Egotistic
Legacy Name: Egotistic

Tony Stark was drowning; at least when he bolted up in bed that was what it felt like. As his breathing slowed, he fell back against the pillows. Moonlight was streaming in through the window and as he rolled over he could see that the clock read 3:30AM. It was another night in a long string of nights that he had dreamed of his time spent in captivity and as always he would wake up in a panic, his lungs feeling as though they were filled with water; a simple reminder of the torture he had endured while in the desert. As with every night that this happened, he stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom. Bracing his hands against the counter of the sink, he stared into the mirror, seeing his own tired reflection gaze back at him. The dark circles under his eyes were a constant reminder of just how much sleep he had been missing since the nightmares picked back up.

Before the incident in New York and before nearly dying for the hundredth time, his nightmares had been quelled by the presence of Pepper beside him in bed. Though like most things in his life, the pressures of work and of being a super hero had led him to pull away from her when she needed him most and so it had only taken a few months for Pepper to walk out of his personal life.

As he shook those thoughts from his head, he turned on the water in the shower, intending to wash away the pain of losing her and the all too vivid nightmares that still lingered fresh in his mind. However at the sound of the water, the flashbacks set in and he found himself instead walking away from the bathroom and out into the kitchen that he shared with the remainder of the Avengers.

It didn’t take long before he was reaching into the cupboard and pulling out a glass and the bottle of scotch that he had hidden there when Pepper was still living with him. After placing a few ice cubes into the glass, he poured the amber colored liquid over them and listened as the warmth of the scotch cracked the cold of the ice. Tony lifted the glass to his lips, the touch of the scotch to his tongue instantly calming his nerves.

Alcohol had been a constant comfort in Tony’s life from his 16th birthday on. And like any true suffering alcoholic, he always found an excuse for the drinking. When his parents died, he drank. He drank at every party because it was the sociable thing to do. Tony drank after his captivity in Afghanistan and after almost dying in a wormhole. And now he was drinking every night because the nightmares were too much.

That night, along with every night of the prior week the broken hero drank until the visions of dying vanished. And though his last thought of the night was a silent promise that he would change, twenty-three hours later Tony was watching his crystal glass as it filled once more with liquor.

Credits:
Profile by Ziva
Art by Strato
Story by User not found: wayne

The character Iron Man was created and is owned by Marvel.