Just some angst in the POV of Fem! Tony Stark.
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful woman living in New York.
Her name was Natasha Antoinette Stark.
She was Iron Woman, she was an Avenger. She was a genius, billionaire, player, philantrophist.
She lived in a tower, shadowing every building in New York. She had a personal A.I named Jarvis and the largest company in the world. She had three Nobel Prizes under her belt.
She ate only the finest of foods, drank only the finest of wines. She wore expensive jackets and Italian high heels. She carried a five-million dollar Hungarian leather-padded briefcase only because it looked nice. She had about twenty genuine Ming dynasty vases scattered around her home.
She had the government wrapped around her little finger. She had the highest-level technology the world was aware of. She had a titanium and vibranium superhero suit. She was smart enough to be able to find whatever nuclear codes she wanted. She had endless weapons in the storages.
She had a string of one-night-stands, and threesomes, and sex. She made out with whoever she wanted, whenever she wanted, because she liked it. She knew everyone who was someone.
She had connections, had eyes everywhere and ears everywhere else. She had everything there was to be had.
And yet she wasn't happy.
She didn't uderstand why. She knew she should have been satisfied.
She knew that something was wrong. Something was off.
She tried everything. New clothes, new security.
She met Captain America.
He was so different from her. She was snarky, spoiled, selfish. He was justified, perfect, kind.
And yet they became best friends.
She didn't know, couldn't know, what would happen.
Toni, he said one morning after coming back from his daily run, are we friends?
She spat her coffee back in her cup then, not knowing what he meant.
Of course, Steve! she cried. Are we not?
Yes, I know we are. he replied. I just wanted to know whether you thought so. But now I know!
And then he smiled a big smile, with sparkling shy crystal blue eyes, and perfectly messy blonde hair, and she felt her frozen, metal heart skip a beat.
She panicked. She wasn't supposed to be able to love. The sons and daughters of oh so wonderful Stark were made of iron. She wasn't supposed to be able to love.
She wasn't supposed to be able to love. She wasn't supposed to be able to love.
On and on, an endless cycle of fear and confusion. She pondered. She did research. She immersed herself in it.
She had a heart of steel. She had a chest of metal.
She wasn't supposed to be able to love.
On and in, an endless cycle of fear and confusion. On and on, until it drove her mad.
Now, people thought they understood her. She had saved the world countless times.
People took her or granted.
She couldn't break. They wouldn't let her. Because she was only human.
And humans, for they are ever so weak and fragile, will always have a breaking point.
And hers came.
depressionanxietyposttraumaticstressdisorderselfharminsomniaobsessivecompulsivedisorderalcoholismsuicidalthoughts
And so, my dear Reader, Natasha Antoinette Stark snapped.
When people saw her on the streets, they recoiled. For had she been as snarky, likeable, and funny as usual, they would have known.
It was like the flesh peeled off her bones, leaving only a skeleton, a shell, an empty, soulless husk of who used to be there.
She was now battle-scarred, hardened in the heat of the fortress she was constructed in. She no longer laughed or smiled.
And so the world understood what they had done.
They had killed her.