Today You Are Gone
by Lacrimula Falsa
Summary: It's strange and awful, to miss someone who wasn't really present in your life in the first place. [AU, complete. For Trope Bingo Round Ten, "Unhappy Ending".]
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and/or any other Marvel franchise. I write for fun, not for profit.
Warnings!: Character death (off-screen).
A/N: This fic fills "Unhappy Ending" square on my Trope Bingo card (round ten).
The card can be found here: lacrimula-falsa DOT dreamwidth DOT org SLASH 3850 DOT html (just fix the dots, slash and spaces)
He hasn't been in this house for ages.
Tony forces the ancient green desk lamp into a semi-acceptable position and grabs the heavy folder he brought with him, setting it on the desk. That's just like he remembers too, with the same map desk pad.
There's an atlas on the desk that he's pushed away, open to a map of Europe, dotted with little crosses. Red, blue, green. An orange one somewhere near Belgium.
Greg's crusade. Everywhere Stark Industries had ever traded, owned real estate, imported from, exported and sold to, all marked in neat little X-es. He bets there's a symbol key for the colours around somewhere.
Once upon a time, Tony had dreamed about filling some of those pages with little X-es of his own. New York, Washington, Afghanistan. The last one almost makes him laugh. That X would have to be blood-red.
He wonders when Greg last sat in this chair.
Maybe with eighteen, after he'd just pried control of SI out of Obie's literal cold dead hands. Maybe with twenty, already a business tycoon with few equals in the world.
How strange to think that Greg never got to be thirty.
There's a sense-memory, sudden and vivid, of Greg's hands touching his face.
"Tell me; who did this to you?"
Not "Tony, are you alright?". Not "Are you hurt?".
"Tell me who did this to you."
'And I'll get them for you.'
Greg never said it but Tony always knew it was implied.
If you hurt Tony, Greg broke you, efficiently and completely.
How strange to miss your cruel sociopath protector. To be saddened by the absence of someone who wasn't really there in the first place.
Tony jerks upright suddenly when his phone goes off next to him. The screen flashes a picture of Cap's shield at him.
"Steve?"
Tony's voice sounds scratchy to his own ears.
"Tony, where are you?! The charity gala started ten minutes ago!"
Tony blinks, feeling slow.
"That's today?"
He briefly pulls his mobile away from his ear to check the time.
Oh.
Looks like tomorrow is today. No wonder he's so tired.
"I'm sorry, Steve. I forgot."
Steve scoffs.
"Forgot? Tony, Pepper has been reminding you for weeks! You programmed it into Jarvis! How could you forget?!"
My brother died today.
The words don't come.
Because his twin is dead but no one knows. The phone he has with him doesn't have Jarvis on it. It felt disrespectful, taking Jarvis with him to the hospital. Not after Jarvis was the last thing – the last person – he and Greg had fought about.
"I'm sorry, Steve. I'm not even in New York."
"You're not even wha–"
Tony hangs up. He feels drained all of a sudden.
Greg always got him in as much trouble as he got him out of. Seems like that hasn't changed. He has to apologise to Pepper again. And to Steve, probably.
He has to choose flowers for the funeral. The thought makes him feel sick.
It's one more reminder that Greg's life was interrupted far too suddenly, how much there is to do. If he'd gotten to be older, Greg would have had everything in order. A will, at least. Greg would have planned his funeral down to the last flower petal, with a cost analysis to top it off.
He has no idea how Greg wants to be buried. Cremated, probably.
If Greg had gotten to be older, Tony likely would have had this problem earlier or not at all. Then Greg would have had a DNR order, or he would have outlived Tony by sheer stubbornness alone.
The phone rings. The landline one and wow, why has no one ever shut the landline off. Oh wait, that's right. Because Tony was pretending this house didn't exist.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Sir."
Tony blinks.
"Jarvis!?"
"Indeed, Sir. It was not my intention to startle you."
"Why–" Tony swallows, tries again. "Why are you calling me?"
"My protocols demand that I initiate contact with you in whatever way possible in the case that Captain Rogers uses his emergency override."
"I – He did?"
"Indeed so, Sir. Might I tell him that you are unharmed? The sensors in your watch indicate that your vital signs are within safe parameters."
Yeah, and that's right. He never took off his Iron Man watch, the one that turns into a gauntlet. Doesn't take it off at all, anymore. He feels naked without it, unsafe.
Turns out he took Jarvis with him to the hospital after all.
"I'm okay, Jarvis. Just tell him–"
Tell him I'm alright.
It sticks in his throat, like something sharp. Because he's not, he's not. Half of him is gone, now. Identical twins. If he believed in such things; half his soul. Gone. Forever.
