This is a 6 part series of 5 times in Tony's life where he has seriously attempted to kill himself and one time someone gave him a reason not to.
If this is likely to be TRIGGERING or upsetting for you then PLEASE DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER. Scenes of self harm and attempted suicide, consider yourselves warned.
Feedback is extremely welcome, I think I may actually be living off it but please no flaming over subject matter, you've had plenty of notice.
The first time was a result of way too much alcohol, too little sleep and the knowledge that he was never good enough. Not by his classmates standards and certainly not by his father's.
That day had been the most humiliating day of his life so far and there had been a few of those.
He had naively thought that his father would be impressed, would be proud, would be sober even. Some chance of that. He had shown up late, not that Tony had expected anything else and although he didn't look drunk the smell of alcohol lingered on his breath.
He had ignored Tony's enthusiastic attempts to show him Dummy's code and blueprints, brushed off his explanation of the AI program and how it was capable of learning and merely sneered at his efforts to get Dummy to wave at Howard.
He had held back tears, schooling his expression to one of indifference as Howard had berated him in front of his classmates, his tone mocking as he demanded to know why Tony had wasted his time making himself a "little helper" instead of creating something useful. "What, you need to build friends now?" The derisive words rang in Tony's ears as he stared at Dummy's battered form in the corner.
He was fixable, of course he was. Howard hadn't been particularly thorough in his attempt to destroy the bot, hadn't even really succeeded in breaking much more than Dummy's claw and outer casing. It was the initial impact of being shoved over that had taken Dummy offline. He had been far more focused on breaking his son than the robot.
Even so, Tony had put himself between his father and Dummy because he would be damned if the bots earliest memories consisted of being attacked while his creator refused to protect him. He had designed Dummy to learn and what would that have taught him?
He couldn't drag his eyes away from his damaged robot and he dare not even look at his own face. He knew his cheekbone was bruised and split from the force of his father's punch and his eyes were probably swollen from crying for so long. His ribs ached although he didn't think they were broken and he knew without looking that he had hand shaped bruises on his wrist and forearm where Howard had grabbed him.
He couldn't stop sobbing and a distant part of him knew that it was mostly shock. That didn't stop him from wobbling into the bathroom and grabbing up the razor, throwing it to the floor and crushing it under the heel of his shoe to release the blades from their plastic casing.
He sat on the floor with his back against Dummy's frame, sobbing his apologies even though he knew the bot was offline and couldn't hear him. Probably wouldn't understand him even if he could. It was for the best anyway. He didn't want Dummy to have to watch him die.
The blade was sharp and he barely felt the sting as he dragged it down the inside of his wrist. Vertical cuts, not horizontal. The better to bleed out quickly. He stared at his bleeding wrist and for a moment wished he hadn't cut so deep. It was hurting now and he was starting to shake and he knew he wouldn't be able to do his other wrist. Maybe one would be enough.
He leaned back on Dummy and cried harder, wondering what was so wrong with him that he couldn't even get killing himself right.
It was almost an hour later that he came back to awareness to the sound of his room-mate's frantic voice yelling at him. Demanding to know if he could hear him and what the hell had he done.
"Fuck! Come on, man, answer me! What the fuck, Tony, what the actual fuck?!"
The guy said fuck a lot, he thought distractedly. Or maybe he didn't usually, this was kind of a special circumstance. He supposed he would give the guy the benefit of the doubt, after all it wasn't every day you walked into your room and found your room-mate had committed suicide. He wondered if it still counted as suicide since he wasn't dead yet.
He could hear other voices now, attracted by the shouting and people were pulling at him, lying him down and something rough was being wrapped around his wrist. He drifted off for a moment and when he next woke it was to the sound of sirens and he could see the lights of the ambulance in his peripheral vision as he was bundled onto a stretcher and carried outside.
They would take him to hospital now. They would stitch his wrist and probably give him blood and inevitably a trip to psych would be on the cards. He wasn't going to die. This time.
He would do better next time.