Two weeks... I'm sorry, guys. Really! I wanted to update within a week, and Life was like: You wanna update? Here, a new fandom to distract you! Here, Pinterest! Here, an English paper that you have ten days to finish! Here, your pony got hit by a car and is gonna be recovering for 6 months! Here, a new puppy! Here, a book for English that you have to read, and actually like so you'll waste time on it!
Basically, Life hates me.
This is the last IM origin chapter, and then I'll move on to... Hulk! Don't worry, he'll only be like 4 chapters.
Be careful with this chapter, it gets... dark... a little angsty... I'm leaving story threads to return to, and they aren't happy, so... proceed with caution.
To forsakenfoxshadow: Aw, thank you! Hopefully this is just as good!
The song for this chapter is "Demons" by Imagine Dragons. Hopefully you can guess why...
IRON MAN: PART 7: IT'S WHERE MY DEMONS HIDE
Tony paced the length of his lab, hoping that Ms. Dowe and Pepper would be back soon. That information was important if he was to stop these betrayals, once and for all.
The fact that it would probably involve Obadiah, and not in a good way, kept presenting itself, but Tony shoved the thought down.
His family would survive this.
He couldn't lose the rest of his family.
A sudden crash upstairs called for his attention, and he cautiously crept up. His mother had recently left for the office, but not before warning him that there were certain things they needed to talk about. Tony would bet the Iron Man suit that it was about Saturday night.
No time to worry about a lecture now. More importantly, who was upstairs now?
As Tony entered the living room, wincing at the sight of the open hole in the workshop roof below him, he heard the voice, slightly congested, calling his name. Obadiah. He's back already…
Obadiah walked into the room, glanced at Tony, and smiled. Walking over, the CEO clapped the young genius on the back. His red-rimmed eyes gleamed with knowledge, some secret he was about to reveal. Tony was about to ask what the hell was going on, but a sudden, piercing sound wormed its way into his ears.
Against his will, his body began to slump, and he fell straight into Obadiah, who lowered him gently on the couch. Trying to turn his head, the genius felt rather than watched Obadiah move around him, and he couldn't avert his eyes when the man stuck a device in front of his face.
"You recognize this?" Obadiah Stane asked. Tony tried to focus in on the damn thing, but when he dimly recalled it being a weapon, he tried not to think about it. No. That's not me. That's not me anymore.
It might be Obadiah, but it's not me.
"It's a shame the government didn't approve it," the corrupt CEO continued. "There's so many applications for short-term paralysis."
Tony tried to twitch, to inch away, to scream, anything, but he couldn't.
He was useless, blood dribbling out of his ears as he sat there, as another one of his family members was lost to him.
"Tony," Obadiah admitted, "when I ordered the hit on you and your father, and your father didn't make it out, I worried I had killed the golden goose."
No. This wasn't happening. This man, who had been his friend for all of Tony's life, couldn't be the man who sentenced Howard Stark to a painful, lonely death. He couldn't be the one who had changed Tony's life for the worse. This man that he had hailed couldn't be the worst of them all.
But in the end, hadn't Tony, genius that he was, always known?
"But you see, it was just fate that you survived it," continued Obadiah. Not Obadiah. Stane. "You were the one with that last golden egg."
Pulling out a strange device, Stane poised it over Tony's chest. The machine suddenly clamped down, prying the ARC reactor out of its secure socket. Turning the handles, his godfather pulled the reactor out of his chest, only leaving the single connecting cord between the two.
Tony tried to shake with rage, tried to punch Stane right in his pearly teeth, but all he could do was sit as the CEO continued his villain monologue.
"Do you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?" the corrupt man asked. "Your grandfather, he helped give us the atomic bomb. What kind of world would it be today if he were as selfish as you?"
One final tug was all it took for the cord to disconnect. Tony was alone, with a socket in his chest and shrapnel starting to creep closer.
