K for Kabob Part 1


I know I said no more two-parters, but I got carried away…like usual…

Thank you to AsgardianGrizzly for this prompt! I wanted to do a stabby one for this chapter, hence I had been thinking K for Knife, but his was much snazzier and opened more avenues.

Despite the funny name, this chapter is actually going back to some pretty serious whump.

Strap on your utility belts and here we gooooooooooooo!


"WHERE-" Smack!

"ARE ALL-" Clang!

"THESE-" Crash!

"BASTARDS-" Boom!

"COMING FROM?!" Whack!

Tony Stark sunk an armored fist into the faceplate of yet another enemy droid. The metal crumpled and the machine sputtered to a halting death as motors exploded and wires severed. Tony didn't wait around to watch it expire, instead turning to fire three blasts in quick succession to advancing lines of "Tinmen" as Tony liked to call them.

Dr. Doom had unleashed an army of angry robots on the unsuspecting citizens of Brantôme, France; and let's just say Tony was less than impressed with the primitive mechanics of his scrap-metal soldiers. The only redeeming quality to the machines was the sheer quantity of them. Already, the team felt as though they had downed hundreds – maybe thousands – of the bastards and still more filed into line to take their place.

The Hulk was currently using cars as bowling balls and taking out waves of the droids as they marched in rank and file. The Big Guy had a smile plastered on his face – he must be having the time of his life.

Steve was back to back with Sam Wilson, each man's weapons hitting home with every stroke. Falcon had been doing aerial combat with Thor up to this point, but he dove in to provide Steve with some much needed ground relief. Even the super solider was showing signs of fatigue. Meanwhile the Norseman remained in the sky, frying any Tinman that dared step out in the open.

Natasha was with Barton in the quinjet, firing on open fields of droids and coordinating with French military forces to finalize civilian evacuation strategies. Luckily, the town was small, and the citizens had been rushed to safety soon after the first battalions descended from the sky.

Tony outfitted his last plasma cutters onto his suit and called a fair warning to his teammates. He crouched, ignited the weapons, and spun, the lasers slicing clean through any droids within a hundred foot diameter. He stood, breathing heavy. This would buy him some much needed time.

There was something about this whole situation that was troubling the billionaire, and perhaps more frustrating than the bad gut feeling was that fact that he couldn't exactly put a finger on what had him so on edge. The team had been in hundreds of fights like this before – all had ended fine. Dr. Doom had a predictable habit concerning robot armies, and every one of his attempts at world domination, though better with each try, were still weak at best.

"Cap," Tony panted into the comm system. "You need a breather? Widow and Hawkeye can tap in for a few minutes on ground control."

Steve responded, breathing heavily into the mic. "Uh," there was a sound of a crash and a droid imploding. "I'm tempted to take that offer." His voice was tired, yes, but his mood was much lighter than Tony's at the moment. "But I think I can finish up here-" He grunted, his shield decapitating another tinman. "Which at this rate, might damn-well take another ten years."

Clint laughed from the quinjet. "Tsk, tsk, Cap." Barton's voice was full of mischief. "Language..."

"One time - It happened one time."

"It was a glorious moment."

Steve halted mid-fight, one hand clamped around the neck of a struggling droid and the other hand on his hip. He glared up at the aircraft, speaking sternly into his comm."Don't make me come up there."

Tony had to take the opportunity. "Yah, Barton, Don't make him come up there. He will turn that quinjet around, so help him God."

Barton laughed loudly, Tony cracking up as well. Steve just rolled his eyes and pursed his mouth in annoyance.

"If you are gonna come up here, Cap, I'll have Thor carry you – wouldn't want you to break a hip."

They watched Steve strike down another droid almost effortlessly. "You two are dangerously close to insubordination." His words were strict, but everyone knew Steve's threats were shallow.

Tony would have rejoined the banter with a witty and suave comeback, as was his specialty – but a flicker of movement caught his eye. He turned in midair, scanning the terrain, flying further from the hub of the fight and his otherwise-occupied teammates. As the 'Barton verses Rogers' banter faded in his earpiece, Tony spotted a small pack of droids detached from the fight heading to the edge of the town. Without a second thought, he pursued. These were robots - If any of them were leaving the fight, they were under a direct, programmed order to do so, and there must be a reason. Tony - being Tony, of course - wanted to know what it was.

