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[daretodo]

By now I know the drill. I'm on a strict order of bed rest for the ten days proceeding my surgery, which seems about as long as an overnight trip compared to my last stay in the clinic, a fact I try to focus on as I shift once again on the cramped, uncomfortable mattress. It's not like the bed back in mine and Mary Jane's hut is all that much better, really, but its location is infinitely preferable, surrounded by warm, wooden walls, all of my personal belongings, and most importantly, natural daylight. That it easily accommodates two is another point in its favor, but that particular train of thought just threatens to depress me more -- I'm a newlywed and I can't even sleep in the same bed as my wife. While I undoubtedly have bigger concerns, that's the one I keep circling back around to in my few moments alone.

I nearly lost my life to a man who probably could care less about me, and I did it at the expense of Mary Jane's happiness -- and for what? Some sense of duty, of responsibility? We've only just started our lives together, and I swanned off to play the hero for someone who didn't even want saving, leaving my wife with the all too real possibility of becoming a widow at age twenty-two. God, I've been so selfish lately, caught up in my own personal drama with Johnny's and Sarah's disappearances and Council business and the O.R. that I haven't really been there for the one person who means everything to me. That'll have to change once I'm out of here.

For now, though, I'm left to my own devices, MJ off making lunch for us both. With nothing else to do, I've turned to a battered copy of The Time Machine for entertainment, but I pay attention only to every other sentence, my mind elsewhere entirely even as I turn another page.

Comments

[notawastedlife]

Tony didn't immediately respond, in any way. Didn't even move, in fact, as if he hadn't heard, as if he wasn't listening. As if listening to something else entirely.

Then he dropped his gaze, picked up the chart at the end of the bed, flicked through it, still with that same, distant frown. He dropped it back into its place, then passed that same puzzled, furrowed look over the rest of the room.

"I do," he said, out of nowhere, as if responding immediately. Like the comment had just taken a long time to reach him, or, from the low volume of his voice, as if it had played only in his head, and he was responding to that. "Just... not well. Never well, apparently. Should that be beeping so much? Is it designed to beep like that?"

[daretodo]

"Well, given that I'm showing elevated levels of stress right now..." I reply, though in my irritation, I pull on the wire to roll the monitor closer, jabbing the power button to shut the damn thing off. I don't exactly need my panic advertised, here, though some part of me can't help but feel disgusted that I'm scared of a dying man. Still, in spite of his health, he has a distinct advantage over me, and given how we last left each other, the reaction's not entirely unwarranted. Even injured, my posture's as defensive as I can manage, which isn't much at all. "I oughta have you thrown in jail."

[notawastedlife]

Tony looked straight at him, then lifted his eyebrows and tipped his head to the side, acknowledging that this was fair enough. Then he walked over to one side of the clinic and grabbed a chair, dragging it back behind him, legs scraping on the floor.

"Oughta?" he said, slumping down into it, leaning his head on his hand, fingers splayed out across his forehead.

[daretodo]

"Do you really need me to rattle off every questionable thing you did that night?" I ask, which I'm not sure actually answers his question. Fortunately, I don't particularly care. "'Cause I assure you there's a list."

[notawastedlife]

"Not... what I meant," Tony said, lifting his hand from his forehead to vaguely wave, as if swiping this offer away, "you don't need to, I know the list." The list in his head, in fact, might be longer than Peter's, if only because a lot of things were included more than once, for emphasis. "Oughta suggests you think you should but won't."

[daretodo]

"Oughta suggests I might change my mind if you don't play your cards right," I correct, eyebrows lifting in emphasis. Though every survival instinct I have is screaming at me to keep up my guard, I nevertheless start to stretch my leg out again, the position it's in now putting too much strain on my back. Mary Jane'll never forgive me if I pull a stitch on top of everything else. "And considering you almost killed me... Let's just say your luck's not looking too good."

[notawastedlife]

"Am I meant to argue you out of it?" Tony said, tipping his head back and staring at the ceiling. "Because I don't have an argument for that. No cards to play. Guilty as charged. All I've got is..."

He trailed off and showed no signs of resuming whatever it was he'd been about to say.

[daretodo]

"An apology, I hope, though I'm assuming that's too much to ask of the great Tony Stark," I say, tone mocking, and were I in any shape to do so, I might've added a flourishing gesture to his name, though as it is, my hands stay impotently at my sides. With a scoff, I shake my head, averting my eyes to the opposite wall, because looking at him isn't helping my nausea any. "You're unbelievable, you know that?"