He glared daggers at Stane, but he couldn't retaliate as the man disconnected the prying machine from his ARC reactor. Playing with the glowing blue device, Stane commented, "Oh, it's beautiful. Tony, this is your Ninth symphony. What a masterpiece." The greedy CEO wiggled the device tantalizingly in front of Tony, who yearned to take it, to stick it back in his chest, to save himself, but he could do nothing as the man he had trusted let him die. "Look at that. This is your legacy. A new generation of weapons, with this at its heart. Weapons that will steer the world back on course, put the balance of power back in our hands. The right hands."
Standing up, Stane stretched out his back before looking back at Tony, who valiantly twitched his finger in defiance, and continued his speech. "I wish you could've seen my prototype. It's not as… well, not as conservative as yours."
Meaning that it was probably loaded with about a thousand guns and made to the expectations of a madman.
As Obadiah turned to walk out of the room, he coughed and paused. "Too bad you had to involve Pepper in this. I would have preferred that she lived." He turned and left, leaving the genius to his thoughts.
No. What had Tony been thinking? How could he have shoved his cute, spicy Pepper into danger like this?
All of these efforts had been so that people like her could be safe.
He had to do something.
Straining his unwilling muscles, Tony slowly raised one arm, then the other. Bringing them back down, he pushed himself off of the couch. The genius inched his way across the floor, trying desperately to use his legs in his endeavors to move, but failing to move any faster. Pushing himself to the service elevator, he raised his arm and punched the button to go down to his lab. As the first painful twinge from his chest pulsated through his frayed nerves, Tony slumped against the wall, his mind screaming get up or you'll die, while his body stubbornly disobeyed.
The elevator doors opened, and Tony shoved himself to the side, falling out onto the floor. He fought his way over to his workbench, where Pepper's gift to him sat. Even as the paralysis started to wear off, the pain in his chest grew exponentially, and as Tony drew closer to the mounted device, he was fighting the fire in his chest, hoping that he could get out of this mess at least somewhat intact.
As a voice shouted from above him, calling him, Tony reached the table, but his strength was gone. He tried to reach for the device, but he wasn't strong enough. He slumped to the ground, resigned to his fate - he had tried everything - then blinked in confusion when a claw came out of nowhere, carefully gripping the old ARC reactor. DUM-E gently moved the case down, but jerked back upward when frenzied footsteps came towards them.
Rhodey turned Tony over onto his back, the normally stoic man panicking. "Tony? What the hell just happened? Are you OK? Tony?" His worried voice suddenly paused, and Tony idly thought, Oh. He noticed the hole in my chest.
Before Rhodey could say or do anything, DUM-E waved the ARC reactor in front of the military man's face. Normal confusion overtaking the horrified confusion in his head, the man took it from the AI, eyes widening when he realized just where the device was supposed to go. Without any more hesitation, Rhodey smashed the case onto the ground, trembling fingers prying the reactor from its mount. He took the cord and poised it uncertainly above Tony's chest, jumping a little when the genius reached up and gently directed his hands in the right direction.
The cord of the ARC reactor finally made contact with the base plate, and as Rhodey slowly twisted the device back into its socket, Tony let out a deep breath, the pain immediately starting to lessen. Rhodey watched him as the genius carefully sat up, avoiding the military man's guarded gaze.
"Rhodey, I'm so sorry, I was going to tell you but I couldn't let anyone else on that plane know and then my mom was there and she can't know and I wanted to make sure you wouldn't tell her and then there was the whole weapons deal and -"
Tony's increasingly frantic rambling was cut off when Rhodey's arms enveloped him, hugging him close. A stray tear might have dripped onto Tony's shoulder as the military man whispered in a wavering voice, "It's OK, kiddo. It's OK."
Tony sat there a moment before apologetically moving away from Rhodey. "Where are Pepper and Ms. Dowe?" he asked.
Rhodey shook his head. "I don't really know. Something about a Mr. Coulson? Five government agents? Whatever it is, they're gonna arrest Stane."
Tony instincts for the win. Coulson had been way too, well, agent-like.
Still. If Stane had a suit, not even super-spy-military-people were taking him out.
