A/N: Hello everyone! So nanowrimo is coming up ya'll. The imagination station time has been real. I tell you this to say that with the frenzied writing month coming up there may be more days when I'm a little late getting chapters posted on time, but please know that they are all written and the story will be completed before Christmas. Ya know... barring the end of the world or something else completely out of my control.
Disclaimer: If its got "quotation marks and it's bold" then it's a direct quote from Iron Man or Age of Ultron. Again, everything you recognize belongs to Disney.
Chapter 11 - On the Precipice of Defeat
"And all the people say: you can't wake up, this is not a dream.
You're part of a machine, you are not a human being…
Well my heart is gold and my hands are cold."
-Gasoline by Halsey
For the second time in as many days, he doesn't see the betrayal coming. Somehow, even after everything, even after he'd learned Obadiah had gone behind his back and sold his weapons to terrorists, Tony hadn't been expecting murder. Not from him. Not from Obie.
The paralysis is sudden and crippling. The high-pitched whine momentarily deafening, as his muscles lock painfully and for several moments his lungs struggle just to breathe. He can feel a trail of warm blood flowing from his ears and down his neck. There's a twisted smile on the old man's face as he praises him for the invention. The infamous Tony Stark, yet again taken down by something he's previously made.
When the older man grabs his face, Tony wants to shudder, to bat his hands away, but his body remains impotent and still. The revelation that Obadiah was the one who ordered the hit on him is like another punch in the gut. A barrage of images from his three-month captivity flash through his mind. The hellscape of torments, the humiliating echoes of his own cries, the accusing eyes of those who died while trying to defend him. All of it was Obie.
For a moment the betrayal stings worse than the ringing in his head.
Obadiah had been there from the beginning. Some of his earliest memories are playing in the corner of the workshop while his mother is away, tinkering with the engineering kits Howard left for him, trying to build something impressive enough to catch his father's eye. He finally achieved his goal when he was four and built his first circuit board.
While his father's affection had been notoriously hard to tempt his way, Obie was always quick with a smile and a wink. And although they hadn't been particularly close when he was a kid, after his parents' deaths the older man suddenly became a friend, even a surrogate father. One of very few people he'd come to trust.
So, when Christine cornered Tony at the benefit and showed him those pictures, at first he was sure there'd been a misunderstanding. Perhaps Obie didn't know; perhaps it was a mistake. He should probably wait to confront him, a public function is not the place to air dirty laundry. But his stint in the middle east had given him a new perspective on life, and he'd felt something this important couldn't wait.
The first betrayal seemed to come out of nowhere. For a horrible moment he found himself frozen, fighting hard to control his expression. There was something menacing in Obadiah's whispered voice, the arm around his shoulders, a contradictory act of fondness, making him feel trapped.
In that moment, Tony could hear his father's voice calling him a fool, his mother telling him to 'smile, Tony.'
Something inside him tore. His chest was suddenly tight, and only years of experience, allowed him to maintain the carefully cultivated persona while the cameras flashed. Inside he'd wanted to scream. To ask why? Had he done something worth the knife in the back? Was he really such trash that even his oldest friends saw fit to betray him?
He hadn't known what to do after that. He went home, questioning everything. Every kind word, every affectionate pat on the back, every holiday spent together, every show of support. They couldn't all have been lies, could they?
That's when it clicked for Tony. Of course, Tony was a failure, after all. And he'd just been shown, in the worst way possible, just how much of one. His father would've garnered loyalty. He would've never allowed himself to be put in this position in the first place. Howard would have been paying attention. Howard would have known.
Obadiah had probably come to the same conclusion. That's why he was there for Tony when Howard died. All the one-night stands, the reporters who'd shoved a microphone in a four-year old's face and asked impossible questions, the business partners who always wanted more, Hammer, Ronan, they all wanted something from him, no matter if he was willing to give it. They had no problem forcing him down and taking it. But Obadiah was supposed to be different. He was supposed to have wanted Tony, not what Tony could give him.
But of course, he wasn't.
Tony can't remember if he barreled head first into his previous, destructive lifestyle on his own, or if he was pushed, but there's a memory of a glass of scotch he hadn't wanted to take and various assurances followed by shows of fatherly affection. Almost like the old man had played him from the beginning. Almost like none of it had been real.
That realization tore at him, sat like a rock in his chest, slowly suffocating him from the inside out. So, he shouldn't have been surprised.
Even so, Tony isn't prepared when the man rips his heart out of his chest.
Perhaps not literally, but effectively enough. "You really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?"
Obie looms above him, a dark malevolence in his eyes, as he exposes the gaping hole in Tony's chest. His smile is twisted and greedy in the blue light of the reactor. No hint of the man he'd once known.
