"Shadows surfacing in black asphalt
I stumble
Tumble
Consumed within myself-
within my mind
And the shadows grab listlessly
Onto shadows of myself"
The first time I touched alcohol was a goalless decision-or more so a decision to rid all the unattainable goals from my mind; creating an unattainable goal in of itself.
I remember the feel of that cool glass, the condensation through my fingers, creating a ring on the bar counter. A ring that so well resembled my endless thoughts, circling around and around-
"Your parents are dead."-
And around-
"You didn't even say goodbye"
And around-
"You're a terrible son."
And around-
"You're smarter than this, Tony!"
-and I remember leaving that bar after one sip of bourbon, allowing the overwhelming futility of my own actions to encompass me.
That would be the first-and only-time I manage to leave a bar sober. And, ironically the reason for leaving, has now become my reason for drinking.
Admittedly, bourbon was never really my drink of choice, and I can always joke about how the unappealing taste was the reason I left the bar that night. Except no one ever drinks for taste, and no one would ever believe that shitty ass lie.
"Far above
White clouds circle
Freedom-
An essence of incense, a figment
Pigmenting our lives
I strive
For my soul to be free of the shackles I have surrounded it with
That my father has surrounded it with-
'But he's dead!'
And so am I"
Blackouts and sleeping pills maintain my sanity-or more likely allow me to pretend that I am still somewhat sane.
The loneliness is probably the source of the most pain. This nagging voice always reminding me that "humans are social creatures" each time I have a conversation with whirring machines.
My machines.
My creations.
I can whine all I want about how my family is dead, that that's the reason I'm alone. Except I know I'm at fault.
I push people away.
Because, despite my genius, I've never really understood people. And at least my machines understand me. They're my creations that only I understand, and okay, maybe I'm a little possessive, and have a misconstrued concept on understanding that if I don't understand you, then you can't understand me.
Mutuality.
Superiority.
Whatever the fuck kind of complex it is, I know the real problem is that I don't try.
And I don't let others either.
Pill after pill. Pill to rise, pill to sleep, pill to feel, and pill to numb.
Pill to blind myself from the people who truly care about me.
And pill to blind myself from all the wrongs I've brought upon them.
People want me to propose to Pepper. Telling me how,
"She's waiting. She won't wait forever."
"When are you going to understand that people love you?"
"When are you going to end this godforsaken pity party?"
"Just Propose! What could go wrong?"
Except everything could go wrong, and I can't help but think that my own popping pill self couldn't propose with anything other than a giant rock of codeine.
But I guess they just can't understand.
"Innocence
Fleeting, fast
Swinging, flinging
I've never seen myself as innocent,
It is only something others can see within you—
Your eyes
Your smile
This impalpable vulnerability—
Wide eyes
Wide smile
Everything big, and new, and bright—
Until it's not.
And you don't realize until it's too late"
The first time I met him, I felt an overwhelming urge to protect him. This foreign realization that his parents are dead, and his uncle is dead, and all he has left is his aunt—and apparently me.
Me, this gigantic fucking fuck up, and I could never live with myself if he ends up like that. And why doesn't he understand that? That I am not what he should be looking up to.
However, the frustrating innocence that masks the real me from him, is also the very thing I strive to protect. He's so young, and sweet, and sees me as 'Tony Stark' this perfect image of myself that has not been conjured up in a long time. And how can I crush him by showing him that I'm not perfect? That I'm not who he thinks I am? That he needs to find another fucking role model because I sure as hell am not cut out for the job.
But, I sought him out.
And his eyes are so big and filled with wonder, and he hangs off every word I say, and I haven't had a drop of alcohol since I met him. And he makes me better, makes me want to be better.
But, I can't help but marvel in my own selfishness, my using of this child as rehabilitation for my own problems. Do I want to be better for him?
Or is it for me?
Or am I just caught up in the kid's confused wonder?
/Line Break/
"Mr. Stark?"
I exhale deeply through my nose, feeling the carbon dioxide bristle the insides of my nostrils. I squeeze my eyes shut. Turn to the kid. "Yeah?"
