Tell me the story.
Really small fry?
Just one more time? Please! I'll be extra good and -
Fine. Okay – the story (for the umpteenth time)… Alright, once there was a little boy…
Once there was a little boy born to a rich man made of iron and his pretty paper doll wife. It caused quite a commotion for how could a man of iron and a woman of paper make a child of flesh and blood? And the rich man was not especially pleased, but the child lacked for nothing. He had clothes that were well made and things that were worth more than the homes of most people. And there was a clockwork butler who loved him, a woman of shadows who taught him, and a man with one eye who came with the night. And the night man warned him saying, "Take care little one – the world is full of wolves and a tender heart their favorite meal."
And the words he spoke were like the memory of starlight – something vast that made the boy feel small or at least smaller. He was only a very small lump of child, and so understandably he did not understand. He need not have worried because when he was only a little older his father explained. With the flat of his hand and the bass of his voice and the tears he shook loose – he explained that Iron Men have no weaknesses. That tears will only rust an Iron Man and flesh exists only to bruise, rot, and die. And the boy could see the truth of his words in the colors that blossomed across his own little face, but he was a spectacularly slow little thing and couldn't quite grasp things.
Thankfully the little boy's mother decided to help by upsetting the rich man whose cleverly articulated hands left her lip split and her eye swollen and her heart a little more broken. And the clockwork butler and his clockwork wife did their best with paste and platitudes to fix the rips in her… But oh honey, it's so hard to mend paper together again. And the little boy nodded to himself and took the stairs two at a time to his room where he locked the door. No one quite noticed in the brouhaha of the rich man leaving for a month and a day to look for a hero who could probably fix him
No one quite noticed – except the man who came with the night. 'Tell me sir – how best does one keep safe?' And the strange man with his one eye of glass and chaos laughed like the wind in the trees. 'To start one does not leave their heart on their sleeve.' And the boy nodded and plucked it off as easily as breathing. But when the night man held out his hand for it the boy only shook his head – and the night man smiled a terrible smile before leaving with a cackle. And the little boy thought and thought and thought and then he asked the clockwork butler who loved him how best to keep the little thing safe.
And the clockwork man smiled sadly saying that he should be more pragmatic. And when the child frowned he continued, "A pragmatic person is one who is concerned with practical results, especially as that relates to learning from the past." And the boy smiled before politely saying thank you. To protect his tender heart he needed to learn from the past, but how?
So it was that the boy went looking for pictures, for old newspapers, and even older gossips. And it was very like an adventure – clambering about forgotten nooks and crannies near buried beneath soft blankets of dust or sweet talking information from heads gone soft with age. And if his heart grew a little harder or the light it gave became a tad bit softer… well, what of it? Surely such things would make it safer in the long run.
Besides there were more important things to think of – like discovering that once his iron father had been a smiling wizard with clever brown eyes. Or seeing the light gradually fade from his mother in a series of pictures spread out over the course of twenty years; it was nearly as neat a trick as the disappearance of his father's friends. But the boy did not know what it meant for the future – he only knew that his mother deserved better. So that became his second goal because his first goal remained guarding his tender little heart.
Sadly he was of an age that people felt entitled to knowing his every thought, his every act, his every sorrow, his everything. And with that his father who had been content to ignore him suddenly dogged his every waking step. Worse he would sometimes awaken to see the bitter iron man taking measures of him with a speculative gleam in his eyes. However, it was not until he followed the old bastard that he found the truth of the matter: an iron mask cast in the shape of his father's face, an iron cage just the right size for a child's heart, and a setup of steel wire and pig iron just large enough for a marionette his size.
This simply wouldn't do – so the boy hatched a plan to get away from his father long enough to grow stronger. And he made the most wondrous devices from steel and copper wire and jade. And he charmed the fluttering ladies his mother surrounded herself with, impressed the creaking tin soldiers who courted his father. And so he found himself scheduled to attend one famous school after another, each of them further and further from his father's grasp. The one issue for him was where to hide his heart – the clockwork butler was too weak to guard it, his mother was even worse, and the only other people he could trust weren't exactly trustworthy. So he carried it with him.
Hidden beneath his uniforms or his shirts his heart was safely kept out of reach – and so he developed a reputation for being casually warm, but personally cold. And once there was a man of steel called Rhodes who could have been trustworthy, but his heart belonged to Columbia and he already had the markings of a tin soldier. So instead the boy started looking at building something to hold his heart since there was nothing or no one he could leave its care to – not even himself. And his first attempt was a simple clockwork child he called Dume, but the stupid thing was a danger to himself never mind a delicate heart.
