"Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible."

-Frank L. Gaines (suggested by FanGirlForever19)


Instead of learning about fairy tales and Santa when he was young, Tony learnt about bombs and machine guns. He slept with a bottle filled with milk in one hand, and a wrench in the other. He sat in the corner of Howard's lab, and watched him piece together the workings of bomb.

In all honesty, he couldn't have learnt as much as he did if it wasn't for his drive, or his desperation to get some sort of attention. But Howard always was too busy, and he never really had any sort of friends because everyone in his grade was four years older than him.

So he made bombs. Explosive robots as his companions. And when that didn't work, he resorted to partying and huge scandals with alcohol.

That's when he became the infamous Tony Stark, playboy extraordinaire.

But the damage was already done at that point, and destruction cemented as his main niche. When the car crash happened, and he was left to take charge of a company at the age of 21, he was much more than just ready for the role. And people didn't realize that, until it was too late, and he scrambled up the ranks of weaponry like a bloodthirsty tiger.

No one was ready. And so, they called him the Merchant of Death, because that's what he was. He sold death like a street vendor sold food, and people flocked to him like the willing sheep ready to be slaughtered.

The Jericho missile, the guns, the tanks, all of those were his. The screams of a village being raided, the deaths of millions of innocent people out in the east, all of those were his also.

Blood stained his skin until nothing else was visible except red, and on some days, he couldn't help but try to rub the invisible, sticky substance off. Nothing ever came off though.

And even after Afghanistan, even after he declared the end to manufacturing weapons, he still couldn't believe how blind everyone was, or how no one called him out for his lie.

What did they call the Ironman suit? What did they consider his repulsors and firepower?

He still manufactured weapons, but they were just disguised in a different suit. Another mask, perhaps.

And only a few attempts were tried to take the suit away (those senators were so idiotic), and most of those attempts were so pathetic and so easy to push away that he couldn't help but snort in derision. Did the people actually believe his claims of "privatizing peace" and all of that nonsense?

Look at the monsters he had created. Look at the destruction that the suits caused. Did the data lie?

And then, when SHIELD hardly blinked an eye at him when he decided to fly around in the suit for amusement purposes, that's when he came to the conclusion that either a) they were all stupid and in great need of an upgrade or b) they just underestimated him.

Although why they would underestimate the guy who built the first Ironman suit in a cave filled with nothing but scraps was beyond him.

In their defense, he never told them how deep his hole of destruction was. He never mentioned that everytime he looked at a piece of metal, he could see ten different ways that the metal could be used to blow someone's head off. He never told them that he could see how fast each person could die if he decided to whip up a mixture of chemicals that could target the immune system and cause it to go haywire.

They didn't know that he could make a weapon out of basically anything.

Even if something seemly harmless popped up, and it passed every security test in the world, he could do the impossible and find what no one else seemed to spot.

For example, an apple. Maybe, if someone decided to chuck it like a baseball, it could cause a bruise for a day or two, but was it actually dangerous?

He would see an apple and immediately find a way to increase the potency of the cyanide within the seeds so they would kill the person who ate it.

Or he could find a way to engineer the apple so whenever a person bit into it, and the inside began oxidizing, and explosion would occur (he really did like his explosions).

Or even cooler, he could invent an apple-throwing device that coated the apple in a hard substance first so it would be like hitting a person with a real baseball more than 100 miles per hour.

Fun stuff. But no one else saw the potential.

And to be honest, he wasn't really inclined to tell them, because hey, he liked not being in a looney-bin or possibly sent off to prison for a lifetime.

But that didn't stop him from facepalming mentally whenever Natasha nodded to him in thanks whenever he repaired her Widow's Bite, or whenever Clint whooped and cheered everytime he upgraded his bow.

They just didn't see the double meaning behind each upgrade.

But that was fine with him. Because it was way better for them to be kept in the dark then to look at him with suspicion every time he reached for his wrench.


But when Clint decided to lock him in the bathroom, that's when he decided that nope, wasn't dealing with that anymore.

He was sleep-deprived, without his coffee, and had a desperate amount of work that he needed to get done, even if Clint still wanted to continue the pranking war.

But this bathroom in particular had one of those old-fashioned locks (Natasha didn't trust him with the electronic ones), so he couldn't just call out for Jarvis to unlock the heavy metal door that didn't really have any place in the bathroom but was there because some redhead told him to. Something about privacy, or something boring like that.

And even if he did know how to pickpocket locks, he heard something metal scrape across the outside of the door, which probably meant that Clint had some sort of padlock on the outside of the door so he had "no way" of escaping.

But before he could protest, Clint's cheery voice called out from the other side of the door, "Stark, have fun staring at your reflection for a couple of hours," before his footsteps faded off in the distance.

