Spoilers for Invincible Iron Man #10-12. Also my first foray into comicverse fanfiction. Be kind. **hides**
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Perspective
By ZionAngel
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There's just something about catching a crashing eighty-ton airliner that really puts things into perspective.
And saving a bunch of kids from a crumbling building. And flying. And breaking the sound barrier. And hearing people cheer for her. But mainly the crashing plane thing.
Everything starts to fully sink in for the first time as she's towing the plane to the nearest airport, following the coordinates that Jarvis has put up on the HUD. She realizes then just how much everything has changed, how much the people around her, the world she lives in have changed. How much she's changed. And it's insane and overwhelming to think about, and up until now all she's been able to wrap her head around is the immediate task at hand, but it's all coming together now.
She's a superhero, for crying out loud.
And she fucking loves it.
It's a terrifying amount of responsibility, to know that she has so many lives literally in her hands, but she loves the way it makes her feel, like she's strong and powerful and absolutely invincible, like there's nothing she can't do. Like she's finally fulfilling a destiny and a purpose she never knew she had.
She's not afraid anymore. She's not afraid of the suit, like she was when she first put it on to escape the agents who were about to arrest her. She's not afraid of the responsibility of having so much power. She's not afraid that she'll become a weapon. She's not so helplessly afraid of the hell the world has fallen into, of the seemingly insurmountable danger she and everyone she loves now face. And that distinct, profound lack of fear is something she's nearly certain she's never experienced before in her life.
She doesn't hate the reactor embedded in her chest. For the first time since she woke up in a morphine daze, surrounded by hospital equipment with Tony sitting on the edge of her bed explaining to her why he had to put that thing in her, she doesn't feel a pang of resentment or fear or disgust every time she thinks of it, every time she moves a certain way and feels it shift inside her. She finally accepts it as part of her, part of this new person she's become, instead of something that makes her some inhuman monster. It's what lets her operate the suit, do what she's doing now, and she can't hate it for that. For once, it's actually okay that it's there.
She finally reaches the airport, and follows the air controller's directions to an empty runway, where a heavy industrial foam is waiting to cushion the plane when she sets it down. She feels more than just invincible - she feels like she can handle absolutely anything. As everyone gets off, as the report makes its way to her that no one is dead, not even seriously injured, she tells the police everything that happened. She's shaking with nerves and excitement and a million other things, and she can barely keep it together. But through the whole thing, she has this profound, unshakable knowledge that she can handle whatever comes her way next.
She's even confident that she can deal with the whole getting arrested by HAMMER thing.