*Author's Note* Just a quick note, here, guys. I would just like to say that I enjoyed writing this piece as it allowed me to combine two of my favorite movies/comics. Also, all feedback, critiques, and constructive criticism are more than welcome and appreciated. My aim is to get better, and any feedback I can get will go a long way to helping me in my future works. Thank you, and enjoy! ~Onyx~
"...I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero-accountability."
Every night and every dream were the same. The repetitive, torturous scenes rolled through his mind like a black and white newsreel from a time lost long ago. The voices spoke in scratchy tones, further reminding him of his regrets.
"...You know, I've never had the chance to get to know my dad…"
The thunder rolled across the sinister clouds that invaded the night sky. Lightning sizzled and popped, sending icy-white flashes across the sweat-soaked bed sheets that were kicked to the floor in anguish.
"...If we can't accept limitations, we're boundaryless… we're no better than the bad guys."
"We need to be put in check!"
The moisture that glistened on his brow was thick, and saturated the lavish pillow on which his head lay; not to rest, but to relive the past. A past in which he would love nothing more than to be rid of. Imagine, the idealistic future of not having to remember the horrors that come back to haunt him every night, robbing him of his slumber and his sanity—what a world that would be. He constantly told himself that words are wind; and just like the wind, they couldn't hurt him...but it wasn't the words that were spoken in his dreams that caused him pain, it never was. The catalyst to his suffering was the look on his once best friend's face. That God-forsaken look. He would have gouged his eyes out of their sockets if it meant never having to see that face again. Unfortunately, however, and he knew it as well, the face that floated about in the darkest depths of his nightmares, solemnly looking back at him, would remain, and continue to haunt him until his final breath.
His body was broken, beaten, and torn. He lay there, now, as a shattered shell of his former self. The blood trickled down the side of his face and into the dark facial hair that covered his jaw. The blood, the sweat...no, not tears, that is one thing he would not give them; not now, not ever. The pain seared through his limbs as he crawled along the cracked concrete. He grimaced as he lifted his head to look at the man he used to call his best friend, and said:
"That shield doesn't belong to you. You don't deserve it! My father made that shield!"
He closed his eyes tight, trying to avoid the sight, but when he opened them, he was still trapped in the wake of his dream. Now, he was standing at the podium, the microphone perfectly placed at just the right distance from his mouth so that all of the ears in the room—who hung on every word—could hear with flawless clarity to what he was about to say. A creeping feeling of dread swept over him as he opened his mouth to speak:
"The truth is...I am Iron Man." But he wasn't bombarded with hundreds of questions or camera flashes after his proclamation, instead, in place of the people in the crowd, were charred skeletal remains. His chocolate amber eyes scanned the desolate room, observing one rotted face after the other, while the aroma of burned flesh and hair crept into his nostrils. The room had transformed from a comfortable conference center to an utterly destroyed barren wasteland. The walls crumbled into tiny pieces as the smoke continued to rise up from the ashes that surrounded him. Tony Stark stood at the scorched podium in his full Mark 45 suit, with the exception of his helmet. But he wasn't alone...he never was.
"Look at what you've done, Tony. How could you?" It was a voice he knew all too well. It was a voice he missed dearly. His eyes watched the only woman he had ever loved—and who would ever love him—stand in the middle Hell. The flames lapped hungrily at her legs, quickly burning away her skin, exposing the black bone beneath. The white gown she wore bore dark blood spots that were ever expanding until it transformed the color of the fabric from a soft snow white to a devilish crimson red.
"Pepper...I never meant to hurt anyone. I was trying to protect them. I was trying to save them, don't you see?" Tony pleaded as he watched her die. Her face began to melt away as if it were a porcelain doll in a firestorm. It bubbled and cracked, and eventually slid off of her skull; the blood, ligaments, and muscles lay bare for him to see.
"But you didn't! All you did was make things worse! That's all you have ever done, and that's all you will ever do! I've tried, Tony, but I'm not going to stand by your side and watch you burn the world down." Pepper began to sink into the floor, slowly disappearing from sight.
"Pepper! I'm coming! I'll save you!" He tried to ignite the fiery flames of his boosters, but his feet were planted on the floor like roots of a 100-year-old oak tree.
"No, Tony. You won't."
"Pepper!" Only his words were lost. He did everything in his power to reach her. His screams died away to nothing. Unbidden tears began to roll down his face, cutting their way through the dirt and grime that covered it.
"Goodbye, Tony. The world will know peace one day...The day they carve your name on a tombstone…"
Tony Stark shot up to a sitting position in his bed. He was as stiff as an ironing board, his muscles tensed and locked, preventing him from moving. His lungs heaved and collapsed until his breath came back to him. The miniaturized arc reactor embedded in his chest lit up the room in a twinkling twilight of deep sky blue. Once the realization set in that he was safe and sound, the crushing feeling of suffocating subsided. The world was just as it was; everything was fine. Tony looked around the room, telling himself over and over again that it was all just a bad dream. His bedroom was encased in glass; completely surrounded by windows that overlooked Gramercy Park, which he now called home. The rain came down in droves, assaulting and pounding against the panes with a ferocious tenacity, but it didn't bother Tony. Truth be told, this was his favorite type of weather, and it helped him to calm him down. He swung his bare legs out of the bed, but quickly retracted them when his feet hit the freezing temperature of the tiled floor.
"Jesus! Monday!" he yelped.
"Was there something you needed, sir? And my name is Friday, remember?" The tranquil tone of Friday's artificial voice helped to further soothe his nerves; another reminder that he was back in the land of the living.
"Don't talk back to me. I created you, I can destroy you just as easily," he said as he puffed a breath of air. "Why is the floor so damn cold?"
"I…"
"You, what? You forgot? You have a hard time recalling the temperature that I want the floor set at? Do you mean to tell me that after all of the programming and after all of the hours I've spent pouring into your hardware, that you have a difficult time remembering that I want an 85℉ floor? Is that what you were going to say?"
"Sir, I was merely going to say that you don't have the floor temperature programmed to activate until 05:00. What's more, you have a deactivation time of 22:00."
"Listen, I don't need you to tell me what I did or didn't program. Understand? Do you know who I am? I am one of the most technologically inclined humans to ever walk the face of the Earth. I don't need a program that I created telling me that the floor isn't set to heat up until a certain time. Is that clear?"
"I understand, sir. Shall I activate the heating coils to the desired setting?"
Sighing heavily, he replied, "No. I want to walk around on a sheet of ice until I get frostbite and my toes fall off. That would be good, don't you think?" Tony could have shaved with the edge that was in his voice.
"Very good, sir. I shall take care of that right away."
"Oh, and Monday—"
"Friday…"
"If you aren't consuming all of your energy by completing this simple task, turn on my radio and play 'Sweet Dreams,' " Tony demanded.
"As you wish." A little blip rang out through the empty apartment and the song he requested began to play through dozens of hidden speakers.
"What the…? Stop, stop, stop!" The music cut out abruptly. "What in the Hell is that crap?!" He was finally able to stand, now that the floor tiles weren't so cold.
Almost with an audible sigh, Friday said, "It's as you requested, sir. 'Sweet Dreams' by the Eurythmics. The album 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These),' was originally released in 1983—" but she was interrupted by an irate Tony Stark.
"I don't want to hear that shit! Play the good version of that song. The Manson version. And don't make me ask again." By the time the opening riff of the cover by Marilyn Manson began, Tony was standing in front of one of the many windows, his eyes following the trail that the raindrops were leaving behind. "Louder…" The volume increased and it almost, almost, brought a little smile to his lips. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought that he was a statue since he was standing so rigid and still. He let the lyrics and the attitude of the song drift and swirl within the tendrils that curled and spiraled in his mind, trying to lose himself in the melodic tones of the darker side of "Sweet Dreams." It was short-lived, however, for, at that moment, the electronic chime of the doorbell rang in his ears.
"Monday!" he screamed.
"Friday…"
"Why didn't you notify me that someone was approaching? What is this? Amateur hour?"
"My sensors didn't—" but she was rudely overshadowed by Tony's fury.
"Oh, your sensors didn't register that there was someone approaching my 24.5 million dollar door? You might want to shut yourself down and give yourself a diagnostics test. Maybe something is faulty with your wiring."
"If there is anything wrong with my wiring, sir, you only have yourself to blame."
"Hey! What did I say about talking back to me?!" Tony pushed himself away from the windows and moved a little deeper into his apartment where the empty walls and floor comprised his living room. "Now, shut up, and get ready to go to work!"
Angrily, he waved his arms in the air, and several things happened, simultaneously. First, the music cut out, again. Second, a rather large section of the floor's tiles began to shift and shuffle themselves around like playing cards. Third, once there was a gap large enough, pieces of his Iron Man suit began to fly up through the vacant space and attach themselves to his appendages. The final piece was, of course, his helmet. The clinking and clanking of metal, the high pitched whine of the motor sang its song as the interlocking mechanism clamped down tight. His heads up display came to life and immediately enhanced the abysmal lighting of the room. Everything took on a sharper, more vivid contrast than his poor eyes ever could have hoped to achieve on their own. The robotic noises of his movements projected themselves quite loudly as he walked through the apartment and to the door. With each heavy step, the tile beneath his feet cracked and splintered.
"Show me the feed from the camera above the door. And try not to take up my whole field of vision, please. I'm getting tired of replacing the lamp in the hallway." Tony stood still and looked to the top right corner of his HUD. The image was grainy, to be polite. Snow fuzzies and blurred lines jumped and distorted the image of the silhouette standing at his front door. "That looks dreadful. Absolutely terrible. Where did you get that surveillance system? Radioshack?"
"Radio-what?" replied Friday.
"Never mind, forget it, moving on. Clean that up, zoom in on the face, and let's see who's lurking in the shadows." He waited patiently, all of about three seconds before he lashed out at Friday, once again. "Damn it! Do you not hear me?! Fix it!"
"I tried, sir, but the image rendering software I have has already tried to produce a clearer picture. It's almost like—" interrupted, again.
"Forget it! I'm Iron Man. I don't need to know what dangers are hiding out there...I am the danger." He stepped forward with clunky metal strides through the rest of the hallway until he came to the door. Without warning, his hand clasped the brass doorknob, and with little effort, he yanked backward, completely severing the door from its hinges. Splinters of the frame sprinkled down over him as the dust settled on his shoulders. After the debris had settled, what the brilliant beam of light from his chest piece had to show him brought on vertigo-like symptoms of feeling woozy and lightheaded. The hallway was empty. All but for one item:
It was the shield that belonged to somebody that he used to know, somebody that he would have gladly laid his life down for, somebody that he used to call his friend. It was Steven Rogers' shield. Captain America's shield...and it was broken in half.
Tony removed his helmet completely, tossing it further back into his apartment. Still in the rest of his suit, he stepped out into the illuminated corridor. His hulking iron frame loomed over the shattered metal of the shield, and the rushing sensation of the pit of his stomach fell away to nothing as he tasted the bile in the back of his throat. It wasn't the simple fact that the impenetrable shield was in two separate pieces, what gave Tony pause, and the feeling to wretch, was something else. Another cause stirred these emotions within him. It was the red...that's what it was. The color that was normally bold and exuberant was stained and tainted. Then it dawned on him, and he felt the ice begin to form in his veins: it was blood.
"See? What did I tell you? I knew you wouldn't have the stomach for it." The voice came from inside the destroyed door. Interestingly enough, it barely phased Tony. As if he were nurturing an infant, he bent down and picked up the two fragments of Captain America's shield. Holding them out in front of him, his eyes were busy inspecting the blood spots and the jagged edge of where it was split.
"God damn it, Pool! What is the meaning of this?!" Tony Stark's strong jaw clenched tightly as he spun around and stomped back into his home.
The long hallway opened up into the now ruined living room where the big gaping hole sat. Only this time, it wasn't empty. Tony came upon a tall figure in a red and black suit. The skin tight mesh hugged the contours of his body, exemplifying what a perfectly physically fit specimen should look like. The mask that hid his hideous face was completely red, all but for the black diamonds over the eyes and the white slits that hid his pupils. Standing in the living room, he held Tony's helmet in his hands, while rubbing it quite vigorously on his crotch.
"I thought we had a verbal contract." Deadpool leaned his head back and let out a ghastly shriek. "Ohh! Fuck!" He continued to cry out in pleasure as he faked a very intense, very real sounding orgasm. His body shook all over during the climax of his "fellatio" session. Once it was over, he held the mask out in front of him. "I gotta say, he gives GREAT helmet." Quickly tossing the helmet back to Tony, Deadpool plopped himself down on the floor, sitting "Indian style" with one leg crossed over the other, like a kindergartner.
"Are you totally insane? What the Hell have you done?!" With Tony's hands full of the broken shield, the helmet to the Iron Man suit bounced off of him and rattled across the tiles.
"I prefer the phrase, 'mentally phenomenal,' but hey, that's just me." He smirked under his mask. "And I'll have you know that there are plenty of people out there who would KILL, absolutely KILL, to have ME, 'Deadpool: The Merc with a Mouth' sitting in their living room." Placing his hands on his knees like an old tribal chief, he tilted his head to the side in a playful manner. "Now, I believe you owe me some green. And not that funny stuff you inhale to make your sex life better. I'm talking bills. Mula. Cheese. Dead presidents—" If Wade Wilson was ever unsure about just how fast Tony Stark could move in his Iron Man suit, all doubt was erased from his mind today. Tony closed the gap between himself and Deadpool in a second. The mighty force of his metal glove ensnared the neck of the annoying merc.
"Shut up, Wade! Shut the Hell up right now or so help me God I'll rip your pimply head right off of your shoulders!" Stark lifted him up from his sitting position and held him in the air, leaving Deadpool's feet dangling a foot above the floor.
"W-wa-wait…" Deadpool choked out. "Al-all I di-did wa-was what y-yooo told mmm-meee to dooo."
"Bullshit!"
"It-it's not! Sss-sstopp ch-choking mmeeee!"
"Give me one good reason. Just one good reason why I shouldn't crush your windpipe and throw your dead body out of my window."
"B-bb-cause...I...l-luuuvv u...bro!" He winked at Tony to the best of his ability.
He continued to hold him there, contemplating the consequences of actually hurling Wade out of his window. "Why did I ever allow myself to get mixed up with you in the first place?" Tony let go of the cold-blooded merc's throat and watched him crash to the floor. Deadpool rolled onto his knees and started coughing and hacking; he sounded more like an 80-year-old granny with black lung from smoking for 65 years than an invincible being. He lifted his mask enough so that he could spit a wad of bloody mucus on the floor.
"Thanks a lot, asshole. What did I ever do to you in order to warrant such barbaric behavior? And to answer your question, it was because I'm more fun than a barrel of monkeys!" He wiped the dust off of his suit as he slowly stood back up. Pool watched Tony Stark walk away and back to the busted shield. Only this time, Stark didn't pick it up. He just stood over it, staring straight down.
"I say again, Tony, you owe me for that."
Tony stood silent for what seemed like an eternity before he finally said: "What have you done, Wade?"
"Look, dude. I did EXACTLY what you told me to do. You said," he imitated Tony Stark to the best of his ability. He put his hand comfortably on his chest, just under his chin, and as he cleared his throat, Deadpool said, " 'I guess we've all been fooled by the great Captain America! He has no honor, no integrity, and the only thing he cares about is his own vanity. Well, you know what Pool Boy? I think the world would be a better place if Captain America wasn't around anymore to pollute the air with his hollow promises of wanting what's best for humanity. And do you want to know something else? Maybe a world without Captain America is what's best for humanity.' " After his little presentation, Deadpool crossed his arms over his chest in a childish demeanor of, "I told you so."
"W…" Tony could barely speak. His mouth hung open in utter disbelief as he turned to face Deadpool. "You can't possibly be serious, Wade. I was drunk when I said that, and how the Hell do you interpret 'A world without Captain America' as 'Ok, Deadpool. I will give you a large sum of money to go and kill him.'? How? How does your feeble mind make that connection?!"
"Feeble?" Deadpool's eyes squinted as he snarled. "Do I look like a cute, adorable, fuzzy little creature that can't speak English?"
"What the Hell…?" Then he realized. "No, idiot! Feeble not Furby!" The red in Tony's cheeks was starting to become more prominent as his anger began to rise. "Unbelievable. How have you been able to survive this long? You should be dead in a gutter somewhere."
"Hmm, you know something, Tony? I think you're absolutely right. I should be dead in a gutter somewhere. But the thing is, I can't die. So, you know, being dead in a gutter somewhere, or anywhere for that matter, wouldn't really work out for me. Now," Deadpool took a step towards Iron Man, "you, on the other hand, are very much capable of dying. And if you don't pay up—" he left the sentence unfinished.
"You'll what?" Tony's eyes darkened and his fists clenched.
"Well, you and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood were butt-buddies, right? Always be there for each other to the end? No matter what? Blah, blah, blah. Right? Suffice it to say that you'll have the chance to experience your final moments in the exact same way that your boyfriend experienced his."
That was the last straw. Tony lashed out with a heavy swing from his gloved right hand, with all of the force and power his suit could muster, aimed directly at Deadpool's chest. Fortunately for Deadpool, he had been anticipating Tony's reaction, and if he wasn't as quick as a flash, Wade would have been knocked into next week. Probably a Sunday. And Deadpool hated Sundays. Therefore, since he was expecting Stark's outburst of violence, Tony's blow hit nothing but the air where Deadpool had been standing.
"Hey! Don't get pissed at me, man. I'm not the one who put the hit out on his best friend." Pool did a springboard leap after he dodged the attack. He landed behind Tony and near the remnants of Cap's shield. "You are the one who wanted him dead, not me. I was just trying to be a good friend to you, Stark. But, hey, if you don't want my companionship, then, that's fine. I hear there is a guy who can crawl up walls and shit around here. I'll go look him up and see if he's in the market for a friend."
"Enough! Enough, Wade! I cannot stand here and listen to your fucking mouth one more second longer! Just shut the fuck up!" Iron Man turned around and took a few steps forward to stand in front of the broken shield, which he then bent down to pick up. One-half was in his hands, the other was still on the floor. "Look at what you've done, Wade."
"Look at what you've done, Tony." His mind quickly sank back into the drowning pool of his nightmare. "Look at what you've done…"
"What I've done? Let's revisit that, shall we?"
"I never said I wanted him dead!"
"You said it would be better if he wasn't around anymore. Well, guess what, mutton chops. Not being around anymore equals dead. Get it? Now, as you can see, I am not a hospital, so I am completely out of patience. Give me my fucking money so I can go home. Maude comes on at 8."
"I'm not giving you a damn thing, Pool." Tony's voice sounded defeated. It was devoid of any emotion. All of his rage had drained out of him at the very thought of Pepper's words. Was everything his fault? On the surface, his words didn't say, "Kill Captain America," but deep down, was that the subtext? "Kill Captain America."? No. Never. No matter what. Even though Steve had been lying to him all of these years and all of this time, he would never want him dead. So what if he wouldn't sign the Sokovia Accords? That doesn't justify wanting him dead, let alone the actual act of killing him...does it?
"So...you're not going to pay me?"
"No," Tony replied in a melancholy voice. He gently ran his metal fingers over the broken shield, his eyes kept coming back to the blood stains. Suddenly, he felt a great sorrowfulness begin to overtake him. Tony Stark could feel the tears swell and bubble behind his eyes. Was this really happening? Could this all be part of some demonic nightmare that was all too real? He could only hope and pray that it was. Sadly, this was his reality, and he knew there existed not a way of escaping it.
A deep sigh came from Deadpool's lips as he shook his head. "That's a damn shame, Tony. Because I really didn't want to kill you, but now I have to." Deadpool stomped down on the other half of the shield that was on the floor. It jumped and flipped up like a skateboard into his waiting hands. "Look, ma! I'm just like Tony Hawk!" He spun the metal shield around so that the jagged edge faced outward. Deadpool leaped high into the air, and with a likeness to Michael Jordan that was uncanny, he slammed the barbed, broken shield into the soft, exposed flesh of Tony Stark's neck for the ultimate slam dunk.
The serrated steel pierced all the way down to Stark's collar bone. Arteries and blood vessels popped and exploded, the red spray fountained out of his neck like a sprinkler, covering Deadpool in the tangy, metallic liquid. Iron Man dropped heavily to his knees, his hands sprawled out on the floor in front of him. He gasped and gurgled until he was no longer able to keep himself upright. So, he plunged face-first into the pool of his own blood that now decorated the tiles. Tony Stark's life's fluid leaked from his mouth and ran down his chin. The bleeding out process only lasted for another minute, then it was followed by his vision darkening and finally fading to black as his last breath passed through his lips.
"Two down—" Deadpool pulled out a crinkled piece of paper that had several names of superheroes scrawled on it. The name listed at number one was already crossed out. With a broken, red crayon he produced from one of his pouches, he crossed out the name at number two.
On his way out, he gave one last backward glance at the busted remains of Captain America's shield and the half that was lodged in Tony's neck. For a fleeting moment, he felt a little wrinkle of remorse, but as quickly as it came, it had gone. And with Tony Stark's body now lifeless on the floor in his Iron Man suit, Deadpool turned down the hallway and exited by way of the deceased's 24.5 million dollar door.