Absolutely great. He snarled at the door, and kicked it in frustration.

What made matters worse was that someone must have just used the shower a couple of minutes ago, because everything was still wet, and water was the last thing he wanted to see. Especially since he was at his wits end right now, because he needed his coffee.

A glass of alcohol wouldn't hurt either.

But then he slipped on the puddles on the ground, and blindly grabbed hold of the shower curtain. A flurry of water droplets sprayed on to him, and he froze for a second, because that wasn't-

Water dripping around him as he took a desperate gulp of air but it wasn't enough and the hands just forced his head underwater-

He pushed away the unpleasant memories of water rushing up his nose, swirling around the battery imbedded in his chest, the sizzle of an electric shock that brought a wave of agony and-

Yep, he was getting out of here. Screw the consequences.

He scrambled to the wall, and pulled out a wrench from under the bathroom sink, and smashed the switch that covered the electrical wiring beneath.

If they wanted an explosion, they were going to get one.

And if he was having a minor panic episode, well, it was just because of the plaster raining down from the ceiling as he let out an electrical explosion by short circuiting the bathroom lights.

But it wasn't fast enough, and he could hear the footsteps running up the stairs, and this point, he was kind of way too far gone, because for a moment, he panicked. The image of Raza popped up in his mind, and he was going back into the water, back where there wasn't any room to breathe.

So he gave a slightly hysterical cackle and broke the magnetic field from inside the whole building like an absolute lunatic by redirecting the power to overload the transformer. Immediately he dove out of the way, and crouched in the corner as he waited for the circuit breakers to weld together, and normally, Jarvis would be able to neutralize it, but this time he didn't.

Probably because he recognized that Tony had to get out, like right now.

And also, Jarvis would have realized that if the electrical explosion didn't happen, Tony would have probably done something else that would have burned the whole tower down.

Faintly, he heard Steve yell, "Tony, what are you doing?" before the wall burst into sparks and exploded.

Oops. Maybe that wasn't the safest option?

Whatever, they had that coming for them. After all, they should have expected it, since he didn't get his coffee before Clint decided to lock him inside.

But as the dust cleared, and a gigantic rugged hole graced the wall, he saw Steve look at him in disbelief through the flames dancing across the ground. And then he winced, and clutched at his chest, because he probably dislocated a couple of ribs from the shockwave.

Thankfully the explosion didn't affect his reactor, because that would have been really bad.

Then more footsteps rushed upstairs, and he couldn't help but groan mentally as he watched the rest of the Avengers scramble up the stairs.

He pointed to the glass doors next to the stairs, grimacing, "You guys are aware that there's an elevator right there?"

The group didn't respond, and decided to gape open-mouthed at the ruined bathroom.

Tony sighed, giving them a small wave. "Hello? Anyone here? Very important person here kind of needs to get medical attention?"

"You what- you blew up the bathroom?"

Now he groaned out loud, because yes he did, congrats on having eyes. "Yes Brucie, now can we please get this fellow out of here before his handsome face doesn't burn to a crisp?"

Absentmindedly, his mind wandered to the fire extinguishing maniac in the basement. The only time when a fire actually happened, DUMM-E wasn't there to experience it. Poor him.

But finally, Steve gingerly stepped forward around the flames, and held out a hand to Tony, who pulled himself up with a sharp intake of breath. Nodding his thanks, he hobbled out, ignoring the eyes that were trailing him as he walked into the elevator.

Bruce was still sputtering in disbelief, "But how- how did you eve-"

"I just rewired the wires inside the bathroom," Tony responded smoothly as he stepped behind the glass walls and into the elevator, giving them all a wink.

Inside the glass box of the elevator, he blew kisses just to annoy them all, and watched Natasha break out of her frozen pose to flip him the bird.

Then the door closed, and the Avengers disappeared from view as the elevator went down. He slid down the wall tiredly, because today wasn't really helping with his stress. But finally it was just peace and quiet, with no crazy assassins to lock him in bathrooms. Now he just needed a drink, and a couple of bandages, and he would be as good as new.

Then the British voice from the ceiling amusedly asked, "Always the one to be dramatic, Sir?"

Tony grinned wearily in response. "You got it, Jarvis."


Please do not try blowing up bathrooms at home, I have no idea how much of this information is actually correct. I did like ten minutes of research, and was like, hey these are fancy words that could make me sound like I know what I'm writing about, but in reality I actually don't. So if some things don't make sense in the rewiring section, well... it might be wrong. In fact, don't try blowing up anything at home, it's probably really bad for your health or something.

This chapter was a slight throwback to the vegetarian scene where Bruce was like, "No no no, Tony, you already blew up the bathroom," as a fun fact.

I did really enjoyed writing about this, thank you again FanGirlForever19! And always up for any quotes from you guys, feel free to PM me!