[Fic: Iron Man] Various Ficlets
1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the ficlet; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten three of these, then post them.
Right. I did three. I suck at this meme. And I went back and worked on them later. I suuuuuck.
“Two Weeks,” All That Remains i can see it you’ve turned to stone
still clearly i can still hear you say
don’t leave don’t give up on me
two weeks you ran away
Her mother wanted her to turn in her two weeks about six years ago, the day after what happened in San Francisco. And Chicago. And Miami. And, at the time, Pepper had wanted to reach through the phone and slap her mother through the phone-how could the woman even think that, after the bombs no one could have predicted, after the fires, after so many couldn’t be saved, after the military had been ineffective and it’d come down to Iron Man and his amazing suit and Tony-
She’d clenched her teeth and rubbed her temples. She’d tersely responded, “Mother, no.” And then, “I can't.”
Pepper doesn’t discuss her work with her parents, she doesn’t discuss her work with anyone. And now, six years later, she wonders how her mother had known then what Pepper was only seeing now.
If Tony’s not on the television there’s only one place he can be. Three people have the passcodes to get into his workshop, these days-Tony himself, Pepper, and Nick Fury. Pepper only found that out three weeks ago, the day she finally decided that this had to stop. She knows what she’ll say, if he asks, because she’s spent entire nights figuring that out instead of sleeping.
Tony, I can’t stand to spend another six years with that man telling both of us that ends justify the means, because we both know that’s not true.
Tony, I don’t want to hear you make up another story about the last time you talked to Rhodey when I know for a fact you haven’t spoken to him in years. Six of them.
Tony, I’m not going to spend the next six years watching you take responsibility for every wrong in the world.
She keys in her code and steps inside the lab; the scent of metal and chemicals she can’t identify hit her almost immediately. She doesn’t ask. Pepper has no idea what Tony’s up to, she never does, anymore, and that’s the one thing that’s gotten her through that-she never, ever asks. She approaches him slowly, her heels clicking and clacking on the tile, and she takes a deep breath, trying to work up the nerve to say his name.
“Can this wait?” Tony says. He’s tracing a seam in the suit with his finger; he doesn’t look up. “Kinda busy right now.”
Pepper surprises herself by almost bursting into tears.
She bites her lip and pulls herself together, nodding curtly even though he’s not looking. “Of course,” she says.
There’s an envelope in her breast pocket, she’s as aware of it as if it was smoldering there. She’d typed it up that day three weeks ago, when Rhodey called her and almost begged to know what Tony was doing, told her just how far into Fury’s pocket Tony had fallen and what that really meant, asked for reassurance that their old friend wouldn’t get too far in over his head. Pepper couldn’t give that to him.
The letter starts, Mr. Stark, I deeply regret to inform you.
The letter ends, Love, Pepper.
She sets it on Tony’s desk, carefully, making sure to leave it at the edge of one of the many keyboards scattered across his workspace, in a place he’ll see at some point in the next few days. It’s addressed to Tony in her loopy cursive handwriting, and she’s sure he’ll recognize it.
She looks up. “Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”
Tony doesn’t respond how he’s supposed to. He glances up and meets her eyes for a split second and the words Pepper’s waiting for don’t come, and he returns to his work.
That’s how Pepper knew she made the right decision.
But she still runs out of his workshop, right then, her hand over her mouth and tears she’s not going to shed burning at her eyes. She takes his steps two at a time, almost twisting her ankle on the last one, and if things were different she would worry about what Tony thinks about that, about her sudden grief and almost hysterical outburst and panicked escape-but things aren’t different, and it doesn’t matter. Tony didn’t see her, anyway.
“Money For Nothing,” Dire Straitsnow that ain’t workin’
that’s the way you do it
let me tell ya
them guys ain’t dumb
Tony fired about half of everyone on his first day as CEO. Not everyone that worked for Stark Industries-that’d require speaking to about ten thousand people and it’d probably involve a lot of phone calls and fax messages and that didn’t seem like the best way to go about it. The nicest way. Not that Tony would know, he’d never been fired and it probably wasn’t ever going to happen to him, but he figured that if it was going to happen there probably wasn’t a nice way to do it but he’d rather have someone tell him to his face.
Anyway, he fired half of the people that worked for the corporate office, and that was pretty much everyone he met on that first day.
And now he was tired.
Tony sank into his chair. The big leather chair, the CEO’s chair. His father’s chair. Not technically his father’s chair-well, probably, odds were they’d bought a new chair by now-but this is where he’d sat and made decisions all day just like Tony had done today, except he probably didn’t end it by dropping his forehead onto the mahogany desk and groaning, which is what Tony was doing now.
He didn’t even have a hangover. Last night he’d been so nervous about today that he hadn’t been able to keep a drink down, and that was absolutely not fair, because yesterday he’d turned twenty-one. “Man,” he said.
“How’d it go?”
