've heard it, and that's still my best, because my best is Doctor Doom's worst. I don't understand what you expect me to do. You think if the Soldier walks by right now, he doesn't come in here and choke me out for arguing with you, too? You think 'he said it was okay' is a reasonable claim?"

"I just-"

Donnie winced, exhausted at trying find different ways to reword things he'd already said. He was wrung out of words, and it wasn't often that he spoke so openly about what he was thinking and feeling. That it seemed he was still missing something, or something wasn't connecting just threw him off for what more to say or do. Letting go was just not a Donnie thing to do.

"...I just want the Tony back that I knew before..."

But maybe that was impossible.

He turned again to resume his exit. Hopefully those dumb planet scans finished soon. He needed to be somewhere else with something else to focus on, anywhere that wasn't here.

There wasn't any argument against what Donnie wanted; there wasn't even one to redirect them back to the point, because that might have ultimately been the point, no matter how long Tony tried to find the words against it. He was still searching for them as he watched Donnie go, then slumped against the table. Slowly, he turned to pitch over and bang his head against it instead, with an exhale that wasn't the relief he was hoping for. Jon couldn't stand the man that he had been. Donnie had never really known who he was. The broken pieces that were left were never going to deserve either of them.

Ghostriders In the Sky [Catch-All Event Log]

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