Now, Brantôme is a quiet, lovely island town almost five hundred kilometers south of Paris. The village sits in the middle of the river Dronne with connecting bridges made of ancient stone on either side. It is a short drive to the sea and a shorter drive to the Spanish border, but besides the beautiful scenery and historic houses, there isn't much there. The streets are old and narrow; the shops, like their customers, are simple and friendly – but not worth conquering. Whatever reason Doom had for unleashing his droids on this place was lost on Tony.

He continued to follow the droids as they trekked quickly into the tree line. The island is not large, but not small by any standard, and its east-facing edge is bordered by a valley that directs half of the Dronne at a leisurely pace to the point where it rejoins its faster-moving twin at the downstream tip of the island. Beside the river and the cliffs at the valley's edge stands an impressively primeval Benedictine abbey, the oldest part of which is carved into the ancient cliff face.

If it wasn't for the army of killer robots, Tony might have thrown his hands up and retired in a villa nearby.

But there was an army of killer robots, and they were crawling down the cliffs like spiders on a wall. Tony watched them land on the hard stone at the front of the abbey's steps and make their way inside.

The villa would have to wait.


Even though none of them had thought it possible, the droid army was dwindling on its last leg. The tinmen were scattered in pieces, their parts strewn over acres and acres of French countryside. The narrow streets were barricaded by dead robots – the doors to houses blockaded by burning motors and lifeless metal shells. The fight was over.

Natasha and Clint worked the grid, shooting down any remaining droid they could find. Thor flew overhead and scanned similarly, stopping every once in a while to fry a pile of enemies just to release some pent-up aggression. Bruce was back to being Bruce and was wrapped in a shock blanket inside the quinjet. An exhausted and battered Captain America was at his side.

Steve hissed slightly as Banner worked a needle through a 10 inch gash on his abdomen.

"Sorry," the scientist shot him an apologetic look. "Usually, I would just let you heal this one on your own, but your body is severely fatigued and this is more than just a papercut – even for your metabolism. I don't want to risk an infection." He pulled the line taught. "Plus, this will reduce scarring."

"Understood, Doc. Thanks for your-" He ground his teeth as Bruce tugged harder on the thread; Steve squeezed out the last word, "help."

"Sorry. Again." Bruce smiled grimly and tied a clean knot, dabbing at his neat stitches with a sterile gauze. The doctor stood, taped a new pad over the wound, and handed the super solider a looser fitting t-shirt, which Steve gratefully accepted and tenderly pulled down over his torso.

"It is already healing itself, Steve, just a little slower than usual. I should be able to take those stitches out in six hours or so. In the meantime, take a nap. Our work is done here, SHIELD is working with local law enforcement. Cleanup is their job-" The scientist smirked slightly, pausing. "And I have no doubt Tony will so eagerly loan out the Iron Legion to assist with the majority of the grunt work."

Steve chuckled lightly as well. Tony loved showing off his toys – but he hated sending them for cleanup duty. If Steve remembered correctly, the first time Nick Fury had requested the suits for a post-battle spring cleaning, Tony had almost blown an aneurism.

"THESE ARE CIVIL SERVANT FIGHTING MACHINES. THAT MEANS THEY PROTECT PEOPLE AND FIGHT THINGS. DO THEY LOOK LIKE OVERSIZED SWIFFER SWEEPERS TO YOU?"

Anyway, after losing that fight with Fury, Tony had resigned to letting the Legion be used for cleanup as long as they were returned undamaged. He grumbled about it to no end, but the whole team knew that, in truth, Tony was always happy to do whatever he could to help.

"Speaking of Tony," Steve stood up, ignoring the burning in his side. "I haven't seen him since we cleared the downtown. Where is he?"

Bruce's eyebrows furrowed. "He wasn't with you?"

"No, I saw him go around the back of the square to head off a group of rogue droids. Haven't seen him since." Steve swallowed. "Do you think he's ok?"

"Hmm." Bruce crossed his arms over his chest. "If something is wrong, and I'm not saying it is… It's not the fighting I would be worried about. Tony could take those droids in his sleep – any of us could. But when you say the droids were rogue…What were they doing, exactly?"

"They weren't doing anything, really. I was busy with my own bunch, so I didn't exactly have front row seats, but it looked like a group of them were just walking away."

"That's not right."

"Well, Doctor, soldiers abandon a fight more often than-"

"Yes, but Steve, these aren't soldiers. These are robots. These are machines with no degree of true sentience. They can't decide anything on their own. If they were walking away, there was a reason for it. For all we know the whole fight could have been nothing more than a–"

"A distraction?" Both their eyes went wide.

