The bunker was eerily quiet except for the chaotic ringing of voices in his head. He was used to them as those voices were with him every waking moment but the emotion of battle had stirred them into a whirling fury inside his skull. The star decorated shield, once wielded by America's champion, Captain America, lay on the icy floor star-up, staring at him as if it was an accusing eye.
Howard Stark's voice echoed forward from the distant past in a mix of betrayal and shock, "Tony. What have you done?"
Propped up in his useless Iron Man suit, back pressed to the buttress of the wall, Tony glared at the shield, eyes burning with unshed tears, and rebuked his dead father with a choked voice, "He didn't deserve it. He…. That thing his … friend… killed you." Closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the rough concrete, the waves of physical aching and pain washed over him as if he were at the beach in the shallows. Lapping waves of agony caressing every nerve, every fiber, cutting him deeper and deeper.
It was finally the biting cold and the feeling of frost forming on his moustache from his exhalations that forced him to open his eyes and somewhat clear his mind. How was he going to get home? He was left behind.
"Friday."
There was no response.
Looking down at the arc reactor in his chest, the crystal was shattered in a horizontal slash, a gift of an enraged Steve Rogers, not Captain America. Stark saw Steve's dark side and it left a mark on him. With an exhausted groan, he slipped his gauntlets off and began to fiddle with a few wires. Within the suit there were capacitors, mostly for the blasters in his hands and feet, that might just have enough juice left in them to send a distress signal.
With numb, shaking hands, he worked despite the bruises forming and the itchy pulling of dried blood from the cuts of his face. Finally, he had what he thought a circuit formed. Touching the loose end of a wire to his com link he asked again, "Friday?"
"Yes, Boss?" The signal was weak and staticky.
"I'm stranded. Send an Iron Legion suit to get me. Or whatever Mark suit is left." he replied succinctly, not knowing how long his signal would last. The coordinates were sent.
"Yes Boss. Stay warm. This could be a while." The AI replied breaking up in the broadcast, her tone sounding mildly concerned. The capacitors were drained.
Tony exhaled doing the math in his head. From New York to Siberia, even for a Mark suit would take a few hours. A few hours to sit and brood alone in the cold with his ghosts.
Something caught his eye on the far side of the room in the omnipresent grey gloom.
He turned his head, not feeling the strength to fully pivot his whole armor and saw Bucky's left arm laying on the floor, hand reaching out, palm down, in his direction like a plea for help, a tuft of wires at the shoulder junction. There were burn marks on the shoulder where Stark's arc reactor had blasted it from Barnes' body.
A wave of nausea passed through him as he gazed at the dismembered arm. That arm.
The one that helped kill his father and mother.
He continued to stare at it, unable to rip his eyes from the appendage because it was so horrific. Tony's eyes began to play games as he swore he thought he saw a finger twitch. A chill ran through him as he finally scrunched his eyes closed to avert the sight of the detached arm. His ears betrayed him next as he swore he heard the slow scrunching of metal on concrete.
"No. No. No." he whispered, pulling his body closer into the ruined armor like a child who pulls up bedsheets against the boogie monsters in the closet. Shivers of cold and PTSD rippled through him.
"Dad!" a young Stark called frantically from the bedroom into the hallway beyond. The room was dark and he swore Freddie Kruger was under his bed sharpening his glove knives.
A satin robed, salt and pepper mustached Howard appeared, bleary eyed and annoyed in the doorway to his room. Light spilled in from behind the older man creating a long dark shadow, "It's the middle of the night. You're 14 years old for chrissakes."
Tony flinched at the rebuke, realizing how foolish his father thought him to be but he didn't care at that moment. He was more afraid of what was under his bed than his father's disgust.
"I know. But… "he stalled as his heart raced in his skinny teen chest, "Tell me a story about you and Captain America."
That was Tony's safe place: Captain America. Howard Stark had hours of stories racked up in his brain like a Christmas movie special marathon. It always worked to get a few moments of his father's attention even the attention was not on him, but his 'first son', Steve Rogers.
