uprightness | ɪᴄ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛ

-- Yeah.

[ he is quiet for a moment, giving him a look and nodding before admitting ]

I don't know if I wouldn't have fallen, though. This here - you know.

[ there is those rare moments like this one when Steve and Tony just do this, just talk without the entire sass on Tony's part and annoyance on Steve's part.

Sure, then Tony ruins it with surprise birthday parties but oh well ]

I would have gone back and made sure they never got a hold of Bucky. You're right, though, it probably would've made it worse, somehow.

Stark Industries would still be blowing up the Middle East and supplying weapons to terrorists if my parents weren't dead.

[ -- okay, so tony is both more blunt and more vague about what he would change, but honestly, what else in his life would he alter? not getting kidnapped? not getting blown up? all of that is easy to get through in comparison to losing his parents. ]

I'd probably change the last thing I said to them, if I could change something minor that wouldn't up-end the realities of space and time. Make me feel a little better. But I don't know if I'd have the willpower to stop there.

[ he knows he wouldn't, but he's not going to admit it ]

But that's why it doesn't exist. And it shouldn't. Because people are people, and people screw things up, and it's better off if things just stand as they were. Tragedy is a part of life. You can't undo what's already been done. You just keep going forward or whatever you need to tell yourself to get through the day.

Time's really been something that I tried not to think about.

[ it's harder here, with Peggy, to not think of the life he lost when he went under the ice. he will never regret the avengers, what they do but it seems everything beyond that function will never quite be the same. ]

When all of this is said and done, I'd lose this all over again without even knowing it.

[ and it's hardly a kindness. ]

Wanda will do the right thing. She's stronger than she seems.

That's the problem; there is no 'right thing.' It's tell him he's dead or not. There's no happy ending here.

[ delaying the inevitable is just delaying the inevitable. and tony knows he's hypocritical, and he's kept secrets, but he wouldn't want people to hide things from him -- not things like that. plans, ways to defend the earth, that's just looking at two solutions to the same problem. but death? that's another ballgame.

but tony knows ignoring steve's first point isn't going to solve anything either, and so: ]

Can you get drunk.

[ this is how tony stark solves his problems which is probably why he's a trainwreck ]

-- Not since the serum.

[ grim shake of a head ]

metabolism too fast, that's what they said, anyway.

Stark Industries and the United States government couldn't come up with a serum that allowed you to get shitfaced?

[ with the undercurrent of if i had invented it, i would have done that. ]

Bummer. Guess I'll just have to do it for you.

I don't think that was their main concern, Tony.

[ shaking his head so much. he has to smile a bit, Tony has this I can fix this gene in him that Steve knows from Howard; some things don't seem to change much. ]

You sure? alcohol here is really disgusting.

Then you needed better friends.

[ who tf injects someone with serum and doesn't double-check something so crucially important ]

Like ones that would choke down gross acorn liquor for you because you can't do it yourself.

I could drink it just not get drunk from it.

[ a long-suffering sigh ]

I'll drink the acorn liquor with you, if you want.

ɪᴄ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛ

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