Chapter 2
Steve startled when he saw the figure walk in at four in the morning with his posture defeated, his hair sticking up in all directions. He quickly busied himself with the kettle and tried not to make a big deal out of Tony’s sudden appearance after a week of absence, even though he had wanted to actually just pick him up and haul his ass (he physically could, with his enhanced muscles and the fact that Tony had dropped a few bmi points) to the common area to socialize and eat something for the past few days. Tony sat down at the breakfast bar stool, looking down at the granite countertop. Everything about him screamed help me.
“You okay?” Steve settled for asking.
Tony looked up at him, nodding. “Always.”
“You sure?”
Tony’s beard was unkempt, same with his hair. He had motor oil all over his jeans. His eye bags were prominent and there was a grey colour to his cheeks. Even his eyes looked void of anything, and it scared Steve.
Tony sighed heavily, resting his chin on his hand and his elbow on the surface of the bar. He looked at the spot above Steve’s shoulder, not quite making eye contact. “Tell me, Rogers,” he began, “what would you do if you were me? What would you build?”
“I’d build whatever I wanted to. You have the brains for anything,” Steve said, the words coming easy. “You’re incredibly smart, creative, you think of things that-”
“I’m not fishing for compliments,” Tony interrupted him sharply. “I know I’m smart. That’s like, the one constant in my life.”
Something about that last sentence worried Steve. “Okay. Sorry.”
“Don't apologize. You were just being a nice person and I'm just an...” Tony mumbled with his eyes closed, trailing off, muttering a quiet insult to himself that Steve couldn't catch. “Anyway. So you’d build anything, right?”
“Anything that popped into mind.”
“Anything?” Tony asked sourly, opening his eyes to glare at the wall.
“Why, what’s wrong with that answer?” Steve asked, wondering what he was setting up with this. Tony always loved theatrics.
Tony laughed coldly. “My dad used to do that, y’know? He built to his mind’s content and never thought of consequences. He had a room in the basement where he kept his worst weapons.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“He never thought, what if my inventions went into the wrong hands? And one day, they did. Someone dug a tunnel into the basement room,” Tony spat distastefully. “Thankfully Aunt Peg put things right, she was always saving dad’s ass. This was years before I was even an idea, mind you. Nowadays we just barge into people’s houses and threaten them with guns,” he continued grimly.
“Do you have a secret basement with weapons?” Steve asked carefully.
“No,” Tony said hesitantly. Steve raised an eyebrow. “Not really. I have a basement full of Iron Man suits though. Same thing.”
Steve shook his head. “Those aren't weapons. They’re not going to fall into the wrong hands.”
“You can’t say that for sure.” Tony straightened up, continuing his point. “Anyway. I disassembled them all.”
“All of them?” Steve asked incredulously.
“Well, just the ones I’m not using,” Tony said, his voice a strained casual. “Which leaves like, three of them.”
“Tony,” Steve began, “I think you’re getting a bit paranoid.”
“Just learning from mistakes,” Tony said.
There was something Tony wasn’t telling him. Steve could see it in his face, the way he held himself, the way he phrased his sentences. Tony was begging Steve to ask just the right question, to give him an excuse to spill it out. Steve placed a mug of hot chamomile tea in front of him and sat down on the stool to his left. “Truth, now. You doing okay?”
Tony grabbed onto his mug, staring at it hard as if it was offending him. “Define okay.”
There it was. “What’s wrong?”
“Maybe I am dangerous,” he blurted out.
Steve gathered all the sincerity he could muster. “You’re not.”
“Romanoff said I was. She doesn’t want me dead but I’m dangerous,” Tony argued desperately. “And just because she doesn’t want me dead doesn’t mean that the rest of the world doesn’t.”
“She meant it as a joke.”
“A joke, maybe, but she’s right.”
“You’re not dangerous.”
“Rogers, I sold weapons that could’ve levelled an entire city,” Tony mumbled, dragging his right hand across his face and rubbing tiredly at his eyes. “Who knows what would have happened if I kept going? If I kept building? Soon enough it would be able to destroy the world a billion times over. I already technically could. The blueprints for nuclear bombs are right there.”
“But you stopped,” Steve pointed out.
“But that’s what my mind is capable of!” Tony said, desperate to get his point across.
