Chapter 4: Wash All Over Me
Tony was back on the sectional, his new home. The Smiths played quietly over the speakers, a musical accompaniment for his dreary contemplation of the ceiling. Something had broken in Tony since he'd gotten back from the lab. His fighting spirit, he guessed. He hadn't even bothered to lock the door. Let 'em all in. Why not? Come witness Tony Stark's latest and greatest fuck-up. The rest of his life's disasters were a matter of public record, why not this one, too?
When the shop door opened, he didn't even look over the back of the sofa. He just stuck up his tiny little hand, fluttering the fingers like the white flag of surrender that they were. Maybe it was a super villain's pet assassin, sent to kill him in cold blood. In fact, an assassin would be a nice surprise.
It was Steve.
He had a neat tray with a thermos and a soup bowl and a cloth napkin. He set it on the coffee table, and then stood quietly, studying Tony in the gloom. That's right, Tony thought miserably, take it in.
"You've been crying," Steve observed.
"Yeah. Fucking buckets." No point denying it, not while Tony's face felt like a bakery's worth of puff pastry. It had been wild. He'd started crying and just could not stop. He felt, for the first time in his life, an overwhelming sympathy for teenage girls.
"Can I help?" The question was so earnest it set Tony's teeth on edge. Of course he couldn't help. No one could help.
"Did you talk to Bruce?" Tony asked, his voice dangerously sharp.
"I did," Steve said cautiously.
"And how much of that did you understand? About one word in five? It's not a problem you can punch, Steve."
Steve made an abrupt, little huh, like he'd had the air knocked out of him and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Tony regretted it immediately. Why was he such a petty asshole to this man whose only goal in life was to feed him? "Shit," Tony said, "that was mean."
"That was really mean," Steve amended, shaking his head. "You know what, though? You're about to make it up to me." He went to the coffee table and opened the thermos, emptying something steaming into the bowl on the tray. "Sit up," Steve ordered, and Tony obeyed. Steve transferred the tray from the table to Tony's lap, then crossed his arms, as if daring Tony to do anything other than eat.
So Tony ate. He made an abortive attempt mid-bowl to put the tray back on the coffee table, but Steve narrowed his eyes dangerously. When the bowl was empty, Steve took the tray himself.
"Okay, well," Steve said, "I'll take this back upstairs."
"Wait, you're leaving?" It took Tony by surprise. Maybe it shouldn't have. Steve hadn't wanted to stay this morning, why would he want to stay now? Particularly since Tony was, as established, such a petty asshole.
"Did you have a problem you wanted me to punch?"
"I deserved that," Tony admitted. He waited for Steve to turn on his heel and stalk out the door, leaving him alone again with only his sectional sofa for company, but Steve didn't. He just stood there, one finger tapping the side of the tray, studying Tony's tear-swollen face with an unreadable expression. The Smiths filled the uncomfortable silence with their morose post-punk jangle. Steve tilted his eyes towards a ceiling speaker, considering. As if on cue, Morrissey let loose with an ironic croon: I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, But heaven knows I'm miserable now.
"You know," Steve said reasonably, "I don't think listening to this alone in the dark will improve your mood."
"Could be worse," Tony said glumly. "If I wanted to slit my wrists, I'd put on Joy Division."
"I don't think that's funny. And whatever this is, it's still pretty depressing."
"What do you care?" Tony said defensively. "You're leaving anyway."
"I'd stay, you know, if I were invited." Steve sounded a little defensive himself.
"Would you though?" Tony scoffed, "Because I invited you to stay this morning, and you just abandoned me for Bruce to experiment on. I felt like one of those test beagles in a PETA commercial."
Oh god, Tony groaned in his mind. Here he was again, the conversational bottom of the ninth, and he'd struck out for the second time that day. He wanted Steve to stick around, keep him company. Why couldn't he say the words to make that happen? Tony was alarmed to feel a lump forming in his throat. He flopped down again on the sofa, curling into an impossibly small ball. What a fucking disaster. He heard the tray clatter down somewhere behind him and then the creak of leather as Steve settled gingerly on the sofa beside him.
"Tony, I was just trying to give you some space." Tony could feel the ghost of Steve's hand hovering over his shoulder, unsure whether or not it would be welcome. Tony wasn't sure either; he rolled up even further. He was like a giant pill-bug.
