Title: Pedestal for All Our Demons
Series: Anywhere That You Tell Me
Author: Vashti
Fandom: post-IM3
Characters: Tony Stark, OC
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tony is the answer to his daughter's prayers.
Warning: I don't usually do trigger warnings, but there is talk of alcohol abuse in this one.
Length: ~3,980 words
Disclaimer: See chapter 1
Author's Note: even longer than last time, and also probably better served by having a week of downtime before editing it myself. But here it is. This is the last written story. I have one more that I absolutely intend to write b/c this scene needed to happen, I have 2 more sketched out stories that never got written (they actually got skipped b/c of this guy), and a couple of other floaters that I keep coming back to in my head. That said, I make no promises beyond the next story.
High in the tower, New York City is a silently glittering jewel. The twinkling lights of buildings add to the closeted atmosphere in the dimly lit apartment. The recessed lighting has been set to low, and if there were candles burning it would have the feeling of something sacred.
Sophie stared at the bottle of single malt on the low coffee table in front of her. That was probably a mistake, she thought, meaning the lights, mostly. She knows the bottle is a mistake. Everything about it is wrong. That tumbler on the right? It's a lie. One finger...two...three even is not enough. A tumbler of whiskey is not what she's looking for. Heck, the bottle is a lie.
"Not a complete lie," she whispered, her voice loud over the gentle electric hum of the lights. The truth is she wants to climb into that bottle. The lie is that only one will be enough. Sophie has a pretty good idea how many it would take before she can't see straight, can't keep upright long enough to get herself some more. Ah, but the trick then is to pass out near the cabinet: easy access.
She sat on her hands and tried not to notice how she was leaning forward, even as her hair tickled her bare shoulders. She could hear her friends from her undergrad days. Loosen up. Live a little. One isn't going to hurt you. So it was a bottle, there's more where that came from.
There was always more where that came from, and that was the problem. No one was expecting to see her, not her friends, not her parents. She'd announced on Tuesday that she was holing herself up on the guest floor for an extended study period so she could focus on a research paper she and her team were working on. It was possible that someone would stop by, but just as likely that they'd all respect her privacy.
Isn't that why I decided to take a room down her instead of with Mom and Pop? So I could hide my sin. So I could stay Mommy's 'sweet girl'?JARVIS will even help me by announcing all visitors long before the elevator doors open.
Some Christian I am. Just as bad as everyone else. Worse. Such a hypocrite. What the hell is wrong with Dean anyway, wanting me? Thinking I'm good, like Lou or Janae or any of those other girls at church.
I'm just what's at the bottom of this bottle and all the other bottles in the cabinet.
"No." Through clenched teeth, she said it again, "No."
A feverish blush made her almost as warm as a shot of the single malt would have, but Sophie was too tense, too desperate to even shift her hair out of her face. The hair brushing her cheeks was almost unbearable. She was a live wire. It wouldn't take much to set herself off.
Just one drink...
But she knew that she was lying. She knew this feeling, though it had been years and years and years.
If only it were one drink. If only it was just enough to get her drunk, or even to pass out. If only...if only...if only she didn't know exactly what her version of forgetful oblivion looked like and felt like. If only her memory didn't like to whitewash the bad, and paint a rosier picture around the blissful numbness that proceeded it. She'd be drinking alone, after all. No one to suffer her wit off its leash. No one to disgust if she threw up. No one to pretend niceness to while she still could and eviscerate later when she couldn't.
She wanted inside that bottle.
She wanted Dean to be there to see it.
"No!" she growled, even as she swayed even closer.
It smelled so good. Why had she opened it? When had she opened it?
She'd heard more than enough sermons on temptation. You were supposed to say a Scripture or call on Jesus. Prayer was the thing in which to snare the imagination of temptation's king. But she couldn't think of anything to say. She couldn't remember anything she'd read. She had "Oh God..." and that was about it for good minute straight. Just Oh GodOh GodOh GodOh God over and over until tremors shook her arms. She wanted even though she knew that when she woke up on Monday she'd hate.
