THE IRON BATTLE
Abel took a deep breath, standing outside of the arc reactor facility. Her mind still felt cloudy after her last meeting with Tony. The literal heartbreak was still there, as proof of her puffy and red eyes. She didn't want to think about that anymore, she didn't want to think about him, but one way or another...she can't stop herself. Abel has lived for a very long time, but emotions like this were still very new to her. Even a girl who has only living nineteen years on this planet probably would take rejection better than her.
Abel just felt like a mess. Her first experience with this feeling in her stomach was another heartbreak that happened in the past, but she's grateful because this one was better handled then her last one.
Abel took a deep sigh and swept her hands through her hair to have all the dignity in her body course through her veins to stay strong. "One way or another...I have to end this tonight." She mumbled and dropped her hands to her side and started to head towards the facility. She walked inside and spotted the large arc reactor at the center of the building and walked up the steps to the control panel. Hesitantly, she reached her hand up like she was going to touch the reactor.
"You quite like that thing, don't you?" The old voice made Abel jump. She pulled back her hand in a hurry and spun around and saw Obadiah standing a few feet away from her to the left side of the building.
Abel cleared her throat. "You wanted me to talk, right? That's what I'm here to tell you." She tried to say in a strong voice, but he saw right through her like glass.
Obadiah pointed to her. "You're eyes have seen better days. What happened? Tony break your heart?"
Talk about hitting the nail on the head.
Abel bit her lip. "I can leave if you want me too."
He shook his head though. "No. You want to get this over with, I can tell." He gestured towards a yellow reinforced door to the left of the room that read Section 16. "Come on. We can talk here."
Last thing she wanted to do. Being in a dark room with a man with bad intentions, no thanks, but she had no choice. Abel walked down the steps, glancing back to the arc reactor one last time for a final sense of comfort before following him into the unknown. Once Abel walked in, her nose immediately was hit with the smell of freshly cut metal and oil. The room was dark, but luckily she had very good night vision.
Obadiah walked over to a stool and sat down. "Please," He laughed. "Take a seat." He gestured to a stool across from him.
"I'm fine standing, thank you." That was the fastest and surest answer she managed to get out all day. Abel shifted around in her spot and looked to the ground. "So I guess you already know about me, huh?"
Obadiah grinned and leaned forward. "You're an immortal, are you?" Those words were the gold in his hands, the best thing he had heard all his life. It filled his body with absolute glee and confidence. This was it. This was finally it. The things he has been looking for all his life. As impossible as it would seem, he had living proof standing before him right now, all the secrets tucked away in the petite body of a beautiful woman.
In a second, Abel's whole demeanor changed. It was so drastic and instant that she didn't even look like the same person who was a nervous young girl a moment ago. She was something more. A new flicker began to show behind her old, yet powerful eyes. Now showing who she REALLY was. She was indeed a woman of many years. Confident, but humble. Strong, but wise. She had experience in all kinds of fields and definitely had made her mark on the earth unbeknownst to anyone about how giant her very existence was.
Abel's new voice rumbled like the oncoming thunderstorm. Deep, intimidating but overflowing with confidence. "I have had many names throughout my long life. 'Octavia', 'Brunuhville', 'Rybar', 'Yimir', and now it's 'Bamlett'. Despite all those names though, I only have one, and I only go by one. From the biblical figure known as 'Cain and Abel'. I am the 'Abel'."
All the air was sucked out of his lungs and his heart stopped for a moment. Giant wasn't even close to her true existence. Its real size wasn't even remotely close to what her true existence was. She was Colossal. She was absolute. She...was not a woman using the name from the scared biblical figure... She was 'Abel'. This very person standing before him, this woman, she was true. It all made sense though. the reason why she was this breathtaking though, this humble, this 'perfect'. She was God's favorite after all.
Obadiah laughed suddenly and clapped his hands. Never in his life would he think that people like her existed. "This is a real show. I really don't know why Tony would let someone like you go!" He slammed his hand down on the table. "Now let's get started, right?"
Abel stared at him for a second in silence. "You are wanting to know how I got my immortality. You want to live forever. To never age." All the words coming out of her mouth felt like a far-off dream. A dream that he sought for a long time.
