This is an account of what happened to me. Compiled by scraps of (vague) memories and nightmares
February. A month full of rain, strong wind coming over from the sea and not a single day full of sun. There was always a cloud at the sky ready to block the warm sun, a thunderstorm brewing on the horizon. Extremis updated him with every change of the weather, making sure he was prepared 5 minutes beforehand. If it was going to rain, he knew it and pulled up the hood of his car. If it was going to thunder, he shut down JARVIS just to be on the safe side. The lightening had short-circuited JARVIS once and from then on, Tony had decided to shut him off whenever a storm approached. He wasn’t going to go through that again.
Now most of the time, he locked himself up in his basement, making his brain run on several ideas for hours without pausing but for some reason, he felt puckish that particular day. So there he was, strutting on the sidewalks of Malibu, on the way towards his favorite bakery.
Of course he could've just gotten it delivered or taken the car but he felt like taking a walk so he did. He was carefully tucked in, two sweaters covering him under his black trench coat to protect him from the wind. Nobody blinked an eye at him as he passed them. He was just another person to them, another insane person to face down the weather gods and go outside in the temporary cold.
He ignored the various cars passing him, the shouts of people talking to each other from one side to the other side of the street, the cheery music blasting from the radio's. It was just another day in Malibu, no one gave a damn about the weather.
Perhaps, looking back, he should've paid more attention to his surroundings, to the people and to the cars. His mind however, decided that nothing was more important than looking at his feet and hoping he wouldn't slip and fall due to his own clumsiness or the stones in the pavement being so slippery because of the rain. It happened.
A sigh escaped his chapped lips as he looked up once to see where he was actually walking. His intention to take a quick walk down to the bakery and back to the house had turned out to be a long walk across town and now he was nearly on the outskirts. Clearly he had been so in his thoughts that he walked right past the bakery and never looked back on it. Cursing, Tony pondered on whether he should walk back or just keep on walking and take a detour back to his house, without visiting the bakery.
His thoughts were rudely interrupted by someone tapping him on the shoulder and shaking him out of his reverie. Turning around and nearly losing his balance while doing so, Tony looked at the young man standing in front of him. A teenager by the looks of it, 16-17, he guessed, with a dog leash in his hand and a worried, broken look on his face.
“Oh! I’m sorry for scaring you like that, didn’t mean to .”
“No no, my fault entirely, I was lost in thought,” Tony shook his head, “can I help you?”
“It’s my dog sir, he collapsed half way through our walk and I need to take him to the vet but I’m not from around here…”
“Take me to him?” Tony’s mind went in action mode.
He accessed Extremis and looked up nearby vets while they walked over to the place the young man said his dog was. When he got there, all he found was a black van with tinted windows and a dead end street. Survival instincts kicked in immediately, everything he had learned from Happy over the years was put to use but it was 5 against 1 and in the end, he was doused with enough chloroform that he lost consciousness in a matter of seconds.
xxx
He woke up several times, deducing that he was blindfolded and gagged in one way or another when his eyes only met darkness and he couldn’t speak. He struggled against his bounds and tried to access Extremis but the sedation had muddled his brain enough for him not to be able to focus enough.
It didn’t take long for his captors to realize he had awoken and he was met with another cloth over his nose. Consciousness was never for a long period and Tony could only hope he would soon know what was happening to him. He wondered what they wanted, where they were taking him and if anybody had realized he was gone. Every time he woke up, he felt every inch of his body screaming in protest against his bonds, against the position he was forced in and the way he was being handled.
Everything pointed towards being beaten and kicked while being unconscious and even when he was conscious, they didn’t hold back. His mind became fuzzy, he could no longer concentrate and whenever he even had a single grain of concentration in his mind, it was put to use to try and access Extremis. In which he failed tremendously, clearly these men had done their research and found a way to block it.
