cap_ironman | Fic: To Loathe and Love

Title: To Loathe and Love
Author: TresMaxwell
Rating: M
Warnings: Mentions of sex and some language
Characters: Mostly Tony, he talks about Steve and Howard
Summary: A one-shot from Tony's POV. Tony is extremely intelligent, but even he wonders 'why' sometimes. Why he should survive where better men die. Not really angst, mostly just self-reflection with a little humor and talk of sex.

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I've often wondered why I got a second chance. Why me? Of all the people in the world, why me? Why not cancer boy who's never experienced life or the dad with five kids and a loving wife? Why a self-centered playboy with no real attachments other than fast cars and a perfectly designed artificial intelligence system called Jarvis? I didn't get it for a long time.

I'm not working with a second lease on life, I'm working with a second mortgage, and the bills are due. I have a lot to make up for, I'm not blind to it. I was… well, I am an ass. I get that. And the universe does not revolve around me, even if it should.

If karma was real, I would be so far under my own mistakes that no good deed would get me out again. Fortunately, I don't believe life bites evildoers in the ass. If life was fair, cancer boy or father of the year would survive and I would've died in that cave in Afghanistan. But I didn't. I'm here, wallowing in scotch and bitterness when I'm not encased in gold-titanium alloy putting my life on the line.

I could probably use a good psychologist.

Since I don't have one (I hate being psychoanalyzed anyway), I have to figure things out on my own. The conclusions I've come to are that I'm A) Brilliant, which is obvious, B) An alcoholic, though I have no plans to fix it at the current moment, and C) … C is hard to admit, considering the image I've painstakingly constructed with the media, but I'm all about self-loathing.

Shocking, right? I know, it would blow anyone's mind. Anyone who's ever met me, or read about me in the papers, or seen me on the news tends to think 'That man is full of himself. He redefines narcissism at every turn'. And that's also true. I have a love-hate relationship with myself. Because, really, I'm a brilliant, dashing debonair, what's not to like?

On the other hand, I can hear my father's voice in my head. Always disapproving, always disappointed. The only time I ever heard the old bastard say a kind word to me was on canned footage from the late seventies. He couldn't even say it in person. I was never worth his time and I'm sure that has a lot to do with the self-loathing. It's driven me into a lot of beds over the years, trying to fuck away the feeling of being… unworthy.

Needless to say, a supermodel a day didn't help. It was fun, but not helpful. The scotch numbs that deprived sensation more effectively, but it's just a band-aid. No matter how much I drink, the problem is still there. Sometimes, the liquor makes it worse, what with alcohol being a very literal downer.

The true antiseptic was Iron Man. I do realize that makes my work incredibly selfless and selfish at the same time, and that's beyond messed up. (Yes, a psychologist would be a good use of my money. I know. I really do know.) When I'm saving lives, I exist. Not the narcissistic playboy philanderer, but me. I can put that helmet on and forget how worthless I am and how I should've been the one to die in that cave instead of a good man who spent his life helping people. I can stop asking 'why' for a few minutes and try to live the way he lived.

And then HE came into play. HIM. The living legend. My father's greatest achievement. The star-spangled man with a plan. Not going to lie, I hated him when we met. Not the kind of hate where you can share the same room with someone and still manage to be civil while you glare daggers at each other. It was the kind of hate where you leap across the table to strangle them the moment they come in the room.

I should explain. Steve Rogers was all my dad talked about. The old man ranted about coordinates and grid patterns while he leaned over a map of the arctic. He was obsessed. Said Steve was the greatest man he'd ever known. My dad might as well have given birth to the super soldier personally considering how much his loss affected him. I lived in the shadow of Rogers. The most animated I ever saw my old man was when he was retelling Steve's exploits for the millionth time. Otherwise, he was cold and distant and empty. It was as if he'd given every scrap of affection he had to some other kid and didn't have any left for me.

So before Steve even opened his mouth to tell me that my work as Iron Man was a joke, I hated him. Call it immature jealousy, daddy issues, whatever. I hated his star-spangled guts. And then he said I wasn't a hero and I despised his star-spangled guts to the point of wanting to shoot him with a repulsor point-blank. Knowing how indestructible he is, it probably would've bounced off, but it didn't stop me from picturing it.

I don't think I'm over it yet. I might never be over it, but I get what my dad saw in him. After a few well-executed battles with him at the head of our super-secret boy band (Natasha only uses her breasts to manipulate men, otherwise she might as well be one of the guys), I understood why he was such a big deal. It didn't make him any less of an ass, but I'm not any better. Plus, when we're both being asses, pushing each other so far that we're seething, some really great, angry sex happens.

At first, that's all that it was.

I can't even remember what we were arguing about that day. The only detail my brain cared to record was the moment when he shoved me into an empty conference room (I do remember we were at SHIELD's home base) to yell at me and ended up pressing me down on the table. He fucked me so hard I nearly passed out when I came. It was… incredible. So incredible I started intentionally annoying him to see if I could get him to do it again.

It became a routine. Mission, argue, fuck, go home. I liked that routine. It was satisfying, but allowed us both to keep each other at arm's length. He knew what we were doing and he let it happen that way for a long time. Months, almost a year, actually.

Thing was, after a while we had a hard time finding things to argue about. I started to respect his point of view and he started listening to my input, so our arguments were forced, as if we were treading through a familiar path just so we wouldn't have to admit we wanted the reward at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box more than the caramel corn.

We were in the middle of a yelling match over my choice of glaring armor colors when I noticed what was going on. It wasn't just the sex, it was him. Chemically, he and I are an ionic bond. We're attracted because we're radically different.

I asked him to move in with me.

Shockingly, because I expected him to laugh me out of the helicarrier, he agreed. And then he scolded me for changing the subject. Which is so very Steve.

When he's with me, I feel worthwhile. As sentimental and droll that is, it's true. It only took me realizing it to bring him deeper into my life. I know I'm one of his only links to the past, that he sees my father in me, but he doesn't say it out loud. He's got more sense than that. Thing is, he's my only connection to a man I barely knew. Through his first-hand recollection, I've learned that my father was different before he had me. That the old man used to care about the people around him before he turned quiet and moody and distant.

Maybe losing Steve made him that way. Though Steve assures me it wasn't the case, I wonder if they had something more going on. That thought brings me to a completely different level of psychosis, so I try to avoid it.

Being with Steve without the barrier of ridiculous arguments (not that we don't still have our share of them), I understand why someone would talk about him for decades. Hell, I'd probably do the same thing, but I don't have any immediate plans to have offspring I could ignore while I retell the exploits of Captain America. Steve is honest and genuine, so when he looks at me square in the eye and tells me I'm worth it, I actually believe him.

I guess I don't hate him or me anymore. Most days. Sometimes, we go back to the arguments that end in angry sex. Not that it's a bad thing. Living with perfection is hard work. Though, he does give it his all.

Fic: To Loathe and Love - M or R

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