This Seat Taken? ~ Tony & Pepper
Moving on. Yeah, Tony could accomplish that. He thought. Maybe it would be easier if everyone else just would. It would be easier if they didn’t look at him like he was really the problem and they were disappointed in the fact he had been manipulated when his heart was at it’s most penetrable. Yeah, Tony fucking Stark had been manipulated. Big huge ass laugh. But it was the truth. A truth he really didn’t want to admit because of the weakness. Because he was the one that usually did the shit like that. Granted he didn’t do it to get information to run every one of his friends into the ground...but he had been known to do it in the past for things he wanted like sex. Sex with no strings attached. Things had been so much simpler then. There was so much traded for becoming a good person. Or at least a better person. But how in the fuck could people just go around running his heart through the dirt? First there was Pepper and he could admit part of that was his fault, but still, he was obviously the one most hurt through it all. Then there was...he didn’t even want to think about her name right now. But there was her and she lied to his face more than once and pleaded with him to believe her right up to the end. Right up to the end where she might as well have shot him in the face. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with all this shit right now. He wouldn’t have to deal with the look on everyone’s faces.
And they weren’t having the looks like last time. No, these were the “I can’t believe you trusted her” looks. These were the ones that were like getting shot in the face. Okay, maybe not everyone had these looks...honestly maybe it was two or three or four...but it was enough. And then there was Charlie. At first he was extremely mad because how in the fuck did she not know. She was apparent friends with her. Rose too! She could tell when people lied, couldn’t she? But no, there’s always more to the story. Charlie, manipulated all her fucking life, so why was this any different? And Rose, was brain fucked by an outside source from day one. Yeah, that made Bruce happy. Tony could only apologise so much for something he didn’t do. All of them went through this once already. No one learned from last time. Except no one hated Charlie. It was just Tony alone. All alone. When in reality they were all crammed into the Malibu house, so he really wasn’t alone, just felt like it.
One would question why he was being so nice to people who hated him, but the truth was that he felt like it was his fault...even if he would argue for hours about how it wasn’t. And he still loved all of them in that whole family whatever sense. Everything was just so messed up right now and it almost didn’t seem like it would fix like it did the last time. Maybe Genna would help him again. There was at least a couple without an issue. The significant others are the ones that got in the way though. Tony really didn’t want a shield or a green fist to the face. Not that anyone really had a choice not to see him. It wasn’t like half of them weren’t camped out in the living room or anything. But still, they were all dead silent in his presence and it was kinda creepy...but mostly insulting and all judgy and shit.
And so Tony refused to be around them twenty-four-seven, especially since he could just feel Loki on the edge of being his little shit self again and he didn’t want his hair turned bright pink or purple or something, and he went out to a bar. It was silly since he had a bar in his house...well not silly when you actually know about the situation, but on the outside it was a little weird. At least the bartender didn’t question why he was in here in the middle of the day. It was kinda empty...except Bob in the far back corner. Tony wasn’t sure why the guy was alone at a table all the way back there, but whatever. He didn’t care. He had his bourbon and his spot at the bar. And he still only felt the slightest bit better. Maybe after another glass, but he knew better than anyone that it really wouldn’t work.