Next thing Tony knew, he was in a shabby hut, god knows how many hours later with a raging headache. He was alone, his hands tied behind his back and fear taking over him. Was he back in Afghanistan, had the escape failed and his whole life afterwards just a fever induced dream? He felt warm enough to have a fever, or so he decided.
Tony tried to take in his surroundings but there wasn’t much to take in. A shabby hut, like he knew already, the floor under him was uneven, hard and coarse. Nothing covering it then, that much was clear. Cement or just plain ground, he couldn’t figure it out just yet, his brain wouldn’t tell him specific details just yet. Knowing nothing exciting would happen at the moment, Tony decided to spare his energy and closed his eyes, hoping he would escape soon and get back home.
xxx
His back ached, his muscles protested against every move and his entire body was shivering. He was stripped to the bone and his mind was drugged to a point where it probably was illegal. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think. Tony had never felt so helpless before, he tried to call out to Bruce but his voice was so hoarse that it only came out as a whimper. He tried moving but found himself tied down. A rope around his neck, his wrists together.
He felt like an animal in a cage. It wouldn’t actually surprise him if he was actually in a cage. He hadn’t opened his eyes just yet, not wanting to face the situation he was in. Everything he knew was from feeling only, it wasn’t hard to feel the hard rope against his neck or wrists, to feel the coldness seep through his naked skin and into his bones. To feel the aches and pains of the roughness he had been handled with.
Opening his eyelids slowly, Tony found himself in a cell. It was the only word that even came close to describing the room he was forced in. It was cemented from head to toe, it was cold, the door was made from a thick steel and the only holes in the room were ones to let air in. Darkness surrounded him but the small slits let some form of light flow in and show him what he needed to know, that he was in a position where he wouldn’t escape by making something from scraps.
The entire room was stripped bare so he was forced to lie on the ground, sit on the ground and be hungry on the ground. It was rough, rougher than his time in Afghanistan where he at least had someone to talk to. In the darkness, he only had himself to talk to and the figments of his vivid imagination. The only thing that they hadn’t taken away from him yet.
He welcomed darkness, for it brought him rest and energy. Whenever light was around, he was either dragged out of his cell to be tortured or forced to drink contaminated water. He knew it was contaminated because he felt bad every time he drank it. Didn’t matter to him what they put into it but it was enough to make him struggle whenever they came in with it.
Then, one day, Tony was pushed outside. Clothes that were 3 sizes to big covered his body as he was free. They just discarded him, having no more use for him. Blood and dirt was mixed in with smells that made him nauseous. He stumbled across the path that he had found. Arms wrapped around himself and eyes squinting against the strong icy wind that blew.
Where was he? How long had he been gone? Who was he? There were so many questions to be answered. What had happened to him? He faintly remembered being so much more than he was right now. He felt like a shell of his former self as he tried to find shelter against the cold conditions he found himself in. He wasn’t even wearing shoes as he trudged in the snow looking for some place he could rest his eyes for a few minutes. Only to put his thoughts together.
Whatever they had wanted, they had succeeded. He was lost in his own mind and in the world.
xxx
He doesn’t know how long it takes him to find some form of civilization but when he does, it’s because of the help from an old couple that he survives the night. With a fever of a 103, several infected wounds across his body and no protection whatsoever against the raging cold, it’s a miracle he survived at all according to them.
They treated his wounds the best they could, gave him some spare clothes and made sure he got settled in the small town they shared with 50 other people. He thanked them, over and over again and started his life again.
Tony still didn’t remember anything, his entire mind had been wiped clean and the only things that he did remember were things that came to him in the middle of another moment or in a nightmare.
They were vague, but he remembered kids, three boys and a girl, a man whom he apparently had some form of relationship with because any memory of him made his knees go weak and his heart beat faster. Vague things, nothing specific like names or places. Just memories that brought a small smile to his lips.
