One
"What would you do," Tony asked one day when the team were sprawled out on various pieces of furniture "If one of us was secretly a mutant?"
"I am," Bruce said blandly. Tony scrunched his nose up.
"No, I mean like all of a sudden. So no-one knew about it beforehand,"
"Are you trying to tell us you're a mutant?" Clint asked, glancing over from his small perch. Tony shook his head.
"No. I just wanted to know,"
"Not much," Natasha said non-committaly, popping a handful of popcorn in her mouth "I mean they're just human,"
"Right," Tony murmured to himself "Just human,"
Tony wasn't much of a biologist but in some instances, the practise had to be put into action. He had taken the time to extract blood from his body when Bruce wasn't within eye or earshot and, much to his dislike, a urinal sample. He wanted to be one hundred per cent sure that things were fine.
His DNA wasn't any different
But the skeletal statistics weren't pretty. And that was what scared him.
Tony Stark swallowed and hoped that the Avengers would stick to their word when the time came.
A week after his sickening discovery, Tony looked in the mirror. He recoiled slightly at the things marring his now incredible pale skin and blinked. Somewhere in his stomach he was glad that Pepper was visiting relatives in England – something told him that she would have left him by now.
But he couldn't live knowing that she had to come home to this to this abomination of a human.
"Pepper,"
"Tony, is everything alright?"
"Everything's fine, Pepper. I just ... I think it's ... Pepper I can't live knowing I'm hurting you-"
"Tony, what's going on?"
"I think we should ... break up"
There was tense, heavy silence for a moment before: "Have you slept with someone?"
"No, but-"
"Have you gone behind my back with another woman?"
"No, but-"
"Have you betrayed me or my job in any way?"
"No, but-"
"Then nothing's wrong. I love you for who you are, Tony. Your crazy antics can't make me ever love you less,"
Tony swallowed.
For whom he was. Not for whom he was becoming.
He felt changes going on inside of his body: his stomach was smaller than usual because even though he ate very little as the general rule of thumb, he couldn't keep much down now. Drinking was hard for him; the liquor was revolting and bitter to his throat and tongue. He felt forever weak and tired and he slept more than usual although his brain continued to run at full throttle.
If there was one thing that he got as an advantage out of the morphing, it was both the brain capacity of his times twelve and the fact that he could sleep more deeply without recurring nightmares.
But that was against a myriad of horrible mutations.
It took another two days before he sorted out the problems. He found he could prevent his face from changing shape if he really concentrated. But as soon as they were on display, everything morphed. It was not another day after that that Tony discovered his whole demeanour of dress changed too: his normal clothes melted away to form another 'suit' as you wish.
He sat in the corner of his room then, wondering how on earth he was going to reveal this to his team and the world.
They began noticing the change in his bodily shapes not soon after that incident. Clint asked why he didn't eat so much now and then Bruce asked why he had lost so much weight.
"Not hungry," was the reply and he point blank refused to be screened for any illness. Steve noticed the incredible muscle gain and Thor even praised him for it, describing the mass as 'a feat to be proud of'.
Tony swallowed at their questions and praise and awkwardly shuffled away to sleep, saying that he was tired.
The most terrifying thing that happened after that was his eyes and facial hair. It just disappeared. Not his eyes, but the beard and goatee and that worried him.
Where had it gone?
Would his hair fall out?
His eyes, when in his alternate demeanour, were a deep, rich green flecked with some of his original brown and bright, shimmering gold that was noticeable even from a distance. He ran a hand over his smooth face, wondering what was going on.
He was happy, in some ways, to find out that his hair didn't fall out but got thicker. The grey hair that had been showing also disappeared too.
But he still looked different.
So he kept it locked away, like his other abnormality.
And he worked on the suit to make modifications for more space.
When JARVIS said that the suit's thrusters and other external propulsion sources had been completely frazzled, he knew the game was up. His team were down on the ground, far too busy to catch him this time and he had a clenching feeling in his gut.
He asked the AI to shatter joint the suit.
Steve looked up at the sky briefly in his bloodied battle and what he saw made his breath catch in his throat.
He was falling so very, very fast without any means of thrust. And then –
The suit split into fragments.
Tony's name was ripped from his throat without him knowing it.
He heard Captain America's terrified yell even as the suit dissipated around him. The wind was keeping him stable momentarily as he clenched his eyes and teeth together, inhaling what air he could as he plummeted to the ground.
And then he was dragged back up into the overhead streams of warm, circling air. He felt his limbs lengthening, ears stretching and eyes tingling as he morphed, clothes melting away as they were replaced with armour not unlike Thor's.
He felt sick with what he was as he tucked in his gigantic wings to drop altitude, swooping down to re-attach the gauntlets to his hands.
When he was out of sight, he let tears sting his cheeks.
He point blank refused to come out of his room and felt both relieved and quite upset when they didn't come to even try and entice him out.
Pepper called him two days later when he was curled up on his bed, contemplating the ends of his wings.
"Tony,"
Tony flipped the wing back to rest with the other.
"Mm?"
"Are you alright?"
"Why?"
"There's speculation that you ... grew wings,"
Tony stayed silent and buried his face in the pillow, curling said wings around his chest and cocooning himself in his own little world. Warmth dribbled down his face and he felt pathetic for it.
What does one think? Good? Terrible? Supermegafoxyawesomehot? *tick appropriate box*
*sings* I'm back. This just popped into my head. It should be continued (should!) but you know me and my terrible promises. I do have another chapter going at the moment and I'm snowed in so fingers crossed! Please ignore the spelling and grammatical errors!:-)
Kermit x