"…Well, yes. A distraction…" Bruce slowly removed his glasses, nervously palming them.

Steve was on his feet in an instant, his exhausted body protesting, but he set his jaw and marched from the hangar.

"We need to find Stark. Now."


"Here, tinny-tinny," Tony had his gauntlets poised, ready to strike. His surroundings were dark and pregnant with invisible danger. The only light available was that which streamed vagrantly through the cracks in the limestone, yet so much of the chapel remained invisible to his vision. He knew the droids were down here somewhere, but all was quiet.

"Where…are…you…?" He muttered under his breath.

Stark had his night vision enabled, and his heat tracking missiles prepared, but nothing seemed to be registering. Then again, even Doom was smart enough to outfit his robots with counter-detection methods. Doom might be evil and predictable, but he wasn't a fool – Nor was Tony; he knew that if these specific droids had been ordered to behave atypically, they were most likely going to be outfitted with high tech for that very reason. The superhero had to stay on his toes.

Figures and binary coding ran through his mind. Doom had to have a reason for sending them here – and it hadn't be subtle at all. The damn things had stared at him and practically waved a "come get me" banner in his face. Doom must want him to see something, must want the Avengers to come down here to find a device or an army or an evil plan or –

Goddammit.

If Tony wasn't wearing a helmet he would have slapped himself in the face.

Doom wanted him to come down here. There wasn't anything for him to see – this was a carefully selected, isolated, and quiet location with limited accessibility and low visibility. Basically, this fit every criteria for-

"A trap." Tony's voice was almost pained with shame. He felt stupid for even coming down here, but now was not the time for self-pity. He needed to get out of this stupid cave. Now.

He launched himself into the air, hovering for a split second before trying to make it back to the front of the church. He tried to remember the winding turns and corridors that led him to the back of the temple, but before he could make it ten feet in any direction, he felt impossibly strong metal hands grab at his ankles, ripping the suit out of the air and slamming it onto the hard packed and cold earth. He fired into the darkness, hoping to free himself. These tinmen were much stronger and much fiercer than the ones they had demolished in the town. They ripped at him, and he could feel even the suit denting and chipping with their ferocity. He kicked, shooting missiles and repulsor jets. He watched as six of them fell victim to his strikes and felt, decapitated or molten, to the floor, but dozens stepped up to fill their place in line. More droids had obviously laid in waiting beneath the cliff, anticipating this moment.

Tony needed help.

"J-JARVIS!" Tony yelled into the suit. "I NEED EMERGENCY BACKUP! CALL THE TEAM, CALL SHIELD– GET THEM HERE, NOW!" Another droid flung itself onto Tony's chest, clawing at his breastplate and denting the metal, sending shoots of pain through Tony's side as his ribs began to protest against the sharp pressure.

He activated a panic button in the suits programming, sending his GPS coordinates to the Iron Legion. Evacuation of the town had to be over by now, they would respond to the directive. He waited for the received signal from the Legion, but nothing came. As Tony desperately tried to fight his way out of being trampled by dick robots, he was losing hope. The droids must have signal jammers, so the Legion would never pick up his alarm. And if the Legion wasn't coming, had JARVIS been able to reach the Avengers' comm frequency?

Tony was ripped from his dread by another hoard of doom bots dropping down from the cavern ceiling, swooping into his line of sight like something out of a nightmare. Tony swung out, the suit's mechanical strength practically being annulled by the sheer resistance of the droids holding his limbs. They were pulling at him, stretching, clawing, digging, crushing, dragging him down – Tony was being pulverized.

His chest was being compacted, and beneath the haze of adrenaline, he recognized the intense pain of such a happening; but his vision was swimming and his lungs were on fire. He couldn't get a full breath, yet still, more and more robots continued to pile onto him, crawling from the darkness of the ancient church like demons. It was all Tony could do to keep his gauntlets in front of his face. He let his lasers sweep around the room, he fired locked missile after locked missile, but these droids were equipped tactical machines, and they swarmed over him like fire ants. The cavern shook with Tony's efforts, but the droids were unfazed. They were locked onto their prey.

"GET OFF ME!" Tony was panicking, unashamed. His voice was almost in hysterics as he cried out. He had never been one for small spaces, and being crushed in a dark cave by a suffocating wave of robots was doing wonders for his developing claustrophobia.