He nodded and pointed to her, twirling his wrist, desperate to know more. "So you have stayed...like this since the moment you became immortal?"
"That's right. Not a single pound gained or lost. Not a single wrinkle or height difference." Abel confirmed.
This was it.
"Just...how exactly where you able to become immortal?" He asked, finally getting to his point, feeling his heart beating faster with excitement and predicting his goal about to come true.
Abel let the room fall into silence once more, but this time not wanting to tell him about what going to come from her mouth. "It was...a curse." She stared down at the ground and fiddled with her fingers. "You know the legend and how it goes. Cain kills his brother and was cursed...but that's not exactly true. Cain is my older sister...and she...didn't kill me. Close but not quite."
Obadiah froze. "Cain is a woman...?" That much took him by surprise to hear that the bible was wrong. "I thought as much, and since your here in front of me... I guess she didn't kill you then." He leaned against the table behind him.
"I love my sister more than anything in the world, even after she almost killed me...but I guarantee you, she was hurting more then I was. She wanted to be punished for her wrongdoing, and...she was. She was the first cursed, but like I said..." A smile came to her face. "I love my sister, but despite what she did to me...I was more afraid of being alone than anything..."
Obadiah was less than pleased with her story. She didn't explain at all about how or what she did to become the way she is now. "How..." He spoke, his patience running low. "How...did you become immortal? What did you do?"
Abel stared at him directly in the eyes and spoke with such a clear and soft voice but as firm as stone. "You can't... This is something that can never happen." She glanced back up to the stairs for a moment. "I told you what you wanted to here-"
Obadiah suddenly slammed his hand on the table and made Abel jump. "You told me...!" He stopped himself from yelling and laughed instead. He got off the stool and started to walk away. "You told me...what I didn't want to here..." This wasn't what he wanted. He thought she probably drank from the fountain of youth, found an ancient cup or something.
Abel backed away. "Then let me rephrase myself." She looked back to the stairs. "I told you the truth." She grabbed the railing and looked back, not seeing Obadiah anymore. She looked around but saw nothing. "Hello? Obadiah?" She called into the darkness. Her heart then stopped when she heard a low rumbling sound of something being powered up.
A light shined through the darkness and Abel's eyes widen once she saw what came through. A giant metal suit of armor, similar to Tony's armor, and at the center, which brought her much horror. Tony's arc reactor powering it.
"What..." Abel stumbled on the stairs and fell back. "What did you do to him?" she breathed out.
Iron Monger slammed his hand down and almost struck Abel, but she was able to crawl away from the giant fist and ran out the door. Abel cut the corner as fast as she could and almost slipped as she ran out of the facility.
She breathed heavily and jumped when her phone began to buzz. She picked up her phone out from her pocket and answered it without even looking at the ID. "Hello..." She spoke in a small and shaky voice.
"Abel?" Abel's heart began to speed up when she heard Tony's voice on the other end. "Abel, what's wrong? Are you at the facility right now?"
Abel could not hold the tears back. She covered her mouth and cried. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry...I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid too." Everything she wanted to say to him before finally came pouring out of her heart.
"I know, sweetheart, but I need you to get out of there! Get out of there right now!" He shouted over the phone.
A cracking sound came to her attention. Abel turned around slowly and saw Iron Monger break through the floor and crawled out of the hole it came from, like the devil himself. It was twice the size as the Mark 1, and much bulkier.
"Where do you think you're going?" He spoke in a deep voice that made Abel's heart drop. He lifted his hand up in the air. "You're services are no longer required."
She stared at the giant fist with wide eyes and froze. Her heart literally crumbled to the ground but something began to surge through her body that made her gain strength at a fast pace from something like hope. A voice.
"Stane!" Tony's voice was heard in the distance. He flew around the corner of the building and saw Obadiah's giant suit of armor hovering its giant fist over Abel. "Stop!"
Iron Monger looked to Tony. "You're too late." With the strength that can crush bones into dust, he brought his fist down upon Abel with every intention to kill her. To take out the woman who shattered his dreams, but something stopped his fist right in its tracks and didn't budge an inch more. "What!?"
