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It was all his fault.
He reminded himself of that as he dug through his drawers in the lab, looking for his hidden stash of alcohol that had gone untouched for years. He hadn’t needed it then.
Hell, he made it through his messy breakup with Pepper because of the team. They were a dysfunctional group, each with their own demons but they somehow managed to be the brightest light in his life.
That is, until he went and fucked everything up.
His fingers finally brushed against something cold. He pulls it out and almost salivates at the sight of it. It wasn’t the taste that made him go back. It was the feeling.
He knew he should have kept his mouth shut about the Accords. He knew he should have left Steve make the decisions. It was what he was there for. Master strategist. Tony was nothing more than an armour and a wallet. He couldn’t make decisions. He couldn’t decide what was best for the team. All he did was make the people whom he cared for so much feel like prisoners.
Fuck.
He tips the bottle back again, savouring the feeling as it burns his throat.
He wished they would all just understand. He didn’t mean to cause a fight. He didn’t mean to try and kill Bucky (okay, maybe he did in the moment, but hey! He killed his parents. Brutally. It was an honest reaction). He didn’t mean to make Steve leave the shield. He didn’t mean to tear the Avengers apart. Why wouldn’t they just see that everything he ever did was in the team’s best interest? Why couldn’t they understand that this was the way he had always been? The only way he knew how to show how much he cared was by screwing up.
He wanted to tear himself apart into small enough pieces that he could never be put together again. Was there even anything to break anymore? He wanted to burn his tongue until he couldn’t speak another word. He always messed things up that way. He spoke without thinking. His mouth would try and catch up with his brain, unintentionally moving too fast for him to consider the consequences.
He knew now that he could never let himself love or care for anybody ever again. He should never put anybody through the pain of loving him. Nobody could handle it. It wasn’t there fault. Tony Stark was unloveable. High mantainence. Not worth it. No matter what happened next, he hoped he wouldn’t forget that. He would rather wallow in his loneliness forever, feeling only his aching pain than knowing that he caused this upon another.
The bottle is empty. He doesn’t think as he smashes it into the metal table. He barely registers the pain as the glass cuts into his palms. His arm was still healing. His chest still hurt. His legs could barely carry his weight. A little bit of blood on his hands was nothing (especially considering how stained they were already).
He really hadn’t drank in a while. He never usually felt this lightheaded. He never usually lost feeling in his fingers this quickly. Perhaps it was the added loss of blood (the glass had cut his legs and stomach, he just hadn’t noticed). He tries to stand up to walk over to the couch.
His legs really were weak. He swayed and he tried to grasp onto the table but his fingers were numb. Why were they so numb? Why was his world tailoring?
He hit the floor with a loud thud. Nobody was there to hear it. He scratched his face as pushed his hair out of his face. His tongue was motionless, he couldn’t cry out for him.
Everything became dark. His eyes started to flutter closed and there was only one, single light source that he registered before he let everything take over.
The reactor. His heart. Broken but still in one piece, a blue light illuminating his end.