TONY'S POV
An unrelenting ocean of darkness distilled across the sky, not even the slightest of stars rippling across its blunt surface, devouring all light in one single yawn of its jaw. It loomed like a choking haze over the correlating skyscrapers that cast shadows of their own across the barren streets, devoid of light and shrieking with a gale that blasted daggers of ice into Tony's bones.
Tony peered up into the starless heavens, his eyes thick-lidded and heavy as he battled against the urge to let go of the struggle against the unyielding cold and tormenting exhaustion and wither back against the pavement. Yet a kindling flame, a flickering candle still existed within him, blazing furiously inside. He wouldn't allow himself to give in when not all had been lost entirely.
With his arms quivering, Tony hurled himself onto his knees, his skin burning beneath the soaking clothes that clung to his body like a dense blanket of ice. He tried to swallow, yet his throat was seething with thirst, tasting the iron of blood on his palette as he scrapped his tongue across the cracked and sticky surface of his lips. A hollow ache existed in his stomach and he cradled his arms around his abdomen, trying to ignore the hunger gnawing at his insides.
"I have to get to Rhodey's," he moaned as he heaved himself onto his feet and skirted the sidewalk on trembling and shuddering legs, focusing on just placing one foot before the other in a tedious, gruelling cycle that with each step, it drained the life from him.
Tony's breaths continuously hitched in his lungs as he staggered onward, his eyes flashing in short bursts up towards the sky, waiting for the sun to rise. An inkling feeling swelled in his stomach, making him wonder if it ever would again. Numerous times, he'd questioned in his mind if this was all real, or just a figment of his imagination. If this was living truth, or merely his mind toying with him. Yet he couldn't deny the reality of how he felt physically; the hunger, the cold, the exhaustion, so vivid and vibrant within his being that it seemed almost absurd to question its true existence.
Tony weaved through the bending streets, wandering aimlessly across the expansion of ceaseless pavers, trying to find a sense of direction in his rupturing sanity. Yet as he shambled along an alley that's appearance was identical to the ones before it, he came to a halt, almost collapsing from how much his vision was reeling. He reclined heavily against a window, his quaking fingers groping at the dust-clotted panels for support as he shut his eyelids against the nauseating dizziness that curdled his stomach. Yet just as his knees were about to give an almighty lurch, a strangled, quavering voice stirred in the silence, reverberating from a place directly behind him, familiar yet unfamiliar in the way that fear dripped from its tone, causing a bolt of adrenaline to surge through his veins.
"Tony?..."
Gulping densely, Tony steered himself around warily and as his sight shifted into focus, his abdomen clenched, the oxygen escaping his lungs in one violent burst.
Rhodey was suspended by a hand clutching at his neck, his feet dangling barely centimetres from the cement, clawing desperately at the fingers twisted around his throat, the dark skin of his lips and cheeks turning a malicious shade of violet. The figure holding his friend hostage was broad shouldered and towering, dressed completely in ivory with a narrow face concealed beneath a hooded mask.
Despite the weakness corrupting Tony's limbs, his muscles seized as his fingers curled into jarring fists, a hoarse snarl erupting savagely from his tongue. "Ghost."
A wicked cackle erupted from the figure's mask lips. "Well, if it isn't Tony Stark! Well, don't you look sick. Come for your pet?"
"He is not a pet!" Tony yelled through gnashing teeth, his entire frame quaking with rage. "Now let him go, and I promise when I get my hands on you, I'll go easy!"
"You're persistent, I'll give you that." Ghost's voice was rich with the smirk that Tony could just imagine twisting his features beneath the hood. "Or just too arrogant to see your disadvantage. But whatever; if you want him, Stark, then come and get him!"
With his quivering legs blazing to life, Tony lunged for Ghost, too blinded by hatred to truly decipher any repercussions that may occur as a consequence of his actions. With his hands extending in front of him, he propelled himself forward, grasping for the figure's torso, only...to furl his fingers around nothing, tripping clumsily over his toes and crashing against the pavement. A howl stripped from his lungs as a horrible splintering sound broke the air, followed instantaneously by an explosion of agony flaring up his side, indicating a rib fracturing on impact.
