"How oft when men are at the point of death have they been merry..."
It was dark. My eyes, sensitive from having been steeped in black for so long, searched desperately for the source of the pain, the destruction. My ears were ringing, my head was pounding and I ached everywhere. This was too much.
Where was I?
My body shifted and my eyes widened as I recognized the form against me. It was a pale weight in my arms but one that pulled heavily on my heart and it seemed my very soul knew what it was before my mind did. The censors finally caught a tiny fraction of light, bringing the monitor to life, and I looked down at the soft shape pressed against the iron of my chest. It was round and thin and familiar with dark lashes and freckles and... smears of blood...
Only then did my mind register the steady tone of the armor's life support systems. It was a shrill, ugly sound and at first I thought of my own life. On impulse, a metal hand moved to the core covering my implant but I realized it wasn't my heart the system was recording. It was…
"O my love... Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath…"
She was still. Too still. Her limbs were limp, her lungs were breathless and she was cold. I flinched. How could I be feeling her through the metal of the suit?
With that thought my senses shifted and it felt as if the armor encasing my body vanished. I was suddenly completely bare; I could feel everything, the cold air, her freezing skin, my own wounds, the hard ground biting into my knees. Then I felt more than heard a squish beneath my fingers and my stomach lurched. It was the blood, her blood…
"Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks…"
I gasped against a sob as I looked down at her exposed body. Even now she was beautiful. It looked like she was sleeping instead of...
No...
I crushed her to me in a desperate hug. It was all too much. What was happening?
In a rush of noise, a looming shadow appeared, leering down at me. I looked up to see the shadow morph and change until it was... Whiplash? No, now it looked like Stane, or was that... the Beekeepers? They moved and merged in and out as if they were all separate but of one. Fix, Modok, then Nafaria, the Controller, the Black Night, then the Mandarin, Zhang and finally, Gene.
Dark green eyes behind shaded lenses peered down, sneering, looking pleased, like he had won. Then they looked to the girl in my arms and Gene threw his head back and laughed. His lips did not move to the words but the sound was bitter and clear.
"This is for you, Stark. This is all because of you. You think you are so great, so smart, but you couldn't prevail, could you? Your ambition... your ambition... and you couldn't protect it. If it weren't for you... If it weren't for you..."
I shook my head. They had done this. They had hurt her! But it was true. They were all my enemies and they wouldn't have come for her if it hadn't been for me.
My heart nearly stopped in my chest; the guilt was almost crippling.
"O, what more favour can I do to thee, than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain to sunder his that was thine enemy?"
This pain was more than I could handle. Was this what it felt like to murder someone? Hot tears slipped down my face. It had to be because I had caused this, it was all my fault. I had murdered her. It was too much to bear. I looked to my empty hands. The armor was gone. I had nothing left to fight with, nothing to save her with, and without my armor, without my tech, I was completely useless.
And suddenly I wanted nothing more than to die myself.
This wasn't how it was supposed to be. She was gone.
"No," I breathed, breaking down. I was weak and useless and…
"Ah, dear Juliet... Here's to my love..."
"No... NO!"
"NO!"
With a mad jerk he shot up, flinging the open book that had been resting across his bare chest to the floor. It took a few moments for his vision to clear and he could finally make out the white moonlight sifting through the skylight above him. Instinctively his arms curled up, grasping for the body he had felt, but found only air.
Tony sat a long while in silence, simply breathing as the implant pulsed in a wild cadence. It had been a long time since his heart had been beating this hard and the electrical surge from the device was beginning to burn beneath the skin as his chest started to tighten…
Oh, no...
"Not again," he whispered into the darkness, curling up. He exhaled slowly, waiting for the instance to pass. The episode was acute but mercifully short and it soon eased, leaving a loose ache in it's wake. Trying desperately to ignore the discomfort, he slipped off the bed and picked up the thick volume that had been dumped to the floor. He turned it over and flattened out the crumpled pages before closing the cover, scanning over the elaborate script: The Complete Works of Shakespeare.
"A dream," he ran a hand through his damp hair. "It was... just a dream."
Tony exhaled again and finally the implant slowed but the adrenaline still kicked through his system, leaving him feeling jittery. His eyes flickered briefly to his open door and the blackened hall beyond it before moving back to the heavy book. It had been a dream but it felt so real.
The scenes began replaying in his mind, the destruction, the pain, the blood staining her pale face…
No. I have to stop thinking about it. I won't do this again. Just stop thinking about it.
Shrugging, he tucked the book beneath the bed, grabbed a pillow and settled into the sheets, intent on getting some sleep. Just stop thinking about it. He closed his eyes, trying to focus on the hum of the implant when one last quote slipped unbidden through his groggy mind.
"Good night, good night... parting is such sweet sorrow..."
- This is the first chapter in what will be a multi-chapter/multi-story fic. Despite the name, it will include adventure, romance and angst as well as, of course, humor (to the best of my dry-witted ability). I don't know how often updates will be made. I also plan to post chapters that have been completed (and stand alone well) as separate one-shots. They may be haphazardly posted and out of chronological order to this piece, but if you like them, keep an eye on this story and what will be its successors, as they will make reappearances in greater context.