He steals the bottle of vodka from the liquor cabinet when his mother and father leave for the benefit. It's a charity fundraiser for an organization that Tony has never heard of, and he's sure that means his father is completely clueless. Howard is all about appearances, and Tony is young, but even he knows that the big, oversized cheque made out to the Flynn Davies Foundation – or whatever the hell it's called – looks good. They'll praise the Starks in the next day's newspaper.
It's not a hard lock to break. It's a primitive keypad, a technology that functions but could be improved in so many ways. Tony's smart, sixteen years old and about to graduate from MIT – MIT, of all schools – so it takes him all of ten seconds to slip past the lock and sneak the bottle off the shelf. He carries it with him up the stairs mechanically, like this is a routine, all the way up to his bathroom. This lock, the lock that he has installed, is unbreakable. He's tested it, made it perfect. This is his creation – Howard has his projects, the broken robotics in the basement, the big, bulky computers; this lock is Tony's. He shuts the door behind him, standing with his back to the tub, and slides down. The porcelain is cool on his back, even through the fabric of his shirt.
Tony unscrews the lid of the bottle and brings the slender neck to his lips. His mouth hovers over the opening for a minute, and he looks blindly at the bathroom door in front of him. The lighting is dim, a flicker of yellow that lights up the room and casts shadows on the white walls. This bathroom has seen him through nights of rage and tears and absolute breakdowns, through the mornings after – he is grateful for its privacy, its seclusion.
The first pull of vodka burns his throat on the way down. It's a familiar pain, one that Tony welcomes like an old friend. He grimaces, then goes back for more. Inside his chest is an insistent aching, a feeling that tears and pulls at his insides, begging for a way out. Tony silences it by drinking, and before he knows it, half of the bottle is sitting in his belly.
More often than not, he wonders how it could have been different; if it could havebeen different. He gets like this when he's been drinking too much – that's a given. Introspection, he assumes, is not best when you're carrying a blood alcohol content that pushes the legal limit into next week. Most of the time, he thinks about his mother, the timid woman with the dark eyes that used to hold him and hug him, who rubbed his back when he was sick and sang him lullabies. Tony loves his mother; he resents what his father's turned her into.
His chest burns with that same ache, the ache he's been drowning with the booze, and he hangs his head between his knees. The breaths come to him shakily, his fingers go numb and tingly, and Tony squeezes his eyes shut. Chest heaving, he sucks in the air, knowing that his lungs need oxygen and his heart needs to pump his blood, and all of a sudden all of these involuntary functions feel so voluntary.
You're wasting it, Anthony!
The words ring in his ears. Tony spares a quick glance around the bathroom, his eyes cracked open a sliver, making sure the voice is in his head and that his father isn't there in the room with him, looming over him like a great, dark shadow. Tony brings the bottle to his lips. The vodka goes down easy, this time, settling heavy in his stomach, liquid hate. His ears ring. His fingers clutch the bottle's neck, snow white. The porcelain pressed against his back is still so cold, the only thing his brain can register through the thick fog that's formed there.
He knows there is no one there but himself and his breathing, but Tony feels the hands on his shoulders, feels the fingers that dig past the oversized shirt and leave deep, purple bruises on his pale shoulders. He squeezes his eyes shut. Howard has never been gentle with him; their fights end with more than words, with the sharp cracks of hands on skin, and his father always comes out on top.
Sixteen years! You're better than this, Tony! You have so much potential! You could be so much better.
Maybe, he thinks, if his father had been different, if Howard had not been so completely and awe-inspiringly Howard, things would have been different. The words are as bad as the bruises, the way they linger in his head and pull at his insides while he tries to sleep at night, staring at the ceiling in his bedroom. Maybe if he had been better. Maybe if he was better.
A noise tears its way out of his chest, heavy and angry, and before he knows it, Tony is screaming, horrible noises that echo off the bathroom walls. The vodka bottle is heavy in his hands, and he doesn't notice that he's throwing it until it collides with the bathroom door, smashing and shattering onto the floor in hundreds of pieces, sharp flakes that gleam in the yellow light. The alcohol seeps outwards, soaks into Tony's socks and out through the crack between the door and the floor.
He screams until his throat is raw and he's certain he can taste blood. His body heaves in heavy, heavy sobs that wrack his shoulders and take his breath from him, and he crawls to his hands and knees. Beneath him, the tears hit the floor, mix in with the vodka that still remains there. Tony's whole body aches; he can feel the blood throb in his head, and the sting of his throat when he swallows, and even his lungs hurt, sharp, spasmodic pains every time he breathes.
For the first time in a long time, Tony is glad his mother isn't there to pound at the door, to hold him and cradle him against her chest, to keep him sane. There's something about the pull of desperation deep in his chest that shames him, something that he could not endure to put her through. She has suffered so much, deserves so much better than Tony can give her.
Tony picks the piece of glass out, the one that shines with the reflection of the bathroom light, and holds it in his palm. He squeezes the hand shut, and the pain is so sweet, so very present that he can feel himself smile through his tears, and he opens his eyes, looking down at the mess of blood and tears and liquor on the tile below. For a minute, he thinks there's something beautiful about how the red drips from his hand and spreads onto the floor, how it turns to thin ribbons in the pool of vodka, watercolor paint on white canvas.
He's still crying. There a tracks on his face that cool with each breath he takes, but when he lets go of the glass, they open up again, drenches with warm trails of tears. His hand leaks blood onto the floor, and Tony rests back on his ankles, still feeling the tub against his back.
You could have been better.
And he could have. He could have been so much better, he could have graduated earlier and he could have been smarter; he could have followed in his father's footsteps. Tony knows his father never wanted children – he knows because he sees it in his eyes every time his father grabs him by the shoulders, every lecture he gets. He knows Howard does not want him. And how could he?
He could have been so much more. And maybe, Tony thinks, taking shuddering, heaving breaths, if he had been more, his father would have loved him. His chest tightens, and past the rawness in his throat, a weak sob manages to escape. He wants to be loved, he wants to know the feeling of being wanted by more than a woman too lost in her own misery to see how much he really suffers.
There's so much blood.
Tony pushes himself onto his knees and crawls to the door. His hand is too bloody, and it slips off of the handle, but he manages to get it steady long enough to push the door open and roll onto his bedroom carpet. The phone is on the night stand beside his bed. In his hands, the plastic of the receiver is cool and heavy, unnatural, almost. Tony knows the numbers by heart, and he doesn't have to think and suddenly the phone is ringing and—
"Hello?"
He's silent. He has no idea what to say.
"Tony?"
He closes his eyes and resolves to plug the holes and stop the bleeding. His voice is broken.
"Rhodey."
"Tony, is that you?" Rhodey's voice is riddled with concern. Tony breathes deeply, "Tony, are you okay? Tony, answer me. Tony!"
He closes his eyes and leans against his bedframe.
"I need help."