“What are you supposed to help with? Five years ago, we could have really decided that running a group of lab techs could be in the cards. Maybe even two years ago when I officially tried to retire after I talked you into helping me create something that killed thousands of people.” How does a man age in minutes? Tony’s lived through s lot. He’s had a crazy life, right up to and including being possessed by an alien that wanted to have babies with this guy here and might have left some residual feelings for Bruce behind (she didn’t, they were always there, Tony just is trying to ignore them). He just looks so old now. So ancient.

It’s the problem with being a genius, of being effortlessly rich, of never actually having to care until your own shell is used to blow up your escort and you’ve got a car battery keeping you from dying for a few months. One day it all just catches up with you—

Well. That’s not true. Without Pepper, or Steve or Bruce in his life, he’s become the crazy guy sleeping on the couch in a mansion he owns. And technically, this is how he’s always been, shouldering it all in public and collapsing when he’s alone. He doesn’t deal so well. He makes mistakes. People suffer. Lose everything. Die.

“I’m trying to fix the things I broke. Buildings and cities I can do. But people are a lot harder.”

And now he’s dumped all of his crazy on Bruce, a guy he probably would have confided in about the palladium poisoning too if the guy had been in his life back then.