"Yeah?" He said accusingly from the defensive position behind his knees. "Is that what you were doing last night, too? Giving me space? I needed you, Steve."
"Last night, I was angry. I said some things I'm not proud of. I'm sorry. I should have been there."
The first tears began burning tracks down Tony's cheeks.
"But I'm here now. Can't that count for something?" Steve asked. His hand finally chanced a landing, registering on contact the almost imperceptible shake in Tony's shoulder. "Wait," he said wonderingly, "are you crying?"
Unable to talk around the lump in his throat, Tony just nodded. Then the lump grew bigger and bigger until Tony couldn't contain it, and it broke open in big gulping sobs. Steve practically snatched him off the sofa cushions. Tony landed face first against Steve's chest, tears and snot soaking Steve's clean t-shirt. Whatever masculine shame Tony had left prodded him to pull away, but he simply collapsed when he made the effort, his voluntary muscles abruptly MIA. Only the structural integrity of Steve's encircling arms kept him from sliding to the floor. It took a long time to work through the epic sobbing and then even longer for the garden-variety crying to ebb to a manageable sniffle. Tony spent the whole episode inwardly cringing, which had the unfortunate effect of making him cry harder.
"Jesus christ." Tony finally said between stuttering breaths, "I can't believe this. It must be the hormones. I can't control it." He extracted himself from Steve's embrace, mortified by the whole messy display.
"Do you need to control it?" Steve asked gently.
"Yes, because I am over it. I am so over it. My face actually hurts from crying so much. I didn't even know that was a thing."
"You're tired," Steve said kindly.
"And you know what's making me more tired? The fucking crying." Tony mopped at his face with his cuff. He sniffed; his nose was running. He was about to wipe that with his cuff, too, but Steve produced a handkerchief from his jeans pocket.
"Thanks," Tony said, blowing his nose in a most unladylike manner. He crammed the now used hanky into the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie. A silence fell over them; Tony could feel Steve's eyes on his face, studying the new topography.
"So," Tony said, unable to bear the quiet, "what have you been up to while I've been hiding out and listening to the doomed music of my youth?"
"Making soup, mostly. Talking to Bruce. I picked up a little from the party. Actually, that reminds me." Steve paused, removing something from the front pocket of his jeans. He held it over, and Tony took it: a wedding band with a single inlaid ruby. It was warm, still Steve-temperatured, as Tony turned it over in his fingertips.
"Well, I didn't think I'd see this again," Tony admitted. "Where was it?"
"Bruce found it under the DJ platform."
Tony nodded, then started trying the ring on various fingers. It was comically loose even on his thumb. Impulsively, he reached for Steve's hand. The ring caught a little on Steve's knuckle as Tony fitted his wedding band against Steve's own.
"There," Tony said, "you'll keep it for me. Until I'm me again."
"I'll keep it for you," Steve agreed, "but you're still you."
And fuck, Tony's eyes felt hot again. He suppressed the feeling ruthlessly this time, grabbing it by some psychic scruff of the neck and shaking it, but the tears still welled in his eyes. He looked desperately at Steve.
"Help," Tony squeaked.
"Hey, now—don't—Take a look at this," Steve said with sudden inspiration, and yanked something from his back pocket. He dropped a wad of black fabric into Tony's lap. Tony blinked at it, his tear-addled brain unable to process exactly what he was looking at. He plucked up the fabric with his thumb and forefinger, and it unfurled before his incredulous gaze.
A g-string. A used g-string from the back pocket of Captain America.
Tony gave a hysterical snort, teetering on the knife's edge between laughing and crying.
"I've got this, too," Steve said and handed Tony a tiny plastic bag of white powder.
Tony snorted again, but he could feel the blade tipping towards comedy. He took a deep breath, then said, "Steve. You've just given me a mystery g-string and a dime bag."
"It stopped you from crying," Steve pointed out.
"True. But also, what the fuck."
"I found the underwear in the sofa cushions," Steve offered. "The bag was under a chair."
"Some party," Tony reflected, holding up the g-string again for an inspection.
"That's exactly what I said."
"And you put these things in your pocket because...?"
Steve shrugged, "I was going to throw them out, but Bruce came in, and I didn't get the chance."
