Work Text:
He wishes that he was as careless as the media paints him to be. As aloof, as detached, as disinterested, as indifferent.
He wishes.
Most of the time he's so so grateful that he's not the man, not the monster the media depicts him as.
But most of the time is over. It's a distant memory. A memory that faded with one Peter Parker. His mentee. His, dare he say it, his son.
It crumbled to ashes the moment Peter started pleading to him, the moment the absolute grief of Peter dying had hit him.
No, he wishes, he longs to feel nothing.
Because if he felt nothing, then he wouldn't be falling apart every night. He wouldn't be soaking his pillows with tears and choosing to sleep on the sopping wet side of the pillow.
If Tony was unfeeling then letting Pepper, his dream to have a family, go would've been nothing.
If Tony was detached then he wouldn't be spending his nights slaving over figuring out a solution only staying awake because of pure desperation. Not coffee and not alcohol. He didn't want to break his promise.
If Tony was disinterested then he wouldn't be sending families who were suffering some money under the guise of a mysterious stranger, shrouded in a warm image of kindness.
If Tony was indifferent, then he wouldn't be making video diaries for Peter to watch when not if, he came back.
Tony wishes every night that he was emotionless and cold. Then he could stop suffering, then the hole in his heart could disappear, then he could break the promise he made to a dead kid and drink from the liquor cabinet to his left.
Tony wishes in the dead of night.
Tony's wishes are meaningless because after 5 years of wishing he's snapping his fingers and giving up his life and his opportunity to see Peter grow.
And as Tony is fading, he can feel Peter's hand touching his and Rhodey's hand on his shoulder and he wishes his final wish: he wishes that he could just stay.
Tony's wishes never came true anyway.
Peter is sitting in Tony's chair. The chair he sat in just a few days ago. Peter could smell him everywhere.
Literally everywhere.
It was clear how many nights, days he spent in this chair in this lab.
Now he's gone. Less than a ghost
Peter's been told that Tony did it for him.
He's been pat on the shoulder as if to tell him 'well done.
Peter is the reason the world's been saved. Which makes him the reason Tony died as well. Logic.
Peter sits in Tony's chair and he's mad. He wants to trash the entire lab. He wants to delete the video diaries Tony made him. He wants to tear up the photo of him and Tony that's staring at him.
Peter wants to murder someone. Preferably himself.
Instead, Peter opens the cabinet to his left and takes out Tony’s favorite bottle without looking. The realization that Tony had never drunk in the last 5 years, just like he promised Peter, only fueled his self-hatred.
He opens it and the neck of the bottle breaks off. Peter is using too much of his strength, but he can't get himself to care.
Peter drinks.
And he screams.
And he cries.
And Peter can't help but wish that Tony was as selfish as the media paints him to be.
The knowing that Tony spent 5 years wasting away trying and trying and trying to bring him, Puny Peter Parker, back from the dead. It was too much. The pain was too much.
When the bottle was empty, Peter reached back into the cabinet for another bottle while simultaneously asking FRIDAY to play the video diaries Tony made for him.
And as he stares into Tony's eyes and watches him wither away more every day, Peter wishes that Tony was selfish. That Tony was a monster. That Tony could never care for a scrawny kid from Queens.
But since when did fate ever comply with Peter's. wishes?
So Peter drank.
The kid has been gone for a long while now and Rhodey is starting to get worried. The kid was only supposed to go up to Tony's lab to grab the stuff Tony left for him. It shouldn't be taking hours.
Excusing himself from the reunion thing that's been going on in the common room floor of Stark Tower, Rhodey starts to make his way to Tony's lab mentally preparing himself.
When Rhodey enters the room he finds one Peter Parker on the cold floor with Dum-E hovering around him and surrounded with smashed liquor bottles.
"Oh kid."
Rhodey went towards the kid and started to slowly hoist him up to get a better grip on him.
Rhodey freezes as the kid starts to mumble something and Rhodey has to strain his ears to hear it.
"My fault. All my fault. My fault. Selfish, selfish, selfish. My fault. it should've been me."
Rhodey continues his task of picking up the drunk kid, knowing that if he tries to persuade Peter that he's muttering lies, he'd make no difference.
Rhodey has experience with stubborn, broken teenagers drowning in guilt. And then drowning themselves in liquor.
What a horrible moment of deja vu.
Rhodey feels like shit, and just for a moment, he wishes that he and Tony never met. It would've saved him so much pain. (But he would not have known the joy he does today.)