[Kübler-Ross | Stage Two | Anger]

[daretodo]

The kitchen table's been overturned and the splintered remnants of a chair are scattered across the floor, along with broken plates and glasses, silverware. In the living room, a bookshelf's collapsed in on itself, the end table responsible for its destruction still hanging through the slats of one of the shelves. One of the couches has been torn

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[daretodo]

In other circumstances, I might have felt some sense of embarrassment, but there's none of that, now. I don't have to explain myself to him or anyone else, and I definitely don't have to stand here in my own house and be judged for how I'm choosing to cope with an impossible situation. I press my free hand to my chest, and through my shirt, run my fingers over the raised scar tissue that's still there months after the fact; Tony's done worse.

Mary Jane found me, then, on the beach, though I barely remember anything save a vague impression of red hair and rain, in far too much pain to be making a real memory. The thought of her alone's enough to bring up a fresh wave of emotion, but I'm not about to break in front of him, and so I tamp it down, forcing shaky breaths to level out. The theater of it's useless, though, and I don't know why even try; I was never the actor in the family.

When I finally look at him a moment later, I focus on my anger instead of my grief. A switch inside me gets flicked on, turning my gaze cold for all that my eyes are still too-bright.

"A table's more replaceable than a person."

[notawastedlife]

There was a guy who'd survived over a decade of people trying to kill him, Tony thought, apropos of perhaps nothing except for how that was slightly unnerving, there.

"Stick to the tables," Tony agreed, squinting at Peter's expression briefly before his gaze slid past to the calculations on the wall. It seemed to be related to about the field you'd expect, in these circumstances.

Well, the one you'd expect if you belonged to a very specific set of people.

[daretodo]

"That's what I thought," I mutter darkly, though I'd be lying if I said it was anywhere near as satisfying, smashing furniture instead of some thug's skull. There's an itch lingering underneath my skin, that impulse to hit something, to destroy something ever-present, because it's just not enough, what I've already done. I watch Tony for a second longer, flexing the fingers of my free hand as I let it drop from my chest, then turn back to face the wall.

He's not the guy I want to fight, regardless of what I've learned of his counterpart in the last month, or what role I go on to play in the Civil War. If I'm going to cut loose, it'll be against someone who doesn't need a suit of armor to stand a chance, though the idea of taking on that kind of challenge is dangerous in its appeal. I nearly died the last time I took on Iron Man, and without my powers, the odds would still be in his favor. What's worrying is that I don't really care.

"You're being quiet."

[notawastedlife]

For all that Tony seemed to talk a lot, it was mostly that people noticed it when he did talk, because he paid no heed to whoever else was talking at the time, or because he did it with flair, when called upon by circumstance. Or, okay, because he talked to his computer, or his robots.

Fine, maybe he did talk a lot. But it didn't mean he didn't have his taciturn or laconic moments.

"Didn't figure you'd be in the mood for chat," he said. It wasn't exactly that he was cutting back to be understanding, more that due to that fact, he could, and not feel that he was obliged to be otherwise, not that it was a concern of his, things that he was obliged to do.

Which did raise the question of why he was here, but he had felt he should. So maybe he wasn't as lacking in concern as all that.

[daretodo]

"Then why are you here?" I ask, turning to face him again, hands fling out to my sides. He's right that I'm not in the mood for chat; it's hard to stay still, each moment a losing battle against the restless anger that's settled deep into my bones. There's nothing left in the house I'm ready to destroy.

[notawastedlife]

"In... case you were?" Tony said, wincing slightly because, well, that was terrible reasoning. He bent to aimlessly pick up a piece of the table, turning it over, mostly to have something to look at and do with his hands. "I'm not great at this consideration thing. Seemed like I should be."

[daretodo]

"You can always leave," I offer, brows arched. The phrasing's deliberate; I'm not telling him to leave, because that keeps getting me nowhere, but reminding him the option's there might see better success. I can't say that I'm counting on it, though. Striding towards him, I move to take the piece of table out of his hands.

"I'm not really interested in your consideration, anyway."

[notawastedlife]

"Good, it's terrible," Tony said, without missing a beat, absently relinquishing the piece of table. "I would leave, but you haven't finished your equation, there, and it's interesting."

This was, in fact, absolutely true.

It wasn't the entirety of the reason, or the only one, but it served as a good one to throw out there.

[daretodo]

I don't bother explaining what my calculations are for; there's not a doubt in my mind that he knows already, which is one of the better things about surrounding yourself with geniuses -- or, well, genius. Singular. This isn't home, and while the average IQ of this place is probably higher than it has any right to be, few people have actually put their intelligence to any practical use here.

Chucking the piece of the table back to the ground hard enough that it splinters some more, I say, "I lost my train of thought."

[notawastedlife]

"Well, then, let's get it back," Tony said, heedlessly stepping around the spot where Peter had just hurled and broken a chunk of wood, and casting about before coming up with a marker, tracing the equation to its current end, then rethinking and moving backwards, adding a second set of letters under an existing ones; not correcting, anything, but moving that section in a slightly different direction.

[daretodo]

I wait a beat before following after Tony, my interest in the added line outweighing my annoyance over him taking over. Snatching up my own marker, I settle beside him, leaning in to make my own additions.

"Where's an evil A.I. when you need one?" I mutter.

[notawastedlife]

Tucked away in the scrapyard, actually, as removed from anything as he could manage, but that wasn't entirely relevant. He wasn't going to bring it up.

Hell, Peter might try to turn her back on just to try to find out if she was wired to feel pain.

"Scrapyard needs security," he said, following this thought further along. Like the notation; not directly, but going from an earlier point along a different track. "Thinking about putting something together. It'd need testing against a credible threat, though."

[daretodo]

"Luckily you have a flying suit of armor that doubles as a WMD," I say slowly, glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. There's a tacit suggestion underlying his words, but just what, exactly, I'm not sure. "Congratulations, you're the most credible threat this place has."

[notawastedlife]

"I'm the most credible threat a lot of places have," Tony said, pausing, then writing some more, "not the point. If it learns against the suit, that's overkill, it's going to apply too much force. I need a credible threat a few notches down the scale."

[daretodo]

My brows furrow at his next set of notations, and I have to look back a few lines to see where the hell he pulled that from; it takes me a few reads for it to click, and I hastily add a note further up the wall for myself to look at later. My confusion doesn't go anywhere once I'm done with that, though, something about what he's saying not sitting quite right; the suggestion that I'm a credible threat is fine enough, but I don't know that I like the idea of having data collected on what I can and can't do -- at least not by anyone else. If I go along with this, I'll want access to his so-called security system beforehand, not that I'll be telling him as much.

Assuming we're even on the same page.

"Like a Vespa?"

[notawastedlife]

"Like a Vespa," Tony agreed. "If you can't get past it, that's pretty secure."

He didn't consider things like that compliments. It was a genuine assessment.