Soon, he didn’t even want to leave the village he had grown to call home, he liked it there. He was good with his hands and helped the locals with the small bits of technology they did have in their houses. The things they found at the scrap yards. No matter how damaged they were, Tony always managed to fix them. Which is probably why they called him Handy. It was a simple name, easy to remember and at least he had a name because his mind was hell bend on not letting him remember his own.
The ideas that popped in his head were way beyond the simple minds of the villagers, or so they argued. They never protested however when he found a way to make their burdens easier. To give them things that nobody else had through scraps and ideas in his mind. He made sure they had a simple plumbing system through the village, a way of preserving the heat in their tiny houses and to lighten the carriages and packages they carried tens of miles towards the local market. All to repay them for helping him.
It was days, months, perhaps even years when Tony finally remembered his own name. It was all thanks to the villager that went to the market that week -they took turns- and brought back a newspaper clipping about Iron Man being missing. Looking at the picture of the metal suit, flashes of his life came back. His name, where he actually lived and his past. Memories of his father and him building a car together, him reading bedtime stories to sick children. Small memories but none more important than his actual name. He was iron man. He was Anthony Edward Stark, son of Howard Stark, and he didn’t live in Russia.
With the scraps he had left over from other projects and the small pieces of paper he managed to get, he started on his biggest project to date. A way to get home. Every villager supported him, the old woman that had taken him in from day 1 brought him food regularly, updated him with problems and progresses in the village. No one dared to bother him, knowing how important it was for him to get home.
Every evening, he got out of his hut, his hair awry and his face covered in oil, soot and whatever it was that he had held that day. He would not miss the communal meal. With the village already having so little villagers, they all ate together what they had in the evenings. They rejoiced when they saw him and asked him questions, told him about their day and what had happened. The simple nature of these people lifted Tony’s spirits in ways that technology or going home never could.
In the end, it took him nearly two weeks to complete the teleportation device he had been working on. The villagers, although they were sad to see him go, threw a party to celebrate it. The next morning, he geared it up, put in the coordinates according to what he remembered and hoped he would land somewhere close to his house. He could only hope he would land somewhere safe.
In the end, he landed right where he wanted to land. Apparently his brain had saved him at the last minute and given him the coordinates of his house so he landed right in his own living room. Much to his own surprise. The shock of rough teleport didn’t help much but at least he was home, with new memories, old memories to find back and a promise to the villagers he would come back once he got his life back in order.
Now most of the time, he locked himself up in his basement, making his brain run on several ideas for hours without pausing but for some reason, he felt puckish that particular day. So there he was, strutting on the sidewalks of Malibu, on the way towards his favorite bakery.
Of course he could've just gotten it delivered or taken the car but he felt like taking a walk so he did. He was carefully tucked in, two sweaters covering him under his black trench coat to protect him from the wind. Nobody blinked an eye at him as he passed them. He was just another person to them, another insane person to face down the weather gods and go outside in the temporary cold.
He ignored the various cars passing him, the shouts of people talking to each other from one side to the other side of the street, the cheery music blasting from the radio's. It was just another day in Malibu, no one gave a damn about the weather.
Perhaps, looking back, he should've paid more attention to his surroundings, to the people and to the cars. His mind however, decided that nothing was more important than looking at his feet and hoping he wouldn't slip and fall due to his own clumsiness or the stones in the pavement being so slippery because of the rain. It happened.
A sigh escaped his chapped lips as he looked up once to see where he was actually walking. His intention to take a quick walk down to the bakery and back to the house had turned out to be a long walk across town and now he was nearly on the outskirts. Clearly he had been so in his thoughts that he walked right past the bakery and never looked back on it. Cursing, Tony pondered on whether he should walk back or just keep on walking and take a detour back to his house, without visiting the bakery.
His thoughts were rudely interrupted by someone tapping him on the shoulder and shaking him out of his reverie. Turning around and nearly losing his balance while doing so, Tony looked at the young man standing in front of him. A teenager by the looks of it, 16-17, he guessed, with a dog leash in his hand and a worried, broken look on his face.
