Title: All You Need
Fandom/Crossover: Supernatural/Iron Man (movieverse)
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Tony Stark, Castiel, Yinsen
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Swearing, captivity
Notes:One of the fics written for a series called 'Five Times Castiel is Someone Else's Angel'. Standalone and not related to the other Times.
Summary:While in captivity in Afghanistan, Tony has a very strange experience with a self-proclaimed angel.
He's exhausted, down to his very bones, and it's not even the kind of satisfied exhaustion after a night out at the newest club in town and the rest of the night with a blond, brunette and redhead all at the same time. No, this is an entirely different kind of exhaustion. The kind triggered by being blown up by your own goddamn missiles, and everything hurting, and being so drained that he doesn't even have the energy to open his eyes. He just wants to stop thinking for once and sink back down into the black emptiness –
Except there's some idiot who won't stop calling his name, over and over again.
'Anthony Edward Stark.'
Over and over and over again, until finally Tony can't stand it anymore and snaps, 'Shut the fuck up! And it's Tony! Stark!'
There's something wrong with this scenario. Tony is pretty sure he's dreaming, since neither the deep voice repeating his name nor Tony himself had actually been speaking out loud. The fact that there's nothing around him is a pretty big clue, too. It's like he's dreaming of nothingness and just having a conversation inside his own head. Which usually wouldn't disturb him, since some of his best ideas come from mental tennis matches with himself, but he also usually doesn't refer to himself by his full name.
'Tony Stark. You need to wake up.' This is very, very strange. Where's the deep voice coming from? When he talks things out in his own head, the voice usually sounds like, well, himself.
'Why? I'm comfortable here.'
'You have much more to accomplish yet, Tony Stark.' Obviously. He's a genius, of course there's loads of stuff for him to do. If he hadn't been involved in a fucking explosion that killed him.
Tony decides to go with logical reasoning. 'Listen here, you – self, buddy, disembodied voice or whatever you are – I was blown up. By one of my own missiles. I know their area of effect and firepower and damage potential, I designed the damn things! Now, I distinctly remember being at ground zero of the explosion, with lots of shrapnel involved. Which is never a good thing. If I'm not dead yet, recovering from that kind of damage is going to be such a pain in the ass that I might as well be!'
There's silence for several moments, long enough that Tony is sure he's won this argument with himself and is about to sink back under when the voice speaks again.
'So you wish to give up on your own life, even when you have a fighting chance?'
The way the question is phrased needles at him, even though the tone of voice is utterly inflectionless.
'I'm not giving up on anything.' Tony snarls back in response.
'Then wake up.' The voice says again. It sounds perfectly patient, as if it's ready to repeat this instruction as many times as needed for it to get through.
Tony stews for a while, before realising something. 'You're going to keep pestering me until I wake up, aren't you?'
'Yes.'
'Great. Just great. Can't even die in peace.' Tony grumbles to himself.
'You're not dead yet unless you choose to be.'
Tony floats for a while in the dreamscape. It's quiet and peaceful.
'I'm not going to like what's out there, am I?' He finally asks. He already knows what he's going to do. He's just stalling.
'No. But I have faith that you have the strength and will to make it through.' Tony is almost convinced that he's talking to himself, giving himself the weirdest pep talk ever, but the simple, absolute conviction in that statement is unlike anything he's ever heard.
'All right, then, pumpkin, time to get out of bed! Chop chop!'
For the first time, there's confusion instead of blankness in the voice when it says, 'I'm not a pumpkin.'
Definitely one of the stranger voices in his head, Tony thinks.
Then the world around him erupts into pain and sound and a terrible ache in his chest.
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A week later, Tony is wondering what the fuck he was thinking when he convinced himself that it was a good idea to wake up. Because waking up, apparently, means discovering that he's been kidnapped by Afghanistan rebels who've been using Stark Industries weapons, and being coerced into making missiles in a cave with not even one quarter of the materials he needs.
Not to mention an electromagnet embedded in his chest, powered by a car battery, is the only thing keeping him alive.
Sometime later – he's stopped counting the days, it's not like it matters – after failing to connect the wiring for the nth time, Tony throws down the plier and shoves himself away from his chair.
He can't do this.
