So I was watching Iron Man 2 recently and the scene where Tony was watching his dad's outtakes from the old Stark Expo video caught my eye. At one point Howard drunkenly says to the camera, "I'd like to show you… my ass!" That sounded like a family trait to me, and thus this weird little plot was born.
Disclaimer: Of course I don't own them! I just like to play with them.
Tony Stark had no right to be depressed, and he knew it.
Compared to anyone else in the entire world, he had no reason to be upset. He didn't know everyone in the world, but he knew enough of the world to understand that. Even within his own building, he had it better than almost anyone.
Clint was deaf, but he managed to make that work for him. Beyond that, he didn't have much reason to be sad, and he wasn't, smug, sarcastic, magnificent sassmaster that he was.
Thor was a literal god, all big and blond, with muscles, Mjolnir, and a huge hammer if Jane Foster was to be believed. All that added up to one of the most genuinely cheerful people Tony had ever met.
Nat had every right to be furious, and she was somehow able to contain that white hot rage in a smoking hot body and focus it on assholes who needed their necks snapped.
Bruce hated Jolly Green, and hated himself for creating him. He hated his father, his mother, the patients he'd had in Calcutta, and the New Yorkers he'd saved from the Chitauri. Like a man who lived at the base of an active volcano, he somehow managed to function, even with the threat of being buried beneath volcanic ash and despair constantly hanging over his head.
And Steve… Tony didn't even want to think about Steve, with his good for the sake of good and his greatest generation and his American Duty. If there was anyone who had the right to curl up in a ball, cry himself to sleep, rinse, and repeat, it was Steve Motherfucking Rogers, the boy scout who looked down on Tony because he'd never wanted for anything in his entire life.
Well, he might have wanted a hug or two from Papa Stark, but that was disgustingly cliché. Tony Stark was many things—he refused to let cliché be one of them.
There were widows living in countries that didn't allow women to work who couldn't feed their starving children. There were teenagers whose parents kicked them out of the house for being gay, who ended up turning tricks just to survive. There were kids who picked up guns he made to protect their families from vicious hate-monsters in human skin.
And here he was, poor widdle billionaire, with more money than he could ever spend, a job he loved, and a building full of friends, but he was spending his time alone, getting outrageously drunk, and feeling sorry for himself.
He was elbow deep in his 1932 Ford's engine, orating these sentiments to JARVIS, when Steve walked into the workshop.
"Oh son of a… Cut, JARVIS!"
"Am I interrupting something?" Steve asked.
"Um, yeah?" Tony said, standing up and nearly losing his balance. He caught himself on a workbench, sending a toolbox smashing to the floor. "The flow of my creative genius? My unique and world-saving thought process?"
"Your egotistical movie making?" JARVIS supplied.
"You were filming yourself?" Steve asked, crossing his arms and smiling at the ceiling.
"He often records himself 'for posterior'," JARVIS said.
"For posterior?"
"I believe he meant 'for posterity'."
"I meant what I meant," Tony said, picking his way carefully through the general debris of the floor to sit at his computer. "Posterity can kiss my posterior, for all I care. In one video, I think I actually show them my posterior."
"May 21st, 2007."
"That's it! That's the one. JARVIS, your ass cataloging skills are superb. Whatcha say, Cap?" he asked, opening the folder he'd created to store all his drunken, recorded ramblings. "Wanna see it?"
"Um, no," Steve said, quickly pushing Tony's hand away from the display before he could pull it up.
"Too bad. JARVIS, email the Goddamn American Icon copies of of my posterior so he can watch them later." He gave Steve a wink.
"No," Steve said quickly, looking panicked. Tony grinned. Everyone once in a while Steve was awkward and uncomfortable. It was rare, but each instance was a reminder that Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes was more than muscle and sickeningly moral one-liners. "JARVIS, you don't have to-"
"He does have to, though!" Tony said.
"I really don't, sir. We've discussed this, remember?"
