Angsty Tony One-Shots

Humility

Based on episode 3 season 3 House

Tony Stark was an arrogant asshole.
Or at least he acted like one.

It was true that he was a genius, and his weapons never failed. If he built something, it would work no doubt about it.

The only problem was that it made him oh so vain. The engineer had became arrogant and over confident.

And he paid the price for it.

-

Another average mission, it didn't even ask for all the Avengers present. Steve and Natasha went on site to clear the area of all innocent people while Tony worked on a device to safely eliminate the reactors without blowing up.
It was a rush project, Iron Man only had a few hours to complete something no one had ever succeeded in making. Of course, he was not just anybody.

"It will work. Just say the word and I'll fire it. It's all done and ready to be launched." Stark said with a smug grin as he leaned against the rocket shaped machine. It would release a complicated series of electro magnetic pulses to carefully stop the reactors from working without immediately starting a chain reaction.

"Cap to Iron Man, we are a minute away from clearing. Fire to hit in two minutes. Iron Man, do you copy?" Steve was heard over the com and caused Tony to sigh.
"Yeah Cap, I copy. Launching now. Hit will be in exactly two minutes flat." The engineer answered as he pressed a few buttons and stepped back. There it went... Worth at least three new patents. Tony smirked as he followed the trail of the newly created device. The time was visible in the top right corner. Everything seemed to be completely smoothly. Hit in one minute. Are you cleared Cap?" Even though convinced it would work, it would be safer to make sure everyone was out of there. Just in case.

"Almost. More Hydra agents showed up. Black Widow is out and in the air. I w-"
Steve got cut off when everything went to hell.

Tony's machine disappeared off his screen while his sensors on scene went wild.
For a second everything was silent.

"Stark?!! What the hell happened??" Fury blasted over the speakers as Tony sat there in shock.
"I... I don't... I don't know." He stuttered as he frantically started pressing buttons. He had to make sure Steve was okay. Steve had to be-

"C-Cap to... B-base..." Steve's voice crooked over the line before coughing muffled.
"Steve?" Tony whispered but got pushed aside by Fury's voice demanding a status update.

"Explosion... Don't know where I am... No one else visible... Broken leg, some cuts and bruises, cracked ribs, and possibly internal bleeding."

"Stay put Captain, back up is on its way to pick up you up. Stark... Report to base. We need to talk."

All lines cut dead and Tony swallowed thickly, his heart pounding in his throat. What had he done?

-

"...seventy-two casualties. An Avenger out of commission for the next week. Over a hundred injured." Fury was ranting while Tony was sitting down.
The engineer sat alone at the head of the table while the wave of anger simply flowed past him.

He had screwed up badly.

Apparently his invention had malfunction and caused a massive explosion. By some miracle it hadn't hit the reactors. But even worse, it had landed close to a group of bystanders. People were dead and injured because of Tony's mistake.
He killed seventy two people.
Injured over a hundred.
And injured Steve.

Steve, who already hated him badly, would most likely-

"It goes without saying you are off the team until further notice." Tony was snapped from his thoughts as Fury spoke up.