[notawastedlife]

"I am a piece of work," Tony agreed, dropping his eyes back to Peter. "An apology? Really? That's going to cover..." he gestured at the bed and then brought his arm around in a circle, indicating everything. "Doesn't seem like it would."

[daretodo]

"It wouldn't. But anything else you may or may not have is moot if you don't show a shred of remorse for what you did," I say, and it occurs to me in that moment that he's probably never had to apologize for anything in his life. That he's acknowledged he's done wrong at all is more than I thought him capable of, admittedly, but even then, it's not nearly enough.

"Look, I realize I'm nothing to you. We're not friends. We're barely colleagues -- you could think circles around me in your sleep, which is probably the only damn thing you even know about me. To you, I'm just some stupid kid who got in the way of your suicide mission -- and I have to believe that, at least, registered on your radar, because you're here in the first place." I pause, then, and force myself to look at him. It's not easy. "But right now, I am the one person keeping you from a death sentence, so I expect you to pay me some respect."

[notawastedlife]

"...I'm not? I'm not," Tony said, as if holding this up against the evidence in his head to confirm it. "We fought a homicidal maniac together, you think that qualifies you as nothing to me? My... me notwithstanding."

He drummed his hands on the armrests of the chair. "I shouldn't have- well, I shouldn't have a lot of things, going a long back, but especially that whole deal, there. I..." he worked his mouth, fitting it around unfamiliar shapes, and even then couldn't help but wince as he said, "...apologize." He coughed. "For a start."

[daretodo]

"...you really are a rookie," I say, flashing him a mild look of surprise, though whether or not I'm referring to his apology or us fighting Norman together remains unclear even to me. I try to hold his gaze for a second, but find I'm still too angry to do so, and I return my attention to the wall.

"But yeah, I'd say that qualifies me as nothing. Jeez, Stark -- I mean, actions speak louder than words, and you blasted me off that yacht like I was nothing but a bug. So tell me, exactly, where the deep-rooted friendship of mutual respect and trust comes in on that one, 'cause I'm drawing up a blank."

[notawastedlife]

"Afterwards, when I felt... bad about it?" Tony said, with all the conviction of a man trying to stop a train by waving at it. Or, okay, an ordinary guy trying to knock down a sophisticated suit of armor with a bottle of wine. "No? No." He sighed. "Wasn't thinking straight. Or... at all."

[daretodo]

"Believe it or not, even someone of my limited understanding got that much," I say, biting back a snort. My hands curl in the blanket, which isn't a particularly good substitute for the punch I'm inclined to throw, but will have to do for the time being. Neither of us are in any condition to be fighting right now, and even if we were, it wouldn't accomplish much of anything, anyway, other than appease my bruised ego.

Taking in a deep, unsteady breath, I let it out slowly, pointedly ignoring the pain that accompanies it. For a moment, I close my eyes. "You have a problem. And I'm not talking about the palladium poisoning, though that's obviously not helping matters."

[notawastedlife]

This was a genuinely surprising turn. He wasn't sure where it was going.

"...so apart from the poisoning and the... prison time, I have another problem?" he said. "Catch me up, here. A mistakes problem? I do have a mistakes problem. I'd like to work on it."

[daretodo]

"Your self-destruction problem, which seems to have largely manifested as your drinking problem," I say, words measured as I force myself -- physically force myself -- to look him in the eye. It hasn't gotten any easier in the past couple of minutes, and I have to focus on keeping my expression neutral, my gaze level. That I'm angry doesn't even begin to cover it, but underneath that is still a profound sense of disappointment.

"You're already dying. You don't need me to tell you that. And maybe... Maybe you think that it doesn't matter how many drinks you have in a day 'cause you're on your way out anyway, but you're doing yourself and, more importantly, the people around you a disservice. I don't like ultimatums. I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out ways around them, in fact, or at least I did back home, 'cause bowing to some bad guy's whims isn't my idea of being a hero. But I'm not the bad guy, here. Whether you acknowledge it or not, whether you think you need it or not, I'm trying to help you, and the only way I can think to do that is, well, via ultimatum." I pause for effect, holding up a hand to stop any premature interruptions. "You're either going to sober up and pull a new element out of that head of yours or you're going to go to tiki jail and die, not because someone will have killed you, but because you'll have effectively killed yourself. The choice is yours, Stark, and you don't have a whole lot of time to make it. The offer expires the second you leave this room."

[notawastedlife]

Tony stared at him, and then stood up, paced a couple of steps, tilting his head at the door.

"The second I...?"

Living in the clinic probably was not an option. No, it absolutely wasn't, and besides, that was just another way of agreeing to the terms. Of the ultimatum.