Even if he somehow manages to complete the weapon and present it to Raza, then what? Tony's not naïve enough to believe that he'll be freed. Then, after he's shot in the head, the weapon will be used in war, killing thousands upon thousands of people, massacring men and women and children. He'll be a murderer. But then, he's already one, isn't he, by virtue of being a weapons manufacturer? The United States Armed Forces have been using Stark Industries weapons since his father's time. It's never bothered him before. For a good cause, fighting for freedom, acceptable losses and all that, right?
Except there're crates upon crates of his weapons here, in the hands of people who aren't supposed to have them, who are using them for purposes he'd never intended, and stupid, stupid, how could he have been so stupid?
He closes his eyes, because otherwise he'll see all the blood staining his hands.
The only alternative, the only chance of escape out of this place so that he can start fixing everything isn't coming along so well. He's drawn up the blueprints for the insane idea he and Yinsen had cooked up, but it's just not possible to construct it with such limited time and resources.
'But I have faith that you have the strength and will to make it through.'
The gravelly voice sounds so real that Tony actually jerks and whirls around to search the cramped cavern. There's no one except for Yinsen dozing in a corner. It's moronic, of course, because it's just a figment of his imagination, something his mind invented to push himself to survive. High-stress situation? Check. Coping mechanism? Check.
Or he may actually be having a complete psychological break.
The genius Tony Stark gone mad, driven into insanity by voices in his head. He can almost see the headlines on the news. Except no one knows he's here, trapped in a filthy cave and talking to himself.
If he dies here in this hellhole, he will never have a chance to make up for the sheer scale of his idiocy. Will never be able to make up for all the innocent lives he's obliterated through his own lovingly crafted murder weapons.
Tony Stark is not going to give the fuck up on anything.
He gets back to work.
He ignores the fact that just for a split second, he had glimpsed a flash of tan in the corner of his eyes.
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Later, he dreams that he's back in Malibu, working in his garage in the basement of his mansion. He knows he's dreaming, because when he looks up from the car engine he's fiddling with, there's a red and gold metal suit gleaming in the corner. It looks nothing like what he'd finished building a few hours ago, but it's perfect. Goddamn perfect.
Tony also knows he's dreaming because before this entire fiasco, he's never had a man in a trench coat standing in the middle of his workshop, staring around with fascinated interest.
Tony waits for several seconds, but the man has wandered over to the suit to examine it, so he looks back at the car he's fixing up, and frowns down at it. He doesn't own a purple Alfa Romeo.
"I don't believe you will for another four months."
Tony spins around to find the man standing directly in front of him. Up close, he has really piercing blue eyes. And is wearing a really terrible black suit.
"Well, it's nice to finally put a face to a figment of my imagination. And it's interesting that I think I'm capable of seeing the future," Tony muses.
The man tilts his head in a very bird-like way. "I am not a figment of your imagination."
"Hmmm. So who and what are you then, honeybee?"
"I'm Castiel, an angel of the Lord." Pause. Then Castiel adds, "I'm not an insect."
Tony stares, because really? What the fuck is wrong with his subconscious?
"You do not believe me," Castiel observes.
"Sorry, sweetheart, I don't."
The man – angel, deluded being, whatever – stares intently at him. Tony squashes down the urge to break eye contact, and returns the stare with his best aloof, impassive one.
"You lack faith."
"I've found that I function very well even without it."
Castiel sighs. "I hoped that bringing you here would be the first step towards convincing you."
"What, by trying to show me that you can see the future? I don't even like Alfa Romeos!"
"Perhaps not at this point of time, but you may change your mind in the future. That is the nature of free will, is it not?"
Tony wants to argue, but Castiel raises a hand to silence him. "We will have time to continue this discussion when you return home safely. Right now you must prepare to carry out the rest of your plan."
"You say that like there aren't at least a dozen problems with the suit that can cause it to malfunction and explode or get me gunned down."
The garage around them is starting to blur and melt away. Tony reaches out a hand to grab Castiel, but the man's form is already fading fast. The last thing he hears is 'I'll see you soon, Tony.'and the sound of wing beats.
When Tony wakes, he finds himself clutching a sleek silvery feather the length of his hand which makes his fingers tingle.
There's no time to contemplate the way his world view abruptly shifts on its axis, because the terrorists are pounding at the door and they have to break out now now now.
He wraps the feather in the cleanest piece of cloth he can find and shoves it into the left boot of the clunky suit.
"All right, time to rock and roll!"