"Right. 'Throw them out.' Sure. I believe you, Steve," Tony said, his tone implying he most definitely didn't. He turned his attention from the g-string to the baggie, poking at the contents through the plastic.
"What is it? Cocaine?" Steve asked with prurient interest.
"Could be coke," Tony mused, "Or molly, maybe. Guy I knew bought an eight ball of baking soda one time." He opened the baggie and stuck in a delicate finger.
"Don't—!" Steve yelped, but it was too late because Tony already had the finger in his mouth. The dot of powder on his tongue blossomed into a disgusting, talcum-flavored buzz.
"Ugh," Tony grimaced, "Coke. Terrible, terrible coke. Possibly the worst coke in New York." It was unbelievably bad blow; from the taste, Tony estimated the mix at around 90% lavender scented baby powder.
And yet.
Tony hadn't done coke in a long time. He'd never had a serious habit, but only because he'd been smart enough to be afraid of it. He liked coke, liked it a lot. The first time coke had hit his system, it felt like somebody had finally hired a coach for the school gymnasium of his mind. Cocaine blew its neurochemical whistle and his bouncing thoughts shut the hell up for once and all started jogging in the same direction. It made his brain feel impossibly well-ordered. The total confidence and the euphoria were just a bonus. A bump suddenly seemed like a wonderful idea, a reprieve from his weird personal hellscape. But Tony also knew that if cocaine seemed like some kind of solution, that almost certainly meant it wasn't. And what would Steve do if Tony started blowing rails? Have an aneurysm probably.
Tony handed the baggie deliberately back to Steve. "That belongs in a toilet," he said.
Steve shook his head, looking grave, "Why did you do that?"
"Because I'm not like other girls, Steve. I'm a cool girl."
"Tony—" Steve began, in the distinctive tone of an incoming lecture.
Tony rolled his eyes, "Lighten up, Cap. It's fine."
"The adulteration of street drugs—"
"My god! Who are you? Nancy Reagan?" Tony said, exasperated, "I did it because I'm impulsive! I did it because I used to love coke, and for a millisecond coke seemed like a great idea, alright? But now I am very, very sorry, and I'll never, ever do it again. Is that what you want to hear?"
"Is it the truth?" Steve asked evenly.
"Probably! It isn't like I planned it."
"If it's the truth, then it's what I want to hear."
Steve stood up soberly and Tony trailed him to the shop bathroom, watching from the door frame as Steve emptied the bag into the toilet.
"Would you have done more if I hadn't been here?" Steve asked quietly.
"Definitely not, seeing as how you gave it to me," Tony snorted. Steve looked up from the toilet, his face suddenly slack with guilt, as if he'd personally strapped on the skis that were going to take Tony down a powdered slope to rock bottom. Tony almost laughed; one hit the size of a dust mote, and now the Eagle Scout was falling to pieces like Tony had a full-blown habit.
"Don't make this a thing, Steve," Tony said, taking pity on him. Tony crossed the bathroom and flushed the toilet for emphasis. Together, they watched the powder-filmed water swirl down the drain. "This isn't something you need to worry about. I haven't had a bump in at least ten years." God, was that true? He suddenly felt ancient, like all the lines on his face had suddenly deepened by a quarter inch. "I am not about to form a coke habit," Tony went on, "I have enough problems right now." His eyes slid to the big glass-doored shower in the corner of the bathroom, the one he'd been avoiding for hours now.
Last night's enthusiasm for his changed body seemed ludicrous, like a fever dream. All he had left was a sense of wrongness, a pins and needles creepiness that made him want to zip off his skin. Sometimes, for a minute or two, Tony could put the feeling of wrongness away. When he had been busy with Bruce in the lab, he'd felt like himself, or at least distracted enough not to notice he wasn't, but there would be no distractions in that glass box. There would only be Tony's psyche and Tony's body in there, mano a mano. Mano a woman-o? Mano a something-o, anyway.
"What is it?" Steve asked, reading the discomfort in Tony's expression. Tony would really have to work on this model's poker face.
Tony sighed. "I can't get myself in the shower."
"How do you mean?" Steve's brow furrowed.
"Just what I said. I can't summon the psychic fortitude to take my clothes off and scrub this carcass."
"But you have to take a shower some time, Tony."
"Thank you, Captain Obvious. You're so helpful."
