diary of a dialup dinosaur

I haven’t been around these parts for a few months because of ongoing Major Life Changes (all good, I assure, but all major) and I don’t have the brain to work on the WIP I’ve been WIP-ping on for the pandemic. But I had a moment and I’d just reread Freezer Burn (you’re allowed to reread your own stuff, right?) and there’d been that Ask about Tony and so…

I’m not sure where it’s going or if. Major Life Changes are going to be ongoing for a while. But…

___

Tony draws up a list for the therapist Pepper makes him go see after the alien guts are finally washed out of the carpet and the Loki-shaped hole in the floor is filled in. He's not oblivious to his own current lack of cope; he's been in and out of therapy for thirty-five years and he can understand the principles even if he thinks it's a quack racket. He's not over Afghanistan. He's really not over nearly dying alone in an alien galaxy. And Fury's version of the Traveling Wilburys is messing with his ego in ways he probably should have anticipated but are nonetheless being exacerbated by the first two things. It's been a really long time since he's been part of a supergroup and not the featured performer and so while all he wants is the spotlight on his pain, instead he's stuck singing harmony. The therapist tells him that it will take time to heal, which he already knew and nobody wants to hear, so he considers his obligation to Pepper fulfilled and resumes trying to buy Bruce Banner's friendship with the lab of his dreams.

Bruce instead offers his friendship for free, which is weird and Tony's not entirely sure how to handle that because being Tony Stark means nothing's free and friendship's usually darned expensive. The only people in his world who aren't on the grift are Pepper and Rhodey and that's why Tony buys them lots of things; absolutely everyone else is interested in the commodity of Tony Stark and he's had plenty of practice to make sure the exchange isn't too uneven.

"I'm kind of hard to deal with," Bruce tells him with a shrug when Tony asks about the freebie. "Even before the Other Guy. Being in my phone contacts is a mixed proposition at best."

( Tony! Toni! Toné! )