Hi everyone! Sorry for being a whole two weeks late, again (actually, last time I wasn't quite this late), but it's the time of year when my sinuses try to kill me, so after being sick for a few days, I've finally finished the following, and I'm really happy with how it turned out—JARVIS finally gets some lines! :)
This week's chapter takes place the morning after the party and Tony's fight with Rhodey. Eating doughnuts as a means of forgetting my problems has never really worked for me (except when it comes to Krispie Kremes, which are magical), but it's better than some of Tony's other coping mechanisms, and I feel like he'd have ample time to think while eating. Thanks for your reviews, and since I'm already finished with the next chapter, I'll see you again next week. (Or thereabouts—my dad wants to go camping, so I may have to spend next weekend trying not to freeze to death...)
Disclaimer: I own no part of the Marvel Universe (except for merch, love, and feels. :))
Doughnuts
As Tony bit into his third doughnut, he thought about the night before and tried not to wince. He was wearing sunglasses, so the rising sun didn't really bother him, but the fight with Rhodey...yikes. He hadn't been that drunk in a long time. And judging by how bad he felt this morning, and how his blood toxicity was still over 90%, it occurred to him that he might not ever be that drunk again.
He'd been preparing for this possibility for weeks now, but as the sun rose over the horizon, for the first time, it seemed worse than real: it seemed inevitable that he was going to die. And worse, it seemed pretty likely that everyone was going to remember him not for all the things he'd done, but for being a guy who, in spite of the occasional superhero stuff, was basically a screw-up.
Remembering the past and thinking about the future was way too much to deal with on top of a serious hangover, so Tony took a deep breath and finished his doughnut, then bit into another one. Normally when he felt like this, drinking seemed like a pretty good idea. A little hair of the dog that bit him would clear his head, put things into perspective, although honestly, even if it didn't, it could hardly make things worse at this point. Remembering Rhodey and last night made him feel a little queasy though.
He and Rhodey had been friends for a long time—Jim Rhodes had put up with Tony Stark longer than anyone other than Pepper and Happy, and though it had started out as a work thing, a mutually beneficial friendship, now that it might be over, Tony had to acknowledge how much he genuinely liked Rhodey, even now. As he was sobering up, he realized that, objectively speaking, he admired Rhodey for sticking to his guns, for putting principle before a friend because it was the right thing to do. Since he was the friend in question though, Tony was still pissed.
Having a suit of his own, given the fact that Rhodey wasn't nearly as messed up as Tony was at the moment, was the right thing for the Air Force and maybe the world. Logically, he knew that he'd driven Rhodey to do it—okay, so using fruit thrown by cute drunk girls for target practice had been a bad idea, he was a big enough man to admit that—but Tony had trusted Rhodey to always be in his corner, to always help him out. The problem now was that Rhodey couldn't help him—he could save Tony from dying in an Afghan desert, but he couldn't save him from the arc reactor's toxic core.
Okay, so I acted like an ass, and he had every right to call me on it, Tony thought irritably, swallowing another mouthful of doughnut. Just because I get it doesn't mean I have to like it, or forgive him. Assuming I even live long enough for that to be an issue...
Just then, Tony froze as he remembered that he hadn't just been a jerk to Rhodey—Pepper too had every reason to be furious with him this morning. Had she been in the house while they'd been fighting? Presumably, Natalie had made sure she was okay, but the thought that she might not have been okay because of him, Tony Stark and his stupid drunken need to prove that he was tougher than Rhodey...
Tony wolfed down the rest of the doughnut in his hand to stifle the sudden nausea he was feeling. He knew the difference between worry nausea and hangover nausea, and this was definitely the former. Then he glanced inside his helmet, sitting beside him in the center of the doughnut, and noticed the green light that indicated a new text. Snatching up the helmet, he opened the message-from Pepper, okay, he could breathe properly again when he saw her name and the fact that she'd sent it early this morning—and read it.
SHIELD is looking for you. Don't call me, I'm too busy for your issues today.
Okay, that's fair, Tony thought, still too relieved she was okay to really be depressed that she was mad at him. He'd worry about her if she wasn't mad after last night, honestly. Blowing up part of his house, flirting (maybe excessively?) with Natalie, telling her he loved her...wait—
Did I actually tell Pepper that I loved her? Tony wondered. He was fairly certain that he had; one of the drawbacks of having an eidetic memory was that even when he drank, sometimes for the express purpose of forgetting things, he could still remember what he'd said and what he'd done while drunk with way more clarity than he really wanted to. Saying "I love you" to Ms. Potts wasn't really that bad though—as drunken hijinks went, it was positively tame. It wasn't the first time he'd done it either.
Tony started on his fifth doughnut while he did the math in his head: last night had been the third—no, fourth time he'd made a drunken declaration of love to Pepper Potts. The other three times, she'd said something to the effect of, "that's nice. Will there be anything else, Mr. Stark?" in that glacial tone of voice she used when she was really, really furious with him. But last night, she'd simply sounded resigned. Like drunken bad behavior didn't even surprise her at this point. Ugh. That thought stung a little.
"JARVIS," Tony said, staring down at his helmet and watching the HUD flare to life. "Was last night as bad as I think it was?"
"Yes, sir," the AI said dryly. "Quite an evening of debauchery, even by your standards."
"So why the hell didn't you try and stop me?" Then, before JARVIS could even answer, Tony remembered why.
"Sir, you shut me down immediately after donning the suit, when I quite reasonably pointed out that you were intoxicated. You said, and I quote, 'power down, you spoiler sport.'"
Tony scowled—even after five doughnuts, he still tasted stale scotch and something else—it was either bile or regret. It made sense that regret would taste a lot like puke, and he did regret last night. "Sorry, J. You were right, about the intoxicated part. If I live long enough, maybe I'll learn to occasionally listen to you."
"Sir, I question the wisdom of leaving an intelligence you yourself designed in charge of attempting to correct your excesses. From a practical standpoint, if you can't stop yourself, why should I fare any better?"
"Did I program you with a guilt trip subroutine or something?" Tony demanded. "And you're right, incidentally. Power down."
"Yes, sir," JARVIS said, somehow managing to sound smug and long-suffering at the same time, and then the HUD lights inside the helmet shut off.
Tony was vaguely aware of other cars pulling up outside the doughnut shop, and people exiting them, as he selected another doughnut. Logically, he knew that at some point, he was going to have to fly home and deal with the train wreck he'd made of whatever was left of his life. Tony didn't care though. Was apathy a sign of impending death? He figured it might be, because even if it was, he didn't care enough to explore the issue.
Today, he wanted to sit in the sun and eat doughnuts. He could think of worse ways to spend his final hours. Do I even have hours? he wondered.
Then, from behind his sunglasses, Tony noticed something in his peripheral vision: someone was standing in the parking lot below, staring up at him. He knew that catching him like this would be the holy grail for the paparazzi, but he really wasn't in the mood to mug for cameras, or destroy said cameras. Anyway, he wasn't finished eating—
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to exit the doughnut."