Steve went into a discouraged slouch, his great big shoulders hunching practically to his ears. Poor Steve, bound by innate decency (and possibly genetic engineering), to do something for his miserable husband, but lost as to what that might be. The man was practically begging for a mission, and Tony probably fucking owed him one. Steve had tried to be helpful all day, only for Tony to actively sabotage him at almost every turn.
"Steve," Tony said, struck by a thought, "I'm about to ask you for something, and I promise that it isn't a come-on. Take a shower with me."
Steve's mouth actually fell open. Not a promising sign.
Steve was supposed to say something. It was his line. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. A fissure opened in Steve's mind, and salt water came pouring in. The slosh and crash of the incoming tide filled him with sound.
"Nevermind, forget I asked," Tony said, his voice just reaching Steve's ears over the waves. The waves crested and then receded all at once, leaving Steve high and dry in an intense silence.
"Wait, wait," Steve protested as the last of the water rushed out of his frontal cortex, "I didn't say 'no.'"
"Yeah, but you didn't say anything for about thirty seconds, so—"
"I will. Of course I will," Steve insisted, "I just…What is it exactly that you want me to do?"
"It's a shower, Steve. You stand in the water. Use the shampoo if you're feeling really frisky."
"But—" Steve felt stupid; somewhere in the last sixty seconds he had lost the plot. He picked back over the preceding twenty minutes in his mind: the crying, the cocaine, something insulting about Nancy Reagan…He scratched his beard. "Aren't we fighting?"
"No," Tony said decisively, "You had a fleeting overreaction to a speck of cocaine; I showed you the error of your ways, and now you have let the matter drop. Right?"
Something about this version of events seemed revisionist, but Steve knew better than to point that out. "If you say so," he agreed.
"I do say so. And since we are getting along so well, we are going to take a shower, and you're going to talk to me while we're doing it so I have something to think about other than taking a shower. Your goal is to be maximally distracting."
"'Maximally distracting,'" Steve repeated. Tony was looking at him skeptically. Time to put up or shut up, then. Steve grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and then stripped it off, dropping it unceremoniously to the bathroom floor. He tugged off his shoes and socks, but when he reached his belt buckle, he felt a shocking surge of adrenaline. His palms were suddenly clammy with sweat, and his heart was absolutely hammering, as if he were undressing for a total stranger. The salt water was back, sloshing between his ears.
A dateless image of Tony, panting against a tiled wall, water droplets clinging to his beard and wreathed in steam, flashed across Steve's mind. He shook it away. Tony only wanted Steve to make conversation. They talked in the shower all the time, Steve reminded himself; this was completely normal, a total non-event. A significant portion of their lives revolved around the gym, making the sort of bodies that superheroes are required to have. Shared showers often followed, scored with discussions about dinner, or baseball, or who deserved to win The Great British Baking Show. The percentage of showers that resulted in sex were in the minority. A significant minority said a little voice in his head, but he ignored it.
Steve could do this. He could keep his cool and execute the mission.
Tony, still fully dressed all the way down to the socks, eyed him warily, as if he half expected Steve to bolt.
"Jarvis," Steve said, a plan formulating in his mind.
"Captain Rogers?" Jarvis's cultivated voice echoed against the bathroom walls.
"Cut the lights." Steve caught Tony's eye and held his gaze.
"Including emergency lighting, Captain?"
"Yeah. All of 'em."
The room plunged into total darkness.
Steve reached towards Tony's last known position, groping until he found the petite form. The top of Tony's head fit neatly under his chin, as if this version had been made to measure. It was indescribably strange to find your spouse had abruptly lost four inches.
"Perhaps," said Tony, "you didn't hear the part about this not being a come-on?" He was stiff in Steve's embrace, his arms rigid at his side.
"I heard it. Why do you think I've still got my pants on?"
Tony snorted and then thawed a little at the edges, enough to let his head drop to Steve's chest. Steve's heart proceeded to pound away right under Tony's ear. So much for keeping it cool.
"Jesus christ, Steve," Tony said with surprise, "your heart is going like a jackhammer."
"Yeah, well." Steve didn't know what else to say.
"You are completely and totally weirded out by this, aren't you?"
"'Completely and totally' would be overstating it," Steve said honestly, "I'd say 'moderately' weirded out. You?"
