Cryptic Hush - Chapter Thirty Four -
WARNING! THIS CHAPTER IS HORRIBLE AND MAY BE DISTURBING TO SOME PEOPLE. IF YOU DO NOT LIKE DEATH AND BRUTAL MURDER THEN PLEASE SKIP PAST THE BIT IN ITALICS. - Thanks for reading :)
"How could you Maria? And with him of all people. MY BEST. FRIEND. WOMAN!" Howard lunged forward and grabbed his wife by her shoulders. He shook her so violently that it made the seven year old Tony gasp inaudibly. The third man in the room stepped up to them and tried to pull Howard's hand away. Howard let go then cocked his head at the bald man and chuckled ominously. "You dare tell me what to do Obbie? You who went behind my back and betrayed me?!" Obadiah held up his hands and backed away as Howard advanced on him. "Now Howard, come on, you're better than this." "Fuck you." Tony stayed where he was, cowering behind the wall that divided the living room from the kitchen. He couldn't move from the pure fear that was coursing through him. 'Why is dad acting weird? I don't like it!' Back in the living room, Howard had produced a knife from seemingly nowhere and now held Obadiah sitting in the chair, the knife pressed to his throat. "I should kill you for what you've done to me..." He murmured as Obadiah's eyes widened in fear. Maria sat in a heap on the floor, unable to move from fear and forced to watch as the two men she loved fought. "No... Howard... I'm sorry!" Obadiah whimpered as the blade stuck into his throat. A small trickle of blood dripped down his neck as his eyes widened in fear. He looked up into Howard's face, which was a mess of anger and loathing as he glared down at him. He tried to reach out to his one time friend, lifting his arm weakly as it shook before something in Howard snapped and he jerked the knife in. Maria screamed as the knife repeatedly stabbed Obadiah's body until it was nothing but a bloody mess on the chair. When Howard turned around, he glared at Maria and started to walk over, but unfortunately that's when Tony decided to come out of hiding. "Daddy...?" He said slowly, his voice cracking slightly as he stepped forward. "Daddy, what happened to uncle Obbie? And why is Mommy crying? And-" "Shut up you spoilt little brat!" Howard snarled which made Tony stop on the spot. He started to cry, loud tears streaming down his face as he stood there. Howard rolled his eyes then strode over to Tony and grabbed him by the front of his nightshirt. Tony's eyes widened as Howard brought his face close to Tony's and snarled, "I told you to SHUT UP!" "Get away from him!" Maria cried out, suddenly finding the will power to stand and ran over to where Howard was. She tugged at his shirt and thumped his back as she tried to get him to drop Tony but he didn't. He grew angrier and angrier until he snapped again and blindly threw a fist out in her direction. It struck her hard on the cheek as she fell to the floor with a cry. Tony reached a hand out to her as he watched her fall. "MOTHER!" "SHUT UP YOU MISERABLE LITTLE SHIT!" Howard cried then threw Tony against the wall. He gasped in shock as he hit it then slid to the floor and cried again, silently this time though. "TONY!" Maria cried out as she tried to scramble to her feet. She was stopped dead in her tracks as Howard slapped her. She gazed up at him in shock then he did it again. "YOU! You're just as much to blame as he is!" He nodded to the bloody mess on the chair which Maria could not turn her head towards. She was about to say something else but Howard had heard enough. Laughing like a maniac, he kicked her in the chin which knocked her into her back. It was only a moments hesitation before he was back on her and driving the knife deep into her chest she screamed as he repeated it over and over again, laughing harder and harder with each plunge. Tony sobbed and cried for his mother, turning his head away as he couldn't bear to watch. After a moment, her screams died out and she went still, leaving the room in an eerie silence. Howard then turned and walked back over to Tony and kicked him. "You want your 'Mommy'? Well she ain't here now." Tony stared up with big, blurred eyes which seemed to make Howard laugh. "Don't look at me like that boy, you know exactly what's happened." He reached into his suit-jackets picket and pulled out a large bullet-shaped device. He thrust it into Tony's hands and clutched fist painfully into his palms, making the seven year old cry louder and try to twist away. Howard slapped him which made him silent and still as he stared with big eyes at the man that he once considered his father. Howard laughed and told Tony to keep a tight hold of it for at least five minutes as he pressed a button then ran quickly out the house. Now, Tony wasn't stupid. Far from it actually, so he knew that Howard had just given him a bomb. After a moment's hesitation, Tony placed it carefully down in the sofa before running to his mother's side. He knelt down and called for her to come back as he cried. After a few minutes, he had forgotten about the bomb until it was too late. He had just run out if the room, when he heard the loudest voice he'll ever hear, and saw a bright flash of White, before a high pitched ringing sound echoed in his ears and he lost consciousness. -/-/- When Tony opened his eyes, he was lying on a bed in a dark room. A man was typing at a computer but he hadn't noticed that Tony had awoken yet. He slowly tried to get up but a wire held him down. He frowned and saw that the wire was attached to a car battery. Panic rose in his chest as he followed the other end of the wire and found it under a bandage. He gave it a small tug then winced as pain shot throughout him. "I would not do that if I were you." The man said without turning around. "Wh-what happened? Where am I? Who are