After what felt like hours but couldn't have been more than five minutes, Tony finally resigned to just curling in on himself. Claws continued to rip at him, despite his surrender, but he did feel as though the attack was lessening. Maybe if he gave up, they would simply capture him – or if their programmed objective was torture, he could feign unconsciousness and they would halt, buying him precious time. Tony wondered what he could do to trigger code loopholes, maybe if he-

All conscious thoughts vanished from his mind as pain jolted through him.

Tony cried out in primitive fear and agony as one of the droid's tiny metal claws dug past the left knee joint in the suit. It ripped the hydraulic line and Tony felt it wriggling grotesquely into his leg, his flesh and muscle tearing, the warmth of his own blood seeping into his boot. The next stab was less experimental and more precise – his skin parted like butter as another tinman thrust through the joint over his left shoulder. The pointed hand stabbed cleanly through the upper body, punching a small-diameter hole through metal, flesh, bone, tendon, and out to the other side. As soon as it was through, it retracted, leaving Tony to watch with unbelieving eyes as blood spewed from the wound over his suit and onto the cavern's earthen floor.

The engineer's mind began to scatter, and he thought he vaguely heard someone screaming. As another claw cleanly punctured through his back plate without any difficulty, he realized the screams were his own, and they sounded horrific. Shrill and torturous and guttural, his throat was raw and tight. More bots began to play follow the leader, and Tony tried once again to kick them away, but he was being poked and prodded and impaled from all sides. His whole body was on fire, the warmth of his blood filled his suit.

The man was shaking from exertion, and his limbs were weak and injured. The tinmen had been precise enough to avoid his major arteries and organs, so Tony knew he would be bleeding out before anything else. The thought festered in his mind, and he realized that Doom's intention had been for this to be as painful as possible. Tony felt tears prick his eyes.

So this is how it ends.

The thought trickled into his mind as he began to shut down. This was how Tony Stark was going to die, shanked to death by Doom bots. He couldn't even muster up the strength to cry out as a final blade pierced his abdomen, working its way through the suit's metal ribs like an insect. Bile rose in his throat and he didn't bother to push it back down. Tony lifted his faceplate just as he emptied the contents of his wounded stomach onto the hard packed dirt floor. The smell assaulted his senses and he retched again. There was a faint ringing to his ears and the edges of his vision were rimmed with darkness. The cold of the ground washed over him, and Tony gave a violent shudder, curling in on himself.

The droids seemed to fall quiet. The only sound in the room was Tony, heaving and coughing as blood dripped from every orifice in his face. His breaths were labored and moist, his blood painting the ground around him. He shook violently, reaching out hands to grasp at the nothingness in the cavern, swatting blindly in scattered thought. The droids did nothing – reacted only by moving away from his blind reach. It seemed as though they considered their mission accomplished.

Tony gave a whisper of a thought to his team - how they would find him…here, like this. Guilt and remorse formed a lump in his throat, and Tony cracked one of his eyes open, a silent prayer on his lips to see his friends.

What he saw instead was an army of droids, unmoving, like reapers poised to collect a soul. They stood vigilant, focused, and at attention. Almost as if they were…waiting?

But… waiting for what?

He could feel his heart slowing down, the lack of blood and the lack of oxygen from his crushed diaphragm were too much for his organs to keep up with. I'm already going to die, Tony wanted to scream at them. What more do you want? But Tony had to resign to whimpering.

"Wa'…d'you…want?" He choked out, full of more anger than pain. He spit, emptying his mouth of bloody saliva. The engineer's usually cajoling voice was in shreds, tattered and broken. The sound of it made him flinch. "What else...c'n you..pos'bly do t' me?"

Yet they stayed waiting, unresponsive. They were no longer interested in the broken man on the floor. They had a new directive, a new focus – Tony just wished he knew what the hell it was.

But suddenly, a familiar sound echoed from the entrance of the cave, so faint that Tony was surprised he picked it up at all behind the ringing in his ears. The ups and downs of the sound bounced back along the ancient chapel corridors and found their way to him. When he was convinced, he wasn't just hallucinating, Tony squeezed his hazy eyes shut and shot a silent thank you to the crowd upstairs.

His friends were coming for him.

