[Any other day of the week, he would have understood. He would have left it alone and he would have actually been empathetic for once in his life. He remembers being held under the water, wires in his chest shifting and shorting out, electricity cracking through his chest, jolting and scarring his heart as he gasped for breath and inhaled nothing but water. Walking out of there knowing that if that glowing circle in his chest ever went dim, his heart was no longer able to beat on its own.
He built something to fix his own handicap, to make it so he didn't have to carry around a battery, didn't have to make sure there was some sort of electrical outlet everywhere he went. He might not get it to the same extremes, but he does get it.
Just not now. Not slapped in the face with the fact that Loki's trying the same shit. That Clint didn't know what had happened, that he'd done the same exact thing to him that he'd been so upset, so betrayed about just a few months before. The fact that Loki was still messing with them... and Cap seemed as pissed and ready to act as he had been. It wasn't just him, it wasn't just some messed up idea, it was a messed up idea that their team leader had okayed.
He was drunk, he'd made a mistake, he'd gotten caught up in bitterness and the memories of floods, the memories of his past. He'd let anger and rage take control and twist his judgement. He'd wanted nothing more than to do what he'd done for twenty years. What he still found his hands itching to do, his mind flitting over blueprints for. Weapons was what his family had known, it was what he had been built and trained to produce. It was habit and it was second nature. Non-lethal solutions... finding those was like retraining himself. Becoming a whole other person and it had worked when he was sober, when he had full control of himself.
But he had been drunk, and when Charles had shut him out of his room, had ended the conversation with the same finality that Tony himself felt, at the time, he'd left. Gone back to his room. Filled up his flask and walked the hallways with a bottle of scotch in hand. Drinking and raging internally. He wasn't drinking to party, to draw attention. He was drinking to smother the rage and horror of the conversation he'd just had. The truth of the situation. The pain that gripped his chest and made it feel like the arc reactor had abandoned ship and left Tony to curl up and die.
So, he'd found the art room. The lock hadn't been engaged properly, he'd managed to get the door open and shut behind him, locked with clumsy fingers as he took a swig from the bottle and looked around him. Clean and organized and way too fucking happy... and he'd lost it. In the safety of that room, the door locked to intruders, he'd let out a yell of outrage, he'd grabbed what supplies he could find and he'd thrown them on the ground, ripped paper, pulled a Grade A drunken tantrum and eventually collapsed, cradling his bottle of scotch, curling up on a table. Covered in paints and charcoal with clay and plaster and grease underneath his fingernails.
And by some miracle, his sleep was dreamless.
Until something shifted, something jostled his thoughts and interrupted the resting pattern of his mind, something caused him to crack open watery, bloodshot eyes and squint against the way too bright glare of light in the room. Seriously, it was like the sun was chilling up there in the corner, the moon just kind of blocking the light a bit, but since when was the moon egg sh-]
Th'fu... [His mouth tastes and feels like cotton, his words still slurred in the end of the near alcohol coma he'd drunk himself into. He shifts, pushing himself up and swallowing against the wave of nausea hitting hard. Okay, not the moon. And not the sun. Just Charles' stupid head and the light in the ceiling.] ... Coffee, scotch'r die.
[God if he doesn't get one of those two in him, the headache he can feel coming on is going to be killer.]
tony stark built his logic replacement in a cave. with a box of scraps.
He built something to fix his own handicap, to make it so he didn't have to carry around a battery, didn't have to make sure there was some sort of electrical outlet everywhere he went. He might not get it to the same extremes, but he does get it.
Just not now. Not slapped in the face with the fact that Loki's trying the same shit. That Clint didn't know what had happened, that he'd done the same exact thing to him that he'd been so upset, so betrayed about just a few months before. The fact that Loki was still messing with them... and Cap seemed as pissed and ready to act as he had been. It wasn't just him, it wasn't just some messed up idea, it was a messed up idea that their team leader had okayed.
He was drunk, he'd made a mistake, he'd gotten caught up in bitterness and the memories of floods, the memories of his past. He'd let anger and rage take control and twist his judgement. He'd wanted nothing more than to do what he'd done for twenty years. What he still found his hands itching to do, his mind flitting over blueprints for. Weapons was what his family had known, it was what he had been built and trained to produce. It was habit and it was second nature. Non-lethal solutions... finding those was like retraining himself. Becoming a whole other person and it had worked when he was sober, when he had full control of himself.
But he had been drunk, and when Charles had shut him out of his room, had ended the conversation with the same finality that Tony himself felt, at the time, he'd left. Gone back to his room. Filled up his flask and walked the hallways with a bottle of scotch in hand. Drinking and raging internally. He wasn't drinking to party, to draw attention. He was drinking to smother the rage and horror of the conversation he'd just had. The truth of the situation. The pain that gripped his chest and made it feel like the arc reactor had abandoned ship and left Tony to curl up and die.
So, he'd found the art room. The lock hadn't been engaged properly, he'd managed to get the door open and shut behind him, locked with clumsy fingers as he took a swig from the bottle and looked around him. Clean and organized and way too fucking happy... and he'd lost it. In the safety of that room, the door locked to intruders, he'd let out a yell of outrage, he'd grabbed what supplies he could find and he'd thrown them on the ground, ripped paper, pulled a Grade A drunken tantrum and eventually collapsed, cradling his bottle of scotch, curling up on a table. Covered in paints and charcoal with clay and plaster and grease underneath his fingernails.
And by some miracle, his sleep was dreamless.
Until something shifted, something jostled his thoughts and interrupted the resting pattern of his mind, something caused him to crack open watery, bloodshot eyes and squint against the way too bright glare of light in the room. Seriously, it was like the sun was chilling up there in the corner, the moon just kind of blocking the light a bit, but since when was the moon egg sh-]
Th'fu... [His mouth tastes and feels like cotton, his words still slurred in the end of the near alcohol coma he'd drunk himself into. He shifts, pushing himself up and swallowing against the wave of nausea hitting hard. Okay, not the moon. And not the sun. Just Charles' stupid head and the light in the ceiling.] ... Coffee, scotch'r die.
[God if he doesn't get one of those two in him, the headache he can feel coming on is going to be killer.]