"Oh, I'm still in the 'completely and totally' phase," Tony admitted. "I had a gynecological exam today, Steve. Take that in."
"I can't, actually."
"Yeah. Me, neither." Steve felt a little shudder run through Tony's body at the memory.
"And no," Tony added, "before you ask, I do not want to talk about it."
That was good. Steve didn't want to hear about it, but he was glad that Tony couldn't see the relief on his face. It felt, to Steve at least, much easier to be together here in the dark. Steve's mind drifted back to the morning, to Tony's pale, naked body on the bathroom tile, and how carefully he'd schooled his face into neutrality as he'd lifted Tony off the floor. All day he'd rigorously banished shock, unease, or even interest from his expression so far as it pertained to Tony's appearance. Last night had made clear that Tony didn't need the weight of Steve's emotions on top of his own, but the effort to hide them had been depleting. The darkness felt good, like putting down a heavy pack he'd carried mile after mile. There was nothing in the thick black Steve had to pretend he couldn't see, and no emotions he had to cram out of sight from Tony.
Steve's hand found the fall of Tony's hair, long and soft, like an unwound skein of silk. He carded through it, the way he'd wanted to when Tony had been crying. It was mesmerizing, the way it ran through his fingers. Steve couldn't guess what his face was doing, and he was relieved that he didn't have to care.
"It's long," Steve said, letting the strands trickle from his hand onto Tony's back.
"Yeah, and it's really, really dirty. I have to wash it. As it stands now, I think it's actually a biohazard." Tony disentangled himself from Steve's arms. Had Steve made him self-conscious? Steve didn't know because the darkness concealed in both directions.
"You're telling me to lose the pants, then?" Steve asked.
"I am telling you to lose the pants."
As Steve unbuckled his belt, he felt another surge of adrenaline, but it was smaller than the first, more a spilled water glass than a torrent. He tugged off his jeans and boxers and then closed his eyes, concentrating on the cold, smooth concrete under his bare feet. It wasn't easy; he could hear Tony undressing, and it took almost more willpower than Steve possessed not to imagine the body being exposed. He waited until he heard the shower kick on before fluttering open his eyes, expecting the same uniform black as before.
But the room wasn't black anymore. The glass-walled shower glowed, its single occupant picked out in a cold blue light. The arc reactor. How had he forgotten?
Steve looked away as fast as possible, but it wasn't fast enough. He'd already seen and cataloged the whole tableau: The soft round breasts, the hourglass waist, the triangle of hair between the creamy thighs. The image was branded on his retinas. Gorgeous Tony. Uncanny Tony. Deliciously beautiful. Unspeakably strange.
In an abrupt collapse of the spacetime continuum, Steve found himself back on last night's balcony watching a woman in red lipstick singing and strutting on the stage, a woman who was sex on legs and wanted everyone to know it. Time collapsed further. He stepped into his shabby USO dressing room. Peggy Carter sat on the counter in front of his big, light-ringed mirror, her ankles neatly crossed. She wore nothing except a pair of red high heels, and thanks to the mirror, he could see every inch of her at once, front and back. Her lips were a perfect red bow and the exact same color as her shoes. He felt like he was having a heart attack at age twenty-five.
"Steve, are you coming or what?" Tony called from the shower, clearly nervous, but trying hard not to sound it. He stood under the water with his eyes closed, the light of the arc reactor now mostly hidden behind tightly crossed arms.
"I'm coming," Steve assured distracting, Steve reminded himself, only the target of the distraction had expanded to include them both. They weren't, he decided, going to be discussing Bread Week.
The shower door opened, and an eddy of cold air disturbed the steam. Tony, eyes closed, sensed Steve edging around the inside periphery of the shower spray. They were careful not to touch.
"Okay," Steve said, "are you sure you're ready for maximal distraction?"
'Maximal distraction' was a terrible phrase, like something in a porno. How was it that Tony had authorized the use of this expression in a non-fucking context?
"Yes," Tony agreed reluctantly, "as long as it gets me through this shower without a nervous breakdown."
He made himself reach for the shampoo bottle, trying to do some follicular mathematics. If he had approximately five times as much hair as yesterday, should he use five times as much shampoo? That seemed like a lot—
"Tell me about the last time you used cocaine," Steve said calmly.