Tony jerked straight up in his seat-and then he realized that it was only Obi, and relaxed. “I did what you said,” he told him, watching the older guy shut the door behind him and start leisurely pacing around the office. “But,” he started, “are you sure we had to-”
“Tony,” Obi said. He walked toward the desk, and put both his hands down flat on the surface. “Now they know who’s in charge. Trust me, kid, we had to do it this way.”
Tony frowned.
“And you did good.”
“Yeah,” Tony said, muttering. “Anyone could’ve done all that.”
“But they didn’t, you did. Listen.” Obi leaned closer, and he lowered his voice, like he was about to give up a secret that was at least a three on the interesting scale. “You think these people would’ve respected you, at your age? They know you’re smart already, Tony, but now they know you’re in charge.”
“Yeah, but-”
“You deserve a break, kid.” Obi grinned. “How about you have your first legal martini on me?”
Tony’s stomach wasn’t feeling much better than it had last night, so for the first time in life he hesitates before accepting an offer of free booze.
“And you can take tomorrow off.”
Tony looked up. “Really?”
Obi grinned wider. “Don’t you worry, kid,” he said. “I’ll cover for you.”
“Save Yourself,” Stabbing Westwardi cannot save you
i can’t even save myself
please don’t take pity on me
Add a little alcohol to the mix and suddenly the exhilaration turns into a messy mix of nausea and dull excitement, and it’s not the speed that’s important so much as the twisting. The world jerks in and out of focus and it’s fascinating how the sea and the sky keep trading places in his field of vision and okay, maybe it wasn’t a little alcohol, maybe it was a lot. Maybe Tony doesn’t remember how much it was and maybe, just maybe, he wants to throw up in his suit a little bit but let’s face it, this is nothing new and he can control himself because seriously, that’s just gross.
“Sir, you’re coming in just a bit-”
He lands at about twice the speed he should, and the suit fires does about forty things at once-the exact number escapes him, but it’s about that many-all of it to absorb the impact so Tony doesn’t have to take it in his bones. He feels the shock anyway, mostly in his knees and kind of in his spine, which can’t possibly be healthy, and maybe, just maybe, if he was sober enough for it to hurt than he might even care.
In a moment, the Mark IV comes to a shuddering halt, and the repulsors power down.
“-too fast.”
Tony groans, and reaches to pull off the faceplate.
“I assume everything is in order, sir? Vital organs still intact?”
Through the suit, JARVIS is well aware of the state of all of Tony’s internal organs-the question is probably the program’s sarcastic, indirect way of asking, "Are you okay?"
And so Tony responds appropriately, by not saying a damn thing.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the ficlet; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten three of these, then post them.
Right. I did three. I suck at this meme. And I went back and worked on them later. I suuuuuck.
“Two Weeks,” All That Remains i can see it you’ve turned to stone
still clearly i can still hear you say
don’t leave don’t give up on me
two weeks you ran away
Her mother wanted her to turn in her two weeks about six years ago, the day after what happened in San Francisco. And Chicago. And Miami. And, at the time, Pepper had wanted to reach through the phone and slap her mother through the phone-how could the woman even think that, after the bombs no one could have predicted, after the fires, after so many couldn’t be saved, after the military had been ineffective and it’d come down to Iron Man and his amazing suit and Tony-
She’d clenched her teeth and rubbed her temples. She’d tersely responded, “Mother, no.” And then, “I can't.”
Pepper doesn’t discuss her work with her parents, she doesn’t discuss her work with anyone. And now, six years later, she wonders how her mother had known then what Pepper was only seeing now.
If Tony’s not on the television there’s only one place he can be. Three people have the passcodes to get into his workshop, these days-Tony himself, Pepper, and Nick Fury. Pepper only found that out three weeks ago, the day she finally decided that this had to stop. She knows what she’ll say, if he asks, because she’s spent entire nights figuring that out instead of sleeping.
Tony, I can’t stand to spend another six years with that man telling both of us that ends justify the means, because we both know that’s not true.
Tony, I don’t want to hear you make up another story about the last time you talked to Rhodey when I know for a fact you haven’t spoken to him in years. Six of them.
Tony, I’m not going to spend the next six years watching you take responsibility for every wrong in the world.
She keys in her code and steps inside the lab; the scent of metal and chemicals she can’t identify hit her almost immediately. She doesn’t ask. Pepper has no idea what Tony’s up to, she never does, anymore, and that’s the one thing that’s gotten her through that-she never, ever asks. She approaches him slowly, her heels clicking and clacking on the tile, and she takes a deep breath, trying to work up the nerve to say his name.
“Can this wait?” Tony says. He’s tracing a seam in the suit with his finger; he doesn’t look up. “Kinda busy right now.”
Pepper surprises herself by almost bursting into tears.
She bites her lip and pulls herself together, nodding curtly even though he’s not looking. “Of course,” she says.
There’s an envelope in her breast pocket, she’s as aware of it as if it was smoldering there. She’d typed it up that day three weeks ago, when Rhodey called her and almost begged to know what Tony was doing, told her just how far into Fury’s pocket Tony had fallen and what that really meant, asked for reassurance that their old friend wouldn’t get too far in over his head. Pepper couldn’t give that to him.