With his breaths weaselling excruciatingly from his throat, Tony vaguely recognised as fingers clawed at the scruff of his shirt and peeled him ruthlessly from the concrete, the pain so acute that a spiralling haze warped his vision.
"Rhodey...run!" Tony rasped blindly, praying that Rhodey would for once heed his instructions.
Tony squirmed as oozing, smoky breath tickled his neck, a venomous laugh purring in his ear. "You just don't know when to give up, do you kid? I should have killed you when I had the chance! But it doesn't matter now, because your luck's about to run out anyway."
Ghost's entire weight thrusted into Tony's shoulder blades, launching him like a child's rag doll across the length of the highway before his body slammed unceremoniously into a vast expanse of metal, his skull whipping headfirst into its exterior. A shrill crack split the din as though something solid had just fragmented into a million tiny pieces. The collision paralysed him for several long, straining seconds as he battled to stay afloat between the voids of unconsciousness and consciousness. His wheezing breaths struggled down his throat hazardously slow, rattling fitfully in his lungs. His stomach frothed and twisted with each throb that wracked his skull. He could vaguely hear someone crying out his name, the sound hammering against his brain, yet as his lips quivered apart, he couldn't find the strength to even utter a sound.
"Tony... Tony!... Tony!"
The voice...it was shouting...desperately...pleading... Yet he didn't want to move... He couldn't move... But his heart was yearning...screaming for him to stay awake...a kindling inferno amongst the cold, shredded apart by grief, the only piece of him that wasn't numb to the core...
The fog layering his brain receded as Tony dragged his eyes open, blinking to dispel the blurriness that was smeared across his sight. As his vision cleared, he felt as though a fist had pummelled into his diaphragm, sending the air gushing out from him, claws ripping agonisingly at the fractured remnants of his soul. Fresh tears raged beneath his eyelids, as seething as deadly flames.
"NO!" He shrieked, suffocating on the despair that was clutching mercilessly at his airways and piercings daggers into his lungs.
Rhodey was on the verge of keeling over, his legs jerking violently beneath him as his chest heaved in laboured, strangled gasps, his frame supported by Ghost's elbow clamped around his torso, impaled from behind by the slanted blade of a cutlass driven straight through his abdomen. Rhodey's eyes were wide with shock, his gaze wavering as he struggled to keep his irises from rolling upwards into the back of his skull. As Ghost ripped the blade back out, a horrible gurgling sound scoured from his throat as he crumpled over onto the ground, motionless, a river of scarlet splattering across the pavement.
A bloodcurdling laugh vented from Ghost as he admired his 'pièce de rèsistance' with the slanted white holes engraved into his mask. "A job well done, don't you think?" He didn't hesitate for a reply but instead switched into his intangible form and drained into the pavement like ice gradually melting into fluid, his last words lingering in farewell. "Glad to do business with you, kid."
Tony, with tears falling one by one until they were gushing streams drenching his cheeks, clattered to his knees by Rhodey's side, trying to ignore how the footpath was teetering harshly beneath him as rolled over Rhodey's body and placed Rhodey's head into his lap. "Rhodey! Rh-Rhodey, talk to me! Please!"
"T-Tony..." Rhodey shifted slightly against the concrete, his face carving into a grimace as his eyes squinted open, glassy from the agony that seized his being. "...G-Ghost wasss r-righ-t-t, you know...y-you do l-l-look sick..."
Tony scoffed, shaking his head furiously, causing boiling tears to splash over Rhodey's skin. "I look sick?! What about you?! You're the one who just got stabbed in the back!"
Rhodey tried to raise his hand, yet it wavered feebly above his chest as his lips managed to curve into a delicate, quivering smile. "It's o-ok, T-T-Tony -"
"No, it's not ok!" The words were torn from his throat at such a harsh octave that his voice broke, chest convulsing as he fought a loosing battle against the hysteria that he felt collide with the force of an entire ocean. "I told you to run! Why didn't you run..."