With a huff, Tony remembered he was right. Pepper had insisted Tony give JARVIS the ability to refuse orders when Tony was drunk or high or feeling particularly self-destructive. One night, Tony had gotten blackout drunk and tried to buy the New England Patriots. She didn't think wanting to change their name to the New England Cheetahs was as funny as he did.
Beaten on that front, he turned his attention back to Steve. "What are you doing down here? You never come down here. Why are you here?"
"We hadn't seen you in 36 hours and I drew the short straw," Steve said. "Do you do this often?" he asked, scrolling through the long list of video files.
"Only when I throw myself a pity party, which reminds me-the only people on the VIP list are Me, Myself, and I, so I'm gonna need you to bounce."
"A pity party doesn't really sound like you," Steve said.
"That's because you don't know me very well," he snapped, unable to keep the venom out of his voice.
"Tony," Steve said, a confused frown creasing his eyebrows. "I only meant-"
He didn't let him finish. He didn't care what Captain America meant, because he knew what Captain America thought, that he was spoiled, that he was rich and entitled, and therefore he had no reason or right to be unhappy. And Tony agreed, but that just made him feel worse. "This is the part that doesn't add up," he said, unsure of who he was talking to, himself, JARVIS, or Steve. "I can't be sad, but I can hate myself. In fact, according to a lot of people-like oodles of people-I probably should hate myself. How can you hate yourself without being sad? I can feel mad, but self-loathing is like sad and mad all at the same time. It's like… like smad."
"Smad?" Steve repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes," Tony said, slapping his hand down on the table as a magnificent idea came to him. "I'm sick of inventing robots and from now on, I shall be inventing words. JARVIS! Copyright 'smad' for me."
"I don't think that's how copyright works, sir."
Tony let out a heavy sigh and finally felt just how drunk he really was. His head felt heavy, he couldn't feel his face, his breathing was so loud he was amazed he could hear Steve at all. He sat down hard and gave his chair a spin, immediately deciding that was a poor choice. He stopped spinning, but nothing else did. Eventually, he managed to ask the question he'd always wondered, even back when Captain America was nothing more than an old dead savior in newsreels and the hero of every story Howard Stark had ever told him.
"How'd you do it?"
"How'd I do what?"
"It! Everything! Anything!" Tony said. "You had a shitty life, man. You were little and sick, Depression-Era poor, your parents were dead. Were there lots of ass-kickings? You're one of the most obnoxious people I've ever met, so I'm assuming there were lots of ass-kickings. And yet, when the call came, you still answered it. You saved the world. And I'm willing to bet you didn't complain once, you smug, perfect bastard." Tony stopped, finally noticing that Steve was staring at him with an odd expression on his face. When he didn't answer the question, Tony said, "So? How'd you do it?"
Steve stood up straight like he always did before he said something Profound and Meaningful. "Well, it wasn't easy, but the idea was simple enough: When times get hard, you can do one of two things: you can get upset, or you can get to work."
Tony nodded and looked around his shop. He understood that particular sentiment better than anything: get sad, get drunk, get to work. That was the recipe for most of his projects, now that he thought about it.
It just didn't help.
"C'mon, you need to go to bed," Steve said. He helped Tony to his feet, and then had to help him stay on his feet in the form of pulling his arm across his shoulders and practically dragging him to the door. "You need a shower, too," he added, crinkling his nose.
"Mm," Tony agreed, and let himself be half-led, half-carried to his bedroom.
"I don't know what's eating you up, Stark," Cap said as they entered Tony's room. "But another thing I learned, back when I was sick and little and getting my ass kicked: sleep almost always helps." He let Tony collapse onto his bed and then stood back.
"Mmm, yeah, sleep forever," Tony muttered, half his face buried in a pillow, just before he passed out.
A/N: I'm not done yet! I just felt the need to break it up a little. Plus, I'm not entirely sure how I want this story to turn out: nice fluffy friendship, or Steve/Tony romance… Since I can't make up my mind, I'm open to suggestions!