"I was just—uh—wondering, ya know, when you'll let me go out as Spider-man again?" His eyes are hopeful, questioning, praying, and I do everything I can to not look at them directly because I know I won't maintain a strong argument if I do. Instead I form a hard stare, masking the small smile that appears when he begins to beg even harder.
"What happened the last time you went out as Spider-man?"
His eyes fall. Curly brown hair covering his face as he looks down at the floor. He doesn't answer. He doesn't have to. We both remember him defying me, getting crushed by a building, crashing a plane, almost fucking dying.
'But he did it for you.'
Fuck.
I place my hand on his shoulder. "You can go out tonight. But, " I say, cutting off the grin that so quickly forms across his face, "Ironman will be watching."
"Yes, Mr. Stark, of course, Mr. Stark!" He says excitedly, bounding out of the room as if a man newly freed from prison.
'Well,' I muse, 'that analogy isn't too far off.' After the near death incident, I'd been keeping Peter in the Tower during his normal patrol hours, and while this "imprisonment" as it has been dubbed was not so much to the degree of Alcatraz, it wasn't a normal grounding either. Me, putting his super strength and senses to good use in my lab, making him do the grunt work for my projects—something I finally found that was undesirable enough to take away the appeal of working in "Tony Stark's lab."
"Wait up, Kid," I yell when I see he's already suited up, eagerly waiting to jump out the window to the city below. He turns to me. "Ironman will be watching." I remind, gesturing to the screen FRIDAY has set up, relaying Peter's visual input back to me. "If I see anything I don't think you're ready for, I will make it clear to you and you will come immediately back here. Got it?"
He nods emphatically, standing on the ledge and searching my face, trying to gauge whether I'm done with my spiel before he takes off. I chuckle at his baited breath and nod my head, signaling he's allowed to leave, and he lets out a cheer the second he sees it. Quickly swinging himself toward the masses below.
/Line Break/
"Peter."
"Wake up, Peter."
"Come on, open up those brown eyes for me."
The boy startles awake, gasping for breath as he scans his surroundings. "Wh-where?—"
"Shh," I whisper, "you're safe."
"Where am I?" He asks again. His eyes, circles in his head, fluttering around, trying to formulate a setting with the muddled shapes they make out in the dark.
"What do you remember?" I ask instead, trying to divert his attention away from the inevitable.
"I'm in a hospital." He says, and he looks at me. His eyes so open and confused, I can't help but grab his hand, reassuring both myself and him that he's here and he's alive, but, fuck, will he still want to be? I squeeze my eyes shut.
"Yes," I manage.
"Why?"
I search his face.
"You don't remember?"
'Because I certainly do.' My mind replaying images of the event. The crash. Aliens. Me, screaming at Peter to get his "Spider ass over here" or "so help me God." Him, finding May in the debris, ignoring my calls. Crying, so much crying. Blood, so much blood—pooling out of unseen injuries, orifices. She was already dead when he found her, but that didn't stop him from going to her. Screaming for help that would never come. Help that was already far too late.
"God, if I just didn't let him out."
"And then what? She'd still be dead," my mind unhelpfully supplies. I sigh, "You were in shock," I tell him, "the hospital is just a precaution."
He nods, his eyes unfocused and I'm unsure if he even heard what I said. His face, instead, turned, watching the line on his heart monitor jump with each beat.
"She's really dead, isn't she?" He asks, his voice so goddamn small that I have to fight the tears from forming in my own eyes. Have to fight to stay strong for the boy who so clearly right now isn't.
I nod my head, wrapping my arm around him when he breaks. His choked sobs torturing my soul with each gasp and heave, and I hope he finds solace within my now tear soaked chest as that is all I am capable of giving him at the moment.
"Shh," I whisper, "you're okay…
You're gonna be okay."
/Line Break/
I find him with his blanket covering his face; billowing upwards with each exhale, clearly failing in its job of suffocating him. I would laugh at the pathetic display if not for the knowledge that his aunt had just died, that he's exhibiting the beginning signs of depression, that he's only fifteen and has no one left—no one except for me.
I pull the blanket away from him, revealing his flush face, clouded eyes, the scent of my alcohol invading my senses.
"Why?" I ask him, thinking back to me confiscating the vodka from his already slack hand.