Clint Barton, in all his reckless glory, could be heard complaining about god-knows-what to god-knows-who, and it was the most beautiful whining Tony had ever heard. For a split second, relief and hope washed over Stark. Everything would be over soon, Steve and Nat and Clint and Thor and Sam and Bruce were coming to rescue him – they had found him, they always do. As he lay there on his back, tears of relief spilled silently from the sides of his eyes and traveled to the nape of his neck.

Everything would be alright.

But then the droids began to move.

They retreated into the shadows. They crawled noiselessly back onto the ceilings and into the holes in the walls from whence they came. They assumed their position in the unassuming darkness. They were invisible to all except those who knew they were there. And that's when realization dawned on the engineer.

They were waiting for the rest of the team.

This had been a multipurpose trap. Tony was the big gun, and they had taken him out separately. Now, they would use him as bait and destroy his friends – his family.

Tony would be damned if he'd let that happen.

Barton's voice was getting closer, and Tony thought he could hear the rest of the team alongside the archer. Banner, who would have been mumbling in detail about the historical significance of such a chapel, was noticeably absent, most likely still recuperating in the quinjet. Steve, whose long and heavy strides were familiar to all members of the team, seemed less commanding than usual, and his voice seemed tired. Romanoff's only audible identifiers were the incredibly light footfalls of her combat boots on the old dirt-packed floors.

"His locator says he's in here – but it's almost all static. And this place is dead quiet. I don't see anything, Steve. Maybe JARVIS sent a faulty message – the signal was pretty grainy. Maybe Tony damaged his comm unit during the fight. He might not be down here at all…" Their voices were far off, but getting nearer.

Yes, Tony was internally panicking, his battered face tensed and contorted in pain and frustration. There was a mistake. Leave, leave! And don't come any closer. Get out, dammit. Please!

Tony wanted to shoot their Captain when he remained loudly adamant. "No, something is definitely wrong, I can feel it. Split up and look for Stark." Steve ordered.

Tony couldn't let them be lured into the trap, and he certainly couldn't let them split up. He opened his mouth, begging his damaged throat to muster a few words. All that he was able to do was get out a small mewling sound, tight and choked. The droids didn't even stir.

The tinmen didn't see him as a threat; and if he wasn't strewn across death's doorstep, Tony might have allowed himself to feel insulted.

Tony Stark was Iron Man, dammit. He needed to save his team, to warn them, at least. If he couldn't do that, everything else was for nothing. He sucked in a breath, preparing to call out to his friends, and only cringed instead, a whoosh of air and bloody mist spewing onto his lips. He hacked painfully – and unfortunately, loudly.

"I-I think I heard something over here." Clint was getting closer, and voices were joining behind him. Undoubtedly his bow would be drawn and his eyes adjusted to the dark, but Tony knew that Barton's weapons wouldn't matter here – hell, Tony Stark was a weapon by himself, and now he was bleeding out on a muddy floor. He shuddered to think what would happen to the most human members of the team if they were set upon.

"B'ton…" Tony whispered hoarsely. "B'ton….No…"

"Friend Archer, I hear nothing." Thor couldn't whisper if he tried, though it did seem he was trying. "Perhaps, Good Captain, we should return to the surface of the town and look there?"

"No. We don't leave until we're certain Tony isn't here." There were mumbled nods and agreements. "Tony? Tony are you back there?" They were only fifty feet away now, innocently calling out for him, completely unaware. The droids were poised, primed, and ready – he could hear their motors whirring to life and their actuators flexing. He smelled metal, lead solder, and the coppery smell of his own blood. Unless he did something, his best friends would be dead in minutes.

"No…. …g 'way…..run…" Tony tried to move, to drag himself towards the entrance of the cavernous room, trying to let the echo play to his advantage.

He was stopped almost immediately by the spiked foot of a droid jamming into his back, threatening to pierce the suit and sever his spine. Tony froze and waited for the death blow… but it didn't come. The droid just held him there, a minnow on a hook, waiting to capture a trout.

Tony felt a final surge of rage run through him at the thought, and he glared almost defiantly at the droid. Much to his pleasure, the droid was staring back.

"Hey…guess….what?" Tony's voice was a breath, now. His lungs were practically collapsed, and his throat was bloodied.

The droid said nothing in return, but Tony knew he was listening. Doom was listening.

Tony gave a small chuckle, wheezy and wet, but genuine. He raised one shaky gauntleted hand. The voices of his friends were just outside.

It was now or never.

Tony took a last breath.

"I'll… s'you... in hell."