His large iron hand, capable of breaking stone, was caught by Abel single slim hand that outstretched above her head and stopped the iron fist in its tracks of death. She stared right into the bright eye sockets of his mask with an unfazed and unimpressed look. Abel clenched her small and thin wrist so tightly that it shook and she drew it back to her hip. She suddenly slammed her foot into the ground and smashed the floor like glass under her foot. Abel swung her fist upwards and struck it against his armored chest. The iron rippled for a moment and Stane felt his body being pushed with so much pressure that he lost control of the suit, and before he knew it, the giant iron body went flying back, crashing into the safety railing and down to the highway.
Tony landed beside Abel, all dressed up in the iron suit. "Wow..." He breathes out. "How..." He turned to her. Breaking a wrist is one thing but something like that was out of his thought process.
"Immortality isn't the only thing I was cursed with." her voice dropped deeply. "I have something a lot more deadly." Her ears perked up to the sound of a car horn blazing and her heart dropped to the ground. "Oh no..." She gasped. Abel took a running start and vaulted from off the ground and high in the air. She looked and saw Iron Monger grabbing a hold of a van with a mother and her children inside it. "Stop it!" She shrieked and landed on the high way with a heavy fall right in front of Iron Monger.
He barked out a laugh as he held the van above his head. "I love this suit!"
"Stop!" She shouted at him. "Don't do it!"
"Collateral damage, Abel." He spoke without worry or mercy.
Tony's voice was heard behind her. "Abel, get down!" he warned her. "Divert power to chest RT."
Abel ducked down as a white blast shot out of the chest piece from Tony's suit. The power knocked Iron Monger off his feet and he released the van. Abel scrambled to her feet and lifted her arms up and caught the car in her hand. She balanced it on her chest and dug her fingers into the metal to keep her grip. The family inside screamed out in murder. Abel dropped the van to the ground and the mother inside immediately slammed on the gas.
"Wait, Wait, Wait!" They drove off with Abel still grappling ahold of the front.
"Abel!" Tony looked back to her but quickly turned back when Iron Monger leaped in the air and activated the busters in the feet to gain distant. He fell to the ground blowing him away
Iron Monger grabbed a motorcycle as it came by and knocked Tony against it. Tony slammed again a public bus. "for 30 years, I've been holding you up!" He grabbed Tony's body and held him in the air over his head then slammed him hard back down on the ground. He lifted his foot and pressed down on him. "I built this company from nothing! And nothing..." He grabbed Tony once again and threw him right through the bus. "Is going to stand in my way!"
Abel felt her head spinning after getting ran over by the van. She groaned and crawled on the floor and looked up and saw Iron Monger.
A missile came out of his back and pointed towards the bus. "And least of all..."
Abel leaped on the insane man's back and gripped the missile. "Not you!" Abel quickly bent the metal and pointed it towards the air. The missile launched itself in the air and detonated. Abel gave a sigh of relief, but was grabbed by his large hand and had his fingers wrap around her small body, holding down her arms.
"Don't get all happy because you stopped one attack!"
He flung her in the air as Tony flew from out of the bus and caught Abel in midair. She slammed against the hard metal and Tony was barely able to keep his balance in the air.
"Impressive!" Iron Monger laughed. "You've upgraded your armor! I've made some upgrades of my own!" He straightened his feet as his boosters engaged and started to hover in the air.
"That thing can fly too?" Abel whimpered. She gasped when Tony lowered her to the ground. "Tony, you're not going to..."
"You really catch on quickly do you?" He said to her and dropped her on the ground and took off in the air with Iron Monger right behind him.
Tony climbed the night skies to where the light of the city looked like nothing but small dots. He could hear Iron Monger's powerful thrusters behind him slowly catching up in speed as they climbed up higher and higher above the cloud line.
"Thirteen percent power, sir," Jarvis reported.
"Climb!" Tony shouted.
"Eleven percent."
"Keep going!"
The two of them continued to fly higher into the skies. All the while a thin layer of ice covered Iron Monger and the power on Tony's suit started to blink
"Seven...percent power."
"Just leave it on the screen! Stop telling me!"
Iron Monger reached his hand out and grabbed Tony by the leg and pulled him down, wrapping his finger around him and keeping him in place.
"You had a great idea, Tony, but my suit is more advance In every way!" Monger hissed at him.
"How'd you solve the icing problem?" Tony asked.
