A Rare and Certain Courage
Short, simple, and sweet….in honor of those who died.
Even after all these years, it was still awkward. The flowers in his hand felt out of place, oddly cheap, and too bright for the solemn alabasters and grays of the tombstones. Tony sighed and shook his head as he stared at the endless rows, all neatly aligned and uniform as a row of teeth. There was so many of them, and it never mattered how many times he returned, he never got used to seeing the fresh graves, the earth graciously gutted open to accept the remains of yet another soldier.
He stared up at the endless blue sky, and suddenly flinched at the loud pop of the huge flag as the wind tossed it high against the pole. The colors-dark blue, blood red, and searing white-were almost loud in the sea of green and tidy rows of the burial ground.
Cautiously, Tony pivoted, scanning the area out of instinct long borne of being a hunted animal. Today, he didn't wear the suit. Today, he had no weapons. And it seemed sacrilegious to bring them here.
He strolled down the last row, cautious of stepping on any graves, and halted at last when he came to the stone he was looking for.
"Hey." He squatted down to his haunches, rocked back on his heels and dangled the flowers from his fingers.
"So, it's been a while….for me, anyway. I guess time doesn't really affect you, any more. At least, I hope not. I guess I'll find out when I get there, right?"
Reverently, he set the flowers in the small stone vase that had become a permanent fixture with the tombstone.
"These are for you. I wasn't sure what sort you liked, so I went with the white lilies. Should cheer the place up a bit, right? Right." Tony smoothed away some of the leaves from the grave stone, grimacing as he bent down to clear away more of the dead plants.
"I know that I only knew you for a few minutes. I know that you left behind a lot of folks who love and miss you, still, and that it's probably out of place for me to be here at all. I hope you can forgive me for that."
Instinctively, his fingers ghosted up over his shirt, and came to rest at the glowing arc in the middle of his chest. Snarling, he unbuttoned the material until the blue glowed, eerie and sick underneath his clenched fingers.
"You didn't see this…uh, you didn't get the chance. Pretty, isn't it? Called an arc-reactor. I won't bore you with the technicalities, but it's what's keeping me from joining you at the moment. I'll admit it..I was an arrogant prick when we met. And I'm sorry for that." The tears welled up, but he blinked a few back and scrubbed the rest away with a palm to his eyes.
"I remember you. You said your name was Aaron, and that you were from Arkansas. That it was your first stint overseas, and you were excited to do 'something meaningful with your life.'"
Tony hitched a shoulder.
It was so quick, and so hellish. One moment, Tony was lounging in the Hummer, spreading his charm like a fine lather over the young recruits in the vehicle. He remembered smirking into the small screen of the cell phone, tilting his head towards the soldier with a curt nod.
They had all been joking and laughing together, like old friends, even though Tony was wearing his Armani suit and the soldiers-all of them, younger than him by at least a decade, chatted and sweated together like a family.
There he was, rolling merrily through the foreign mountains, the sky scraped free from any clouds, the roiling heat counteracted by the pitiful spew of the air conditioner. No matter. Tony would be comfortably whisked away back to his charmed life in a matter of hours. He could endure sweating a bit more.
Tony remembered something hitting the windshield, and the Hummer shuddered from the force of the blow.
"What..what's going on?" Tony barked out, as he squinted in dismay to see the flames outside his window. At his side, the woman soldier was shrieking warnings as she clawed at the seatbelt and readied her weapon.
She opened fire as she shoved open the door with her bootheels. She only had time to scream and topple before she buckled from the bullets fired into her gut. Tony stared, disbelieving as her pale face, frozen with terror, slithered down the seat and came to rest, sprawling out in the sand.
"Stay with Stark!" The second soldier shrieked, as he wrenched his gun free. By then, the air was riddled with the staccato of bullets striking through metal, pinging off the Hummer's doors, lodging into flesh, indifferently swirling around them like angry hornets.
Tony stared in horror as the second soldier only had time to pepper the mountains with a few rounds before he succumbed to his wounds and fell dead outside the Hummer.
Tony remembered very little after that….the sky itself burning down around him as he stumbled through the haze of hellish flame and the geysers of sand spewing up from the desert that blinded him.
Three soldiers had died defending him that day. Three soldiers. Aaron, the kid from Arkansas who left the hills to die in this desert. He had just turned twenty. He had shown Tony the pictures of his pretty, dark-headed fiancé, and grinned when Tony complimented him on finding a hot woman to wait for him.
Linda, who had laughed at being "one of the boys," who had her kids waiting for her to come home. She was looking forward to attending college, and "making something of her life."
The last one….Tony remembered his name was Mathew Douglas. He was the captain, and the one who had shoved Stark down, keeping a bullet from piercing his brain. It was Mathew's blood that had slid down the Hummer's door when Tony had been dragged away.
Tony only remembered their first names, the festive ride to the launching of his latest baby, and the brief conversation, mingled with his impatience to get back home to his comfortable life, and away from all this heat, sand and unfamiliarity. He was tired of feeling like a show pony, and looked forward to a dip in his pool, a sip or more of wine, some female company…
Now, those three were dead. It was the one wound that Tony had no idea how to heal.
It seemed perverse, for Tony to be standing, above ground, offering flowers and excuses to somebody who had died protecting him. For that poor guy's last moments to be squandered by bleeding out in the sand instead of living to be old and useless as Tony once was. Tony never had the guts to seek out the families and apologize. He never had the spine to meet face to face, to apologize, or attempt to salvage some right from so much wrong.
He couldn't bring them back, but he could make damn sure that they didn't die in vain.
"I remember what your last words were to me. That you wanted to do something good. I'm sorry that your last conversation was with me, and not with your girl back home. I'm sorry that the last moments you had above ground were spent defending me. I wasn't worth it, then. I'm not sure that I am, now."
Tony lay the flowers down in the vase, carefully arranging the white spill of petals so they would remain upright.
" A lot has changed since then, though. I've changed. I've gone on to do some great things, since then. Saved the world, even. And that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't saved me first."
"I know that I can't repay you for the second chance, but I hope I did the next best thing…I didn't waste it. There's a lot of people above ground now that are alive because of you. I know it's a cheesy thing to say, but I'll say it anyway….thank you."
Tony rose, put two fingers to his temple and gave the grave a salute.