Tony squawked in surprise, nearly dropping the bottle. "You don't fuck around, do you? Only two people in the whole world know that story."
"I guess it's about to be three. Now wash your hair," Steve directed. Tony bit his lip, hesitating, his brain cleaving between the new intricacies of showering and the sinkhole Steve had just opened into his bad old days.
"Come on, Tony," Steve encouraged, "just let your hands do the work. They know how. You concentrate on the story."
Tony decided to use the normal amount of shampoo. "It's not a nice story," Tony warned, squeezing a dollop of shampoo into his palm. He put the bottle back in the alcove and raised his hands to his scalp.
"I didn't figure. What year was it?" Steve prompted.
"2008. About a month before I went to Afghanistan." His hair was heavy with the weight of water, the strands slick under his fingers.
"Where did it happen?"
"At a tech conference, but the serious defense industry kind, not the fun consumer kind. It was in Dallas," Tony said with distaste.
"Anybody go with you?"
"No," Tony said ruefully, "I mean, who wants to go to Dallas? And that was the problem, really. I was there by myself. I was bored."
"Why did you go, then?"
Why had he? For a second Tony couldn't remember, then it came right back. "Obie made me go," he said, and his heart started to ache. "He told me to be good."
For a minute, Tony got sucked into the time slip. Obie was there, too, the big man himself behind his big desk.
"I don't want to go to Dallas," Tony whined. "You go to Dallas."
"I would, Tony, but I'm not the man with my name on the side of the missile," Obie said patiently. "They don't want to see me. They want to see you. We are about to sell the US government a weapons package worth more than the GDP of Belgium. Go press some flesh." Obie slid a conference brochure across the desktop. "Besides," Obie added with a crooked smile, "I think you'll find you're a keynote speaker."
"No!" Tony groaned, "C'mon!"
Obie chuckled indulgently, "I took the liberty of preparing you some remarks. I sent them to your email. Love you, Tony! Be good!" Obie called after him as Tony slunk out the door.
"Were you good?" Steve asked, ripping Tony back to the present.
Tony was pleasantly surprised to find his hair clean. Apparently, a normal amount of shampoo did the job. He reached for the conditioner.
"I was a saint," Tony proclaimed, "for two whole days. Then there was an open bar at the banquet on the second night, and I decided to get plastered. Isn't that ridiculous? I have a kajillion dollars, and I still can't resist getting shit-faced on someone else's dime."
He rubbed the conditioner in his hair; snags melted under his fingers.
"Anyway, so there I was," he continued, "posted up at the bar. This took some doing, by the way. Like, this was just a shitty grab-your-Pinot-and-go situation in the corner of a hotel banquet hall. They didn't even have stools; I had to drag over a dining chair."
"I bet you were popular with the waitstaff," Steve said.
"See, you say that ironically, but I'm rich, handsome, and incredibly charming. I dropped fifties in the tip jar and took a selfie with anybody that wanted one. I was the most popular person in that room, and it wasn't close," Tony said with satisfaction.
"What were you drinking?" Steve asked.
"Vodka martinis. I was probably five deep when Hammer showed up."
"Justin Hammer?" Steve sounded surprised.
"Yep," Tony said ruefully, "he is tonight's guest star. You met Hammer, right? At that fundraiser?"
"Briefly," Steve confirmed.
"I still can't believe the feds let him plead out, the little shit," Tony said venomously. "Anyway, he brought over his own chair and wouldn't shut up, as per usual. At some point during the verbal assault, he offered me powder…" Tony trailed off. "Cap," he said, "are you sure you want to hear this next part?"
"Do you want to tell it?"
Tony considered. He had never told anyone, had never planned to tell anyone. This was a story he'd tried to stuff in the mental burn barrel and light on fire.
"Hey," Steve shrugged, holding over a bar of soap, "maximal distraction, right?"
Tony took it. It seemed unusually heavy for soap. "Maximal distraction," Tony echoed. "But don't say I didn't warn you, Steve. Long story short, I ended up boofing coke in Hammer's hotel room."
"'Boofing?'" Steve asked.
"Means I mixed it with water and shot it up my ass. Or rather, Hammer did it for me. I was pretty wasted at that point."
There was a beat of silence.
"Wow," said Steve finally, "that's really… something."
"Oh," Tony said, with something approaching pride, "just wait. It gets so much worse."