With a less aggravated sigh, the elder Stark entered the room and sat on the edge of his bed with a groan of old crotchety knees. Tony looked at his father's wrinkled creased face and deeply silvered hair in the dim light from the hallway. Howard had married late and Tony was born even later. Many of his classmates and peers had fathers half Howards age. Tony always harbored a grudge against his dad for waiting so long to have children. The kids didn't tease him anymore about having a 'grandpa' for a dad or why his dad couldn't do the things theirs could. And to top it all off, he had to listen to his dad tell war stories about how he made the best invention ever, with some help from Dr. Erskine- he'd grudgingly admit- but without those Vita Rays! Yep, Captain America would not be here if it wasn't for his Vita Rays!
"Which one?" Howard's eyes brightened some in memory as he was asked willingly to recall some of the brightest days of his life.
"Any of them dad. Your pick." Tony replied with a smile feeling a tiny shred of paternal love coming from the old man and despising Steve Rogers for denying him the full attention of his father.
Tony looked back at the arm on the floor. It was still immobile, in the same place as before. There was no Tell-Tale Heart here. This wasn't Michael Kane in The Hand. A bubble of mirth began to form in his stomach and rolled up to a chuckle which amplified to a loud laugh.
"Losing your mind, Stark." he teased himself looking up at the ceiling, the chill slowly sinking into his bones.
"Tony! Tony!" the voice of his mother called him in from their mansion upstate. The snow was falling at a good pace, obliterating tracks. Howard had come in from his "workshop" which was an old renovated barn a ten-minute walk from the house: Tony was supposed to be with him. "Howard! Where is Tony?"
"Damned if I know. Little scamp runs off all the time." Howard replied nonchalantly as he swirled his brandy, carefully warming it, standing before her in his smoking jacket. Maria hated that smoking jacket. It was 1978, not the Fifties.
"Well, he was supposed to be with you. And now it's snowing like crazy outside and he's probably lost and afraid out there, freezing to death!" Maria fumed, her green eyes flashing between him and the open door where the wind swirled snowflakes onto the entryway oriental rug.
"When I was a kid-" Howard began, his brandy waving upward for a grand gesture.
"Cut the garbage, Howard! Why for once in your life can't you take responsibility for your son! He's your child, Howard! Not just some 'invention' or plaything. He's a flesh and blood boy!" her voice cracked as tears came forward, hands balled into fists at her side.
"Responsibility?" Howard looked shocked, then his eyebrows beetled together fiercely, "By God, I take care of that little son of a-"
"Pardon me, Mrs. and Mr. Stark." The elderly voice of Jarvis floated down from the winding staircase of the atrium from above. Howard and Maria looked up in surprise. Tony's eight-year-old face was looking between two balusters, his small hands wrapped around them, knuckles white. "I believe Master Stark is right here."
Maria moved first, "Oh Tony, I was so worried!" She ran up the stairs to her son, sweeping him in a hug. Tony didn't take his eyes off his father once as his mother pressed him to herself. Peeking over her shoulder, Tony watched Howard as he snuffled under his moustache and sipped his brandy aggressively. Finally, Howard turned on his heel and went into his study.
"Close the damn door, Maria." he called over his shoulder.
Tony had seen fights between them before. This time was a clarifying moment when he discovered exactly where he fit into the family.
Scraping metal on concrete.
Tony's eyes shot open and immediately focused on the detached arm. It hadn't moved. Or did it?
He realized he couldn't feel his hands and toes. Taking off his gauntlets again, he breathed on his hands, rubbing them together quickly, which hurt. Was that a sign of hypothermia, Tony wondered. No Googling allowed, he joked in his head still looking sideways at the detached arm. Again, his brain played tricks on him and he swore the fingers wiggled mockingly at him.