The letter starts, Mr. Stark, I deeply regret to inform you.
The letter ends, Love, Pepper.
She sets it on Tony’s desk, carefully, making sure to leave it at the edge of one of the many keyboards scattered across his workspace, in a place he’ll see at some point in the next few days. It’s addressed to Tony in her loopy cursive handwriting, and she’s sure he’ll recognize it.
She looks up. “Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”
Tony doesn’t respond how he’s supposed to. He glances up and meets her eyes for a split second and the words Pepper’s waiting for don’t come, and he returns to his work.
That’s how Pepper knew she made the right decision.
But she still runs out of his workshop, right then, her hand over her mouth and tears she’s not going to shed burning at her eyes. She takes his steps two at a time, almost twisting her ankle on the last one, and if things were different she would worry about what Tony thinks about that, about her sudden grief and almost hysterical outburst and panicked escape-but things aren’t different, and it doesn’t matter. Tony didn’t see her, anyway.
“Money For Nothing,” Dire Straitsnow that ain’t workin’
that’s the way you do it
let me tell ya
them guys ain’t dumb
Tony fired about half of everyone on his first day as CEO. Not everyone that worked for Stark Industries-that’d require speaking to about ten thousand people and it’d probably involve a lot of phone calls and fax messages and that didn’t seem like the best way to go about it. The nicest way. Not that Tony would know, he’d never been fired and it probably wasn’t ever going to happen to him, but he figured that if it was going to happen there probably wasn’t a nice way to do it but he’d rather have someone tell him to his face.
Anyway, he fired half of the people that worked for the corporate office, and that was pretty much everyone he met on that first day.
And now he was tired.
Tony sank into his chair. The big leather chair, the CEO’s chair. His father’s chair. Not technically his father’s chair-well, probably, odds were they’d bought a new chair by now-but this is where he’d sat and made decisions all day just like Tony had done today, except he probably didn’t end it by dropping his forehead onto the mahogany desk and groaning, which is what Tony was doing now.
He didn’t even have a hangover. Last night he’d been so nervous about today that he hadn’t been able to keep a drink down, and that was absolutely not fair, because yesterday he’d turned twenty-one. “Man,” he said.
“How’d it go?”
Tony jerked straight up in his seat-and then he realized that it was only Obi, and relaxed. “I did what you said,” he told him, watching the older guy shut the door behind him and start leisurely pacing around the office. “But,” he started, “are you sure we had to-”
“Tony,” Obi said. He walked toward the desk, and put both his hands down flat on the surface. “Now they know who’s in charge. Trust me, kid, we had to do it this way.”
Tony frowned.
“And you did good.”
“Yeah,” Tony said, muttering. “Anyone could’ve done all that.”
“But they didn’t, you did. Listen.” Obi leaned closer, and he lowered his voice, like he was about to give up a secret that was at least a three on the interesting scale. “You think these people would’ve respected you, at your age? They know you’re smart already, Tony, but now they know you’re in charge.”
“Yeah, but-”
“You deserve a break, kid.” Obi grinned. “How about you have your first legal martini on me?”
Tony’s stomach wasn’t feeling much better than it had last night, so for the first time in life he hesitates before accepting an offer of free booze.
“And you can take tomorrow off.”
Tony looked up. “Really?”
Obi grinned wider. “Don’t you worry, kid,” he said. “I’ll cover for you.”
“Save Yourself,” Stabbing Westwardi cannot save you
i can’t even save myself
please don’t take pity on me
Add a little alcohol to the mix and suddenly the exhilaration turns into a messy mix of nausea and dull excitement, and it’s not the speed that’s important so much as the twisting. The world jerks in and out of focus and it’s fascinating how the sea and the sky keep trading places in his field of vision and okay, maybe it wasn’t a little alcohol, maybe it was a lot. Maybe Tony doesn’t remember how much it was and maybe, just maybe, he wants to throw up in his suit a little bit but let’s face it, this is nothing new and he can control himself because seriously, that’s just gross.
“Sir, you’re coming in just a bit-”
He lands at about twice the speed he should, and the suit fires does about forty things at once-the exact number escapes him, but it’s about that many-all of it to absorb the impact so Tony doesn’t have to take it in his bones. He feels the shock anyway, mostly in his knees and kind of in his spine, which can’t possibly be healthy, and maybe, just maybe, if he was sober enough for it to hurt than he might even care.
In a moment, the Mark IV comes to a shuddering halt, and the repulsors power down.
“-too fast.”
Tony groans, and reaches to pull off the faceplate.
“I assume everything is in order, sir? Vital organs still intact?”
Through the suit, JARVIS is well aware of the state of all of Tony’s internal organs-the question is probably the program’s sarcastic, indirect way of asking, "Are you okay?"
And so Tony responds appropriately, by not saying a damn thing.