My world has changed more in the last few days than it ever has before. Of course there have been alien invasions and attacks before. Apart from the one in New York, there was the trouble with Stane and then Hammer, not to mention making friends with the Avengers. Usually the attacks and the aliens focused on Tony Stark, I was just standing in the background and keeping the company together, it's been me mopping up his wounds and cleaning up the messes when he comes home. This time was different, this time the nightmares came after me.
I can't sleep. I can't eat. Nothing's been the same since Extremis and "I can't protect the one thing I can't live without."
Before I set it on fire.
Tony said those words to me so flippantly, as if they were just a statement of fact. He can't live without me. It's probably true, he doesn't remember his social security number or his own phone number, nor can he cook or clean but to me, it meant more than I love you. He's said I love you to a lot of things, his whiskey, his bots, JARVIS, the car; I could keep going with the list of inanimate objects that Mr Stark loves. I've never wanted to be another object, another thing he just 'has', but his declaration to me was the thing keeping me strong whilst I was strapped down waiting for him to save my life.
He's never realised it's exactly the same for me. I need him just as much as he needs me. Without Tony Stark and everything he's done for me, I would still be just another office girl like I was before he met me. True, I can look after myself, a multi-billion dollar company and two cats, but emotionally there is nobody else who can make me feel that way. I've had boyfriends, girlfriends, been engaged a couple of times and made more mistakes with my relationships that Tony has, but every time it's all come back to the same thing, I am in love with my boss.
I need him just as much as he needs me, and there's nothing that can change that.
Unless this thing I'm full of really does take over. Tony thinks I'm okay, he thinks he's gotten rid of the virus and I'm back to being his honey. I daren't tell him it didn't work. I can feel the stuff inside me, it's like fire constantly waiting inside my body, ready to burst the moment that someone gets too close or tries to touch me. My temper seems to have a lot to do with how well I can control it, when the smallest thing frustrates me, my skin starts to burn the colours of fire, but I can't feel it. I can't really feel anything.
I'm going to have to work out how to control it. I don't want to become one of the things that my boyfriend wakes up screaming about in his sleep. Tony is still having nightmares, but so am I. He wakes up shaking and shouting for me, but it's not as bad as it used to be. At least now he doesn't summon the armour in his sleep anymore, since he destroyed it all whilst holding me in his arms. That moment was so perfect; I was safe for the very first time. He makes me feel safe; even though I do nothing but worry about him, it does make me even crazier about him.
I wish I could sleep without dreaming of that night. Burning flesh and metal and me. I don't even really remember what I was doing. I just remember the sound of metal on what was once flesh, and the weight of the thing in my hands, suddenly replaced by the cold metal of the Ironman armour.
I can see why Tony needs that stuff. The sudden rush of power it gives you, and the feeling of being protected by something so strong. Now I understand what's addictive about being a superhero. I should really get myself one.
Or I should talk Tony back into building one to keep himself safe from what I've become.
I'm the creature from his nightmare. And I don't know how to stop it.
I don't think I can.
{{Extract from The Diary of Virginia Potts. January 2014}}