AN: This is a fic idea I got after reading the Mirror, a book by May Deitrick that I found on Amazon. The book is about a girl who is afflicted with a curse she received from her ancestor the Snow Queen. The curse gives her ice powers and is slowly turning her evil. It's a really good book and I got so many fic ideas after reading it. I already wrote a one shot about Steve having the curse and that's how he survived the ice. If people enjoy it enough, I might extend it into a longer story. I also have an idea about Peter having the curse, too, which is why he's so eager to become an Avenger because he wants to do good things before he succumbs to it. Anyway, let me know what you think of this story here and if you want to see more of it or read the other potential fics/extended fics.
Warning: language is used in this chapter. Cap would disaprove.
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing. The Mirror belongs to May Deitrick, The Avengers and Iron Man belong to Marvel and Disney.
It happened after a mission.
The Avengers were sent by Fury to go fight Doombots created by Doctor Doom. Together, they were able to defeat the bots despite how many of them there were. Tony's hacking of them certainly helped with their defeat.
The six of them were now back at the Tower they all lived in together. All of them were exhausted. Bruce had de-hulked, Steve, Nat, and Clint hit the showers to wash away the sweat from their multi-hour battle, and Thor was in the kitchen currently gorging himself on pop tarts.
Tony headed down to the workshop. He was alone.
He was currently tinkering with his suit, repairing some of the damage the Doombots had caused to it. Once he was finished with that he would go back to the upgrades he was working on for the rest of the team.
Tony thought it was sweat dripping down his face from the work like it did sometimes. It took the small drop of blood running down his cheek and landing on the table he was working on for him to finally notice that it was something far direr.
He stared at the droplet of crimson blood for a moment in numb horror before slowly lifting a hand to the corner of his eye. He ran his fingertips over the skin there and they came away stained red.
Blood was coming down from his left eye.
"Oh, fuck," Tony said.
He had gone all these years without it ever happening. He thought it never would. He even prayed it never would, and Tony never prayed. For so long, he'd been successful. Even when Loki attacked and Tony thought the stress of the battle and the PTSD he received from taking the nuke into space ailed him, even when he was kidnapped in Afghanistan and was sure it would finally trigger, that he would finally become the thing he feared, the thing his father had hated, it hadn't happened, it hadn't happened.
But now it finally had.
Tony made his way to the nearest mirror and looked into it. The blood had stained his cheek red and his normally brown eyes were a shade of ice blue. He blinked a few times, willing them to revert to normal, and thankfully they did.
But he didn't. He never would. It was impossible.
The curse had finally triggered.
On his father's side of the family, Tony's bloodline was ailed by a curse that resurfaced every now and then in a descendent. The curse had skipped Howard but it had presented itself in Tony. Even before it triggered, they knew it was there. Because he didn't cry. He couldn't. No one with the curse was capable of crying real tears—only dry sobs and streams of blood after it triggered. Tony had never cried, something his father would have normally valued because "Stark men were made of iron" according to him, but he had seen it differently since Tony didn't choose not to cry, he was incapable of it.
That meant he was destined to be a monster.
The curse was passed down through their bloodline by their ancient ancestor the Snow Queen, whom everyone thought was just a fairy tale villain Hans Christian Anderson came up with. They were wrong, though. The Snow Queen was real. Her curse started when a mirror known as the troll mirror created by the devil fell from the heavens and the shards pierced her eyes and heart. The mirror afflicted her with ice powers and a cold heart. All of her descendants had the chance to inherit the curse. And anyone who had it inevitably turned evil.
The cursed were monsters.
Tony had been one of the unlucky ones to receive it. He just thought he could keep it from ever triggering. He thought that maybe if he pushed everyone away—not only so he couldn't hurt them, but also so they couldn't hurt him and perhaps cause it to trigger—that he might be able to avoid the curse and die before it could take him.
He'd held out this long, a very long time all things considered, but now it was finally here and all because of some Doombots.
Dr. Doom, I hate you.
Tony took in a deep breath. He wasn't sure what he was going to do now. The curse had finally triggered. There was no escaping it now, not unless he somehow died before he could succumb.
He wondered if the Avengers would miss him after he either succumbed and left or died. After all, with the exception of Bruce, he seemed to annoy them all a lot. He also wondered how long it would take him to succumb.
How about never, Tony thought to himself. Sorry, curse, but it's not happening today. I'm putting you on hold.
With a smile at that thought, Tony went back to working on his suit. Perhaps, if he just ignored the curse it would never be able to take him.
How wrong he was.
AN: Well, please review and let me know what you think. If you're interested in more, I will gladly write more. Since it's summer, I have a lot more time to be writing stories and writing fanfiction is oftentimes a nice break from trying to write actual novels, so I would gladly continue this if anyone is interested.