"That's not gonna be enough," muttered Tony, walking out to the middle of the room.
At a word from him, the arms slid out of compartments, hooking a new Mark III armor around him. Rhodey watched the proceedings in awe. "That's the coolest thing I've ever seen," he commented in admiration.
"Not bad, huh?" responded the young genius. Climbing up on top of the smashed car, directly under the hole left from his first less-than-perfect landing, he poised himself as the helmet snapped over his face. "Let's do this."
"Wait!" Rhodey exclaimed. "You need me to do anything else?"
Was it just him, or was the man looking at the Mark II armor?
"Keep the skies clear," Tony decided, as the repulsors activated. He looked up, and soared gracefully into the sky, towards SI.
"How do you think the Mark 1 chest piece is going to hold up?" Tony asked JARVIS, mindful of a problem; his original ARC reactor had been built on time constraints, and was definitely not as efficient as his normal one.
"The suit's at 48% power and falling, sir," the AI responded, confirming his fear. "That chest piece was never designed for sustained flight."
Tony had a short, fierce debate with himself. One side won out, for better or for worse. His flight path didn't waver. "Keep me posted."
A call came up on Tony's HUD, shaking his racing thoughts off of their tracks. He answered as soon as his brain perceived who the person on the other end of the line was, and exclaimed, "Pepper!"
"Tony!" his friend responded. Judging by the background exclamations on the line, Ms. Dowe was there too. "Tony, are you OK?"
Shaking his head, Tony responded, "I'm mostly intact, how are -"
Interrupting, Pepper exclaimed, "Stane, he's gone insane! The files -"
"I know," interrupted Tony in turn. "Listen, you'd better get out of there."
If something happened to Pepper, he could never forgive himself.
"He built a suit!" Pepper continued, ignoring his command.
Tony looked up in front of him; the Stark Industries complex stretched out before him, mostly dark by this time of night. Outside of the ARC reactor room, he zeroed in on two moving forms - Pepper and Ms. Dowe. Before his eyes, the pavement in front of them cracked, crumbling like a cookie - and then, emerging from the ground below, was a huge suit of armor, with glowing blue eyes and a cold blue circle where its heart would be.
Obadiah.
"Get out of there RIGHT NOW!" he screamed over the connection, trying to push the suit faster. While Ms. Dowe tried to pull her back, Pepper, too frozen to move, simply stared as Stane boomed an incoherent monologue at her, aimed a machine gun at her face -
"STANE!" Tony roared, diving right above the building and coming in hot, straight towards the suit of armor.
Ms. Dowe was going to have a lot of questions when this was wrapped up.
The suit's arm jerked up, aiming for him, but the two entities had already collided, crashing back through the ground and straight through the underground bunker. The combined momentum of the suits sent them hurtling through a wall - straight into civilian traffic.
No!
Crashing straight through a truck trailer, the weapons monger and his former apprentice landed on the other side of the highway, flipping over a car and causing several others to slide and collide into each other. One vehicle came to a stop right in front of Stane, the mother and children inside screaming bloody murder while the mom - she looked familiar, wasn't she that Carrie person? - honked the horn. Their cries only intensified when they were lifted up by the hulking metal figure, who brandished the object above its head while its controller yelled, "I love this suit!"
"Put them down!" Tony shouted in return, mindful of the people whose lives depended on his words.
Stane, however, didn't care. "Collateral damage, Tony," he growled, lifting the civilians even higher above his head and preparing to throw it.
Rolling his fingers, Tony disabled the repulsors, eerily reminded of when he had last done it - was it really only last night? This morning, even? "Divert power to chest RT," the genius murmured, bracing himself for the kick.
The middle of his chest lurched back with the sudden blast, and a burst of blue light hit Stane, sending him flying backwards into another, thankfully unoccupied, car, while the one he had been holding pitched forward. Stepping forward, Tony lifted his arms and caught the vehicle, straining violently to keep it from flipping right over his head. JARVIS warned that the suit was depleted to 19% power, and Tony suddenly bore even more of the weight with his own admittedly average muscles. Falling on one knee, he finally brought the car back down - but the driver pushed down on the gas, hard, just before the wheels hit the ground, and the vehicle flew off, Tony still gripping the hood.
