Fanfiction | Fandom: Inception/Iron Man movies | Title: Nightmare
Title: Nightmare
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Arthur, his projection of Tony, and an OFC cameo
Warning: crossover, AU, bombs, guns, dream death
Disclaimer: Inception and Marvel are owned by people much cooler than me.
Word Count: ~1300
Summary: Running away is not working out for Arthur.
Notes: Daddy Dearest 'verse. Follows “ Projecting.” Like always, it will make much more sense if you read the others in the verse first.
Yes, I’m terrible. I said it would be soon and, well, it’s not. It’s been over a month. But I was trying to focus on my big bangs and then I lost my jump drive (it’s now being mailed to me) and this actually isn’t the one I was planning to write. This is the one that cooperated when I sat down to write it. So this is the one you get. Hope you like it.
~
Arthur jerked awake, the image of his father and the pain of the shrapnel still vivid in his mind.
He struggled to his feet-he’d tangled the covers around him in his sleep-and to the bathroom, fumbling for the light switch. He pulled his die out of his sweatpants pocket and rolled it across the shelf above the sink, too tired to judge it otherwise. It came up right, and he stuffed it back in the pocket as fast as if there was anyone else around to see, then turned on the water to splash some on his face.
Some part of him, the part that wasn’t occupied trying to wake up or still struggling out of the dream’s hold, thought it was incredibly unfair that the first dreams he had in two years without the PASIV device were nightmares, all focused around the father he didn’t want.
Once he was awake, he headed out to the living room. It was a nice place, if small, not the kind of place someone with enough money to buy most mansions on the market would be expected to live in; just a two-bedroom apartment, expensive for Manhattan but cheap considering his old job, and the rent over the last two months had barely put a dent in the funds from the Fischer job alone. He’d furnished it to his tastes in the first two weeks, careful not to spend too much on it-the money he had had to last him until it was safe to come out from hiding again. Now it looked… well, not many other people would call it “homey”; they would be more likely to say it looked like a museum. But it suited him.
Arthur glanced at the clock. 3:17 AM. Even for him it was too early to be up. Stark was almost definitely asleep.
Good for him, he thought, and picked up the prepaid cell phone he’d bought from the end table.
The call immediately went to voice mail. JARVIS’s voice, familiar already after three of these late night calls, saying politely and simply, “Please leave a message,” followed by the annoying beep.
Arthur hung up. He was never even sure what he wanted to say. Stay out of my dreams? It wasn’t Stark’s fault he was showing up in them… mostly. And if he did leave a message, what did he call Stark… or himself, for that matter? “Mr. Stark” showed respect for him he didn’t feel; “Dad” showed familiarity he didn’t want. And he couldn’t call himself Stark’s son, or refer to himself by his full name…
He needed coffee. That was the only excuse for his thoughts spinning like this.
~
He spent the time between his three cups of liquid caffeine and the phone call reading. Engineering, mostly, something he hadn’t touched since college; but if he had to, he’d decided that he was going to be prepared for his father’s projection. That meant knowing his world as well as he did.
The phone rang around noon.
PRIVATE CALLER, the phone announced. Almost definitely Stark, considering the calls had started the day after his first midnight call. His father was the reason he hadn’t set up a voice mail account or checked his mailbox.
As it turned out, that latter measure was worth absolutely nothing in the long run.
As he was leaving for a walk and to get lunch, he spotted an envelope on the threshold. “No way,” he muttered. He bent to make sure it wasn’t attached to any nasty surprises, then picked it up. The handwriting on the outside of the envelope was the same that had been on the postcards from his father.
After careful consideration, he turned off the smoke detector, got out the lighter from a drawer in the kitchen, and set the letter on fire unread before tossing it in the sink. When it was reduced to ash, he washed the whole thing down the garbage disposal and went out for lunch.
“Oh, Arty!” Mandy, the concierge, called. “Your books came in!”
Arthur winced at the nickname. He’d tried to get her to call him “Arthur” or “Mr. Morrison”-his chosen alias-with no success. But at her news he turned and headed over.
“They’re in?” he asked.
She nodded happily. “Yup. You want to get them now, or when you get back?”
“Now,” he said immediately. He felt much safer with them in his apartment than he did with them behind Mandy’s desk.
“Okay, just sign here…” Mandy handed him a clipboard, and he signed where she indicated. “And here are your books!”
Arthur turned and headed back up the elevator to his apartment.
