I'm sorry! So sorry for the wait! This took forever to write—took me FOrever to revise it. Enjoy!
Jack couldn't explain what had come over him when Odin had reached out. Just...some feeling had gripped him, so powerfully that it nearly rendered him paralyzed. And when Odin had touched him...well, everything had gone WRONG. Everything he knew, everything he understood, everything he believed in, everything he cared about...it had just been ripped from him and tangled into a broken spider web of fact and fiction.
He didn't remember much after that hand pressed down on his head. Just some sort of pressure exploding in the back of his head, a brief sensation of falling...then, the nightmare.
He opened his eyes to a dark space—something that felt like nothing, or nothingness. No sound, no object, no feeling of fear or anxiety, not even a color he remembers...just nothingness.
No, wait. That's not true. That boy...he was there.
Jack remembers looking around the nothingness, until suddenly his eyes landed on this form—this shape, this bright lash of color on this space, so obtrusive, so awkward that it nearly gave him a head ache. Yet, he approaches, even with no specific thought to do so, and kneels before the figure that is curled away from him, frozen in the fetal position. As he becomes level, he realizes things—smoke is curling off the bright azureness of the clothing the figure wears, stark against the nothingness, the cloth itself is tattered and torn, and the shape is unnaturally still—there is some repetitive motion that is missing, some sort of up/out, down/in motion...and then it hits him: breathing. The figure—a boy, like him—isn't breathing.
This shocks Jack to the core—instinctively, he reaches forward with a hand, grabbing the boy's thin, bony shoulder (so much like his own) with intent to...to what? To shake, to pump, to yell— it doesn't matter, but the desire to help is too strong—
Yet as soon as his fingers grazed the other, it jerked to life, gasping spectacularly and thrashing on the nothingness ground. The new boy sat up, his breaths heavy, gawking all around him, when his bright blue eyes landed on Jack.
Before Jack could say anything, a slow smile crept across the boy's face and he said in a voice that rang so familiar, "Thanks for finally coming round, Stark. I knew you'd let me through at some point."
"Who are you?" The words flew from his mouth quicker than laughter; he was overcome with confusion, of what was going on, and he felt the gripping urge to understand.
The other boy's mouth quirked in the funniest of half-smiles, and he hesitated, running his fingers through his startlingly white locks. "It's a bit complicated...but I'm Jack—Jack Frost."
Oh, that name sent a slew of thoughts and images through Jack Stark's head. I want to find out what made me look like that creeper, Jack Frost...He remembered himself as white-haired, and blue-eyed—
"But—you look like me!" He gasped, gawking at his doppelgänger. "Just like me!"
Jack Frost smirked, "Correction: you look like me. When we merged, you took on my physical appearance. Now, you just look like me when I was human."
Jack Stark was quiet for a few moments, processing everything.
"Where are we?"
Jack Frost looked around, looking faintly curious. "I'm not sure, actually," he shrugged. "Somewhere in your mind, I'd guess. I'm not exactly an expert on this sorta thing."
"What happened?" Something wasn't right to Jack Stark. Something was off, something...he couldn't quite place.
Jack Frost settled himself into a more comfortable sitting position, and Jack Stark found himself doing the same. Jack Frost looked the other boy straight in the eye and said firmly,
"You died."
Jack Stark gasped as hot fire tore through his skull; memories flickered in his head faster than a camera shutter. The ammonium perchlorate, the explosion, the—He found himself to be trembling as he gawked at Jack Frost. "You saved me." He said slowly, the words turning in his head. "But...you didn't mean to."
Jack Frost shook his head. "I didn't. I knew you were already gone, but—"
"Already gone? What do you mean?" Jack Stark felt as though they were edging closer to the out-of-place thing...they were so close it was humming in his skull...
"You died in that explosion, Stark." Jack Frost's voice was eerily gentle. "But a shadow, an imprint of you, was still preserved in your mind when I came in. I was the life force, but the serum your dad used gave that imprint enough juice to overshoot my influence, and so technically you had control of the body."
"...you make this sound like possession or something," Jack Stark muttered, his mind still slowly revolving the ideas that swam in his head.
Jack Frost grimaced slightly. "I'm afraid it kinda was. But you were dead, and I was dying. I needed—"
"YOU needed?" Jack Stark suddenly spat, anger flaring in his chest. "YOU needed?! What about me?! What about what I needed?! I needed my family, and I got them back! Why did you have to—to—"
"Jack." Stark froze as Jack Frost met his eyes, his voice calm. "I'm so, so, so sorry," He said quietly, "But you're just a shadow. You aren't Jackson Stark, and you aren't Jack Frost."
Jack Stark stared at Frost, breathing hard. "What—? What do you—?"
"Take your pulse."
"What?"
"Take. Your. Pulse." Frost repeated slowly, his voice sad and firm. The last thing Stark wanted to do was to comply with him, but an unwarranted sense of dread filled him, and he pressed his shaking palm to his chest, desperately expecting the comforting, very real thud-thud, thud-thud of a beating heart...