And before the droid could shove the spike anywhere, Tony shot a dozen flares out of his left gauntlet and embedded them into the top of the cavern ceiling. The flares exploded red, sending streaks of lit phosphorus shooting off in all directions. The sound was thunderous, and the blast was blinding. The cavern exploded into light, and the hundreds of droids perched on the ceiling and shucked away into the shadows of the wall were exposed – just as a startled group of superheroes stumbled into the room. They immediately saw the enemy forces and dove back into the corridor, radioing for Banner and hopefully SHIELD backup as well.

They hadn't seen Tony in the corner.

Tony had no doubt that his friends could hold the hallway – it would be something out of a goddamn Spartan movie, for sure, but they were alert, now. It wasn't a trap anymore, nor was it a surprise. They would be fine, they would survive. Immense relief washed over the engineer, and with it came acceptance. Acceptance that his job was over, acceptance that his friends could and would survive without him, and acceptance that he had done as best as he could.

The droids began shrieking when the light had exploded, and they continued to shriek as they charged from the room into the hallway to face off with their targets. The droid that had been pinning Tony to the ground withdrew his blade and charged shrieking into battle with all the rest. The sound was shrill and deafening, but Tony could hardly hear it.

The billionaire managed to roll onto his back, blinking dazedly at the empty ceiling, all alone now as a battle waged nearby. Tony's eyes fluttered closed, and he felt the feathering cold drape over his body like a blanket of snow. It was lulling him nearer and nearer to rest, to a sleep that he didn't have to wake up from. His heartbeat faded gradually into the forefront of his mind, and the air seemed to stand still around him. The chapel was silent to him – peaceful, even – despite his scientific brain telling him that this was impossible, that there was death and metal and war waging not ten feet away…

But at the same time it wasn't. It was just him, here. Him alone – and he was a little afraid and a little curious and a lot tired. Minutes ticked by and the blackness turned into a silent dark which became a vacuum.

Finally, it was time.

Tony felt unconsciousness scoop him up slowly and gently, like a parent lifting their sleeping child from bed.

Unconsciousness tenderly cradled his head, warm and welcoming, holding Tony's face close to its chest.

Unconsciousness draped a warmth over Tony's so-cold body, pressing it around his neck and tucking in his feet…ok, that's thoughtful of it. A bit unorthodox, but whatever…

And then Unconsciousness…. whispered something in his ear?

Why was unconsciousness whispering? Tony strained to listen, maybe it was something important about going through afterlife border patrol…

"….Its…Stark…Got…now…alright…"

Would Unconsciousness mind speaking up a little bit, please and thank you?

"….Stay…I…lose….Stark…today …not…Tony…"

Unconsciousness sure sounded a lot like Clint Barton. Hmm, maybe voice imitation was something Death did to make you feel comfortable.

"Need…soon….not….last…longer…"

Well, maybe death had a partner that sounded exactly like Steve Rogers.

"Get….now…!" And another partner who sounded just like an angry Natasha.

The background was starting to be noisy again. Tony thought he heard gunshots and roars and crashing, but it was so faint, so hazy…he was being jostled, now, he knew that. He wasn't gently falling into unconsciousness, anymore – he was being manhandled into oblivion. He tried to blink, to focus on whatever was happening, but his eyes wouldn't open. The orchestrations of battle hummed at the edges of his awareness, and the soundtrack dimmed quietly until once again, all was, once again, quiet.

But this quiet was different than before – it wasn't saturated with confusion and anticipation. This silence was empty – void of everything.

And He felt weightless, but not because he was being carried.

For a last split second, Tony stark noticed a strange absence of a specific sound – one that he couldn't quite place. Something that you hear so much, so often, so clearly, and for so long that your brain tunes it out completely.

But even when you can't hear it, you know it's there. And simultaneously, the familiar up and down of your chest that accompanies it ceases to be necessary. It took Tony a moment, but he arrived at a conclusion.

It was his body that was silent.

That's when Tony Stark knew, in his last waking moment, that he had reached his end.

That's when Tony Stark knew his heart had stopped.

That's when the world powered down.


Usually, I spend more time of the hurt side of the fic, but this one went by a bit quicker because YOU SHOULD ALL GET READY FOR A VERY INTENSE ANGSTY PART 2 FROM ALL LOVING MEMBERS OF THE TEAM.

So yah, doing more aftercare on this one!

PLEASE REVIEW!