"Icing problem?" As the words fell out of his mouth, the power in his suit died.
"Didn't have Abel to look into it for you, huh?" He knocked his iron hand over Mongers' head and broke the ice. The giant suit of armor began to descend back to the earth as flakes of ice fell off his suit.
"Two percent." Jarvis reminded him and his thrusters started to lose power. "We are now running on emergency power."
"Whoa!" His thrusters kicked on and off as he tried to make a safe landing to the ground.
Abel ran back inside the arc reactor building and up to the controls. Her eyes then looked up to the rooftop as her ears picked up on a sound. She frowned and began to press buttons and pull knobs on the controllers.
"It's fine." She mumbled while her hands hovered over the controls. "It's fine. Everything is going to be fine." She couldn't stop her voice from shaking as she bit down on her lip.
Tony crashed hard on the rooftop of the arc reactor building. He groaned while every part of his body ached. "Abel," he called out.
"Tony!? Are you alright?" Abel called back in a frantic voice.
Tony pulled his iron glove off. "I'm almost out of power. I've got to get out of this thing. I'll be right there."
"Wait!" Abel suddenly shouted back. "It's not over yet! Obadiah is not dead!"
Tony froze. "How do you know that?"
"His heartbeat! I can still hear his heartbeat!"
Abel's voice was cut off as Iron Monger's body slammed down right behind Tony with his giant fist raised. Tony's helmet slammed right back down and he ducked away from the fist. He held up his hand to throw a bolt of energy but realized it was his exposed hand. Tony was taken back by the shock and Iron Monger slammed his fist across and threw him back.
Iron Monger laughed "I'll give you this much. It was a nice try!" He then began to stomp heavily towards him, his footsteps shaking the ground as he walked. "It's over now." His voice dropped menacingly.
"Stop it!" A frilled woman's voice called out. They all turned back around and saw something jump onto the roof. Abel rolled on the ground and slammed her foot down.
"Abel. Sweetheart, what are you doing here!?" Tony frantically called to her in a panicked voice.
Abel rose to her foot and stood tall despite the worry she had on her face. Her lips quivered and she balled her hands up into shaky fists before she called out to Iron Monger. No, Obadiah. "Your anger, I know. You originally sought immortality, but you didn't stop there. You got too greedy and that greed turned into anger, and that anger is turned towards me."
Steam suddenly escaped from the Iron Monger suit and it opened up, revealing Obadiah on the inside. He called out to her with a voice shaking with a weird mixture of anger and glee. "I do blame you for all this. Do you know how it feels? To have come to close to your ultimate desire and to realize that you can never hold it?"
A smile then came to her lips, but this was different. On her lips right now was a sorrowful smile of acceptance. "Yes, I have. Countless time to where I can't even fathom from reality anymore" Her voice cracked. "And one quite recently." She took a deep breath to compose herself and her head dropped. "I desired to have a normal life. To have people accept me, to fall in love, to have a family...but those desires are similar to yours... They are nothing but far off dreams!"
Tony knew somehow that those words were directed towards him. He felt his heartache to see her like this. He saw this beautiful woman molded together from nothing but shattered dreams and sorrowful acceptance. She carried on not because she wanted to, she carried on because she had no choice too. He couldn't even imagine what she had been through in her life to continue to act like this. To smile with all the comforts of a warm sun, to speak with a voice made of melodies, to continue being such a wonderful woman. The best woman in his eyes even if she thinks poorly of herself. The words he said to her though left a hole in his heart. Now, he can't get those watery eyes out of his head.
You could see Obadiah's face twist and contort with all kinds of rage-filled emotions to look like that. "I don't what to be told that...by some worthless relic!" Obadiah stomped over to her and knocked Tony aside like a toy he didn't want to play with anymore. He grabbed Abel by her small neck and lifted her up in the air before slamming her down to the ground.
Abel gasped when she felt the impact against her back as the sharp pieces of concrete stab her. She wrestled against his arms and pry them off her neck, but before she could get up, he kicked her in the side and made her slid across the glass right under the arc reactor.
Tony tried to get up but he felt his bones creaking from the fight he had with him. He reached for his helmet and ripped it off his head, throwing it to the side. "Stane! Stop it! I'm the one you want, not her!" He screamed till his voice went raw. "Leave her alone!"
