A/N: I've decided to upload all my fics into a single account. eye of the beholder until let the walls break down were originally only uploaded to my AO3 account, callingthequits. Then I went back to my roots and thought, "Hey, why not post it on Fanfiction too?" so here I am.
The irony of the situation is that they always complained about him forgetting too much, but all he can do right now is remember.
And god, does Tony remember.
When he closed his eyes, he can see the numbers. Lots of numbers — calculations and inequalities and angles and if I can make this work what's the percentage of daddy looking at me and what's the ratio of my bad versus the good like is there a number high enough for that and it's nothing but wonder, really. All of it; all just questions and finding the answers and Tony feeling depressed when the numbers add up because, hey, all the more reason to hate himself right? All the papers are doing it, and everybody always does what the papers do.
That's what Howard always said. "Always feed them the good image of you, boy," he'd slur, never mind from exhaustion or too many glasses that night. "Because the people eat the papers, and the papers eat you."
Usually then he'd chuckle, and Tony would get a glimpse of the man he'd wanted to be. Right now he'd snort at his younger self, and say, You got what you wanted, didn't you? You're exactly like your old man; a drunkard bastard that only ever thought of himself, the guy hailed as a genius but in reality was the guy always falling over his stupid ass.
In reality, Tony was chuckling and pouring himself another glass. He never found someone to pour it for him, not anybody that lasted.
Sometimes he remembers the brown of his mother's hair, the way it curled and shined and how always looked soft to touch. He'd inherited it, sure, but his hair was all messy strands gelled back and hers was brushed to over-the-top perfection. She was prim, proper, pluperfect Maria Cecilia Carbonell-Stark, and all he was, was just raunchy, gritty, over-the-top Tony.
Howard's eyes were brown, too. They weren't striking brown, the kind that shined under a particular light, not like Maria's, not like people said Tony's were like. They were a dull, unassuming, normal brown. They never felt that way to Tony. They've always seemed so cold; just like the beer he kept on drinking.
He took a swig, downed it, and grinned at it wolfishly in appreciation. He appreciated it because he'd like not hearing from Jarvis or Rhodey or Happy or Pepper, because god forbid Pepper Potts ever came through that door.
She's blazing; her hair like a fire that'll turn white at old age, her eyes clear and untainted. She's the best thing in his life, honestly. He's just not the best thing in hers, and come on, who can blame her for that? Their fire burnt out, that's it, that's all; but if Tony still liked to think about the near-invisible freckles on her face and the way she pulled off those heels like nothing, then that's nobody's business but his alone.
Alone.
Calculate the percentage how used Tony Stark is to being alone.
And he laughed and laughed and laughed and Jarvis was telling him go to sleep, sir and Dummy was trying to pull him down to the couch and Butterfingers holding blankets along with You and Tony can't stop fucking laughing. Because, hey, that's a trick question, isn't it? Tony is never alone, never, because everyone is watching his every move and papers keep trying to eat him and the people keep wanting him dead or gone or kidnapped or worse and he can't breathe, dear Jesus, he's laughing so hard. He always has the goddamn shadow of his goddamn dad following him around and clinging, like Captain America wasn't enough to weigh him down. Like a goddamn nuke wasn't a heavy enough weight on his shoulders, never mind the hole in his chest where his heart should be, taken out and heavier than anything else in the world. Because the ghost-touch of his mother still lingered, Pepper's ghost-lips he could still feel on his, and in the end it was always Tony, always just Tony and Tony not being alone but feeling so lonely it more than made up for it.
So maybe sometime, in a long time, he could stop holding the bottle. But really, Tony was just an unstable atom with too many neutrons to lose and too little protons in the nucleus to be of use.
He was passed out on the couch, and when he woke up in the afternoon he remembered thinking about the genius kid who always sat alone at the lunch table.