"Oh God, you saved me from myself before. If you don't save me now, I don't know what—No, I do know what happens next and I'm scared. Because I want it so bad, God. Father... I know the end is destruction, but I think I want that, too. Oh God..."
Frowning in contemplation, Tony turned the volumetric model first through the x-axis, then the y.
"JARVIS, which version of the River Mark S are we up to?"
"Technically, sir, we are at River Mark S7 but the last two models have been designed specifically for ocean and sea exploration. You have dubbed them the Ocean Girl 1 and 2, respectively."
Tony smiled. Both Pepper and Sophie had rolled their eyes when he named the first ocean-ready suit. He thought it was fitting; they'd been built and designed with Sof in mind, after all. "How old is the Ocean Girl 2?"
"Less than five months, sir."
"Excellent. Totally due for an upgrade."
"Sir, I doubt that Miss Sophie would-"
"Yeah, speaking of Sof...she's not still up is she?"
JARVIS took a moment before responding. "Surveillance indicates that she has been in the same position for some time, but heart rate and respiration suggest that she is awake."
"Even better!" Tony reached out and "stuffed" the volumetric display down into a Starkpad and stood. "Best way to get a nerd to say yes to a nerd-gift? Show them all the fun nerdy things it can do."
Soon the elevator doors were closing in front of him. "Hey, JARVIS, don't announce me when I get downstairs, okay?"
"But, sir, Miss Sophie had engaged privacy protocols so that she might work on a research paper undisturbed."
Tony waved the AI off. "I know, I know, but it's the middle of the night and I promise not to stay long. She probably needs a mental break anyway. I know I do. And bonding is important, right?"
"Of course, sir. I will refrain from announcing your presence."
"You know, considering I built you I really shouldn't have to bargain."
"Of course not, sir."
"Even if I did give Pepper and Sof free reign over your protocols."
"Understood, sir."
"Well...so long as you do," Tony said, mollified. The elevator doors opened then, into dim, almost romantic, light. "Oookay." A quick glance down the hall showed that the bedrooms were dark, which meant that Sof had to be in the living room, but why keep it so dark if she was studying? "I can't believe I'm thinking this, but this is really bad for her eyes."
JARVIS wisely kept silent.
Tony slowly approached the geometric cut-outs in the decorative wall separating the great room area from the rest of the apartment as his eyes adjusted. By the time his vision adjusted enough to see through the cut-outs, he had found Sophie sitting on the couch in the living room.
"Is she talking to herself?" asked Tony, his voice hushed.
"It would appear so, sir," JARVIS answered in kind. "There is no sound."
"Yeah, that can't be good." Tucking the starkpad under his arm, Tony strode into the great room and made a beeline for Sophie. He picked up the bottle. "Okay, kid, when you start talking to your whiskey it's a bad time."
Studying the label, he missed the way Sophie shuddered as if released from a spell and fell forward over her knees.
"Although if you're going to have a conversation with a bottle of single malt, this is a good one to get into it with." He looked down. Sophie's head was between her knees and she was shaking. "Sof?"
The bottle and starkpad both went down on the coffee table with loud clicks as Tony rushed to Sophie's side. "Sof...Sof, sweetheart what's wrong? JARVIS, status!" He hopped over her prone body then pulled her into his arms. Shaking and trembling, she clutched at him, her fingers tensing spasmodically. "JARVIS!"
"Save for elevated levels of endorphins, which cannot be explained by Miss Sophie's solitary and immobile state, there appears to be nothing wrong, sir."
"Then how do you explain this?"
"I cannot, sir."
"I wasn't... Okay, yes I was asking you, but I wasn't...really..." Making a sound of disgust, Tony turned his full attention to Sophie. Not knowing what to do exactly, he held her, rubbing her arms and her back, and brushing her hair out of her face so he could see her better. Her eyes were closed tight but there were no tears and her lips were moving. "Is she still talking to the bottle? Please, Sophie, honey, don't make me have to take you down to Bellevue. I really don't want to have to be the one to break it to your mom that you've had a nervous breakdown. It'll put a real damper in our marital bliss. And we've been having a really good week."
