1/2
Tony's head snapped around to follow the arc of that bar of soap, just in time to see his face fracture with a high crack into a web of divergent shards. His slip-dodge over the marble floor (slick under his dripping feet, treacherous with tripped-up bath mats) took him out of the line of the ricochet - but right into that bottle, which slapped, broadside first, smack under his ribs.
"Ow! Will you fucking - stop it!"
Lunging to one side, he snagged a towel off the warming rack and thrust it out in front of him like some kind of limp, fluffy cross between a sword and a matador's cape. The first order of business was just to get something between them. There were some places he really didn't want to get beaned with a pumice stone.
You might have thought of that before, came the usual admonition from the voice inside his head - the one that never seemed to speak up until it was too late. What had gotten into him? Had it been the wine? Had it been the sex, the feeling it always gave him, for at least a little while, that everything he did would make someone smile at him? Had it been something altogether deeper - something worse? He'd been off since stepping on the train, although he'd covered it well, as he always did. This was new to him: for all the private, grudging thoughts he'd had, for all the sins he committed behind his own closed doors, he'd never actually done anything to raise a hand against the men with their heels on his throat. His talk with Rogers had been his first really overt treason, the first that felt like it had the power to slip beyond his control, and it was spreading so quickly - every moment he'd spent casually studying the borders as they flew by on the train had been heart-pounding, every second of his leisurely perusal of the fortifications and defenses at the train station itself had been full of strange terror, as had every word of his chummy, clowning banter with the Peacekeepers stationed there (what are you doing with these rusted-out pieces of junk? when's the last time you got upgraded rifles? oh, just the guys in sector so-and-so? that's not fucking fair, huh? how many are you? i'll send you a couple crates, here, you want to see something really cool ...). He'd made a show; he always did. But this time, he'd felt less like he was under a spotlight than a magnifying glass. And there was more on the docket for tomorrow: a stop at the Justice Building to chat with the appropriate suits about what they lacked in the arms department. He was nervous. He could cope with it - but he was. A wrong move now, and all of this could come back on other people.