“But you stopped. It didn’t happen. You’re okay,” Steve said, trying to keep his tone reassuring.
“The thing is, I helped,” Tony said, his voice tight. He tapped the table with a restless finger. “The helicarriers. That was my doing.”
Guilt was written all over Tony’s face, and Steve suddenly understood why he was being eaten up so much by this. “Did you know what you were helping with?”
“They asked me to make them stay in the air forever. I did just that.” Tony’s voice was full of self-hatred. “I should’ve asked questions.”
“Would you have agreed to work on them if you knew what they were being used for?” Steve asked.
Tony paused, dragging his hands over his face, his eyes squeezed tight like he didn’t want to think about the answer. He took a deep breath in. “I don’t know.”
“You like to improve things, it’s okay. Either way, nothing happened,” Steve said, waving away Tony’s worries. “You’re getting caught up in hypotheticals.”
“Maybe they had a point,” Tony said, his voice empty. “Maybe I’m better off dead.”
Steve’s hands went ice cold even though he was holding onto his own steaming mug. “You can’t mean that.”
Tony laughed, but it sounded hollow. “I don’t. Because that would also mean the death of like, seven hundred thousand people. I’m not that cruel.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“The only reason that you disagree with this is because thousands of people would die?” Steve asked, his eyebrows knit together in worry.
“I feel like that’s a great reason to disagree,” Tony said, his tone casual again, like he hadn’t just said that he was better off dead.
“But not because it would kill you?” Steve elaborated.
“You know, that wasn’t the first time that someone told me to kill myself. Just now there’s a legitimate, logical reasoning behind it,” he told him.
Steve took a sip of his tea to calm himself down. “You know, you worry me sometimes.”
“Why?”
“You always talk about yourself like this and then immediately bounce back,” he continued, maybe testing boundaries. “Kind of makes me wonder what else you’re hiding.”
“I’m a bit too sober for this conversation at the moment,” Tony said, standing up. “Good chat.”
“Don’t run away, Tony. I know what you’re doing,” Steve said sadly.
Tony just shrugged and started to leave, not contradicting the statement.
“Go get some sleep. And some food. And maybe shave,” Steve instructed.
“Right.” And he was gone.
That was… something. Steve sat in quiet bewilderment for a few minutes.
Tony wasn’t doing great. That was obvious. And like all the other times, whenever something went wrong, Tony always found a way to twist the situation and make it his own fault. This time was no different. But it seemed to run deeper, the way he was beating himself up for something that didn’t even involve him. He took Natasha’s words to heart, Steve knew, and that seemed to spur on this spiral until Tony got to the state that, well, the state that he was currently in. Steve just had to pull his head out of his ass now before it got worse.
He stood up to go find Natasha.
“It was your fault,” he said, announcing his presence in the living room.
Nat sighed long and hard, closing the book she was reading and staring up at him from her spot in a chair with a pointed expression. “Steve, as much as I pretend to read minds, I can’t. Context, please.”
“With Stark,” he elaborated. “He’s worried his suits will fall in the wrong hands. He just destroyed most of them.”
“And that is my fault, how?” She raised an eyebrow.
“You said he was dangerous,” he said accusingly.
“So? He knows that. He knew that since Afghanistan.” Nat opened her book again, as if to signal the end of the conversation.
Steve sighed. “Just go apologize to him.”
“I’m not apologizing to him. I already said I don’t want him dead. That’s an apology for me,” she said, not looking up at him.
Steve threw his hands in the air in exasperation. “Is it that hard for you to admit when you’re in the wrong?”
“Shut up, Rogers,” she countered. “You’re one to talk.”
“What did I do now?” he challenged.
“Mister big man in a suit of armour- take that off and what are you?” Nat recited, eyeing him judgmentally. “Few hours later and he’s dead on the pavement.”
“He didn’t die.” Steve rolled his eyes.
“But did you apologize?” She smiled sweetly up at him.
“It was implied,” Steve said, but he saw her point. “We’re nice now.”
“You’re a hypocrite.” She looked back at her book.
“Fine, fine,” Steve gave up. “But he did tell me that he’s better off dead. So maybe next time don’t tell a teammate you agree with the bad guys.”
Nat looked up sharply. “Stark said that he’s better off dead?”
“Yes.”
“Huh,” she said thoughtfully. “When did you talk to him, anyway? I haven’t seen him in days”
“Just now.”