"Lady!" he yelled, trying to at least get a reaction, but the car's speed only intensified as Iron Man's fingers started to slip, gouging long, silver streaks into the black paint. "No, no, no no no no -" and then he was on the underside of the car, caught by his chest between the edge of the car and the road, being dragged along. Putting his arms out, Tony lifted the back end of the car, dropping it as soon as he was clear. Forward momentum taken away, Iron Man rolled and screeched to a stop, glancing up as a cry came from above.
Stane's suit came barreling towards him, leaping over a car while rockets boosted his altitude. Some stupid motorcyclist came screaming through, and Stane grabbed the motorcycle right out from under him, brandishing this new weapon at the shaky red-and-gold-clad hero. Slamming it into the teenager, Stane sent Tony flying into yet another automobile, and this time, Tony only made it to his hands and knees before the CEO reached him.
"For all of your life, I've been holding you up!" yelled Stane, kicking Tony back into a bus. He grabbed the young genius and brandished the suit over his head. Throwing him back down, he started to crush it with his suit's enormous foot. "I built this company from nothing!"
Seemingly unsatisfied with how much progress he was making in his 'smash Tony to spare parts' quest, Stane snatched up the smaller suit and threw Iron Man into the bus, with enough force that the vehicle was almost torn apart. "Nothing is going to stand in my way, least of all you!" Turning around and activating a rocket launcher, Stane aimed and fired, sending the bus up in a supernova explosion of pure white light.
Tony was thrown up by the blast, but his suit was still intact - thank goodness for satellite-grade alloy - and as he fell towards the ground, he activated his repulsors and flipped upright, hovering in midair.
"Impressive!" Stane boomed, leering at the little bug that had so far managed to evade him. "You've upgraded your armor! I've made some upgrades of my own!" The feet of his suit slid down, creating a flatter platform, and then the monstrosity was in the air, propelled by a sputtering beam of white. Not as refined as Tony's ice-blue repulsors, but still enough to meet Stane's needs.
Shit.
"Sir, it appears his suit can fly," supplied JARVIS.
"Duly noted," sighed Tony. A plan formulated in his mind, and he instructed, "Take me to maximum altitude."
The AI, managing to sound worried despite his artificial voice, stated, "With only fifteen percent power, the odds of reaching that -"
"I know the math!" snarled Tony. "Do it!"
Obediently, the suit rose upwards like a rising star over the New York skyline, Stane following after him at a slower pace, his suit belching out smoke as it went along, but showing no signs of stopping.
He couldn't have tested the suit. It's still the same material as the old suit. No way he knows about the icing, right? He definitely didn't test it. If he had tested the suit anywhere near here, the Army would have flipped out.
The Army must be flipping out right now, as a matter of fact. Please calm them down, Rhodey. Tell them it's a training exercise.
"Thirteen percent power, sir," JARVIS warned.
Tony, disregarding, stated, "Climb!" This was their one shot! They couldn't back down now!
Within ten seconds, JARVIS reevaluated with, "Eleven percent."
"Keep going!" the genius exclaimed, glancing back. Was that the first brush of frost on Stane's suit?
Soon, JARVIS warned, "Seven percent power -"
"Just leave it on the screen!" Tony interrupted. "Stop telling me!"
Seeing and feeling the light of the ARC reactor beginning to flicker, Tony clenched his teeth and pushed on, slowly growing aware that the hissing sound of Stane's rockets, instead of growing dimmer with ice interference, was somehow getting… louder?
A sudden hand on his right boot clamped down, pulling Tony down. Stane tugged him down to the other suit's level and began slugging him, before locking him in a hold around his neck.
"You had a great idea, Tony," bellowed the deranged old man, "but my suit is more superior in every way!"
Now that Tony was up close, he could clearly see the film of ice that locked over Stane's suit.