"Please...please make it go away. Please."
Tony blinked. "I'm sorry, what?" If it weren't so quiet in the apartment, just the hum of the dim lights around them, he couldn't have been sure he'd heard her at all. As it was, he couldn't have heard her right. "Put what away, sweetheart?"
She squeezed her eyes tighter and clenched at his shirt. "The whiskey. Please, Papa."
Tony's eyes went from his adopted daughter to the bottle and back again. And then he remembered the conversation in his car on the way to Rolfe's...Pepper's secret shame hadn't been her daughter's alcoholic past, but Sophie hadn't denied one either: "Magical maturity happened. What, in the form of a nearly fatal alcohol or drug overdose?"
"Uh, no, I managed not to OD."
"JARVIS," he said with more calm than he felt, "has Sophie been drinking?"
"Not from what I can tell, sir."
"Sophie, have you been drinking?"
She shook her head. "But I really, really want to." She raised her head to look at him through her fringe.
Swearing soundly, Tony launched himself off the couch and snatched up the bottle of single malt. He strode to the kitchen area and the sink. "How long, Sof?" he asked as he poured the full bottle down the drain. When he turned to look at her, she was standing, torso forward as if she had meant to follow him and her fists clenched at her hips. "How long have you had a problem?"
Her voice trembled when she said, "I don't know. I didn't have as much opportunity as I would have liked when I was in high school, and I converted to Christianity my second year in college."
"Are you an alcoholic?"
She shook her head. "I don't think so. Steve and I drink sometimes when we go out, and it's fine. I have a couple of beers, maybe. Nothing hard. And you've seen me have wine."
"Yeah, I'm also seeing how you're watching the good stuff go down the drain."
Sophie colored. "I think I'm just a problem drinker," she said more softly. The sound carried even over the splashing liquid.
"Oh yeah? What's the problem, kid?" Tony rinsed his hands and the bottle before making his way back to the living room area. "What's going on, Sophie? When was the last time you went on a bender, anyway?"
"First year of college, right before finals," she said quickly. "Nearly failed my first ones because I overslept. And the hangover was evil bad."
Tony frowned. "That was-"
"Over five years ago. More like six or seven," she said.
Tony swore. "So let's just split the difference and say that you haven't had a serious drink in six years. What's wrong? Why now, Sophie?" He was standing in front of her on the other side of the coffee table, fists planted on his hips.
Unable to meet his eyes, Sophie slowly sank into couch behind her. "Dean..."
"What happened? What did he do?"
Sophie shook her head. "Nothing. Nothing, he...he wants to propose. He wants to marry me."
Tony stared at his adopted daughter. "I'm sorry. Say that again?"
"Dean tried to propose today. Or maybe yesterday." She shook her head. "I wouldn't let him." Her lips thinned as she clenched her jaw. "He thinks he loves me."
"Um, no, he does love you otherwise there'd be a restraining order against me in his name. And the Cap and your Uncle Bruce and your Uncle Rhodey."
When the failed to get so much as a smirk out of Sophie, Tony came around the coffee table and sat beside her, arms resting on his knees. "All joking aside, that kid loves you. Really loves you. I don't understand why-"
"Because he doesn't know me! He thinks he does. He thinks I'm sweet and pure and...and nice!"
"Uh, hate to break it to you again, but you are kinda all those things. Otherwise you wouldn't have an Uncle Bruce and an Uncle Rhodey or a Captain America shaped bestie." Shrugging, Tony said, "You'd probably still have me but then I like to be different. See also Agent Romanov and continued attempts to make Bruce make friends with the Hulk."
Sophie looked at him like he'd grown another head.
"What?"
"He's...he's been waiting."
"To propose? Good man. Although maybe he waited too long?"
"For his perfect match! He's a virgin, for crying out loud!"
Tony's eyes widened. "Oh! You mean waiting-waiting. Do people still do that? Did people ever do that?"
"This guy does. Did." Sophie pulled her legs up onto the couch and wrapped her arms around her calves.