"Tony!" Maria called from the foyer of the mansion, Jarvis standing just to the side of the door, "Tony! Aunt Peggy is here!"
Tony made a sound like a thousand horses galloping wild across the West as he tore open his bedroom and threw himself headlong down the hallway. Aunt Peggy! She was always so fun and sometimes she brought her children, who were in their thirties, with her and Uncle Dan too.
Sometimes Tony wondered what it'd be like to be born into their family instead of his own. Peggy and Daniel were always so in love. His "cousins" always paid him attention and were very warm hearted. When they would leave from a visit, young Stark felt a bitterness rise up in his chest like bile. He imagined himself running after them and never looking back at his parents' luxurious mansion full of fantastic tech that was so cold.
But today, it was just Peggy in her classic Jackie Kennedy look, hair bobbed just so with a tiny hint of silver at the temples, red lipstick expertly applied and her purse at her elbow.
"Peggy!" Tony launched himself into her arms. The nearly sixty-year-old woman staggered back a step as she caught the ten-year-old.
"Tony!" Maria exclaimed, "I am so sorry!" Maria Stark pried her son from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Director's arms.
"No worries, Maria. My own children do far worse to me." Peggy laughed easily.
Jarvis looked at his former conspirator with a fond smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling conspiratorially, "It's good to see you again, Ms. Carter."
Peggy returned the warmth of the gaze with a nod, "And you too, Mr. Jarvis. Is Anna well?"
"Yes, she is. Still having me make her soufflé on Tuesday nights. Mr. Stark lets us have cable now. He even created a thing called a "remote". I don't have to get up to change the channel anymore!" Jarvis replied.
"Well at least Howard is being useful." Peggy replied with a sniff. She loved the rapscallion but even her patience was sometimes tested by the genius inventor. Carter turned to Maria, "Maria, I don't know how you put up with the man."
"I suppose it's my burden to bear." Maria smiled with jollity.
"We all have them." Peggy nodded sagely and with a brief shadow ghosting over her face.
Looking down slightly and taking a knee, Peggy took Tony's hands in hers and eyed him mischievously, "I have a surprise."
"What!?" Tony exclaimed, his expression brimming with anticipation. When your aunt is the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., anything was possible.
"I guess you'll have to come with me to find out, won't you."
"Oh YES! Mom… mom… mom… can I? Can I? PLEASE!?" Tony begged hopping up and down, his hands still in Carter's.
Maria looked at Peggy with hesitation, "You know you don't have to do this."
"I fully realize the destructive power of this child." Carter chuckled, "But until my own children are married and give me grandchildren, this is the best I can do. It keeps me young."
"Good lord, are they even close to being that old?" Jarvis commented. "I remember changing their diapers!"
Carter rolled her eyes at Edwin recalling he had almost puking the first time he volunteered to help change her son's diaper.
"Yes. I see. It's amazing after all we accomplished together, how a simple nappy changing would throw me. But still, I cannot believe time has passed us so quickly!" Jarvis commented wistfully.
"And yet it has." Carter stood up. "So, Maria, can I steal your son away for the day?"
"I don't see why not. He might become a hermit like his father if we don't get him out and about with real people."
"THANK YOU MOM." Tony shouted, holding Carter's hand as she turned to leave the house.
"Be good, Tony! Don't act like your dad!" Maria called after as Carter and Tony walked to a red Chevy Corvette.
"Wow." Tony admired the car, his mouth hanging open.
"Pretty, isn't she?" Carter replied, "Her name is Lola. She can fly."
Young Stark's eyes were as big as dinner plates, "Fly…."
Stark finished warming his hands and shoved them roughly back into the gauntlets. Normally the suit had a climatic setting to warm or cool him as needed. Something, even useless to keep him warm, felt better than nothing.
Peggy.
