Tony Stark sat on the couch in the penthouse of his main headquarters building. It had been designed as a pad for him to escape to. And since what happened with Pepper, he was using that for exactly that purpose. He had fucked up again, this time royally. He knew Pepper was never going to forgive him, and for the most part, he was fine with that. Especially since he was now more drunk than he thought he had ever been in his entire life. It felt good to be numb to the pain he had been feeling. He had done everything possible he thought he could. He tried to do right by Pepper, but it hadn't been enough. She could not put up with his playboy ways. He was always looking at other woman, and that pissed her off beyond belief. He didn't know that just because he was in a relationship that meant he wasn't allowed to even look at other women. It was what he did. He couldn't just change who he was, even if he thought he had been.

But none of that mattered now. The only thing that mattered at this moment, at this particular spec in time, was how much alcohol he could possibly consume before he passed out. Since becoming Iron Man, his constitution had considerably increased. The last time he had this much to drink had been at his birthday party a few years ago, but that had been a fun binge, even if it had been to numb another kind of pain he was feeling, an actual pain because of the paladium in his system. This time, his heart actually ached. No, he didn't really have a heart anymore, but whatever it is that makes a person love someone was broken inside of Tony, and he really didn't like the feeling. That's why he was drunk, and that's why he intended on getting still drunker.

The intercom beeped on his wall near the front door and he groaned. Had he not given explicit instructions that he was not to be disturbed? But of course, no one ever really did as they were told, now did they? He pushed his drunk ass up off the couch and slunked to the wall.

"Ye-es?" he asked, his speech slurred from his inebriation.

"Mr. Stark," the receptionist from the lobby's voice came over the line. "Colonel Nick Fury is here to see you, sir."

Tony rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "I'm not in."

He heard Nick from the other line, telling the receptionist. "I'm going up."

Tony yelled back into the speaker. "I'M NOT HERE!" But there was no response. "You're... fi-red."

Clicking off the intercoom, he turned away from it and headed back over to the bar to get a fresh bottle. He was not in the mood to see Director Fury at this moment. In fact, come to think of it, he was never in the mood to talk to him. He always felt... uncomfortable around the colonel and he never felt uncomfortable around anybody. But Director Fury was a different story. Tony didn't know what it was about Nick Fury that made him so uncomfortable. He used Fury's eyepatch as a reason, but it was mostly just to make light of his uncomfortability.

The door opened and Tony walked around the bar, carrying a new bottle of scotch, mockingly saluting Fury with it. "Nice to see you there, Fury." Fury however wasn't pleased to see him, and Tony could tell. "To what do I owe this unexpected visit?"

"We need you back on your game, Stark."

Tony snorted a laugh and fell back on the couch, some of the scotch from the newly opened bottle splashing on his hand. He laughed, licking the liquid off of his hand. "I thought I wasn't needed by your super secret boy band."

"This isn't a joke, Tony. Something is coming, and we need you to help fight it."

Tony turned his head up to Stark after taking a drink. Swallowing coarsely, he narrowed his eyes in on the man standing across the room from him. "Iron Man is not available." He snickered, laying back more against the couch. "Leave a message after the beep." And with that, he made a loud and long BEEP noise. Laughing loudly, he took another long swig of his scotch and shook his head, closing his eyes, and relaxing there against the couch.

Fury walked over, kicking Tony's feet off the coffee table from where he had propped them up. Tony shot up, almost growling at the colonel. "Who do you think you are? Coming into my place of business and my home-"

Nick shook his head. "This is not your home. Remember. You live in Malibu. Or have you decided to make this," he looked around at the almost steril environment, "your new bachelor pad?"

Tony shook his head, holding his bottle up and pointing at Fury with one finger. "Where I live is none of your business." He walked around him and away from him.

"Clean yourself up, Mr. Stark. We will all be meeting at S.H.I.E.L.D. tomorrow evening. 1900 hours. Be there."

And with that, Director Fury left Tony alone in his penthouse, staring out the window over the vast city of Long Island below him. He liked looking out along the city, especially when all he wanted to do was think. That was another reason why he enjoyed being Iron Man. Whe he was flying around, he could look down over everything, and he could actually see everything. It was only a part of what he loved so much about being Iron Man, but right now, there wasn't anything he wanted more than to drown in yet this one more bottle of liquor. It felt good... or at least he felt better than he had when he began drinking. Right about now, he could barely even remember why he was drinking in the first place, even though he knew it had something to do with Pepper...