Tony Stark (616), cool exec with a heart of steel (tonystark) wrote in marvelesque,
"I think it's S—" Pause. Wait, no, being able to correct someone about Sarah McLachlan's name was so much worse than screwing it up. "—Willie Nelson these days, isn't it? 'You were Always On My Mind,' or something equally horrifying. Either way, I could put it on, and we could do a quick side by side. See if the comparison holds up under scrutiny." Tony smiled, allowing Steve to have this moment of deflection. He understood Steve's reluctance to talk about his issues; Steve certainly wasn't the only Avenger who preferred to keep his struggles to himself. He was just the only one of them who was any good at it.
In conjunction with a genetic predisposition, Tony's attempts to deal with everything ever on his own had resulted in a serious substance abuse problem. And his attempts to conceal his alcoholism beneath an iron mask and a series of snappy one-liners had landed him on the street for a while, and then rehab for a while longer. Steve's whole "John Wayne" act was far less actively destructive, but that didn't mean it was doing him any favors. Tony had seen Steve depressed, lost and directionless before. Tony's was the first face Steve had seen when they pulled him out of the ice. Which made Tony one of the few who'd seen the pain etched into Steve's. Over the loss of his world, yes, but also the loss of one of the greatest loves of Steve Rogers' lifetime.
He was referring, of course, to Bucky Barnes.
The man standing next to him today was still recognizable as the ex-popsicle that Tony met 20 years ago, but the profound sense of displacement had faded as Steve settled into his new role as leader of the Avengers. He was much better off now than he was back then. He had friends, a job, a purpose. A makeshift family full of people who loved him, cared for him and often depended on him. But none of that had ever been enough to fill the void Bucky left behind. And as every one of Steve's cosmic wishes had made abundantly clear, nothing short of Bucky Barnes ever would. It was tragic, really, that a man as strong and stable as Steve Rogers had been so devastated by a loss that it was still felt acutely twenty (seventy?) years later. Fortunately, it gave Tony a good sense of which thread to pull if he wanted Steve to unravel.
"I don't know what you mean, Steve. I love talking about my failed relationships. I even made a special twitter account just for that: @tonysmistakes. I think it has more followers now than my verified twitter page. But based on the weird DMs I keep getting, I think most of them are Whitney Frost." Tony crossed his arms over his chest, coffee still in hand, and took another sip of the gradually cooling liquid. One of these days, he was going to invent a self-warming, biodegradable disposable coffee cup and force Starbucks to use them. Heating it up again just wasn't the same as having coffee that never lost its original temperature, an opinion he had expressed to a series of Stark interns who did not remotely believe him. "Though I can see how that might not be everyone's idea of a good time. Not a big fan of this retelling of the Monkey's Paw?"