"How'd you solve the icing problem?" he asked.
"Icing problem…" muttered the CEO in confusion, before the ice completely sealed off the suit, the blue light of the eyes dying out and the rockets sputtering to a stop.
"Might want to look into it," Tony muttered.
The genius gave the suit a solid knock on the head, and Obadiah Stane fell, in his metal coffin, back down to earth.
Hovering above it all, Iron Man took in the broad skyline, trying hard not to watch as his former mentor fell from the graces of earth into Hell, where he belonged.
Good.
JARVIS, overcoming his earlier instructions to shut his speaker, warned, "Two percent. We are now running on emergency backup power."
Suddenly, the repulsors of his suit sputtered out, dropping him several yards before activating once again. Tony's stomach flopped inside of him, and he struggled to bite down the nausea as the suit continued the erratic descent. He let out a little "whoa" as the suit dropped a little too far for comfort on one burst.
Note to self - reserve enough power to land properly next time.
Nearing the ground, Tony tried to land gracefully, but when the repulsors sputtered out yet again, he lurched forward, taking out a railing on one of his buildings and slamming painfully into the rooftop. Pulling himself up by one hand, he called his friends, the only ones who would really know what went down tonight. "Pepper?"
"Tony!" screeched the strawberry blonde in distress. "Oh my God, are you OK?"
"I'm almost out of power," Tony responded, pulling off his left gauntlet even as he spoke. "I've got to get out of this thing, and we need to get back and fabricate another ARC. I'll be right there."
He snapped the faceplate up, ready to break down the armor, but a sudden rush of air sounded from behind him. The genius turned to see Stane, his suit still intact, fist poised to strike him. "Nice try!" he bellowed, swinging erratically.
Closing the faceplate, Tony dived under Stane's blow, raising his hand to blast him - but he realized too late that it was his bare hand. Striking a glancing blow, Stane sent him spinning backwards, cracking his HUD. Rallying back, Tony used his three remaining boosters to rise up and come down with a hard punch, but the other suit grabbed him around the middle, locking him in an unyielding grip. The genius grunted as Stane squeezed, slowly crushing him.
"Weapons status?" Tony asked desperately, but JARVIS responded that the repulsors and missiles were offline. Thinking quickly, the genius yelled, "Flares!" Sporadic balls of light flew out, bouncing all over the suits and effectively blinding Stane.
"Very clever, Tony," the madman muttered, searching for the Iron Man as Tony scrambled back behind a wall. This was bad. Very, very, very bad. They needed a new plan.
Activating the call once again, Tony whispered, "Pep."
"Tony!" shouted Pepper, sounding on the verge of tears. Oh, thank God that the suit only projected his own sounds, not those from calls.
"This isn't working," Tony informed her, channeling his inner JARVIS. "We're going to have to overload the big reactor and blast the roof."
"Well, how are you going to do that?" asked Pepper quizzically.
"You and Ms. Dowe are going to do it," he responded, speaking as quickly and clearly as possible. "Go to the central console, open up all the circuits. When I get clear of the roof, I'll let you know. You're going to hit the master bypass button. It's going to fry everything up here. Once you hit that, run like hell."
As Obadiah stalked closer, he heard Pepper relay the instructions to Ms. Dowe, and the crunching of broken glass as they walked through the busted ARC reactor entrance room. "OK, we're going in now," Pepper confirmed.
"Make sure you wait until I clear the roof," Tony reminded. "I'll buy you some time."
Jumping out, Iron Man leaped onto the back of Stane's suit, digging his fingers into the crevices between the suit's head and its torso. Despite the cracks in the HUD, it still readily identified where connecting wires lay, and Tony acted upon it's advice, forcing out a cheerful "This looks important!" as he tore out the guts of the suit. One particularly thick cord came out with his tugs, and the eyes of the suit went dark for good. This must even the playing field somehow.