"And you're not pure as the driven snow."
She shook her head. "No," she said into her knees.
"Does that bother you?"
There was a long pause and then, "For him. It bothers me for him. He thinks... He only met me after I converted. He's been a Christian since, like, diapers. He doesn't know what the rest of the world is like."
Eyebrow raised, Tony crossed his arms over his chest and sat back. "He's been over to family dinners at the Tower. I've seen him laugh at my jokes. He might be a virgin, but he's not naïve. Give the boy some credit, Sof."
"But he's got me up on this pedestal!" She rubbed her nose against her kneecaps. "He's got me on this pedestal that didn't exist five or six or seven years ago." Pressing her head against her knees she said, "Back then that bottle existed. And hook-ups. And distractions that get in the way of my grades too much so I didn't have to leave run home to my mother in shame...so she didn't have to...so she could face my grandparents and not be ashamed."
Somewhere a clock ticked and the dim lights buzzed in the miserable silence, until Tony shifted on the couch. "Maybe it's you that's got you on a pedestal, kid, and you're afraid of falling off if Dean ever finds out you're human."
Sophie sniffed and turned to him. "What?"
Tony took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. "We've all got a past, kid. Even your virgin lover boy. No one's that good, trust me. I mean, you're mom's pretty awesome, right?"
Sophie sniffed and nodded.
"And you look up to her and you don't want to disappoint her, right? Because she's Pepper and she's tough as nails and she basically raised you all by herself, right?"
"Yeah. I guess."
"And your mom had to raise you by herself because she did the nasty before she got the ring. Your mom...awesome woman who isn't perfect. I would use me, your awesome Papa Tony as an example, but the awesome is still something of a recent development and the shameful past is usually on E's weekly round-up."
Sophie frowned.
"I'm serious, kid. Everyone you look up to, I can bet you dollars to donuts they've got dirt. Some of it, admittedly, not so dirty like your friend Cap. But no one's squeaky clean except your God. Or so you and Cap keep trying to tell me."
Sophie chuffed, but smiled a little. Taking that as a good sign, Tony broached the space between them and tugged her towards him. She dropped her arms and immediately went, curling up against his side. With one arm draped over her shoulders and the other wrapped around her waist, Tony held her close, rubbing slow circles through the fabric of her tank top. For the first time he took note of what she was wearing—all black: a black tank top, black slacks neatly creased down the front and black socks.
"What's with the funeral wear?" he asked.
"There's a cheesy sweater around somewhere," she said into his side. "Probably near the liquor cabinet."
He frowned and looked down at her. "How long have you been not trying to drink that bottle?"
"What time is it?"
He told her. And she told him.
"Holy—"
"I didn't stare at it the entire time."
"No...sometimes you talked to it."
Sophie frowned. "Talked to it?"
"Yeah, when I came down your lips were moving but nothing was coming out. You were staring at the bottle."
For a long moment she seemed puzzled, then her brow cleared. "No...not the bottle. I was talking to God. I was praying."
"What? Why?"
Her brow furrowed again. "Because I knew what would happen if I took a drink. I was...mad at Dean. And mad at myself for not being perfect for Dean. And for some stupid reason I wanted to prove to...I thought to him but maybe to myself that I wasn't, that I'm not right for him."
"So you were going to get drunk out of your mind and then, what, screw some random guys?"
"In my head I'd only gotten as far as blackout drunk. The random guys probably would have had to wait until next week."
Tony wanted her to be joking. But he knew better. "How bad was it, that first year in New York without your mom?"
She shook her head, rubbing her forehead against his side, but he wasn't sure if it was really an answer. Softly, as if afraid to confess she said, "If I hadn't converted when I did I'm pretty sure I'd be a full blown alcoholic. I'd started drinking before college. The separation anxiety and the age difference made it worse. I had so much to prove. At least that's what I thought. And sometimes it was just so hard, but at the bottom of a bottle it was nice and fuzzy and warm. And on the way to the bottom I could usually get in some of the verbal eviscerations that'd I'd been holding in because, y'know, who's gonna blame the girl who got hammered anyway."
