[Thread] Here Econtra...

[yeah_i_can_fly]

Characters: OU Tony Stark/Iron Man, OPEN
Where: anywhere near the cemetery/church area, and one of the open lots on that side of Econtra
When: after Pepper's disappearance
Summary: After spending the entire morning searching for his beloved Pepper Potts and not finding her, Stark dons his IM suit and goes on an emo-trinsic rampage.
Warnings: He is

Comments

[ringhost]

Ryoko had bad timing. It was simple as that. She had been wandering around more of the compound, her coat wrapped around her. Despite the time she had been here, she had yet to actually go looking around the entire compound. She had preferred to keep to her apartment and her friends, but she hadn't seen them in a while either.

She heard the blast and looked up, eyes going wide for a moment as she let out a small panicked scream as she tried to protect herself from the falling plaster.

[yeah_i_can_fly]

Iron Man glanced down as he hovered in the air next to the damaged building, readying another attack that he wasn't quite sure if or why he was about to unleash. The scream caught his attention. His HUD quickly calculated the sight before him in a splattering of blue while on the inside Stark struggled with himself and debated on his next course of action

[ringhost]

Ryoko was on her knees, staring up at Iron Man with wide fearful eyes. For a moment she just sat there, several minor cuts bleeding, one right above her eye was screwing with her vision but she didn't seem to notice right now.

Only when she felt something tugging on her sleeve did she notice anything else around her. "Faith..." She said softly, looking down at the plushie that didn't want to leave her side. She was torn in several places, but still had the same, friendly smile.

She picked up the plush and held it close. "I'll get you fixed soon."

She then looked back up at Iron Man, still afraid to move from where she sat.

[yeah_i_can_fly]

Blue target reticles hovered uncertainly over the plushie and the girl on Stark's HUD for a moment. The one on the girl almost immediately disappeared, but the one on the plushie lingered longer yet. It never quite locked on, the uncertain hesitance from its master's uplinked mind confusing it into deciding whether the object was friend or foe.

Finally it locked on and turned a sickly yellow. Stark would have to turn off the safeties on his weapons' system if he truly wanted to fire at the object.

But his hesitance proved a saving grace today. He locked down his weapons and continued to hover immovably for a long moment. Finally, the Iron Man lowered itself closer to the ground (though he did not touch it). He floated there several paces away from the damaged girl and stared dispassionately through his helmet.

[yeah_i_can_fly]

Iron Man ignored the question for a long time until it seemed to don on the metal-clad man that there was someone below him. He turned his head slowly towards the sound of the voice and stared down at the blue-skinned woman as dispassionately as his armor's faceplate looked on the outside. He blinked once and let his eyes focus on what his helmet was relaying to him.

"What's the point?" he finally answered the question with one of his own. The mechanical tone was as bland and monotonous as a robot's and the human beneath made no attempt to subterfuge this.

[yeah_i_can_fly]

Inside the helmet Tony closed his eyes and swam in the words she presented him. It did feel good to destroy things when everything you ever cared for was ripped away from you. He had a flash of an old memory:

He was nineteen, and Obi had just gotten finished telling him that his parents had died in a horrible car accident. The old man's voice had been kind and gentle, and for the moment it had soothed the young teen-aged Stark's new-found hole in his chest where his heart resided. On the plus side, the damage had been so extensive and so complete that the married couple hadn't had the time to suffer; they died instantly.

That did nothing to alleviate young Anthony's grief. But the complete and utter destruction of the mechanic's lab he and his father had once toiled in hours upon hours of any day they could manage--that did. For a little while at least.Stark's eyes opened back up in the present and he stared down at the twi'lek. He ignored the rest of the memory--that after a month had gone by he had come back looking for comfort in

[yeah_i_can_fly]

The blowing up of random objects had been slowly trickling to a reluctant stop for some time now after he had found himself hovering above the empty lot on the northern edge of the compound. His palms still glowed from the steady and constant charge of the Repulsor rays however, and his HUD told him that he had actually, somehow, managed to deplete his MKII (duplicate version) Arc reactor's power by the slightest fraction.

He turned in the air towards the tiny voice behind him and the faceplate of the Iron Man was a stoic cold metal without expression, an exact replica of his face beneath at the moment. He was calm--deathly calm--beneath the mask, and beneath the ache of his chest.

"Yes?" came the cold reply of the Iron Man's metallic voice.

[yeah_i_can_fly]

Stark paused and tilted his metallic head to the side for a moment in silent thought. He considered the meaning of the question and the inner effect of "it" on him directly, the feelings on the inside that he felt when he allowed himself to dwell on them. He didn't want to go in there, but he figured an honest answer was due the goddess.

The answer, in all truth and honesty, was "no."

"It feels good," he answered at last. "In the moment." Never mind that it did not take the pain away permanently; never mind that his chest ached where, briefly, he had had some semblance of a heart brought about thanks to those that had surrounded him.