Even without seeing the annoying pest on his back, Stane managed to grab Iron Man by the faceplate. Swinging his hand forward, the giant adversary catapulted Tony forwards, his helmet wrenching off in the process. Tony landed hard, skidding across the glass until he was right above the ARC reactor. Looking down, he could see Pepper and Ms. Dowe, furiously flipping switches and pressing buttons.
The chestplate of the hulking gray armor split apart, and Stane's leering face stared out at him, holding the Iron Man helmet in his metal fist. "I never had a taste for this sort of thing," he commented, "but I must admit, I'm deeply enjoying the suit!" Staring at the helm, he suddenly crushed it, casting it towards the downed genius, who gulped - just a little - upon seeing the utterly crushed piece of metal. Tony glared up, utter hatred in his eyes, as Stane stalked towards him.
"You finally outdid yourself, Tony!" the madman announced to the heavens, raising his metal arms up. "You made your father proud!"
No. Not Dad. Please. Don't mention him.
I already failed him - he could never be proud of me.
Growling, Tony struggled to his feet, barely noticing Pepper's warning cry below him. Before he could attack, Stane raised his arm, the same one he had threatened Pepper with earlier. He let loose a storm of bullets, spraying out in all directions around Tony. Raising his gauntlet, the genius expanded the plating outward, creating a makeshift shield. Stane, realizing that this course of action wouldn't get him anywhere, directed his attack to the glass below Tony's feet, which shattered and left Tony hanging by one hand, directly over the ARC reactor. He could hear Pepper and Ms. Dowe's alarm as the glass shards rained down on them.
"How ironic, Tony!" the deranged man cried out, dying to give a lecture even now, when victory was within his grasp. "Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever!"
No. The Iron Man was a tool, not a weapon. It could be used for peace, or war, depending on who wielded it.
He hadn't made a mistake. He had made a solution.
Right?
Suddenly doubting himself, Tony glanced down, where the blue light of the ARC reactor glowed, benevolent despite the raging battle above it. One thing was certain; Stane and his suit had to be destroyed.
And if the Iron Man had to be destroyed along with it, was that really such a bad thing?
All those demons that he had, gone forever? Fine with him.
"Now I'm going to kill you with it," Stane continued, oblivious to Tony's decision.
"Pepper! Ms. Dowe!" Tony called down, trying to keep his voice from breaking, to where the two were crouched. "Time to push the button!"
Stane launched a rocket at the trapped genius, but it flew way off of its mark. "You ripped out my targeting system," he muttered, almost explaining the situation to an unseen audience.
"You're too close!" Pepper cried back.
"Push it!"
With a tear or two running down her face, but no further attempts to argue, Pepper jammed down on the button, the pair dashing out as soon as the deed was done.
A great beam of light shot up from the overloaded reactor, pouring into the sky. The power lifted Tony up, and he closed his eyes - but then he was back, on the side of the opening, out of the way of the blast.
Obadiah wasn't so lucky.
The front of his suit was completely fried, the madman himself falling unconscious. Without any power, the mammoth suit was free to fall forward, through the hole, straight into the reactor.
A fiery explosion plumed up, Tony using the last of his strength to roll clear.
He lay there, the ARC reactor in his chest weakly flickering, flickering… holding steady.
Monday morning.
"You've all received the official statement of what occurred at Stark Industries last night," Rhodey announced to the clicks and murmurs of the press. "There have been unconfirmed reports that a robotic prototype malfunctioned and caused damage to the ARC reactor. Fortunately, a member of Maria Stark's personal security staff…"
Seated in an annoying plastic chair, Tony looked over a newspaper, which was reporting its version of events, asking 'Who is the Iron Man'?
He might have planted the name somewhere. If he was going to be an actual superhero, he might as well have a name that he liked.
Pepper sat next to him, having insisted on getting out of school and coming for support, tapping her leg nervously. An empty chair was next to her, evidence of where Rhodey had been a moment ago. Closest to the door sat Maria, calm as ever.
