No, this isn’t rock bottom.
This is what Tony tells himself repeatedly. That he can still climb back up. If it’s while he’s pouring another scotch, or crying on the workshop floor, so what? He can just as easily put that bottle in the trash, or pull himself up from the floor and get back to work. But what’s the point? There’s no one to do those things for, and he certainly won’t do it for himself. He was fine crying drunkenly on his workshop floor, thank you very much.
Okay, so it was rock bottom.
But so what? He’s Tony Stark, global disappointment. It started with his parents and went from there. Sure, he technically saved the world twice, but what did that matter? Those were just for publicity, for spite. Because he wasn’t reallythe guy to lay down on the wire. Just because he shut down the weapons manufacturing part of his company to prevent more people from being killed, or flew a nuke into an alien wormhole to save New York from the hands of its own government, or willingly sacrificed his own suit to save a country (yes, by destroying it, but schematics) doesn’t mean he’s a good guy with a good heart who hung around the wrong people. No, he stopped weapons manufacturing because he killed people. He flew that nuke into the wormhole because that’s what people expected him to not do. He saved Sokovia because he created the very thing that tried to destroy it. Now, he’d also destroyed the Avengers. Would a good man do that? No. Tony Stark was not a good man. He wasn’t a good anything. This was another part of his mantra- ‘You’re not good enough.’Not good enough for the Avengers, not good enough for New York, not good enough for Sokovia, and certainly not good enough for Steve. That one had stung the most. Tony tosses back the rest of his glass, relishing in the burn as it travels down his throat. He really needs to put himself back together, he knows that. But he’s not entirely sure that he can, anymore. He just wants to give up. After years and years of trying too hard to be someone worthy of other people, Tony was tired. Tired of working to improve not only himself but the world around him, or trying to be something more, of just living life. Every breath was a struggle, another crack in the armor. May as well just step out of the armor, right? Tony grabs the edge of his workbench and hauls himself up, groaning when the room tilts violently.
He needed to get away.