"Does your Mom know?" Although Tony was pretty sure he knew the answer to that one.
"No, and please don't tell her."
"Like the pedestal you have with her, too?"
Sophie's fingers clenched at his side. "Maybe," she breathed. "But...but I don't want to break her heart. I don't...I don't want her to look at me...and my issues...and think it's her fault. I...I was the one...I was the one who wanted to leave, and was too stubborn to go back." She was breathing loudly through her mouth as if to avoid crying.
Tony refused to check and see. "Look, kid, if you think Dean's going to be forgiving then you can apply that times ten to your Mom. She loves me, right? She married me. And, trust me, know one knows my faults better than your mom does."
"It's not the same."
"It is."
When Sophie shook her head, Tony captured her chin and lifted her face so they could look each other in the eye. "It is."
Sophie's face crumpled and she pressed herself more firmly against Tony's side. He swore. "We're telling your Mom in the morning, the real morning..."
"No."
"And we're getting you help."
"No, please. I've been good for seven years."
"Oh now you know exactly how long it's been. Sorry, kid." He glanced down at Sophie. "Look, it'll probably just mean some counseling. Nothing serious like what your old man needs—and is still refusing so don't get any ideas."
"But—"
"Do you want to be like this? Running to a bottle or a booty call every time you have some personal crisis?"
"No—"
"Then we're getting you help."
"Papa..."
"Hey, when you gave me that name you said it was because your bio-dad had ruined the other word for you, that you wished you'd had a real father like me, of all people, to be your dad. Well, wish granted." He took a deep breath, then said, "It's what I wish my dad had done for me."
"They'll hate me."
Tony snorted. "We have got to deflate this ego of yours."
Sophie chuckled, a wet and unhappy sound but she didn't try to move and she didn't try to fight. After a while, as Tony felt his eyelids about to droop, he shifted and got ready to stand. Morose, Sophie pulled away to lean against the couch though she still faced him.
"Uh...you too, young lady?"
"Hmm?"
"You think I'm leaving you to spend the rest of the night with a full cabinet of liquor. And, no, I am not pouring out the rest of the bottles for you. I happen to like some of those bottles."
Brow furrowed, she said, "Then-"
"Upstairs with me and your mom. C'mon. Lets go. We can talk about the Ocean Mark 3 while we're going, which, I'd like to add, was my reason for coming down here in the first place."
Sophie nodded. "What about my stuff?"
"For sleeping? You can borrow one of my shirts. But please, no drool?"
Soon they were standing in front of the elevator, Tony with an arm slung over Sophie's should and Sophie with her arm around Tony's waist.
"Thank you, Pop."
Tony snorted. "You say that now. Wait until you're fully awake. Here, look at this." He passed her the starkpad as the elevator doors were opening. They shuffled inside and Tony pressed the button for the penthouse. "So, uh, Sophie?"
"Yes, Pop?"
He felt so stupid... "What did you, uh, pray for? I mean what were you praying for when I walked in?"
She looked from the starkpad and met his eyes. In the harsh fluorescent light of the elevator she seemed younger than she was. "To be saved. From myself. Right now."
Tony pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You're welcome."
Smiling, she rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the starkpad.
Tony stood in the doorway of his bedroom watching his girls sleep. As promised, he'd loaned Sophie one of his t-shirts to sleep in, and a pair of her mother's leggings when she'd complained of being cold. Pepper had slept through it all, wiped out as she was from the early stages of her pregnancy. Sensing the extra warmth in the bed, she'd scooted closer to her daughter.
Tony had been going to climb in with them, but the sleep that had been weighing on him only a half hour ago eluded him now.
What was he supposed to do now? It was easy to talk the big I'm-your-Papa-Tony-do-what-I-say talk downstairs in the dark with Sophie, but morning was coming and they'd have to tell Pepper. And actually find Sophie counseling. And try to keep it out of the news.
Tony scrubbed his face with his hands. "Oh God..."
Fin[ite]
AN2: "This song is a poem to myself..." Jarrod Montague of Taproot