“Wow.” Nat frowned. “Maybe I will apologize.”
“Good.”
“Maybe.”
Steve sighed, turning his back and walking out of the room with his arms in the air. “Fine then. Do whatever you want.”
But days passed and Tony didn't get better. Natasha maybe apologized, maybe not; Steve didn’t know for sure. After a week or so of Tony not talking to anyone unless it was a yes or no question and simply coming to the common area to get more coffee to bring to his floor, Steve had had enough. It was dark out and he was in the middle of reading a book that he couldn’t concentrate on because all he could think about was Tony, so he needed to get the matter solved and out of the way.
“JARVIS?” Steve asked, looking up at the ceiling- a habit he couldn’t shake.
“Yes, Captain?”
“I was wondering where Tony was,” Steve said. He was going to storm in and demand he get a therapist or anyone to talk him out of this funk.
“M’right here,” a voice said from the doorway.
“Tony?” Steve asked, squinting in the darkness from his spot on the couch.
A dark figure was leaning against the entranceway to the common living area, slumped and defeated. “You know what? I think I might be depressed.”
“Yeah?” Steve asked, his heart plummeting. “Are you okay?”
There was silence.
“Tony?”
He shifted his weight from foot to foot sheepishly. “I’m a bit... drunk.”
“That’s fine,” Steve said, even though it wasn’t. “Want to sit down?”
“Uh, sure.” Tony emerged from the shadows and sat down on the couch across from Steve’s chair. In the warm glow of the standing light, Steve could make out his grim face. His eye bags were heavier than ever, his facial hair was all over the place, and he just looked like a mess. He looked dead and the angle of the light made the shadows on his face more prominent.
“You okay?”
Tony shook his head, his face screwing up like he tasted something sour. “I’ve been, I’ve been- fuck,” he cut himself off, then took a deep breath. “I’ve been sober for nearly a year. Ruined it.”
Steve’s heart ached. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sick and tired of restarting. Maybe I shouldn’t try anymore, yeah? If I’m gonna fuck up?”
Tony was cold when he was drunk, Steve noticed. Sure, he’d seen him drunk before, but the self-loathing wasn’t there; it was more just Tony shit-faced and incoherent, Steve trying to drag him to his bed before he hurt himself. At this level of intoxication though, he was harsh. His words were knives and the self-deprecating questions sounded like he was trying to cut himself open. Steve hated it, and half of him wished that Tony was a little bit more drunk so at least he wouldn’t talk about himself like that.
“How do you know if you don’t try?” Steve asked, putting his book to the side.
Tony laughed, a hollow noise that seemed to echo in the room. It pained him.
“What’s wrong?” Steve tried a different approach.
“Dunno. It just is wrong.”
“Try to explain?”
“I don’t know,” Tony admitted, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I just feel… like shit. All the time. So I turned to drinking. Classic, classic Stark behaviour.”
Steve bit his lip at the last remark, but chose to ignore it. “Have you tried sleeping, eating well? That might get you on your feet,” he offered with a shrug.
“That’s not gonna solve anything,” Tony mumbled.
“But it might get you a step in the right direction.”
“Y’know, I think there’s a good reason you’re not a therapist,” Tony said, and Steve sighed.
“Then why’d you come to me?”
Tony shifted in his seat. “You said I’m not dangerous.”
“Yes,” Steve confirmed. “You’re not.”
Tony looked far away. While he was physically present, he just wasn’t there. This wasn’t the Tony that Steve knew. This wasn’t the talkative genius he knew, always chasing advancement and moving forward. Tony seemed stuck on this issue. Like nothing good would happen until he felt like he was punished appropriately.
“I think I did something stupid,” Tony blurted out.
A million possibilities raced through Steve’s mind and he fought to keep the alarm out of his voice. “What did you do?”
“I can’t stop,” Tony said sadly, urgently. “I can't stop creating. Next thing I know I’m making a space bomb.”
“A space bomb?”
“Like a vacuum, like space. You throw it at an army and it creates a vacuum that sucks them all in,” he elaborated.
“Why would we need a space vacuum?” Steve asked.
“That’s the thing! I don’t know,” Tony said sharply, his voice full of hate. “I don’t know. It’s gone, I dismantled it. Thought it would stop a future New York.”