The thing was, Tony didn't like ultimatums any more than Peter did. They had similar feelings about them, which he supposed could have been a bonding experience of some kind if it wasn't for the slight problem that he was currently accidentally Peter's greatest foe, or had been for an afternoon.

His first instinct was to look for a way around it. The first way he found was, okay, dying in tiki jail. Putting the palladium poisoning to his head and pulling the trigger, as it were, and he found, when put that directly, when it wasn't just allowing the decay... he didn't approve. If there was going to be direct action, let it be in the opposite direction, futile as that had been so far.

He sat back down. "I don't really have a choice, then," he said.

[daretodo]

"Like I said, I've been given a lot of ultimatums," I reply, like that's somehow an explanation, the slightest hint of a self-satisfied smirk tugging at one corner of my mouth. In a way, I suppose it is -- due to experience, I know which ones will actually work. That he came in here at all is, I'll admit, a testament to the fact that maybe, just maybe, he wants to live after all. I'd be lying if I claimed some part of me isn't surprised. Giving him a flat look, I uncurl my fingers from the blankets, lacing them together instead.

"You'll need a sponsor. I'm volunteering myself -- you'll walk right over Pepper."

[notawastedlife]

"I will walk right over Pepper," Tony said, nodding. He supposed that meant he was agreeing to this. Well, it'd only be until he could convince Peter it wasn't necessary, wasn't it? Given time, he could walk over most people. It was a skill. It was all in the talking. You just didn't let them do any.

...actually, that might take some doing, given how much Peter talked.

"Hang on. Sponsor- there are meetings? There's a desert island support group. This is a thing? It's an actual thing."

[daretodo]

"It's an actual thing," I confirm with a slow nod. I have no misgivings about the fact that I'm essentially strong arming Stark into this arrangement in a one-man intervention. He's agreed not to die, sure, but that's about it -- this situation is a whole lot more complicated than either of us are stating out loud. "I've never gone myself. I'm not big on sharing -- it's a character flaw -- but technically speaking, I would've been eligible to attend before any of this ever happened. Not because of myself, but... Well, let's just say you're hardly the first addict I've met."

Eyes narrowing in thought, debating with myself whether or not I should even steer us in this direction, I eventually decide to add, "My best friend back home's a recovering alcoholic. He's currently comatose because Norman Osborn force fed him whiskey and put him behind the wheel of a truck. He crashed into the school I worked at. That's... just one example. I'm telling you this to impress upon you the idea that you will not walk over me."

[notawastedlife]

"Thought never crossed my mind," Tony said, with a completely straight face. "...we really have to go with addict? We don't have a better term?"

Better term meaning, really, a different one. If meetings were what it took, he'd attend meetings. He could attend meetings. He attended meetings all the time. Gave speeches. Often he was drunk when he gave the speech, and maybe that wouldn't go down so well in this... particular instance, but he'd do it.

He wasn't big on owing people things, but he owed the guy. He couldn't get around that. He'd do the motions. "No, you're- you get to pick the term."

[daretodo]

"My wife's fond of drunken bastard -- we could go with that instead, if you'd like?" I say frankly, eyebrows lifting.

[notawastedlife]

"Actually not bad," Tony said. Unsurprising, really, and again, not much he could do about that. A lost cause. Either MJ or himself. Probably the latter. "Benefit of familiarity."

[daretodo]

"Unfortunately, cursing's not my style. I like to keep my material family friendly. I have trouble enough with the press as it is," I say, but my mention of Mary Jane brings to mind another dimension to this problem -- namely that I'm pretty sure she wants this man dead, or, at the very least, locked behind bars until that day comes. Were our positions reversed, and she was the one in the clinic bed right now, I have no doubt that that day would've have long since passed. As it stands, I'm a bit more forgiving in terms of bodily harm inflicted on myself. What that says about me, I don't even want to know.

"You're an addict. I'm calling you an addict. The sooner you acknowledge you're an addict, the sooner you -- wow, that doesn't even seem like a real word anymore, does it?" A beat passes, and I roll my eyes, annoyed by my own interjection. "Anyway. I'm doing this -- helping you, that is -- against her wishes. My wife, whom I love more than anything, wants you locked up. If you so much as think about breaking the terms of this agreement, if you relapse, that's the end of the road -- you're in tiki jail, no second chances. I'll wipe my hands clean of any responsibility Pepper saddled me with when she begged me to help save your life, the man she loved more than anything."

[notawastedlife]

"Third chances," Tony corrected, folding his hands in his lap and tilting his head down, eyes angled up on Peter. "I'd say- let's face it, we're probably well past second at this point. Number might be higher. Let's say... further chances. No further chances."