Ye-ah, this is just a little introspective piece that I thought up late at night. I think it could fit into the second movie somewhere, maybe. That's what I intended, anyway. Hope you like it, enjoy!
It was raining cats and dogs. Snarling, howling cats and dogs outside of his water-blurred floor-to-ceiling windows. Windows that let just the right amount of sun in on a winter's day, or cooked you in the middle of summer. He'd been meaning to have that fixed. It was a half-assed notion, one that he fairly ignored as he lifted the tumbler filled with two fingers of pure amber liquid to his lips. Bourbon, and only the best for Tony Stark.
At least, that's what he told himself these days. It was just an excuse to spend exorbitant amounts of money, but he really didn't care. What else was he going to spend it on? AIDS research? He gave at least a million dollars to amFAR every year, what was two hundred more dollars for a bottle of vintage liquor? Tony let out a grunt that could have passed for amused if he squinted really hard at it.
He just felt generally lethargic when it rained.
It was sunny the day his parents died.
How was that for irony? He thought bitterly to himself, once more raising the heavy, lead-crystal glass to his lips. He hated it when it rained. It made him feel depressed, caged, boxed in. It would have been fitting if it had rained when they died. But no, that wasn't how the story really went. It was suns-a-shinin' and birds-a-singin' the day Maria and Howard Stark drove to their deaths.
Fitting? The world didn't know the meaning of the word.
A bitter, foul taste seeped into the back of his throat, and his hand tightened dangerously around the glass. The world made its false platitudes and 'I'm sorrys' with all the smarmy sincerity it possessed. No one knew how he really felt. No one knew the harsh, cruel reality of being left behind. They just didn't get it. But he did. And he always would.
It's what Tony Stark saw every time it rained.
He saw bitterness, he saw pain, he saw everything he was trying to banish in the world with a high-tech, ostentatious, red and gold suit of armor. He was Tony Stark and he was going to single handedly fix the entire world. Yeah, sure, right after he fixed himself. With the way things looked now, if the sky were somehow a reflection of himself, that would never happen. He couldn't fix the world, knew that somewhere deep down inside of himself. But that wouldn't stop him from trying.
First, he'd tried blowing things up. When that hadn't worked, he'd switched to a different kind of weapon, a new medium to try on the insidious black cancer of the world. That had had a markedly different effect. It had worked, for a while. But now, now escalation had kicked in. Just like Gordon had told Batman before the creation of the Joker, the good guys had upped the ante and the bad guys had sneered, jeered, then rallied themselves to match.
He couldn't beat the Mandarin.
But that didn't mean he wouldn't die trying.
Tony breathed out a long sigh, then knocked back the last dregs of his drink in one gulp. He let out a slow breath, staring out at the turbulent sea visible from his perfectly stationed Malibu home.
"This one's for you, Dad,"
Tell me what ya think! Be honest and detailed, I like constructive crit. I live by it. ^_^