“New York’s not gonna happen again.” Even as the words left his mouth, Steve knew it was stupid.
“How do you know?”
“Because we’re here. No more alien invasions,” Steve said, empty promises.
“You can’t say that. Nothing is guaranteed.”
Steve nodded, a lump in his throat. “You’re right.”
Tony also nodded, letting out a shuddering breath. “You don’t know what I saw up there.”
Tony hadn’t told him much. There had been so many things happening at once; him falling, Loki, shawarma, debrief, send offs, paperwork, they didn’t have time to talk. Steve got his information from a transcript of a meeting that he wasn’t present for, a transcript of Tony describing what he had seen. Something bigger than Loki. Massive ships, tons of aliens, so much of it all. Space is giant, it’s expanding. Technology beyond our reach, different materials, so much to study! A playground for scientific advancement. It was beautiful. Terrifying. We need to be ready.Tony’s words played in his head, and although he hadn't heard them being said, he had no problem imagining the slight fear in his tone of voice.
True, Steve hadn’t seen what Tony had seen, and he was a bit grateful to be honest- Tony seemed haunted by the knowledge. “I know,” he whispered. “But we’ll do our best to keep them from happening. That’s our job.”
Tony shook his head. “We’re not enough.”
“Tony- stop that talk, okay?” Steve said sharply. He was as stressed as Tony was about the requirements and didn’t need to have someone else voice the opinion.
Tony rubbed at his face, taking a moment to breathe. “I get… panic attacks when I think of New York. Or anxiety attacks. I don’t actually know the difference.”
Steve looked at him sadly. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
Tony shrugged. Then changed the topic. “Tell me I’m not dangerous.”
“Back to this? You’re not dangerous,” Steve said with ease.
“You can’t say that knowing what I just built,” Tony argued, dropping his hands to his sides. “Cities can be absorbed. People will be sucked and compressed. It’s literally a mini black hole.”
“But you didn’t,” Steve insisted.
“And my suits! My suits in the wrong hands, heck, in my hands, do you know how much destruction they can cause?” Tony asked, getting himself riled up. “The military’s been on my back since two thousand and eight trying to get suits of their own. And don’t forget that hearing in twenty-ten, you weren’t defrosted for that, but they were all right; the Iron Man suit is a weapon. And even now I’m no better. I make weapons and pretend I’m helping us. I’m the same. I never changed.”
“Tony-”
“Take my workshop away from me,” Tony demanded. “Lock me out.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I’m dangerous.”
“You’re not.”
“Lock me out. If you tell me I’m dangerous I’ll stop building. Tell me,” Tony begged, his hands gripping the sofa cushion so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “Tell me to stop.”
It was strange hearing his tone of voice go desperate; Steve had only heard him in varying states of calm or slightly annoyed. Still, he held his ground. “I’m not going to.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m not going to lie to your face, Tony. You dismantled it. It’s not a problem,” Steve said, carefully moving his hand towards him.
“What if I didn’t?” he challenged.
“I’d say that the weapon was dangerous, but not you,” Steve answered, placing a hesitant hand on Tony’s shoulder.
He barely noticed it. “That’s the same thing.”
“No. It’s not,” Steve argued. “And since you did take it apart, then it’s not dangerous anyway.”
“Stop. Stop talking! Stop.” Tony pulled away all of a sudden, turning slightly so his back was to Steve. He held his head in his hands, his fingers going through his hair.
Steve was quiet, his heart pounding in his throat. If Tony could hear it beat like Steve could in his ears, he wouldn’t be surprised.
What had happened to his friend? The bright billionaire who never seemed short of ideas, was asking him to tell him to stop creating? That was what he did best. Steve knew that Tony’s mind was brilliant, even more so than his father’s, he’ll admit- just never to Tony, of course. To take his workshop away from him seemed like blasphemy, like he was committing a crime. Tony and his toys and bots came hand-in-hand.
Tony’s breath was shuddering slightly when he decided to talk again. “That’s not what you’re supposed to say. Stop encouraging me. Stop enabling me. Put me back in my place.”
Steve made a decision. “I think we need to have this conversation when you’re sober.”
“No.” Tony kept himself turned away.
Steve sighed, moving so that he was somewhat in Tony's peripheral vision. “How do I help you?”
“Keep me away from my work,” he requested.