The books weren’t exactly books, per se. They were records from the early experiments done with dream sharing. They contained clues to the nature of projections, the potential of dream sharing, how it could be used, beneficially or not, and what people had done when projections had first turned violent. It had cost Arthur the better part of what he still had from the Fischer job, along with the occasional use of his father’s name, to get them past the incredible amount of security guarding them. Now that he had them, it seemed like a waste. He already knew how to get rid of the projection. He just didn’t want to.
~
That night he dreamed, again, of his father.
This time Stark didn’t shoot him-this time they were working together on some weapon or other. Stark handed him one of the pieces, and somehow Arthur recognized, through his incredibly limited engineering knowledge, that it was the wrong piece. He held it out to Stark, shaking his head no. Stark pushed it back at him, and when he continued pushing it toward Stark, his father finally took it and slammed it into place.
The machine exploded.
Arthur woke up.
6:34 AM.
Once again he called his father, and once again JARVIS told him to leave a message. This time he waited a few seconds, trying to think of something to say, before he hung up.
The phone rang around ten. PRIVATE CALLER, again. He ignored it, again.
Again, when he went out for lunch, there was an envelope at his feet. He checked the handwriting, not nearly as careful about checking for traps this time, and disposed of it as he had the last one.
After lunch, he started in on reading the reports. They didn’t say much he didn’t already know; there were names he didn’t know, and useful anecdotes he filed away. Most of it he’d expected. He was running out of options.
He put off sleeping that night, hoping to not dream of his father.
It didn’t work.
~
This time his father was working, alone. He pushed Arthur aside roughly, every time he passed by, saying Arthur was in the way. Arthur just had time to notice they were on a balcony over a very high drop before one of Stark’s pushes sent him over the railing.
Arthur woke up.
5:15 AM.
He paced around the living room. This had to stop. It was getting ridiculous. The first time his projection of Stark had appeared, it had been… it had pushed him, tried to get him to follow in its footsteps the way the real Stark once had, if more violently-but in the last week its disregard for Arthur had reached lethal levels. Not bombs that might kill him, but casually contributing to his death, letting him die, or in one case outright killing him. He couldn’t function in the daytime if he kept being woken from sleep by a murderous projection.
He reached for the phone, hand shaking. He dialed the number from memory. JARVIS’s voice gave the familiar, simple instructions. He cleared his throat, twice, and said, “It’s me.” Stark wouldn’t need any more introduction than that, not with all the technology at his disposal. “We should talk.”
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Arthur, his projection of Tony, and an OFC cameo
Warning: crossover, AU, bombs, guns, dream death
Disclaimer: Inception and Marvel are owned by people much cooler than me.
Word Count: ~1300
Summary: Running away is not working out for Arthur.
Notes: Daddy Dearest 'verse. Follows “ Projecting.” Like always, it will make much more sense if you read the others in the verse first.
Yes, I’m terrible. I said it would be soon and, well, it’s not. It’s been over a month. But I was trying to focus on my big bangs and then I lost my jump drive (it’s now being mailed to me) and this actually isn’t the one I was planning to write. This is the one that cooperated when I sat down to write it. So this is the one you get. Hope you like it.
~
Arthur jerked awake, the image of his father and the pain of the shrapnel still vivid in his mind.
He struggled to his feet-he’d tangled the covers around him in his sleep-and to the bathroom, fumbling for the light switch. He pulled his die out of his sweatpants pocket and rolled it across the shelf above the sink, too tired to judge it otherwise. It came up right, and he stuffed it back in the pocket as fast as if there was anyone else around to see, then turned on the water to splash some on his face.
Some part of him, the part that wasn’t occupied trying to wake up or still struggling out of the dream’s hold, thought it was incredibly unfair that the first dreams he had in two years without the PASIV device were nightmares, all focused around the father he didn’t want.
Once he was awake, he headed out to the living room. It was a nice place, if small, not the kind of place someone with enough money to buy most mansions on the market would be expected to live in; just a two-bedroom apartment, expensive for Manhattan but cheap considering his old job, and the rent over the last two months had barely put a dent in the funds from the Fischer job alone. He’d furnished it to his tastes in the first two weeks, careful not to spend too much on it-the money he had had to last him until it was safe to come out from hiding again. Now it looked… well, not many other people would call it “homey”; they would be more likely to say it looked like a museum. But it suited him.
Arthur glanced at the clock. 3:17 AM. Even for him it was too early to be up. Stark was almost definitely asleep.
Good for him, he thought, and picked up the prepaid cell phone he’d bought from the end table.
The call immediately went to voice mail. JARVIS’s voice, familiar already after three of these late night calls, saying politely and simply, “Please leave a message,” followed by the annoying beep.