And the second attempt became a more complex clockwork set of twins called Bart and Yuu, but they were more interested in each other and Dume then in the greater world. So finally he made his third and what seemed like his final attempt – a man of salt and lightening and gleaming platinum named Jarvis. And it – he was a secret marvel inside of which laid a box inside which laid a case in which laid his creator's heart and he guarded it with his life. But there still laid the risk of the rich iron man and the worry of the delicate paper woman.
And slightly more immediate was the issue of the iron man's pet dragon who loved gold and would do anything to amass more. And if the gold it laid upon gave forth a rotten stench or shone dully through a coating of something vaguely red… No one seemed to mind. Though it certainly gave him an idea – although that would take a trip to the dark, frozen woods and might mean sacrifice. Under cover of visiting a friend he visited the dark woods to the north and met with a dark man and his pet wolf. 'And this thing will deal with the iron man and his wife?' And the dark man smiled before ordering his wolf to bear its mouth of impossibly sharp metal teeth. 'No one has survived these and I doubt your parents will be the first to start.'
The boy, who was now a young man, nodded and smiled before Bart and Yuu stepped out of the shadows and dragged the man away with a cold porcelain hand over his mouth. The wolf shook itself before turned empty eyes to his new owner – who smiled and collared him saying, "Your new name is James." The wolf bowed before coming to stand next to the young man its dark fur flowing like oil over a body equal parts flesh and steel. The next few months are quiet as the young man privately mourns his mother and who he once was. And then as snow frosts the land he watches his parents ride off into the night before a shadow detaches from the darkness in pursuit. He is not surprised when news comes of their demise, but he weeps anyway.
And a few days later his father's dragon is found slain the victim of an ill-fated deal to kill his owner and take his gold for himself. The world yields its sympathy even as it demands to know what he will do. He has enough money to do what he wants, but it does not hurt to have more and it will do no good to alienate the powers that be. He bows to demand and earns the title Merchant of Death. The Merchant builds a tower in the center of the land's greatest city and becomes a wizard of dark means. His wolf grows to be the size of a horse fed on the blood of those who would harm him and those who would cut corners to compete.
More than a quarter of a century later the Merchant has grown tired of the wails of those injured by his weapons. And with a flip of his wrist he takes back all his remaining weapons – but that leaves him with nothing to do. Throwing money at intelligent apprentices is interesting, but it is not entertaining or fulfilling. Sadly his newest assistant has no ideas, and briefly he thinks of the firebrand who had the audacity to tell him he was wrong. Sadly it was less because she was trying to correct a mistake and more because she wanted to prove she knew better than him - and that would do nothing for him in the long run.
'Perhaps Sir you might help others? Those who suffer from issues of might?' The Merchant laughed at such a quaint suggestion from Jarvis. It would do no real good in the long term, and in fact, would lead to many issues… issues he didn't need. The only long-term solutions required diplomacy and legislation, but surely he had enough political capital for that. And so the Merchant of Death found himself becoming the Prince of Capitol Hill. And the lessons of talking information out of empty headed gossips and presenting a thousand masks to match a thousand different stories are a god given. Most people applaud him while those that do not soon find themselves silenced.
All things considered, he does a certain measure of good, and if he finds himself pushing through bills that hurt the little people… oh well. And soon instead of rumors of him being an empty-headed playboy with too much money, there are complaints of him being a warmonger. He is accused of bias and not understanding the reality of the common man. But none of the charges stick to him – instead, he uses them like bricks to build a reputation of fairness and integrity. It should, therefore, be no surprise when he wakes up one night to see a red haired woman pointing a gun in his face. 'You have messed with the wrong people Merchant.' He nods and then smiles before she becomes an interesting splatter on the far wall. 'Thank you, Jarvis. That will be all.'
The next month finds him attending two funerals that could not be more different. A big church affair filled with weeping eyes and grandiose words like service and duty and inspiration. One where he finds himself helping to carry an empty coffin for symbolic burial all while his 'cousin' watches him with dry suspicious eyes. The other is a silent event involving him watching a bonfire burn itself out before pissing on the ashes. The entire time he rolls a cheap glass eye between his hands remembering a laugh like the wind in the trees. The third funeral isn't even a funeral – it's just watching the slaughter then ordering the killing fields to be turned under by plow.
Somewhere a man is buried under the ice, and under the ice he will stay. Somewhere a man becomes his own literal demon. Somewhere a man with perfect aim wonders how it all came apart. Somewhere a blond man turns his back and finds a spear shoved through it. Somewhere an unassuming man will vow to repay the loss of his dream and his life's work. But none of that matters because when the skies open to unleash a world of hurt it is met by a legion of iron and their creator – a man of flesh with a heart of diamond.
And then?
And then he decided he needed more than just a tower made of mechanical people and the tokens of people who had failed to kill him. And so he –
He made me!
Yes, and he lived as happily ever after as it was possible to be.
Even without a heart?
Sure, what's really so special about a bit of flesh and blood?