Identical. They stopped bleaching Greg's hair and beard when he got to the hospital, obviously. He'd looked exactly like Tony, at the end. He would have hated that, too.
"Sir?"
Jarvis question startles him out of staring unseeingly at the window.
"Tell Ste–"
And he can't, suddenly. He just. Can't.
Because they fought. They fought about Jarvis like they never fought about anything. Fought so hard they nearly came to blows over it and they never hit each other, not like that. It was their worst fight and their last.
"Physical violence is so uncultured. To think that this insane idea of yours has reduced you to a club-wielding caveman."
Greg's voice is sharp and clear in his memory, making him start. For one insane moment, he almost expects to see his brother next to the desk. A phantom.
He wonders what Greg would say about the fact that Tony beats up bad guys for a living now.
But the memory's not over because that wasn't where it ended. That was just the start.
"It's an abomination, Anthony, and I will have no part of it! Not in this house, not in my office! You had best keep that thing far away from me least I destroy it."
God, how they fought. They never stopped fighting, not really. Not about Jarvis.
Tony stares down at his red-and-gold watch and wants to tear it from his wrists and shatter it.
But that would be a poor respect to pay to Greg, now wouldn't it? That would be wasteful considering what the watch cost and Greg was always... Well. He feels something like a smile curl his lips. His mother would have said that Greg was 'careful with money' in the same way she'd have said that Howard was 'overindulgent' with alcohol.
Maybe he'll skip the flowers. Flowers cost money. Got to keep the Stark fortune alive somehow.
The laugh he lets out at that might be slightly hysterical.
"Sir? Sir! Sir, your heart-rate is elevated and I am perceiving signs of stress, please answer me!"
And that's right, Jarvis is still on the phone. Tony tips his head back to hang over the back of the chair.
Shows what kind of brother he is. He couldn't even do this one thing Greg asked of him. He took Jarvis to the hospital. He brought Jarvis into the house.
"Not in this house, not in my office!"
And that, that is when he cries.
Because his brother is dead now. He'll never get to apologise for bringing Jarvis to the hospital.
He hasn't cried when he got the call. He hasn't cried when was in the hospital. Sure, his chest has ached and his eyes have stung but this isn't like that.
Now he is. Crying.
It's so wrong and ugly to realise that he loved Greg because he feels guilty of all things.
Maybe not when Greg was about and aware, not then. Tony didn't love him then, didn't even like him most of the time. They just weren't like that. Ever. He can't remember a time when they were like that. As boys, maybe. Probably not even then.
But at the end. In the end. And maybe it was just because it was easy then when Greg was lying unresponsive in a hospital bed. Because like that Greg couldn't argue and couldn't twist Tony's words around themselves and couldn't talk back. And that's wrong and ugly too but that doesn't make it any less true.
He's choking, choking on big heaving sobs that don't leave him any air to breathe and wrack his whole body. He thinks the wailing sound filling his ears might be him.
And it's unfair. It's so unfair and it just makes him so mad that he starts pounding his fists on the table like a child, making the lamp rattle. Because that was his brother and he wants him back.
His screams are just wordless noise. His hands hurt where they hit the wood and his screams blur together with the pounding and whatever voice that is in the background.
When Tony's hands catch against something softer than wood, he doesn't realise it's someone's chest until that someone catches his fists and holds them against it and a voice starts saying
"Hey, Tony, Tony, easy! Easy! It's alright!".
Over and over again.
And he fights and struggles to free his hands, trying to hit them and make them let go because it isn't alright, it's not! But the hands don't let go and the voice says
"Hey, hey, Tony, what is it?"
and they know, they should know, why doesn't anyone know!?
"But he's gone and I want him back!"
They should just know. Greg wasn't some nobody and Tony shouldn't be the only one who cares that he's gone. And that just makes him cry again but he's still screaming at the person holding him and he doesn't even know what he's shouting anymore.
"I know, Tony, I know. It's alright, it's gonna– No. I know. I'm so sorry. I know. I'm so sorry. Hey. Hey, easy. I know. It's okay."
Steve holds him until he stops crying, ignoring Jarvis frantic voice still coming from the landline.
A/N: This story was first written at and inspired by the old desk at my grandmother's, complete with green lamp, map desk pad and atlas on it. No idea how that made me think of all this. Guess my muse felt like doing me a solid. Hope you enjoyed. If you did, leave a review and make my day brighter.
(Tony had a brother named Gregory Stark in the Marvel comics. My version isn't faithful to that character but was inspired by him, hence the Original character tag.)