Mayn Rue Platz [Tony Stark]
Canon Status: Post-Secret Invasion #8, not compliant beyond that.
Genre: Tragedy.
Rating: PG.
Characters: Tony Stark, others mentioned.
Pairing: None.
Warnings: SPOILERS for SI#8. Character death (both canonical and otherwise).
Notes: I could be sleeping, and I'm breaking Tony instead. My grasp of priorities is masterful. Title from a poem by Moshe Jacob Adler, which is also a song.
Summary: This is it. It's over.
This was it, then.
Everything he had ever touched was being dismantled, from SHIELD to his company. Soon there would be no evidence that he had ever existed. All this time, all this effort, and still the only legacy Tony Stark would ever leave would be death and devastation. He might almost have felt pain at the thought if there had been any pain left to feel. Instead the sick knowledge that the world would have been better off if he had died all those years ago was absorbed into the echoing emptiness where everyone he loved had once been.
Oh, God, Jan--! He could see her face before his open eyes as she writhed, screaming, dying. She didn’t deserve that. Not Jan, never Jan. If any of them should have died that way, it should have been him. It would have been dying as he lived: as a weapon that struck friend and foe alike no matter how hard he tried. It would have been fitting.
Closing his eyes didn’t help. Her face was only more vivid. Instead of her screams he heard Thor’s words burning themselves into his ears.
“I abhor what thou hast become and I am sure I will not be the only one who finds the blame in all this to fall square on thy shoulders.”
Thor’s words, Jan’s face, and Steve’s shield, always Steve’s even without Steve to bear it, walking away.
Thor was right. He was to blame. He’d always known that. Now everyone else knew it too. He had always known that once those he called friends understood how worthless, how abhorrent he was, they would leave, and be right to do so. Things like Tony had no right to soil better people like them. Now they understood, and they were gone. They would not be coming back. No one would be coming back. Not this time.
He was so tired, and for the first time in he couldn’t remember how long there was no reason to keep going. No one relied on him, no one listened to him, no one needed him. He had no responsibility to anyone but himself.
It surprised him faintly how easily he moved about the room. He would have sworn that he had never planned this, but all the same he didn’t hesitate for a moment. Some part of him knew exactly what he was going to do.
His will was filed with the lawyers. He should probably make a new one, now that Jan-no. The old will was better. He had a copy stored in a hidden drawer. He took it out and laid it carefully on his desk. Taking pen and paper, he considered what he could possibly write that would mean a thing anymore. He found that without noticing he had filled the page with the same two words, over and over.
I’m sorry.
It was nowhere near enough, but no words could do better. Leaving the paper atop his will, he took a more-or-less functioning suit of armor and left.
This armor wouldn’t stand up in a fight for more than a second. It didn’t have to. It just had to take him where he had to go.
It was presumably cold. He could see the ice and snow. It just didn’t much matter to him. He was usually cold now.
He knew exactly where they had dropped Steve’s body down into the sanctuary of the deeps. He didn’t deserve even to approach the place, but one last selfishness took him there, where some part of him had always known he would return.
He shut down all the computers, all the feeds, all the noise. He didn’t need them anymore. In the sudden silence his pulse beat louder than drums. Then he shut down the armor’s external systems, until it was just a heavy metal suit. So much for Iron Man.
He shut his eyes and let the ocean take him. His armor was mostly airtight. He might suffocate before he drowned. He didn’t care. The end was the same. Extremis might try to fix him, but it couldn’t make him air to breathe. He would be dead, unless he was very unlucky and someone found him. But no one would look. Not for him. Perhaps in a hundred years someone would find a red and gold suit of armor buried in the ice. He hoped not.
There was no real reason for it, but in the dark and the cold he felt closer to Steve.
Genre: Tragedy.
Rating: PG.
Characters: Tony Stark, others mentioned.
Pairing: None.
Warnings: SPOILERS for SI#8. Character death (both canonical and otherwise).
Notes: I could be sleeping, and I'm breaking Tony instead. My grasp of priorities is masterful. Title from a poem by Moshe Jacob Adler, which is also a song.
Summary: This is it. It's over.
This was it, then.
Everything he had ever touched was being dismantled, from SHIELD to his company. Soon there would be no evidence that he had ever existed. All this time, all this effort, and still the only legacy Tony Stark would ever leave would be death and devastation. He might almost have felt pain at the thought if there had been any pain left to feel. Instead the sick knowledge that the world would have been better off if he had died all those years ago was absorbed into the echoing emptiness where everyone he loved had once been.
Oh, God, Jan--! He could see her face before his open eyes as she writhed, screaming, dying. She didn’t deserve that. Not Jan, never Jan. If any of them should have died that way, it should have been him. It would have been dying as he lived: as a weapon that struck friend and foe alike no matter how hard he tried. It would have been fitting.
Closing his eyes didn’t help. Her face was only more vivid. Instead of her screams he heard Thor’s words burning themselves into his ears.
“I abhor what thou hast become and I am sure I will not be the only one who finds the blame in all this to fall square on thy shoulders.”
Thor’s words, Jan’s face, and Steve’s shield, always Steve’s even without Steve to bear it, walking away.
Thor was right. He was to blame. He’d always known that. Now everyone else knew it too. He had always known that once those he called friends understood how worthless, how abhorrent he was, they would leave, and be right to do so. Things like Tony had no right to soil better people like them. Now they understood, and they were gone. They would not be coming back. No one would be coming back. Not this time.
He was so tired, and for the first time in he couldn’t remember how long there was no reason to keep going. No one relied on him, no one listened to him, no one needed him. He had no responsibility to anyone but himself.
It surprised him faintly how easily he moved about the room. He would have sworn that he had never planned this, but all the same he didn’t hesitate for a moment. Some part of him knew exactly what he was going to do.
His will was filed with the lawyers. He should probably make a new one, now that Jan-no. The old will was better. He had a copy stored in a hidden drawer. He took it out and laid it carefully on his desk. Taking pen and paper, he considered what he could possibly write that would mean a thing anymore. He found that without noticing he had filled the page with the same two words, over and over.
I’m sorry.
It was nowhere near enough, but no words could do better. Leaving the paper atop his will, he took a more-or-less functioning suit of armor and left.
This armor wouldn’t stand up in a fight for more than a second. It didn’t have to. It just had to take him where he had to go.
It was presumably cold. He could see the ice and snow. It just didn’t much matter to him. He was usually cold now.
He knew exactly where they had dropped Steve’s body down into the sanctuary of the deeps. He didn’t deserve even to approach the place, but one last selfishness took him there, where some part of him had always known he would return.
He shut down all the computers, all the feeds, all the noise. He didn’t need them anymore. In the sudden silence his pulse beat louder than drums. Then he shut down the armor’s external systems, until it was just a heavy metal suit. So much for Iron Man.
He shut his eyes and let the ocean take him. His armor was mostly airtight. He might suffocate before he drowned. He didn’t care. The end was the same. Extremis might try to fix him, but it couldn’t make him air to breathe. He would be dead, unless he was very unlucky and someone found him. But no one would look. Not for him. Perhaps in a hundred years someone would find a red and gold suit of armor buried in the ice. He hoped not.
There was no real reason for it, but in the dark and the cold he felt closer to Steve.