Title: Tell me what I am, I no longer know
Author: OpheliacAngel
Characters & Pairings: Tony Stark, with a hint of Tony/Pepper
Genre: Angst/Drama
Rating: Teen
Summary: To most, Tony Stark is a hero. To Tony Stark himself, he is nothing. This was written as a response to the Iron Man 3 Trailer. It also helps to have seen The Avengers, since one of the characters is mentioned.
A/N: Okay, despite all this, Tony is one of my absolute favorite characters, especially how RDJ portrays him, and he is one-hundred percent of a hero and all the other qualities listed below in my book. This just strangely came to me and I had to write it out.
Tony Stark's a hero.
Except Tony Stark's not a hero. He's a broken man, a man who's lost so much and endlessly fights not to lose more, for others not to lose what they cherish. He fights for Pepper and Rhodey, battles with them by his side, trusts them, takes them for granted without meaning to. He's desperate and he's slipping, and he doesn't know how much longer he can hold himself up above the surface. He's losing his mind, and he feels every painful moment of it.
Tony Stark's a fighter.
Only that Tony Stark's not a fighter. He slips up and falls and more often than not imagines that one day he won't be able to pick himself up again; he'll just lay there, silently screaming. They all stare at him expectantly, knowing he'll fight, that he'll always fight for those he loves and what he believes in, what he knows to be right and wrong. But he's getting tired, so so exhausted, and those expectant looks are slowly, slowly weighing him perilously down.
Tony Stark's a genius.
It's just that Tony Stark's not a genius. He can play around down in his lab with Bruce and figure up new formulas to already preexisting problems, or let the scientist poke around the schematics of his arc reactor to make it better, always better and stronger, more capable, but deep down inside he doesn't feel one of a kind anymore, and it isn't to do with Bruce Banner. He can't keep up with the times while preparing for the future, and he's terrified.
Tony Stark's a winner.
No one knows that he is, in fact, not a winner. He used to know how to play his cards, in any and every situation, and he remembers having that supreme confidence of always knowing what he's doing, even when he tells himself he truly doesn't. He's beginning to lose sight of what making it out on top means, of how much he can truly lose until he has nothing at all, until nothing but ash and the past slips between his fingers, abandoning him.
Tony Stark's isn't afraid of anything.
Though he is afraid of everything, so many things that he can't even make a list of them all, and the things that he is terrified of, the things that cause nightmares to taunt him, force him to scream out, feeling alone and abandoned and in a pain he knows must be phantom, all these things make it near impossible to breathe as he closes his eyes and holds onto something, anything, waiting in horror for the day that there will be nothing to hold on to. He is afraid of losing Pepper, of watching her breathe her last breath, of not being able to save her; he's afraid that his love for and need to protect her won't be enough. And more than anything he is afraid of falling and never stopping, an endless black nothingness, forever reliving the mistakes he has wrought upon the world and his friends.
He is incredibly afraid, and nothing in the world could ever take that away.
Tony Stark is none of the above, maybe someday he used to be all of these, used to show off and brag, hiding that insecure little boy inside. Now, he doesn't know who he is and he doesn't know if he ever will again. He is coming apart from the inside, at the seams, and it's happening too quickly for him to stitch himself back together or even know where to begin anymore.
Tony Stark is no hero.
And he best be prepared to lose it all.
FIN