you?" Tony said quickly, his chest rising and falling quickly with panic as he froze still, not daring to move. The man turned in his chair and smiled kindly at Tony before standing and walking over to his bedside. "My name is Yinsen. I live down the road from you." He said in a calm, soothing voice. Tony nodded but stayed quiet. "I'm afraid you won't like what I have to tell you. None of it, but I suppose you have to know." He sighed then looked straight at Tony. "Your mother is dead." Tony froze as he remembered the moment before that blinding light and deafening noise. He nodded again, trying desperately to hold back the tears but failing. "And wha- what's wrong with my chest?" Yinsen sighed and pulled up a chair so he could sit next to Tony. "Your father... Set off a bomb in your house and it looked like you escaped too late. You got caught in the fire and you have metal shards trapped in your heart." Tony gasped and stared in horror at the bandage on his chest. "Normally, something like that would kill you, but you were lucky. I heard the explosion and ventured inside to chest for survivors. I saw you lying on the ground and felt a pulse but it was faint. I took you back to my home and attached a magnet to you which is powered by that car battery. The magnet is working to keep the shards from entering your heart." Tony glanced warily at the car battery next to him then back at Yinsen. "What happened when the power runs out?" "Well... We find another and hook you up to it. I'm sorry but if you want any chance of living, you're stuck with it forever." Tony gulped then burst into tears again. He hated this. All he wanted, more than anything, was for them to return to how it was before his father got angry. Yinsen moved onto the bed next to him and wrapped his arms around to comfort him. After a few minutes, Tony calmed down and Yinsen lowered his arms but stayed next to him. After a moment or two of silence, Tony tugged on Yinsen's shirt so he turned to look at him. "My dad... Before he went mad... He had built this thing called an Arc Reactor that powered his work place. He taught me how it was made and I think... I think if I can get to the lab, I can make a smaller one which should run the magnet until I die of old age... It might even give me an extended lifetime but I'm not sure... Could you take me home and help me build it?" Yinsen paused for a moment. He knew that the boy needed his wounds looking over at the hospital, and that he was probably I no fit state to walk anywhere. On the other hand, this so called device might give him a better chance of survival. He nodded and lifted Tony up, telling him to hold on tight to the car battery then walked out of the room and back to the ruins of Stark Mansion. -/-/- The next memory that came to Tony was when he finished building the Arc Reactor. He had slipped it into his chest and cried out in agony as the new device fused itself to his body. It shone a bright blue light from his chest and they both waited to see if it would work. They both cheered when nothing happened but before anything else happened, Tony's tiredness caught up with him and he collapsed on the lab bench. -/-/- The next few memories that came to mind were staggered, so Tony figured he must of been slipping in and out of consciousness. He remembered a lot of pain, a lot of screaming, kind doctors of both the body and mind trying to talk to him but gaining nothing until one day, he heard two voices above him talking. "Nothing's helping him. He's been here for two months, surely there should be some change?" "I'm afraid not. If this keeps up, we may have to register Beta blockers." "Beta blockers? But, the kid will lose a lot more memory that just that night, are you sure?" "Yes. It's what's best for him. Someday he will learn the truth and the memories will return then and only then. He cannot find out beforehand what happened. Who will look after him?" "I will." A third voice joined in. Tony recognized it as Rhodey's. "I'm a close friend of his mothers, and his godfather. I'll do it." Tony heard nothing after that as he slipped out of consciousness again. The next thing he felt was a sharp prick in his arm, followed by chemicals rushing into his body. He started to panic but then felt calmer and calmer until his memories left him and he woke up.
"Howard, stop this! We can sort it out! We don't need to use violence!"
"I... Remember..." Tony groaned as he opened his eyes to stare up the ceiling. Rhodey must've been falling asleep as he suddenly jerked awake at the teenager's broken voice.
"You remember what happened?" He asked carefully. Tony nodded slowly and stood up. He glanced at his hands as he stood and wasn't surprised to see himself shaking.
"...Yes..."
"So now you finally remember... Well it was all in the past. It'll do us no good to dwell on it too much... are you okay?" He frowned as Tony had started to walk off, well, more like drift off.
"I'm fine... I'm just... going upstairs..." He said slowly. Rhodey frowned then sighed and shook his head as he went back to his discarded newspaper.
As soon as Tony reached his room, he shut the door and lay motionless in the bed, staring up at the ceiling. He simply lay there, going through all the new memories in his head and thinking back to those horrible moments of his life. He was sort of glad that he was forced to take the blockers at a young age, but at the same time he was annoyed by it. All this time, he had thought Obadiah to be the bad guy, when all along it had been his father. His cold hearted murderous father...
He sighed and shut his eye in an attempt to sleep, although no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't obtain it.
Dark: Duh duh duhhhh! Ehehe, thanks for reading, stay tuned for the next chapter :D