His head spun when there wasn't one.
Panicked breaths seized Jack Stark as disbelief took hold, clouding his head. Refusing to accept it, he pressed his cold fingers to his temples, searching for the throb of blood.
Nothing.
"Jackson..." Jack Frost's voice was quiet. "You aren't real."
For a moment, there was awful, yawning, aching silence.
The shadow raised his head to meet the eyes of Jack Frost. "So what do I do?" He whispered numbly. "What now?"
"Let go," Said Frost simply, and Stark chuckled bitterly—as if it was so easy to do so.
"Sorry to disappoint you," He said angrily, "but I'm not exactly sure how."
At this, Frost looked truly thoughtful. "Well..." He said slowly. "Did Jackson Stark—" he stopped at the look on the other boy's face. "Do you—" he corrected himself "have anyone in your family that died? I mean, hi—your mom died when you were little, right?"
"Yeah..." Said Stark warily. Images of his mother's smiling face flashed in his head, as brief as a strike of lightning, but a peculiar tingling sensation began to prickle the tips of his fingers like his hands were falling asleep. He ignored it.
"Think about her," encouraged Frost. "Focus on what she looked like, how she acted—like, what would she be saying right now?"
Surprisingly, that question was a tricky one. Would his mother tell him to fight this mysterious boy who was trying to enter his body as if he was pulling on a glove? Or would she want him to be with her...wherever she was?
He tried to picture her, her wide, laughing smile that always made him feel so warm inside when he was little. He and Ben had missed her so much, and his father had always seemed so sad after she died. He closed his eyes, and was startled when a bright light flashed in front of his eyes and he flinched—it was like a camera had gone off beneath his eyelids. The tingling feeling spread—the pinpricks crept up his fingers, sliding all the way up to his elbows, but he hardly noticed.
"Nothing's happening," he sighed. He could only see his mother's face, her bright green eyes, but that was all.
Frost didn't reply. Stark continued to try and concentrate on his mother's face. It was weird how everything else in life made your final passing this big, dramatic moment—but here he was, sitting in this awkward silence, waiting to die like his head was on the scaffold. If this was dying, though, it was rather uneventful and boring.
He twitched slightly as the numb tingle hummed in his shoulders and webbed down his chest. What the hell was this? He was just minding his own business and trying to die and his body was falling asleep!
His habitual breaths froze as he realized that he didn't actually have a body. He didn't have a heartbeat—there was no blood circulation to stop!
He opened his eyes to see Frost staring at him, wide eyed. Stark glanced down at his own body—and blanched when he saw nothing beneath him...except...oh, God. His mind seemed to stop processing—or he was hallucinating, or something equally as jacked up, because he watched as his torso disintegrated below him, breaking apart and scattering into nothing as if every molecule in his body was spontaneously drifting apart. There was nothing left of him—he gawked at his legs as they dissolved below him—yet he could feel the buzzing, the tickling, the vibrating as it consumed him, crawling up his neck.
"What the hell is—!" He tried to scream a question, begging to know this final answer—but then everything just vanishes and he feels like he's falling. This brilliant light wells up as if the air is filling with fireflies and then all his thoughts stop.
—•—•—
Meanwhile, Jack Frost is gaping at the spot where Jack Stark's imprint vanished. He just sort of...broke apart.
But before Jack can accept this, he feels a familiar tug in his gut—something he recognizes from the brief moments he could control the imprint—and he knows he's ascending. It's all waiting for him up there—where is he anyway? He doesn't know. But wherever or whenever or whoever he is, he's got at least one worried father to explain things to.
He feels as if he's underwater, yet a life buoy is wrapped around his chest, pulling him up. as the brilliant light swallows him, he doesn't feel relief, but dread at the prospect of telling this poor man and his single son that their Jackson Stark is dead.
—•—•—
All Tony ever wanted was a simple life.
Well, that's not actually true. He always wanted to do amazing things—he wanted to be a genius, he wanted to be great—and he always had ambition to create...and maybe get famous. Maybe.
But that was besides the point.
Because what he was forced to deal with now JUST WASNT FAIR.
He stares at this boy before him, shocked and numb past his very core as the boy looks back at him with fleeting confusion before recognition dawns very suddenly in his eyes and a nervous grin is across his face.
"Oh!" This boy says in a voice that is so unlike Jackson Stark's confidant banter, "You're Tony Stark, aren't you?"
For the first time in his life, Tony's brain wants to explode with the overload. What does he mean? Why would he say that like he'd never met his own father before? This was his son—what the hell—why—
"Um... You're probably wondering who I am." The boy says, and a faint blush creeps up to his cheeks under Tony's unblinking stare.
But things are beginning to click together in Tony's head. He's going mad—he must be—if he believes all the voodoo and crap the two aliens had told him, but if, just if they were telling the truth...
Something hot and ugly seemed to coil in Tony's chest, wrapping around his heart. His fingers twitched. He stared at this boy, this thing, this...this imposter...
This was the thing who murdered his son.