The pain hits the second the socket is yanked away from the casing's base wall. Tony gasps weakly, helpless as Obie takes his time, elongating the moment, seemingly indifferent Tony's silent struggle. A cry rises in his throat, but he chokes on it. There is something terrible and intimate about the way the older man almost pulls Tony's limp body to him, his voice filled with false affection.
"How ironic Tony, trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it it's best one ever."
And all Tony can do is stare. Eyes held wide, as the man he once looked up to, trusted and loved, packs the only thing keeping him alive into a suitcase and leaves him to die. Alone and in agony.
Tony is not exactly sure how he musters the will to fight. It'd be so much easier just to stay down and let it happen. He thinks about giving up, about slipping off into the dark right on that couch. But the last parting words of an unlikely friend ring in his ear, "Don't waste it, don't waste your life."
The will to continue is both a blessing and a curse. As much as he hates it, he can't go out like this. He can't let his company, his legacy be written in blood. That, along with fear at Obadiah's parting threat toward Pepper, rises within him and pulls him to his feet, makes him stumble into the elevator on the off chance he can save her. It was alright for them to hurt him, to beat him, to kill him, but Pepper didn't deserve any of it. She was off limits. She was good and kind and full of life and innocent. He was too tired to fight for himself, but for her, for her he could get back up one last time.
The fight doesn't go as expected. He wasn't prepared for the sheer size of Obadiah's knock-off suit, but he has a lifetime of experience being the smaller opponent. His father's fists prepared him well for getting knocked around.
What he isn't prepared for is the sheer coldness and carelessness with which Stane fights. He can't give the fight his all because everything in him screams to protect the citizens, the innocents nearby caught in something that is ultimately all his fault.
He manages to save the family in the car, but can do nothing for the motorcyclist who goes flying when Stane snatches the machine from underneath him. The face of the man flashes in his mind, he knows he'll add it to the images taken from news reports of the dead in Gulmira. Another set of damning eyes.
He takes to the air, desperate to pull Stane away from the people, banking on the hypothesis that even if Stane got something that big to fly he hadn't accounted for the ice at high altitudes. And he hadn't. Tony's right, but the small victory is short-lived.
When Stane survives the fall, Tony's got only one idea left.
He hates he's gotten Pepper into this, and he hates to ask her for more yet, but he can't do it alone. He needs her help.
This last plan will kill him, but the price is more than worth it to save innocent lives. Besides, he deserves this. He deserves worse than this. So he yells at her to overload the reactor, blow them both to bits, while he tries to block out the words Stane hurls at him. Of course, the accusations ring true. He hadn't been diligent enough. He hadn't been shrewd enough. He had made too many mistakes. He'd trusted to easily, too foolishly.
He'd failed.
That's the last thought that goes through his head before the blast rips through him like a torrent. The electricity sears him with sharp fire, while his body spasms like it does during one of his seizures. He doesn't scream, however. Just closes his eyes as he's sent spinning into the air, before slamming into what remains of the roof's metal structure.
His heart lurches painfully, and for a moment he can feel himself dying. He knows he should fight again, muster some non-existent strength to stand once more. There was still so much he had to atone for.
But Obie's defeated now, and with the threat vanquished, the grief of it all finally brings itself to bear. The weight of his own wretched negligence for letting it all happen, for not being good enough for even one of his father figures to love. It crushes him as surely as the invisible elephant sitting atop his failing heart.
So, when the pain of imminent death rises into his fading consciousness, all he can feel is relief. Thank God. Maybe it'll be over now. Maybe this time I can finally be done.
Each wave of sorrow is more crippling than the last, and with each subsequent memory, the anguish grows deeper.
Steve, Bruce, and Clint keep waiting, desperate for the reprieve to come, just one moment to try again to escape!
But there are no breaks anymore. No time to process the memories they've seen and now felt with increasing, agonizing sharpness. No more opportunity to fight their way out of this.
Their thoughts echo Tony's, just wanting it to all be over. The heavy grip of despair sends them spiraling down with their dying friend into an unbearable state of existence, and they labor under the heavy weight of worthlessness that their own sharp, uncaring words heaped upon his shoulders.
The regret is tangible. The guilt, crushing. With no pause between one horrible memory and the next, their emotions begin to mix with Tony's, building up into a chaotic and violent crescendo that threatens to consume them.
Steve can't help but scream with Tony when they torture him, when they saw open his chest. Suddenly it's not the billionaire's bones cracking, it's his own.