Obadiah laughed and looked over his shoulder. "Don't worry! I'll get to you later, but first I need to remove the thorn in my side that's been there for the last few decades!"
Abel spat out some steaming blood from her mouth and got up to her wobbly legs. She pressed her hands to her knees and looked up as the gashes she had on her face healed and closed up.
BEEP
BEEP
BEEP
The sound of Abel's phone went off and she let a smile fall to her lips. She reached into her back pocket to her cracked, but still working phone and saw the alarm going off on the screen.
The arc reactor then suddenly began to power up and go into overdrive, lightning began to crackle as a blue light shot out of the device and struck right under Abel's feet and engulfed the whole roof in lights. Obadiah let out a scream as his whole body was electrocuted by the lightning. Tony was far away to witness a sight that was burned into his memories. He watched with almost blinded eyes as Abel turned to him, slowly being engulfed in the blue light. Her hair whipped around her face as burns appeared on her skin. She smiled with a touch of sweetness and sadness, but with all the warmed of the sun...before her figure vanished into the lights.
"ABEL-!"
The light shot up into the muddy clouds as the lightning crackled around it. It soon vanished to nothing but thunder above the clouds as all the lights in the city went black. Obadiah's limp body swayed back and forth before he stumbled through the glass roof. He hit every beam on the way down and slammed into the arc reactor as it exploded.
After all the commotion died down, Tony was able to get back to his feet. He spun his head in every direction, searching for Abel and calling out her name.
"Abel? Abel!"
He spotted her up against the edge of the building, having to have been thrown quite the eyes were closed and her body was still smoking with burns all over her skin. Tony ran over to her and got down on his knees. He reached down and picked up her limp body that just fell back in his arms. He leaned his head down on her chest to search for any signs of a heartbeat, but her heart was stone quiet in her chest. Abel's body was cold and pale in his arms.
A bitterness swept over Tony and he just laid there for what felt like hours as time slowed down long enough for this bitter realization to process through is head. He didn't even what to say the words.
Dead.
Tony's voice cracked. "No..." He slumped down on the floor and held her lifeless body in his arms as if she was still alive. "No, no, no, no." He took a breath but he only cried as she grew colder in his arms. Her once full, pink lips were pale. Her perfect skin, gray and burned to the bone. Tony leaned down and kissed the top of her head. The hole he once had in his heart was no longer there, for he had no heart that could possibly become even more hollow then it was. To see this joyful woman dead was to die himself, and the only thing that ran through his head was those hateful words he said to her back then, and just how much he wished to take them back.
He didn't care about Stane and what he did. He came down here just to get Abel back. He wanted to see her smile one last time...but not like this. Not like this.
As her body went pale and cold for the last 2 minutes, the color soon flushed back to her face, and Abel suddenly gasped as air filled her lungs again and her eyes shot open. Her sudden resurrection caused Tony to jump as Abel's wounds began to steam and close up. Her breathing began to slowly calm down and she found herself in quite the position.
Tony was less them amused. "You're alive?" He deadpanned.
Abel let out an awkward laugh. "Immortal." She reminded. "Death only ever sticks for 2 minutes..."
Tony thought he understood it all, that there were no more secrets that she could be hiding. Now, it felt his brain had totally fried. He let out a sigh and pulled his head back against the wall. "Gosh...you scared the hell out of me."
Abel frowned and sat up, pulling away from his arms. "I'm sorry." She patted his head with a weak and innocent smile and gave an exhausted sigh, letting Tony catch his breath. She glanced around at the destroyed factory and gave a sign as the steam that came off her body vanished.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Yeah, The 'Abel' from Genesis is a woman in my story. So here was my thought prosses when I wanted to create an Oc character for Marvel. I went through so many characters in my head and none were speaking to me. I wanted something big for when the Avengers came out. I wanted something Earth-shaking to stand against Thanos in Infinity War. So, with that thought in mind... I decided to do my own little twist on the Book of Genesis and created this! Ta-da! It's weird and out of place to start with a movie about a man-on-a-can, but her existence will fit in more when Thor, the freaking God of Thunder, comes into the picture.
Anyway, we got two more chapters until the end. See you soon, my lovelies!