Tony's hands seemed to act on their own accord. His vision blurred, something maniacal—something primal—seized control of his thoughts and he lunged forward, grabbing the boy's neck in his hands and squeezing like one would squeeze the last drops of blood from an orange. The thing inhabiting his son's corpse doesn't stand a chance, only able to widen its eyes and fight for the air that won't come. Very slowly (or perhaps it happens in an instant—Tony can't tell) the thing falls backwards in Tony's clenching grip, it's fingers scrabbling on the floor uselessly, it's eyes fluttering shut—
Suddenly, something is squeezing Tony's arms and he's being dragged backwards, away from the thing. He fights back, knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that he seems feral, but it doesn't matter—his head is clouded with a blind, aching, grieving rage. He wants to kill the thing that killed his innocent son, he wants to squeeze the life out of the creature that lays retching on the ground, using his son's stolen voice and stolen face and stolen reflex tears that slip out of new eyes.
Tony's always hated the color blue.
Suddenly, the door opens with a bang—Tony sees Benjamin burst into the throne room, his eyes frantic and fiery, a panicking Steve on his heels.
His mind is tearing itself apart, caught in the swells between going to his son, tearing apart Jack's murderer, beating the living crap out of Thor and Odin, godly powers be damned—
Then, Benji's there, heading for the imposter—he still thinks it's his twin—but the words of warning stick in Tony's throat.
"Jack!" Ben cries out, dropping to his knees and throwing his arms around the gasping, white-haired boy. "Are you—Jesus Christ—are you okay?" Ben pulls back, blanching at the bright red finger marks that are rising angrily on the tender skin of Jack's neck. "What the—who the hell did this to you?!"
And it's chaos all around them—Steve is fighting with the guards restraining a now-limp Tony, shouting for them to release him—Thor is bellowing at the guards, trying in vain to negotiate with the enraged solider and bristling Asgardians. Odin is bawling for order that refuses to heel. Ben is frantically interrogating the other boy before him, hardly stopping for breath. He's always cared for his brother, but Tony can see his utter terror, trying to find out who he should be protecting Jack from, and Tony can also see the false Jack, the wrong Jack blinking with shock and confusion that rolls off Ben like water on a duck—the imposter doesn't recognize his predecessor's brother.
The voices merge and swim and twist and contort in his mind, clouding his vision—he's going insane, because this is insanity—he can't have lost his Jack—but he's seen it—his Jack is gone—just like his mother—
And suddenly Tony's train of thought is stopped because he suddenly isn't thinking about what he's going to did from here. There is suddenly nothing to do from here. He's stuck—he's finally stuck—and there is no way out.
The shouts and screams and roars and shrieks mean nothing.
"NO!"
Suddenly, one voice pitches above all the rest, a brass note of agony and despair. Every single voice stops and every eye turns to the two children. Benji is backpedalling—he's stumbling backwards from the blue-eyed doppelgänger as if he's been burned. The other boy, in turn, rises shakily to his feet, holding his hands out in vain in a placating manner.
"Please—it's okay!" He stammers pleadingly, his eyes locked on Ben. "I know it's weird—my name's Jack, too—"
"No!" Benji yells again, cutting the new Jack off. He's shaking his head so vehemently that it must be giving him whiplash. "No!"
"I'm sorry!" Says this Jack desperately, his eyes darting to Tony very briefly. "I'm so sorry—this wasn't supposed to happen! If—if you—if you just let me explain—!"
"No!" Benji yells it a final time before words begin to tumble out of his mouth. "You aren't him! You aren't my brother! You aren't!"
Steve's head snaps up at this, eyes bugging out in shock.
"I know!" Jack Frost cries, utter grief tearing across his chest. "I know, and I'm sorry—there—there—there was—" he's stuttering in his fear of this family, falling over his own words as if they were boulders tumbling down from mountains to barricade his narrow, fleeting escape. "The was—an imprint! It's gone now—now I'm here! I'm not Jack Stark—I'm Jack Frost!"
"Where is he?!" Benji looks positively mad with confusion and fear, his face twisted into a scowl and his complexion pallid. "Where's my brother?! What the hell have you done with him?!"
Jack's fingers twist in his white hair, his pale lips contorting in their own desperate grimace. "He's gone—I'm sorry, but he's dead—"
This is the worst thing to say, and the worst way to put it, because Ben's eyes gag wide open at the words and his face twists into a snarl.
"You killed him!"
Jack's eyes widen with shock at this. "No!" He begs in turn. "I didn't—I swear—he was already gone—" he gasps and darts backwards as Benji suddenly lunges for him, fingers grasping for his throat to finish his father's work. More impassive Asgardians lock their arms around the thrashing, snarling teen, holding him with ease, but the terrified newcomer presses himself against the wall, staring with alarm and utterly stunned.
Thor and Odin are left to survey the mess they've made—a torn soldier, a shell-shocked father, a hysterical brother, and an immortal being that is so far from home.
Gosh, sorry. I hope you enjoyed the angst. Not done yet, this story. Review! Please! Right there...in that little box!