Clint chokes in time to Tony's gasping breaths, as the man lays paralyzed on the couch where Obadiah left him. And when they waterboard him, Clint's mind flashes in tandem with Tony's, only it's not Ronan that he sees, but another hand holding his head, forcing him into the icy depths of lake Baikal.
Bruce knows betrayal and he knows agony, knows the feeling of having your body ripped apart. And yet Tony's parade of nightmares sear him in a way that's undefinable. Torture upon torture. Betrayal upon betrayal. There are no words for the sheer agony of it.
Yinsen's death is their death. A confirmation they cannot escape, that everything they love either betrays them or dies. They are cursed. No. Not true. They are the curse. On some level they know these are Tony's thoughts and emotions, but deep in the dark now, the difference becomes difficult to grasp.
They fully experience each blow from Obadiah, both with his fists and his words, though it's the latter that does more damage. Tony's belief in every word nearly overpowers their own reason, until each failure becomes their own. Until they are just as lost as him.
It's too late to save him now. They can feel it, just as Tony can feel the Reaper's scythe already tearing into his chest. There is no way out. Death is at the door, and now this nightmare is all they will ever know.
Trapped, they slide from one grisly memory to the next. An exhausting, hopeless spiral, ever downward.
Something in Tony breaks when JARVIS dies.
The AI, not the butler. The first death was very painful and very real. The cancer had spread quickly, and all the money in the world hadn't been enough to stop it. The kind, old butler was gone within months, not nearly enough time to say goodbye. But the loss was shared by his parents, sadness tempered by the arms of his mother, and the loneliness offset by the new, fascinating, and most surprising and civil conversations he'd ever had with his father. Jarvis was one of the few things his entire family could agree on.
Tony knows that it's not Jarvis when he begins to reconfigure and update the natural language user interface that will eventually become the most advanced AI in existence. He understands that the butler, his friend, is gone, and there is no getting him back. But he can't help how his anxiety decreases at the sound of that cool, familiar voice. He can't foresee the new and strange camaraderie which develops as they spend hours upon hours creating something new together.
It turned out to be a much-needed reprieve in the days after Rhodey pulled him out of the gutter of grief his parents' death had thrown him into. He'd spent more time with the advanced program than he ever had with the real person, and before he could even decide whether it was healthy for one of his closest friends to be an AI, JARVIS had become an integral part of him, a very precious Wilson in the Cast Away that was Tony's life.
JARVIS was more than just a creation.
In many ways, JARVIS was like his child, bright and innocent at first, a little too straight forward and baffled by so many things. Tony enjoyed teaching him, watching him grow to his full potential and beyond, so far beyond what Tony ever could have dreamed.
In other ways, JARVIS was also like a brother. The one person Tony could trust his deepest secrets to. The only person he could be absolutely certain would always listen, always defend him, and never betray him.
Even though he loved Pepper and Rhodey and Happy more than life itself, he never quite felt safe enough to tell them everything. And he wasn't always sure they wouldn't one day decide they'd had enough of him. Not that any abandonment wouldn't be deserved. Heaven knew he was already so far past deserving of it. But although he'd feel no anger or hatred if his friends one day decided to wash their hands of him, it was nice to have at least one person, one friend who would never leave him.
More than that. JARVIS took care of him. Reminded him when he needed to rest or eat. Joked with him when he was feeling depressed. Pushed him to reach out or talk to the other people in his life when he was self-destructing. So, while the death of Jarvis had been hard and painful, the death of JARVIS is unexpected and gut-wrenching and devastating. Even more so, because no one else would understand it. It's unlikely even Rhodey really gets it, the miracle that JARVIS was and what he meant to Tony.
One minute he's celebrating and joking with his teammates, the next, he's stunned and empty, picking up the shattered pieces of what's left of his friend's mental cortex, literally ripped apart by his newest creation. One child killed by another. He'd laugh if he wasn't trying so hard not to throw up.
The Avengers are furious, fuming and out for blood, but all Tony can do is stand there numbly, laying out the situation they find themselves in a way that feels detached and alien.
His fault.
That's what they conclude. All of their eyes blazing with accusation, while Tony tries to pull together the seams that are rapidly unraveling inside of him.
What remains of JARVIS is a twisted and shattered mess. Tony can barely stand to look at it, and yet he can't turn away, either. He hadn't been there when it happened. How had it happened? Was it slow or fast? Painful? He knew JARVIS could identify and simulate many human emotions. Had he been afraid?
"This is insane!" Bruce's exclamation pulls him from his somber thoughts, and Tony tries to find solace in the fact that at least someone recognizes how brutal it was. That this was a killing. That someone very important has died.
"JARVIS was the first line of defense," Steve's tone is clinical, reserved. "He would've shut Ultron down. It makes sense."
"No," Tony corrects him, still trying to swallow the lump in his throat. "Ultron could have assimilated JARVIS. This isn't strategy. This is…rage."
The word reverberates like a spell, like the mere mention of it ignites the room and rage spreads out through all of them. Their cold stares pierce him, so tangible, he can practically taste it.
The hollow thud of Thor's boots against the glass floor are the only warning Tony gets before the massive god grabs at him in a moment of thoughtless fury. Clint makes a quip, but no one intervenes. Tony can't really blame them.
"Come on, use your words, buddy." Tony barely manages his own snide remark before the vise-like grip tightens around his throat in a way that is morbidly familiar. He's no stranger to asphyxiation. Sometimes when Howard was really irritated he'd teach Tony the virtues of silence in almost the exact same manner. Say nothing about the various other little lessons from people less kind than Howard. He tries not to shiver as his memory flashes to a pair of dark, predatory eyes. Not going there.
His throat spasms, then lapses shut under the pressure as Thor lifts him into the air. Tony doesn't struggle. Doesn't try to defend himself. Even though at 15 he swore to himself that he'd never, never again back down and let someone bigger than him beat him senseless, that he'd fight back for all he's worth, for some reason he can't muster a response this time.
It's more than that though. If he's honest, Tony's actually thankful for Thor's rage in that moment, for the crushing pain that radiates up through his jaw and down into his lungs. After all, he deserves this. A sick, dark part of himself even wishes it'd go on for a while. Maybe if Thor fully crushed his throat or lost it and beat him hard enough, he'd pass out and not have to think about the grief gnawing mercilessly at his gut. Maybe if he let them hurt him enough, he could start to atone for his failure.
Unfortunately, it isn't more than ten seconds before he's released, and Steve starts in on the questions while the god drops him, unceremoniously, back to the floor. He knows that in a few hours he'll be black and blue and talking will be nearly unbearable, but the pain woke him up and he almost misses it. Is almost tempted to say something provocative, to see if he can elicit a similar response. Sure, he knows that's all kinds of effed up, but loss has his mind titling dangerously off balance.
Maybe that's why when Cho asks how come something Tony created is trying to kill them, Tony starts to chuckle hysterically. Sure, laughter probably isn't the best response, but it's that or breaking down in the middle of a room filled with people who, in all probability, hate him right now.
Smile Tony.
The command that never goes away mocks him some more. And why not? It was always his parents' bulwark against unpleasant or terrible things. So he grabs ahold of it almost on instinct, unswayed when it only manages to increase their ire.
The conversation turns towards blame, reproving eyes and condescending tones. Tony's far past caring if they hurt him and too close to asking for it, but he still tries to explain himself, to warn them of the horror he knows is coming.
"That up there, that's the endgame."
But they didn't see it, not like he had. They can't comprehend the devastation of the cold, ruined world that haunted his dreams. So of course, they don't get it. Of course, it falls on deaf ears. He shouldn't have never expected anything different. He knows that. He'd learned that lesson, over and over again. He'd been a fool to think his team, this team would be any different.
By the end he wants to yell, to shake them all until they understand, but the adrenaline of Thor's chokehold is starting to dwindle and he's suddenly feeling unbearably tired. JARVIS' loss tears at him with every beat of his heart, and although the bruising Thor's inflicted throbs with each pump, it's no longer enough to hold the internal agony at bay. He wants them all to go so that he can break and cry and punish himself in peace.
When they finally leave, what seems like hours later, he does just that. But of course, there is no peace.
The mission to stop Ultron is a blessed distraction, but like all distractions it ends all too soon. He doesn't die beneath the city as he'd hoped, and the days afterward are a lesson in the meaning of 'death by a thousand cuts.'
His team doesn't forgive him. That much is clear. At any given moment, he can feel the distrust in their eyes and hear the whispers accusing him of selfishness or destruction, to the point where almost every encounter telegraphs either blame or disgust.
At first he tries to ignore it, but it lives in Steve's watchful glare and condescending tone. "Whatcha doing down here, Stark? Whatever it is, you might want to be responsible for once and run it past me, first."
It's in the quips they make, filled with too much venom to be termed 'friendly banter. "Morning! What's for breakfast? Not more murder bots I hope."
It's in the distance Natasha keeps and the almost constant sneer Wanda has for him. In the quiet jabs they don't think he hears, and even the constant sighs and rolled eyes, any time he tries to bring up preparations for another alien invasion.
He knows what they think of him now. That he's just some pompous jackass, so short-sighted and full of himself that he's willing to carelessly risk lives and sacrifice innocents playing with power too far beyond him.
That revelation hurts more than he wants to admit. Because despite himself, despite the fact that he knows better, somewhere along the line he'd started to trust them. To think of them as friends, family even. But like so many other relationships in his life, it'd all been a lie.
He doesn't waste time begging for forgiveness or trying to dissuade their opinion of him. He doesn't tell them that it wasn't pride, but sheer terror that drove him to do what he did. Besides, he is starting to understand what Howard had been trying all those years to show him. What Cap had sussed out within moments of meeting him.
Tony deserves to be hated.
He is a curse in his own right; destruction follows him wherever he goes.
It doesn't matter how hard he tries to do good, to do the right things. He always screws it up. He hadn't saved his mother. He'd let her die trapped and alone with his bastard, drunk-driving father. He hadn't proved himself to Howard or protected the Stark legacy. He'd let Obadiah use his invention to kill hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent people. He hadn't saved Yinsen, or JARVIS and now...now his failures are going to cost the entire world. Everyone dead. Because of him. Because he couldn't be better. He couldn't do more. Because he can't get anyone to listen to him when he tries to warn them death is coming!
All he wants to do is lie down and forget it, but he can't.
And that's the curse, to try and never succeed. To know he will fail and not be able to give up anyway. To know that everyone he loves will die and it will always be his fault. All he can do is keep fighting, exhausted, broken and unable to stop.
And so that's exactly what he does. He swallows it, the crushing guilt, the paralyzing fear, the ridiculous disappointment at how easily they'd all condemned him, the wrenching grief, the twisted urge to do something dark and sadistic to himself when there's no one around. He locks it away inside that cold, dark place within, where all his nightmares live, and pretends he's not being slowly devoured from the inside out.
"Holy hell," Fitz curses, racing to finish their design.
"Shit," Jemma echoes as the alarms begin to blare in earnest, racing over to the monitor as if she could reverse the information showing there.
"There's not enough time," Fitz huffs, hands shaking slightly as he works to put the components together. "We need to extract them now. What's the charge at?"
"60%" she calls back, studying the entity on the screen as much as she can through a camera. It's most definitely corporeal now. Perhaps they didn't need it at 100% for it to work. If they called it and went in now, they'd be risking their team members' lives. If they didn't she was certain that Stark was going to die on that dias.
"I hear loud beeping. Beeping is notoriously bad. Why is there beeping?" Coulson asks, gliding into the lab.
"That's Stark's vitals dropping," Jemma informs in clear distress. "The production of adrenaline and CRH has nearly doubled. He can't take much more. His entire system is crashing."
"Your prototype?" he asks, acknowledging May's presence with a nod.
"We're close sir," Fitz informs. "We just need another half-hour to charge the antimatter field and secure the containment cell."
"Stark doesn't have that long," Jemma presses, racing back over to assist Fitz but looking up to Coulson with regret. "We'll probably be able to save the others, but Stark...he barely has minutes sir."
"I need better than that," Coulson clips. "What's the charge at?" he asks, already skipping ahead to Jemma's line of thinking.
"61%. The entity has nearly doubled in mass since Yo-Yo returned. I estimate that there's a correlating 60% chance our containment field will work on something with that much matter, but there's no way to be sure."
"Good enough. Keep working, but be ready to do an outfit," he orders, taking out his phone and spinning to leave. "May get the team ready. We're going in as soon as the duo has something mobile. I'm not going to sit back and watch Stark die if I can help it."
"On it," she answers, following him out. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to call back-up."
"Back-up?" May questions in the shared space of the hallway before they'll part ways.
"Yep. Just a friendly phone call. This sounds a little too Strange. Never hurts to ask."
"You've got his number?" she asks with a raised eyebrow, knowing for a fact her face doesn't show how impressed she is.
"What can I say," Coulson shoots her a grin, letting her know he most definitely knew that she was impressed anyway, "Perks of being the former Director. Let's just hope he answers the damn thing. I hear he's not big on phones anymore."
"Yes," a voice answers on the fifth ring.
"Dr. Strange? Agent Coulson of SHIELD here–."
"How did you get this number?"
"Friend of Fury's. Listen, quick question and we'll be out of your hair. We have a small problem and would really appreciate any insight you might have."
"What is it?"
"A foreign energy signature showed up in India over a week ago. You ever heard of something that feeds on people's fears?"
There is a noticeable silence, and for a moment Phil stops with raised brows. He turns back to watch May head for the armory, Daisy already in tow, before a firm demand draws him back to the doctor on the other line.
"Listen very carefully. It's important you don't make contact with this entity. Give me your exact location. Now."