Tony glanced up sharply as a door creaked open, revealing none other than Mr. - no, Agent - Coulson. The three watched him as he walked forth, handing Maria and Tony some cards. "Here's your alibi," he stated tersely. "You two were in D.C, finalizing the end of all Stark Industries weapons dealings. The suit was on hand at SI in case of problems, and remotely neutralized the problem. Just read it, word for word."
Tony nodded absently, scanning the cards, which contained both statements. "There's nothing about Stane in here," he noted bitterly.
"That's being handled," the elusive government agent responded. "He's on vacation. Small aircraft have such a poor safety record."
So the world wouldn't know that, as Stane went to his grave, he was the one who made all the messes, put up that masquerade to get away with what he wanted.
Shrugging and driving the dire thoughts away, Tony decided, "It's your story, not mine." Leaning in closer, aware of how his mother was engaged in the cards, he asked, "Now, the big question is, what's the cover story you gave my mom? How much does she know?"
He had explained the whole series of events, from Afghanistan to what happened with the ARC, to Pepper, Ms. Dowe, Rhodey, and Coulson, but had resolutely refused to come clean to his mom. It would just worry her too much.
Coulson rubbed the back of his head tiredly. "Your mother knows that Stane was the pilot of the suit, and she knows about his double dealings. We told her that your suit was a prototype of Howard's that you were upgrading, and it was remotely deployed to stop Stane."
Tony made a bit of a face. "Isn't that - that it was remotely - I mean, it's kind of flimsy, isn't it?"
Coulson gave one of those insufferably calm smiles. "This isn't my first rodeo, Mr. Stark."
"Tony," he corrected.
Mr. Stark is my dad. Not me.
"Anthony," Coulson compromised. "Just stand there while your mom talks, smile, say something cheeky, and it'll be a curtain call."
A TV aide warned them that they had 90 seconds until the Starks were up. As Coulson moved to exit, Maria gave him a quiet "Thank you".
Tony wasn't about to fall over himself thanking the man; despite being a government agent masquerading as a teacher to keep an eye on Tony for his super-spy organization (yeah, that had been a ball to hear), Coulson was going to continue teaching until the end of the school year. Tony would have to see him every day at school.
What a joy that would be.
"Let's get this show on the road!" someone called out, and the hustle and bustle of the backstage men commenced, right on schedule. Pepper leaned over to Tony, helping him remove a small sticker from his face, muttering something under her breath about "lying to everybody" and "he'll screw up eventually".
"You know, it's actually not that bad," Tony responded, taking a bit of pleasure in how she jumped, not realizing how audible she was. "Even I don't think I'm Iron Man."
Pepper gave him a look, and told him, with no small amount of sarcasm, "You're not Iron Man."
"Nope."
"All right, suit yourself," Pepper sighed. "You just have to convince the world of the fact."
Tony snickered, but sobered up rather quickly. Glancing up at his friend, he tentatively commented, "You know, if I were Iron Man, I'd have this girlfriend who knew my true identity."
Pepper didn't immediately slap him, so he continued, "She'd be a wreck, 'cause she'd always be worrying that I was going to die, yet so proud of the 'man' I'd become. She'd be wildly conflicted, which would only make her more crazy about me."
Glancing back down, and lowering his voice a little more so that Maria definitely couldn't hear them, he voiced, "Tell me you never think about that night."
"What night?" asked Pepper, her tone hard to read.
Tony shrugged. "You know."
Pepper spared a slightly exasperated glance for him. "Two nights ago, when we danced and then you left to blow up weapons, or last night when you were willing to sacrifice yourself for a plan that easily could've backfired?"
Oh, yeah.
"Um, the first one?"
"Thought so," Pepper responded dryly. "Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"
As the broadcasters motioned to the Starks, getting them to stand up and move towards the spotlight, Tony sighed. "That will be all, Miss Potts."
Pepper still gave him an encouraging thumbs-up when he left, so they were at least friends. He didn't have to worry about that.
He still had to worry about potentially revealing one of his darkest secrets to the entire world, but some things couldn't be helped.
"And now, Mrs. Stark and Anthony Stark have prepared statements," