This is a story challenge given to me by Amber Silverwood, as a thank you gift for being such an avid fan.
Although intended to be one massive one shot, this story has been broken into two parts, mostly because it became lengthy.
The title Acromechphilian is not a real word, it is based on the real mental disorder in the BIID category, named Apotemnophilia, in which individuals express intense desire to become an amputee sometimes resorting to self harm to the degree in which amputation is necessary. This is a real disorder, and should be known.
Tony remembers screaming, he doesn't remember much of that night but he does remember the awful wails of horror and disgust.
Tony remembers the pain- the deep rooted fast spreading pain which seared and burned his skin; it filled the air with the acrid stench of melting flesh and burning bone.
He remembers waking in a hospital, not yet grasping the consequences of his actions. The lights were too bright, the room smelled of disinfectant and the sheets weren't Egyptian cotton. His mother had talked to him, bawling out not cohesive sentences and petting his arm like he was a dog. His father never showed up- apparently he had to recreate the white phosphorus canister after Tony had spilled it.
Tony remembers being wheeled to the black limo staring at what once was his leg. He doesn't remember missing it.
Tony was homeschooled, kept away from the eyes of the media and out of the records of public education. He preferred it that way anyhow, the many tutors were more qualified and able to keep pace with his rapidly advancing grasp on chemistry and biology. Physics and algebra were as simple as breathing, computer programming fell from his fingertips like words from his mouth.
He was eleven when he finally realized that something was wrong. Something was wrong with him.
Which was a stupid revelation considering he was missing the lower portion of his left leg, instead fitted with a plastic shelled prosthesis too mass produced for his own taste.
He hated the stump, the rounded nub of overly sensitized flesh which ached and stung more often than not. The prosthesis though, there was something inherently right with how his pasty white knee and leg ended sharply before resuming in white Teflon. There was something mesmerizing with how the plastic shell swooped in a pathetic mimicry of a calf, locking into a state of the art mechanical ankle and the spread claw appendages that were now his toes. They looked bird like, the mechanical heel arching back like the heel of a wolf, the white Teflon giving way to dark steel and miniature hydraulics.
'Stark Men are made of Iron,' His father had always said, when he still occasionally gave Tony second looks or a curt nod of approval.
His father always did like machines more than Tony.
Maybe now that Tony was one, Howard would notice him.
When Tony was attending MIT, clad in denim jeans and high ankle boots, his leg started to flare up.
The pain from the pressure would ache and burn, throbbing deep through his bones all the way to his hip. His back would tense, contracting his shoulders until he was a walking mess of pain and agitation. He developed a slight limp, barely noticeable and easily disguised as someone having gotten lucky the night before.
Tony had his own room for MIT, well, as private as one could be. He had a roommate, although the bedrooms were separated by a large common area MIT didn't offer other students. It was partially due to Tony's age, nearing fifteen, also due to the enormous stacks of money Howard had thrust at the president of MIT to secure an individual room.
Tony was thankful, it let him remove his leg and massage the inflamed red skin of his stump. There had to be a better way- the broken sawed off edges of his Tibia and Fibula weren't designed to bare that amount of weight directly on the bone.
His mind started whirring, fingers scrambling with a sharpie and a wax crayon. Calculations for physics and limb rotation ran through his skull at a faster pace than he could comprehend.
Was his Fibula really that necessary? The bone existed as support to the ankle and lower leg muscles- both of which were missing. It did protect his leg from external injuries- but if he removed his Fibula and replaced it with a metal rod, it could connect directly to his knee and bypass his lower leg entirely. A permanent built in biological crutch.
The idea was flawless, absolutely perfect with one glaring hole which didn't seem that glaring to Tony.
The remaining muscle of his lower leg would wither away if he didn't use it or put stress on it. Everything below his knee would weaken if he bypassed it completely with metal rods and titanium alloy. It would degenerate, shrivel until the bones would be as fragile as balsa wood.
Tony felt himself smile at the thought, inexplicable glee bubbled under his skin and a nearly hysterical laugh sprouted from his lungs. Tony wouldn't be wrong- it had always felt wrong. His leg, his body- everything about it wasn't how it should be. He had clawed at his leg once he was released from the hospital, broken nails raking over and tearing the bloody gauze and skin grafts. His mother shushed him, a hopeless character ravaged by grief and disgust at her own child.
Tony had torn and hacked at the limb, not because he was sickened by his missing appendage, but because it should go higher. Tony had always known, that if he peeled back the layers of his skin and muscle he should see rods of titanium and waterproofed wires running along his bones and tendons. He should see white grease and transmission fluid bleeding out with his blood-
The problem that his leg would atrophy with a new implant wasn't a problem at all. It was a solution.
Tony wanted to feel cogs and gears tick though his joints in synchrony to his heart.
Tony graduated MIT at seventeen and for a brief moment, the premade plans for amputation slipped from his mind with the bustling activity of DUMM-E and Butterfingers. Jarvis was created, a rudimentary AI with basic features barely more evolved than what the government had. His new degree and savant level understanding of machines and codes kept him amused and busy once graduating. With the freedom of no classes or dissertations to write, he could finally explore and experiment in the comfort of his own home. He bought property in Malibu, remote and overlooking the ocean while perched on a high cliff. The house needed extensive work, but it gave him the opportunity to move.
Tony discovered he loved the sound of cold metal over granite flooring. The shock absorbers of his leg nearly canceled the searing ache of his nub.
Right as he started to jump into the plans and blueprints made years before, Maria and Howard Stark died.
Tony was 21.
Tony proceeded to get very drunk.
Obadiah knew, waltzing into Tony's home where the now head of Stark Industries was sleeping on top of a grand piano covered in a pizza box wearing a prosthetic with a foot resembling a sickle.
At least the mechanically engineered silicone skin produced nearly a decade earlier finally made sense.
Tony was twenty-four when he finally had the surgery to remove the limb below his knee and replace it with metal. His nerves were carefully wound, removed from the muscle he had left and coiled near his knee to attach to the prosthetic once the wound healed enough. Tony was expected to be out for nearly a year, an entire year wheelchair bound when the world thought he was constantly jumping out of barely-legal teenage bedrooms.
So obviously, Tony and Obadiah ran the cover story that he was doing exactly that.
Completely healed and functioning better than ever, Tony was finally content. His left leg functioned and moved even faster than his right, finally having connected the mechanical parts and the computer to the carefully coiled nerves in his knee. The silicone skin was improved further, gently sandblasted with garnet and painted with exotic oil washes to achieve a look more human than his actual flesh and blood. He bled, having filled the prosthetic one messy day with a fluid similar to blood but shipped to him in blocks like Velveeta. He swore off instant Mac and Cheese after that particular fiasco.
Tony built guns, he built bombs. He designed tanks and airplanes, stealth jets and grenades. The best part, was that he was really good at it.
He had spent the better part of his life combining mechanical engineering with biology and human anatomy, he knew how to fix it so he damn well knew how to destroy it.
Flash Bang grenades- that was something fascinating. Repeated exposure to loud gunfire or flash bangs resulted in tinnitus or hearing loss. Hearing damage that could only be cured by bypassing the ear itself and by training the brain to respond to different stimulus all together.
Cochlear ear implants, a mechanical marvel that would be inserted just behind the ear and wire all the way to the brain. It transferred stimuli from the deaf into what they then learned to process as sound.
Tony wasn't deaf, his hearing was fine even through repeated exposure to heavy bass and Guns N' Roses sweet crooning.
Yet something under his skin buzzed and tingled; itched in that single way which drove you insane since you couldn't find the source.
'Get it, get it, get it,' his mind murmured, thinking and sending neural impulses along axons and across terminals like wires and circuit boards. That was all the brain was- all the body was. Electricity and impulses and coding after coding-
He was hyper aware of the crown on one of his back molars. An incident chewing a pit filled olive cracked the tooth, giving him a shiny chrome cap far enough back he rarely noticed it. He had a small pin, as thin as a needle running along his right pinky finger from where he had cracked it in MIT.
Through the haze and hyper vigilance of every bolt and screw in his body- every tingle of nerves to Teflon to plastic and iron, Tony wondered if there was a way to encase his heart with titanium or gold.
How it would shine.
Jarvis was glorious, his coding was as beautiful as a diamond and the closest thing Tony would ever consider to getting engaged. Jarvis had a British accent, full control of all rooms and security settings of every house. He could hack into mainframes, check tax returns and best of all, learn.
Tony almost laughed when his AI gave the closest thing to a panic attack when Tony tore his leg right off.
He had finished the design, perfected his leg to a degree where removal of the prosthesis was more tedious than it was worth. Small silicone vents would open to air out the nub of his kneecap- long metal rods protruding from his body like a turkey's leg for thanksgiving. The synthetic liquid Velveeta-blood oozed out like pureed jelly, staining the concrete with its unique formula of metal conditioner and scarab beetle dye.
Jarvis was built by Tony, yet he didn't quite grasp the devotion to mechanisms. The AI didn't comprehend the fixation, the obsession.
Tony told Jarvis to research everything the possibly could about Cochlear implants.
His loyal AI did exactly that, and if he hesitated slightly with pulling up a list of possible surgeons, well, it was a minor coding glitch.
Tony searched for the best surgeon money could buy. Which, considering his wealth, was a rather extensive list.
There were a few surgeons spread across the globe, a half dozen in the UK which looked qualified, an army doctor who specialized in Cochlear implants, and one neurosurgeon in New York who had a perfect record. A literal perfect record.
Tony called the guy immediately over a face link. Turned out he was an arrogant rich genius who looked funny just to top it off. At least he had a nice watch.
Tony contacted the next doctor, the very very experienced army doctor who performed these types of surgeries weekly. With enough money and the right people looking the wrong way, Tony had the man flying out in two days' time.
He had the worst migraine.
A painful searing which burned his retinas with the faintest speck of light. His ears were throbbing loudly, each echoing with the hollow sound of blood pulsing through and his heartbeat in his throat.
He felt a disorienting rattle in his skull, like something buzzing in his brain just between his temple and the nape of his neck.
He grinned breathlessly in the dark that Jarvis provided.
Although it hurt, it meant that it had worked.
Hearing above and below the range of human hearing seemed entirely useless to a normal person.
Extending hearing down into the infrasound region, the air was filled with gurgling groans of the wind, water, traffic, underground plumbing, machine rattles.
Shifting higher, the ultrasound was saturated with the high pitched sharp sounds which although lasted only briefly, resonated with creaking door hinges, computers clicking, fans and motors buzzing, light bulbs vibrating, and countless other 'nails on a chalkboard' sounds. It was dizzying, headache inducing, and Tony loved it.
He could tell when Butterfinger's needed more oil, he could hear if it was raining when he woke up. Shifting the implant into normal range of human hearing was easy once he learned how to do it- best of all, he still had his original sense of hearing.
There was something perfect about knowing that bits of metal and wire wrapped along his bone, as they always should have. It felt inherently right.
DUMM-E clicked something inaudible.
Tony heard it, and clicked his tongue back.
Tony was thirty-six, had a fully functional nervous system compatible prosthetic leg, a neurologically controlled Cochlea implant, and now a car battery plugged to a corroded ring of spotty metal and hepatitis.
He wasn't sure why he was laughing. Either it was how his heart really now did shine from an electromagnet, or how absolutely wonderful it felt. How natural it was to feel it short circuit and zap across his chest with the contracting muscles of electrocution.
If he knew such a thing was possible without lasting damage, he would have hired a surgeon to do it years back.
Yinsen had a rather dumbfounded expression when Tony hysterically confessed it, laughing again and again until he choked on blood. The stitches in his lungs needed to heal still.
The terrorists- the group that had captured him, they realized his leg was different when the skin tore but didn't bleed or bruise the way the rest of his body did.
They took away his identity, and somehow that was even worse than his heart.
They spat on him and they pushed him to the ground. His captors liked to grab the rod which still protruded from his skin, dragging him over the harsh sandstone like sandpaper on his back.
It hurt, it tore at his knee until he felt the cartilage and bone groan under the weight. The worst was when they smashed the butts of the stolen rifles against the rod. The vibrations made him tear through leather gags with his cries.
He was a cripple, a yaklenga. They poked at his stump and sneered words and laughed at the insults he couldn't comprehend.
They grabbed his arms and forced his head under the water, drowning him only to pull him back from the brink of death again and again. He felt something fizzle and crack and he knew that his hearing was gone.
Yinsen didn't know how to respond when he was dragged in, nearly convulsing against the high pitched whistling shrieks of the afghan wind through the caves. The buzzing of fluorescent lights, the low grinding of heavy machinery and gunfire-
Tony grit his teeth and felt tears rise unbidden- they had taken his leg, they had taken his ears, they had taken what made him, him.
The Arc Reactor thrummed a steady pace in his chest, comforting while he had to crawl shakily over broken glass and bloodied rock.
They thought he was a joke.
He would show them.
A suit of armor always felt right.
And it was glorious to confirm it, to have his metal rod slide into something ramshad but something familiar to a prosthesis after months of nothing. Yinsen smiled, giving up on the plan before bolting out to buy time.
Who did he think he was? Yinsen wasn't invulnerable, he wasn't bulletproof like Kevlar or metal. (How something deep in Tony itched to have just that spread across his skin.)
Tony limped out, spreading fire and bullets through the hall as his brain screamed against the loud pitch. Amplified by the metal helmet, sounds overloading his senses until he heard nothing- blissful silence against his own sobs as he cradled Yinsen's body as gently as he could.
He didn't hear the missile blast him into a wall, he barely felt the shrapnel pierce his right hand through the palm like he was a perverse image of Christ.
Tony burned them all, and flew through the air away from smoke and gunpowder, he was born anew from the forge where his heart now glowed.
When Rhodey found him, Tony was still in shock. He cracked only when he realized he was wearing the spare set of pants Yinsen had gifted him, his spare leather shoes because Tony's foot and knee had torn apart.
Tony cried, and the sight of that alone deterred doctors from seeing his state.
He built his leg anew, fitted better with the unfamiliarity of a newborn walking for the first time. Tony called the one doctor and had the device reset- it had short circuited even though it was below the layer of his skin and more advanced than any ever built.
Tony's reactor trilled a mechanical song similar to the sparrows that lived in the eaves. He needed Pepper's help to replace the core, his hands were too big and too shaky from the damage. The nerves in his palm and fingers would never heal, cursing him with instability like Parkinson's disease.
Pepper's hands were perfectly smooth, gentle as they removed the pieces and the exposed wire from his heart. She soothed the burn and ignored the oil and grease.
It was a mockery, something biological was better than him.
'But your hand is just as biological as hers' his mind offered, speaking patronizing as it shook uncontrollably, 'how useless and fragile human beings are.'
Tony was impulsive, he grabbed a diamond saw and cut his right arm off without thinking any further.
The satisfaction, the euphoric sense of rightness almost outweighed the agony.
PTSD, that was the running story.
Pepper was furious, so was Obie. He had vanished without a trace to nurse his wounds in some sort of prestigious hospital which valued confidentiality and discreteness almost as much as the quality of care.
His right arm, bandaged with sterile white gauze, was almost the same color as the Teflon bones of his leg.
Tony eventually did a press stunt, being spotted in Tampa Florida wearing a sling and the newest prosthetic well before the time he was supposed to.
He had pulled a tendon in his wrist, or he had cracked his bones majorly while tinkering on a car. He took up boxing to try and stop the horrible flashbacks he was pestered with all day. One tabloid stated he had tried his hand at alligator wrangling.
He couldn't dance around the company forever, even as he continued to do it for four months. Obie was furious, Tony still ran the industry even against his and the boards wishes. His sudden stop in weapon manufacturing had shocked the world, almost as much as the newly improved Stark Phone with forty percent more battery life than the competitors.
If Obie really needed to reach him, he could call him on the new phone. It was, after all, pretty cool if he said so himself.
The suit once built, was the best thing he had ever made.
He watched in practically orgasmic glee as his shin was covered with glossy red and gold plates of metal, bolts and screws and the unique smell of nickel.
He flew- actually flew through the sky, eyes filled with numbers and oxygen pressure, the hydraulic strain and joint resistance.
He dropped his hearing, nearly blinded by the migraine inducing shrill whine of machinery all around him.
He was flying, as a machine.
He never wanted to land.
"Tony!" Obie smiled, walking through the doorway into his home with too much swagger to be normal.
Tony paused, having been laying on the couch in the midst of an inconvenient phantom limb. It throbbed a few times more before vanishing, Obie was much more of a distraction.
"Obie!" Tony chirped, not bothering to get to his feet just yet- it may start the flare up. He lounged more leisurely, stretching like a giant cat. His shirt rode up a few inches, a weakness Obie exploited by poking a finger into his gut.
Tony flinched away, trying to disguise the look as something sheepish.
"Tony, where have you been?" Obie asked, his brow crinkling in worry. Something about it felt wrong.
"Oh, you know." Tony grinned, folding his left leg so the ankle rested on his right knee, "here and there."
Obie gave a gruff sort of chuckle, a single bark of laughter which sounded hollow. He smiled, lips thin and eyes crinkled, "Don't I know it. You've been slippery to track down, seems like nothing can hold you."
Obie winked, like he was in on a private joke. Tony swallowed instinctively.
"That's alright," Obie patted Tony's knee- the left one. He shook his head- the mood lighting reflected strangely off his bald head, "I'll take care of the company for you."
With a sudden sharp twist, Obie smoothly arced his hand and a blue light flashed.
It wasn't like the Arc Reactor- it wasn't light and beauty. It was dark and cold, like a sapphire cut on a slightly wrong angle.
The light pierced his leg, slicing through silicone and Teflon, through wires and into the steel support columns.
Tony gasped breathlessly- the sudden miniscule vibrations from a laser stung and the heat burned- metal was a very good conductor. He scrabbled forward, tipping off the couch onto the floor as his leg fell away. The pieces clattering and smoking with the unique smell of melting copper and burning plastic.
"There," Obie smiled, sliding the portable laser cutter back into the pocket of his suit, "Can't have you running off and telling anyone about this."
Tony's eyes watered and shadowed- Obadiah had just-
Obie pulled out something small, similar to a grenade.
Oh no
The piercing buzzing almost immediately set his implant out of commission, locking his joints in a paralytic spasm of pain. He couldn't hear- the ringing so disorienting he didn't feel as a claw pierced his skin and removed the Arc Reactor.
'Thanks' Obie mouthed- maybe he actually spoke aloud. He beckoned to Tony's heart, thrumming silently and glowing blue.
This was worse than Afghanistan.
The device- taken off the market due to its unethical standards, only interfered with biological signals. The signals sent from the brain would reach the muscles, but the channels weren't operating at the site. It left the victim hopelessly and painfully paralyzed.
Obadiah hadn't known that Tony's right arm didn't have natural calcium sodium channels- he didn't now the neurons had been converted to micro thin wires and insulation.
The ability to crawl, to painfully slide down the arcing stairwell, dragging a severed metal stump and a useless right leg, was not taken from him.
'Proof that Tony Stark has a Heart.'
Metal shelling and palladium coring, glowing blue and shielded with sapphire quartz glass behind a protective layer of epoxy resin.
Obadiah may have taken away his core processor, but machines always had a backup.
The Iron Man suit had been made with the intent to fit his prosthesis more tightly than a human body biologically could. There was a problem- with the lack of his left leg, the suit would struggle to determine what precisely it was supposed to do. It relied on the slightest amount of pressure to guide its movement- with nothing there it was running low.
Which meant that majority of the fight (because what else could this possibly be) would have to be in the air.
He really should work on fixing that somehow.
(For now, he'd have Jarvis monitor his right leg and run a system scan at all times to try and mimic natural movements.)
Tony had found a virus in the program that was his life.
He removed it, cleaned it, and paved the way for something new.
Obadiah burned.
This story will have a following chapter, regarding Iron Man 2 and the Avengers movie and the unfortunate conclusion.