Chapter 1: Killing Me (Not So) Softly
"Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song."
-Fugees ("Killing Me Softly")
The first time Tony heard the singing, the world was ending.
Well, that's was what he figured, in any case. What with the falling palm trees and the tidal waves threatening to eat the building alive, 'Armageddon' seemed liked an appropriate term.
He was ruing the day he ever took his secretary's suggestion to take a 'leave of absence.' Pepper and his psychiatrist's words, not his.
And why, of all places, did it have to be a godforsaken rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?
(Granted, it was a very nice rock with a private resort and tropical scenery the likes of which would have put paradise to shame, but still.)
At least in Malibu or New York he could have self-medicated with booze and parties. And if the alcohol and chicks couldn't fix his problems, then maybe said problems just weren't worth the stress and grey hairs after all. Nothing quite like vodka to drown your PTSD nightmares in.
I'm not nearly drunk enough, he thought, if I'm still thinking about that... Sure enough, even as he finished half the bottle, the nightmares came unbidden to his mind.
Heat and sand.
Cramped caves and masked men screaming at him.
Fire and blood.
Yinsen dead and riddled with bullets on the floor, eyes glazed, unseeing.
The Jericho missile all but detonating in his face.
Shards of metal shrapnel digging like teeth into his chest, almost puncturing-
Tony knocked back another shot of liquor. Yep. Yep, definitely not drunk enough yet.
The screaming monsoon outside the mansion, of course, did nothing to calm his of rain beat threateningly at the windows as the wind moaned and thunder cracked in the sky above. "Pacific means 'peaceful' my ass," he grumbled, pouring himself yet another shot under the low light of the minibar.
There was certainly nothing peaceful about the ocean now at any rate. It was just as well the resort was built out of the sternest materials and design money could buy, else he would have been buried under rubble by this point.
By midnight the vodka was gone, consumed to the last drop.
Grabbing the bottle by the neck he swung the green-tinted glass like a tipsy pendulum in front of his face. After a second or two he began to move instinctively in rhythm with the thrumming of the arc reactor.
Tony's eyes followed it blearily and goodness wasn't he going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning? If his liver wasn't already dead yet then this little binge would probably have it down for the count.
Heat and sand.
Gunshots.
Screaming.
Blood, blood, so much blood.
A stifled growl rumbled up from his chest.
Why, why was he still seeing it? Did he have to drink himself to nothing? What did he have to do to just to stop reliving the terror over and over again - more alchohol, morphine, a bullet through his brain? He flung the bottle at the wall, honestly couldn't have cared less as it shattered into a hundred pieces. Useless. Completely useless.
He must have been more psychologically screwed than he thought, must have been more hammered than he realized because his ears had started to ring. Tony wasn't sure how else to describe the source of the lilting melody in his head. Ethereal and just on the edge of his hearing, the tune spun in circles around him.
Inexplicably, he turned towards the beveled glass of the door. The drizzle had turned to a flood outside, louder even than the wind in its intensity. A second Great Flood was in progress out there and only an idiot would have gone out there without an ark.
So naturally Tony was questioning his sanity as he walked out into the gale with nothing but his undershirt and boxer shorts for protection.
The air, normally so heavy and humid here in the tropics, cut through the fabric to push him down and slice him to ribbons with freezing gusts. He bowed his back over to keep from being swept away.
All common sense screamed at him to get his ass back inside, but together his inebriated state and the singing - that was what the ringing was - put up a much more convincing arguement.
Beyond the house was the beach front, contained within a small cove on the south side of the island. Rocky outcroppings kept the worst of the wind and rain from sweeping him away but only just. The white-capped waves crashing on the shore all but drowned out the pale sand. With the moon and stars blocked out by the inky clouds above, the only light to see by was the faint glow from the resort.
For a moment or two, all he could see was darkness, the song and the crashing of the ocean calling to him even more insistently than before.
There was a sudden splash on the ledge to his right, though it was a wonder how he could tell it apart from the noise of the typhoon.
When he turned in the direction of the sound, he was rewarded with a mouth of saltwater for his troubles. Spluttering like a cat thrown in the gutter, Tony was well and truly drenched. Only after a few seconds and much cursing could he see again and-
A flash of green scales, shimmering like seaglass, shimmering like the broken pieces of the vodka decanter. Long raven hair, a tangle of black seaweed lost in the night. A pale face, sharp and flawless and touched by the gods with viridian eyes that saw everything and nothing as they burned and branded their way into Tony's core. The singing, a siren's call that beckoned to him like a forlorn lover, reaching out to him...
In an instant, wiry arms wrapped tight around his torso. The spell broke and he flew into a panic, very much un-enthralled now. He struggled and squirmed against the creature that held him in its grasp, fighting like the Ten Rings thugs were at his heels again. But the realization that he was trapped and doomed came just a second too late. "What the fu-?!"
The next thing Tony Stark knew he was yanked into the water, the breath squeezed out of his lungs as he was dragged down into the depths, his last sight of that beautiful face twisted in a fanged and triumphant smirk before the world went dark.
A/N: And this, my dear children, is why you should never try picking someone up when you're hammered.
The multi-shot in the making was inspired by the lovely kallona's frostiron fanart. ;3 You should definitely check out her blog and other works on tumblr: Tale of the Escapist.
As it is, I hope you'll stick around and have as much fun reading this fic as I do writing it. Reviews are always appreciated! :D
-Xen