“Oh! I’m sorry for scaring you like that, didn’t mean to .”
“No no, my fault entirely, I was lost in thought,” Tony shook his head, “can I help you?”
“It’s my dog sir, he collapsed half way through our walk and I need to take him to the vet but I’m not from around here…”
“Take me to him?” Tony’s mind went in action mode.
He accessed Extremis and looked up nearby vets while they walked over to the place the young man said his dog was. When he got there, all he found was a black van with tinted windows and a dead end street. Survival instincts kicked in immediately, everything he had learned from Happy over the years was put to use but it was 5 against 1 and in the end, he was doused with enough chloroform that he lost consciousness in a matter of seconds.
xxx
He woke up several times, deducing that he was blindfolded and gagged in one way or another when his eyes only met darkness and he couldn’t speak. He struggled against his bounds and tried to access Extremis but the sedation had muddled his brain enough for him not to be able to focus enough.
It didn’t take long for his captors to realize he had awoken and he was met with another cloth over his nose. Consciousness was never for a long period and Tony could only hope he would soon know what was happening to him. He wondered what they wanted, where they were taking him and if anybody had realized he was gone. Every time he woke up, he felt every inch of his body screaming in protest against his bonds, against the position he was forced in and the way he was being handled.
Everything pointed towards being beaten and kicked while being unconscious and even when he was conscious, they didn’t hold back. His mind became fuzzy, he could no longer concentrate and whenever he even had a single grain of concentration in his mind, it was put to use to try and access Extremis. In which he failed tremendously, clearly these men had done their research and found a way to block it.
Next thing Tony knew, he was in a shabby hut, god knows how many hours later with a raging headache. He was alone, his hands tied behind his back and fear taking over him. Was he back in Afghanistan, had the escape failed and his whole life afterwards just a fever induced dream? He felt warm enough to have a fever, or so he decided.
Tony tried to take in his surroundings but there wasn’t much to take in. A shabby hut, like he knew already, the floor under him was uneven, hard and coarse. Nothing covering it then, that much was clear. Cement or just plain ground, he couldn’t figure it out just yet, his brain wouldn’t tell him specific details just yet. Knowing nothing exciting would happen at the moment, Tony decided to spare his energy and closed his eyes, hoping he would escape soon and get back home.
xxx
His back ached, his muscles protested against every move and his entire body was shivering. He was stripped to the bone and his mind was drugged to a point where it probably was illegal. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think. Tony had never felt so helpless before, he tried to call out to Bruce but his voice was so hoarse that it only came out as a whimper. He tried moving but found himself tied down. A rope around his neck, his wrists together.
He felt like an animal in a cage. It wouldn’t actually surprise him if he was actually in a cage. He hadn’t opened his eyes just yet, not wanting to face the situation he was in. Everything he knew was from feeling only, it wasn’t hard to feel the hard rope against his neck or wrists, to feel the coldness seep through his naked skin and into his bones. To feel the aches and pains of the roughness he had been handled with.
Opening his eyelids slowly, Tony found himself in a cell. It was the only word that even came close to describing the room he was forced in. It was cemented from head to toe, it was cold, the door was made from a thick steel and the only holes in the room were ones to let air in. Darkness surrounded him but the small slits let some form of light flow in and show him what he needed to know, that he was in a position where he wouldn’t escape by making something from scraps.
The entire room was stripped bare so he was forced to lie on the ground, sit on the ground and be hungry on the ground. It was rough, rougher than his time in Afghanistan where he at least had someone to talk to. In the darkness, he only had himself to talk to and the figments of his vivid imagination. The only thing that they hadn’t taken away from him yet.
He welcomed darkness, for it brought him rest and energy. Whenever light was around, he was either dragged out of his cell to be tortured or forced to drink contaminated water. He knew it was contaminated because he felt bad every time he drank it. Didn’t matter to him what they put into it but it was enough to make him struggle whenever they came in with it.