That woman saved his life, metaphorically, a million times over when he was young. Her and Jarvis prevented him from making some very bad choices in his youth. He didn't attend her funeral. Sure, Iron Man comes to your funeral, he reprimanded himself, not Tony Stark but Iron Man. What a media circus that would have been! The shame was still there in his mind. The lady played a significant role in his life and he couldn't even go to her funeral. Nope. Just send a check to the largest Alzheimer's research group and tell them a cure must happen in his lifetime. Sure. No guilt there. Nah, none at all.
Staring out to the space before him he tried to quiet his mind.
It was so hard.
It was getting so cold.
Then the dismembered arm moved again in his mind. Vibranuium on concrete made a sickening whine sound grating on his nerves.
Come and choke me too, you monster, Tony thought not sure if he was even thinking about the Winter Soldier or his own armor.
A Chitauri alien broke free of its cables with a roar and floated upward to space into a wormhole above Tony's head. Heaps of dead bodies were strewn before him. A fleet of Iron Legion suits began to annihilate everyone with blasts from their hands.
Avengers fighting each other, killing each other.
All looked at Tony and blamed him.
"You could have saved us… if you tried harder." the recriminating, dying voice of Steve came up from below. When Tony looked down, the corpse of the Captain lay at his feet. The shield was shattered, just like their friendship.
Next to Steve lay a bleeding Peter Parker in his homemade suit, tears streaking down dusty cheeks as he surveyed the carnage. "Why?"
Tony closed his eyes knowing the nightmares would keep coming but he couldn't keep conscious as his body temperature continued to drop. He stopped feeling the pain of frostbite in his toes and hands. A soothing calm came over him, lulling him further into unconsciousness. Cold was a mistress, kissing him on the lips, caressing his body in long shivers of cold.
The arm clawed forward like one of Ultron's half built automatons: scraping, creeping closer and closer to him. Tony watched it silently with horrified eyes, frozen to his spot, unable for some reason to run away. The hand reached up over the step and hauled its dismembered self upward. Wriggling like a snake with horrible tympani of vibranium on concrete, it slithered forth to his shoulder and then up his shoulder.
Tony let out a scream as the hand moved over his shoulder to the gap in his suit between the chest and helmet. The icy fingers burned with like a branding iron as they wrapped themselves sinisterly around his neck and began to tighten. The scream was choked off as his larynx compressed. His vision began to fill with dark dots and haze. Air was all around him, but not in his lungs. This is it, he thought, this is how Barnes killed my mother.
"BOSS! MR. STARK." The voice of Friday called out at an ear-splitting volume. The Mark suit standing in front of him began to fan him with hot air to warm him.
Tony blinked and shuddered, feeling his own gauntleted hand clutching at his throat. With a spasm, he jerked his gauntlet away from his throat and stared up, disoriented, at the Mark suit before him. Bucky's' arm still lay on the floor several feet away.
"Boss, readings show you are hypothermic. I can see your lips are blue." the Mark suit stated as it continued to warm him with its hand blasters.
"Friday, you always have a way of showing up right when I need you." Tony said weakly as the second suit began to help him out of the disabled one and into itself.
"You built me that way, Boss."
"How long have I been here?" Tony adjusted a few items in the functioning suit, so glad to be feeling his toes and fingers again.
"About eight hours. No wonder you're a popsicle!"
Suddenly, Tony had some insight into what Cap had gone through with the Valkyrie.
"Get me home."
"No problem, Boss."
Before he blasted off, Tony took a long look at the room the three of them had fought. Barnes's arm, the destroyed Mark suit, burn marks on the walls and chunks of concrete missing. The room was a huge metaphor to revenge. Tony leaned down and picked up the shield. It felt so heavy despite the servos of his suit augmenting his strength.
Everything felt heavy.
He rubbed absently at the throat of his suit.
"Are you ok, Boss?"
"No, Friday. I'm not." he said quietly, "But it's not the first time."
"Do you want me to autopilot the suit?"
"No. I'll do it."
"Why do you have Steve Rogers's shield?"
"Friday, stop asking questions."
"Yes, Boss."