"B-because I-I couldn't...l-l-leave y-ou a-alone...with G-Ghos-s-t," Rhodey stammered furiously, the intensity flaming within his eyes like hot coals sizzling within waves of heat as he mustered the strength to pierce Tony with a glare. "T-that-t's what w-we do... W-we d-don't always a-agreeee a-an-d we d-don't always s-s-see eye...t-to eye...b-but Tony, when w-we n-n-need ea-ch other..." Rhodey spluttered slightly as blood coloured his lips a rich crimson. "...we al-always got...ea-each other's...b-back..."
Tony's mind reeled backwards to all the disagreement and arguments they'd sported over the years and felt his gut tighten at the realisation of how meaningless and unimportant they appeared now as time was slipping through his fingertips, as containable as gushing water. Tilting his head up to the inky-black sky, his voice spilled feverishly from his mouth as he sobbed, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. This can't be happening. This can't be happening!"
"Tony..."
He lowered his eyes mournfully back to Rhodey's face, watching mortified as his skin diminished of all colour, replaced by blood vessels ravishing beneath the surface of his features, a hue similar to poison. Not even an ounce of fear corrupted his eyes as the gleam of life vanquished from them, leaving only a veil of shadows behind. His breaths were congested, arresting within his lungs as his chest wrenched for oxygen, the long muscles in his neck standing out like metal hawsers with each strangulated gasp. Yet despite all this, he was still smiling, a heartbreaking lace in his features that caused daggers to gorg into Tony's heart, a droplet of blood trickling from the crease in his mouth as the corners of his lips wavered.
"Th-thanks, T-Ton-Tony, f-for be-ing the b-best f-f-fri-en-end...anyone...c-could a-a-asss-kkk for..."
Tony dipped his head, his voice evading him completely as spasms of soundless sobs quaked him from head-to-toe.
A single tear dripped from Rhodey's eyes as they squeezed shut, his words grating from his tongue and crackling like static through the din. "L-look aft-er M-Mum f-f-for me...and P-Pepp...er..." His voice rippled through nothingness, trailing away entirely to never utter another sound, never to speak a word of reason, never to explode in a bout of frustration, never to burst into laughter at something hilarious or stupid that they had accomplished. There was only white noise left to quaver in its wake, a flow of dead, pointless air that rattled like sediments of ash in Tony's throat and seethed like acrid smoke in his lungs, an echo of the previous misery on the field of blazing debris, this fresh heartache causing wounds to delve deeper and bleed out raw for all to see.
The agony that had once been twisting Rhodey's features ceased, gently, almost delicately as the skin creasing over his forehead unfolded and the eyelids covering the whites of his eyes slackened. A final exhale tumbled from his lips like a slow flux of water, streaming until his chest lay flat, motionless, the struggle at its end, and with it, life gradually flooded away. Serenity was what remained after the hurricane, a fragile peace, so soft, so calm that Rhodey could've just been asleep had it not been for the yawning, gaping whole plunged into his gut that poured with gaudy blood. It soaked Tony's jeans in sullen crimson, still warm despite the chill that had iced Rhodey's body to the touch, stiff and unyielding.
The waxy details of Rhodey's skin gradually vanished as reality smeared across Tony's vision in dim hues, glistening like watery gemstones. He could no longer hear the frigid gale shivering within his ears, only a sluggish silence as though he'd submerged himself beneath the surface of the ocean, blind and deaf to all except the friend lying dead over his knees. Tony should've felt agony rippling up his side with each sob that rattled his frame. Tony should've felt the nauseating throb of pain belting furiously against the side of his skull. Tony should've felt the twisting and curling pulse of illness forming in his stomach. And yet he couldn't feel anything. Nothing could penetrate the barricade, the barricade of brambles and thorns, encasing him in a cage of his despair, with the key melting away in the seething ashes that burned him alive.
Cradling Rhodey's head in his arms, guilt shattering his heart as he croaked, "You should've run, Rhodey... You should've run..."