Arthur hung up. He was never even sure what he wanted to say. Stay out of my dreams? It wasn’t Stark’s fault he was showing up in them… mostly. And if he did leave a message, what did he call Stark… or himself, for that matter? “Mr. Stark” showed respect for him he didn’t feel; “Dad” showed familiarity he didn’t want. And he couldn’t call himself Stark’s son, or refer to himself by his full name…
He needed coffee. That was the only excuse for his thoughts spinning like this.
~
He spent the time between his three cups of liquid caffeine and the phone call reading. Engineering, mostly, something he hadn’t touched since college; but if he had to, he’d decided that he was going to be prepared for his father’s projection. That meant knowing his world as well as he did.
The phone rang around noon.
PRIVATE CALLER, the phone announced. Almost definitely Stark, considering the calls had started the day after his first midnight call. His father was the reason he hadn’t set up a voice mail account or checked his mailbox.
As it turned out, that latter measure was worth absolutely nothing in the long run.
As he was leaving for a walk and to get lunch, he spotted an envelope on the threshold. “No way,” he muttered. He bent to make sure it wasn’t attached to any nasty surprises, then picked it up. The handwriting on the outside of the envelope was the same that had been on the postcards from his father.
After careful consideration, he turned off the smoke detector, got out the lighter from a drawer in the kitchen, and set the letter on fire unread before tossing it in the sink. When it was reduced to ash, he washed the whole thing down the garbage disposal and went out for lunch.
“Oh, Arty!” Mandy, the concierge, called. “Your books came in!”
Arthur winced at the nickname. He’d tried to get her to call him “Arthur” or “Mr. Morrison”-his chosen alias-with no success. But at her news he turned and headed over.
“They’re in?” he asked.
She nodded happily. “Yup. You want to get them now, or when you get back?”
“Now,” he said immediately. He felt much safer with them in his apartment than he did with them behind Mandy’s desk.
“Okay, just sign here…” Mandy handed him a clipboard, and he signed where she indicated. “And here are your books!”
Arthur turned and headed back up the elevator to his apartment.
The books weren’t exactly books, per se. They were records from the early experiments done with dream sharing. They contained clues to the nature of projections, the potential of dream sharing, how it could be used, beneficially or not, and what people had done when projections had first turned violent. It had cost Arthur the better part of what he still had from the Fischer job, along with the occasional use of his father’s name, to get them past the incredible amount of security guarding them. Now that he had them, it seemed like a waste. He already knew how to get rid of the projection. He just didn’t want to.
~
That night he dreamed, again, of his father.
This time Stark didn’t shoot him-this time they were working together on some weapon or other. Stark handed him one of the pieces, and somehow Arthur recognized, through his incredibly limited engineering knowledge, that it was the wrong piece. He held it out to Stark, shaking his head no. Stark pushed it back at him, and when he continued pushing it toward Stark, his father finally took it and slammed it into place.
The machine exploded.
Arthur woke up.
6:34 AM.
Once again he called his father, and once again JARVIS told him to leave a message. This time he waited a few seconds, trying to think of something to say, before he hung up.
The phone rang around ten. PRIVATE CALLER, again. He ignored it, again.
Again, when he went out for lunch, there was an envelope at his feet. He checked the handwriting, not nearly as careful about checking for traps this time, and disposed of it as he had the last one.
After lunch, he started in on reading the reports. They didn’t say much he didn’t already know; there were names he didn’t know, and useful anecdotes he filed away. Most of it he’d expected. He was running out of options.
He put off sleeping that night, hoping to not dream of his father.
It didn’t work.
~
This time his father was working, alone. He pushed Arthur aside roughly, every time he passed by, saying Arthur was in the way. Arthur just had time to notice they were on a balcony over a very high drop before one of Stark’s pushes sent him over the railing.
Arthur woke up.
5:15 AM.
He paced around the living room. This had to stop. It was getting ridiculous. The first time his projection of Stark had appeared, it had been… it had pushed him, tried to get him to follow in its footsteps the way the real Stark once had, if more violently-but in the last week its disregard for Arthur had reached lethal levels. Not bombs that might kill him, but casually contributing to his death, letting him die, or in one case outright killing him. He couldn’t function in the daytime if he kept being woken from sleep by a murderous projection.
He reached for the phone, hand shaking. He dialed the number from memory. JARVIS’s voice gave the familiar, simple instructions. He cleared his throat, twice, and said, “It’s me.” Stark wouldn’t need any more introduction than that, not with all the technology at his disposal. “We should talk.”