Then, one day, Tony was pushed outside. Clothes that were 3 sizes to big covered his body as he was free. They just discarded him, having no more use for him. Blood and dirt was mixed in with smells that made him nauseous. He stumbled across the path that he had found. Arms wrapped around himself and eyes squinting against the strong icy wind that blew.
Where was he? How long had he been gone? Who was he? There were so many questions to be answered. What had happened to him? He faintly remembered being so much more than he was right now. He felt like a shell of his former self as he tried to find shelter against the cold conditions he found himself in. He wasn’t even wearing shoes as he trudged in the snow looking for some place he could rest his eyes for a few minutes. Only to put his thoughts together.
Whatever they had wanted, they had succeeded. He was lost in his own mind and in the world.
xxx
He doesn’t know how long it takes him to find some form of civilization but when he does, it’s because of the help from an old couple that he survives the night. With a fever of a 103, several infected wounds across his body and no protection whatsoever against the raging cold, it’s a miracle he survived at all according to them.
They treated his wounds the best they could, gave him some spare clothes and made sure he got settled in the small town they shared with 50 other people. He thanked them, over and over again and started his life again.
Tony still didn’t remember anything, his entire mind had been wiped clean and the only things that he did remember were things that came to him in the middle of another moment or in a nightmare.
They were vague, but he remembered kids, three boys and a girl, a man whom he apparently had some form of relationship with because any memory of him made his knees go weak and his heart beat faster. Vague things, nothing specific like names or places. Just memories that brought a small smile to his lips.
Soon, he didn’t even want to leave the village he had grown to call home, he liked it there. He was good with his hands and helped the locals with the small bits of technology they did have in their houses. The things they found at the scrap yards. No matter how damaged they were, Tony always managed to fix them. Which is probably why they called him Handy. It was a simple name, easy to remember and at least he had a name because his mind was hell bend on not letting him remember his own.
The ideas that popped in his head were way beyond the simple minds of the villagers, or so they argued. They never protested however when he found a way to make their burdens easier. To give them things that nobody else had through scraps and ideas in his mind. He made sure they had a simple plumbing system through the village, a way of preserving the heat in their tiny houses and to lighten the carriages and packages they carried tens of miles towards the local market. All to repay them for helping him.
It was days, months, perhaps even years when Tony finally remembered his own name. It was all thanks to the villager that went to the market that week -they took turns- and brought back a newspaper clipping about Iron Man being missing. Looking at the picture of the metal suit, flashes of his life came back. His name, where he actually lived and his past. Memories of his father and him building a car together, him reading bedtime stories to sick children. Small memories but none more important than his actual name. He was iron man. He was Anthony Edward Stark, son of Howard Stark, and he didn’t live in Russia.
With the scraps he had left over from other projects and the small pieces of paper he managed to get, he started on his biggest project to date. A way to get home. Every villager supported him, the old woman that had taken him in from day 1 brought him food regularly, updated him with problems and progresses in the village. No one dared to bother him, knowing how important it was for him to get home.
Every evening, he got out of his hut, his hair awry and his face covered in oil, soot and whatever it was that he had held that day. He would not miss the communal meal. With the village already having so little villagers, they all ate together what they had in the evenings. They rejoiced when they saw him and asked him questions, told him about their day and what had happened. The simple nature of these people lifted Tony’s spirits in ways that technology or going home never could.
In the end, it took him nearly two weeks to complete the teleportation device he had been working on. The villagers, although they were sad to see him go, threw a party to celebrate it. The next morning, he geared it up, put in the coordinates according to what he remembered and hoped he would land somewhere close to his house. He could only hope he would land somewhere safe.
In the end, he landed right where he wanted to land. Apparently his brain had saved him at the last minute and given him the coordinates of his house so he landed right in his own living room. Much to his own surprise. The shock of rough teleport didn’t help much but at least he was home, with new memories, old memories to find back and a promise to the villagers he would come back once he got his life back in order.