He didn't have the luck I did in walking away the first time still sober. But, maybe that's a good thing, maybe that means his thoughts aren't as circular, that they're not as endless, that they're not—
'He's not me,' I have to remind myself. That he's not who I was, and I swear to god he will never be who I am.
He turns away from me, eyeing the blanket.
I want to scream at the unfairness of it all. That this despondent little boy is not the same one I met last year. That these wide eyes are not the ones I'm familiar with. That there's a difference between wide with wonderment and wide with terror; and I can't help but notice the dark circles, chalk skin, chapped lips, and realize just how much he resembles my own reflection.
"Why the fuck do you even care?"
The harsh words break me from my reverie and I notice his eyes are back upon me with a whole new fire inside of them. He's pissed, beyond pissed, and at that moment I don't care if he's pissed at me, or life, or if this anger is just the drunkenness talking, because fuck he's finally pissed.
He's finally feeling something. And I know that that's a step in the right direction.
/Line Break/
"Shadows ripple through the dark water
Murky images form
Creating
Semblances of destitution
of suffering
of pain
The conglomerate causing tears-
Rivulets of brackish water to break through my
Flushed skin
And just as I feel myself begin to sob,
The images disappear
Along with everything that I once knew"
After finding him with my alcohol that first night, we talked.
I told him about my life, about my parents, my torture, my idea that I was capable of handling everything on my own.
That I'm not capable of handling everything on my own.
And neither is he.
And for the first time since meeting this boy, his gaze upon me changed and I noticed as he began to see me as human. Not this god, or hero, but as merely Tony Stark.
And that didn't hurt as much as I thought it would, because this perfect little boy didn't seem to think anything less of me, just viewed me as more accessible.
Relatable.
And fuck, maybe I'm the one putting the kid on the pedestal now. But he's so good and so strong. And I can't help but feel tears the next time I watch his brown eyes crinkle into what I thought was a forgotten smile.
And I can't help but think that this is the happiest I've ever been.
"Wispy clouds hang far above us
And I find myself craning my neck to look at them
Forming images with their contours
Imagining
Dreaming
Thinking about a heaven that I never thought I could reach-
And a smile graces my lips for the first time in forever as a cloud passes by
That looks just like a certain boy."
The name "Peter" eventually becomes less bitter on my tongue, along with the word "Father" and I find myself questioning why I ever chose distance in the first place. Why I thought we would be better off on our own.
Greif seeks greif. Pain seeks pain. We find solace within those who can relate to us. Understand us.
And I question as to why I once believed that no one could understand me.
Because this boy can. And it's a fucking beautiful thing to know that you're not alone. And while we've been through trials, through terrible fucking shit that led to this mutual understanding, I can't help but smile each time a wordless conversation passes between us.
And as I lay in bed, my arms securely around this boy who has seen way too many nightmares, I can't help but think that "father" isn't the right word.
That I'm more of a "dad."
"I've never seen myself as innocent,
And maybe I never will
But I've learned that
Innocence is not synonymous with vulnerability
with youth
with happiness-
That innocence is its own entity
Entirely composed of others exaggerations of contentment
And maybe I'm not innocent
And maybe no longer is Peter
But I'm sure as hell
Content."
It's a slow recovery. But it's a recovery all the same. He's still a long way away from that enthusiastic boy I once knew, hell, I don't know if he can ever return to that boy.
But, he's so much better.
And everytime I realize that I want to cry.
Because he's so much better than I ever was.
And that's all I ever wanted.
Authors Note
Well, I hope you enjoyed this cracked up fic I wrote on my plane ride home the other day. Maybe I'll continue it, maybe not...based on my track record, probably not.
But I do have a long summer ahead of me before I attend Stanford University in the fall. Like the Stanford University, and I have to emphasize that because despite me finding out in December I'm still shook...mainly so because everyone else who got in is so fucking successful and have their own books published and research published and I'm just chilling here, writing cracked out fics.
But we all ended up in the same place, right?
Maybe?
I don't even know.
But anyway, If read to this point hope you enjoyed (again) and please R&R! While, I'm hesitant to make promises on continuation, I'd still enjoy feedback...and it may prompt me to write more...or not...whatever is desired.
Thank you!
P.S.
Really hope this is formatted correctly