“I can do that," Steve agreed. "But not forever.”
“Forever,” he demanded.
“I’m not doing that.”
“Then you’re just delaying the inevitable.” Tony brought his hands down from his head, and Steve noticed his right fist opening and closing like he wanted to hold something; a drink, perhaps.
“Tony, you’re drunk,” Steve pointed out, as if it wasn't what Tony had started with. He just needed an excuse to stop Tony from thinking, from spiralling. “I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“You said that wasn’t a problem,” Tony mumbled accusingly.
“It’s not. Also, you just said that you thought you were depressed. Why would I turn you away after that?” Steve asked gently. “You’re my friend.”
“Would you have turned me away if I didn’t start with that?”
Steve paused. That was a good question. Tony was always also brutally honest when he was drunk. “No,” he found himself saying. ”I’ve seen you drunk before.”
“A sorry sight.”
“I can’t make sense of you right now. Do you need to sleep?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay.” Steve could work with that. “Sleep here.”
“I have a bed,” Tony said.
Steve huffed out a breath. “I don’t want you alone right now.”
“Why?” Tony asked. “Afraid I’ll do something dangerous?”
“Kind of.”
“Knew it.”
“Not like that, though.” Steve shook his head. “You’re drunk. You might aspirate.”
“I’m not throw-up drunk,” Tony informed him. “Not yet, anyway.”
“I’m worried you might hurt yourself,” Steve admitted.
“I like myself too much for that.”
Steve knew that was a lie. “Just sleep.”
Tony fell sideways on the couch, closed his eyes, and was out within the minute.
Steve’s hands were shaking.
Tony worried him on a good day, but on days like this, he wanted to lock him up and take care of him. So he could make sure all his needs were met, that he was adequately fed and watered and rested and whatever. Tony was not known for deep talks or feelings, so this was very new. Tony usually did his very best to keep everything on the inside and a cool, collected calm on the outside; only showing the Avengers a little bit of himself and to the public, even less. Lord only knew what Rhodey knew, or what Tony hid from even his best friend. He seemed to be a very public guy, but after tonight, Steve knew differently. He was glad they no longer despised each other. He hated to admit it, but Steve was glad that Tony flew the nuke into space and proved his words wrong.
And now Tony wanted to deprive himself of his inventions? Steve had only known Tony to be absolutely brilliant; why was he being so stupid, then? His inventions were doing more good than harm, yet Tony could only see the harm in them. Steve knew that if Tony really wanted to be the villain, he could; and it would be catastrophic. But Tony was afraid. He was afraid of turning bad, of having his inventions in the wrong hands, and he was questioning his own intentions. The Avengers had the world in their hands. They could as easily blow it up as they could save it. Earth was lucky that they were just as interested in saving the world as the civilians were, and yet Tony was questioning whether he was good or not? If he wasn’t, Earth would be beyond saving by now. And besides, Steve or anyone else would step in if Tony was building something worrying, but he trusted the engineer’s judgment. Even if Tony didn't trust his own.
Steve was a bit on edge, honestly. He never liked it when people were drunk. He hated that Tony felt the need to crawl into a bottle instead of going to one of them. He hated how easily the word depressed fell out of his mouth. It made a lot of sense however, with the way Tony was acting now. He rarely saw other people, looked like he hadn’t brushed his hair or tended to his beard in days, and was much thinner. His words were all self-deprecating and the paranoia was palatable. He truly felt as if he was a burden to the world instead of helping it, which was so wrong on so many levels.
On bad nights, Steve sometimes wondered how getting drunk felt like. He wondered if it helped. However, he resorted to different coping mechanisms; ones that didn’t destroy his body even more, like reading or working out. He didn’t know anything about what Tony was going through.
And why did he come to Steve? Why not Bruce, or Rhodey, or even Pepper, someone he was closer to? Why Steve? Sure, Rhodey was working and Pepper was horribly busy, but surely someone else had noticed this behaviour? Surely someone else was looking out for him?
He looked at the clock; about an hour had gone since Tony fell asleep, and the adrenaline had since passed through Steve’s system. He was feeling the effects of the crash and being awake for longer than he would’ve liked to be.
He draped a throw blanket over Tony’s still body and sat back in the chair, closing his eyes.
Tony was gone when he woke up, the blanket over his lap instead.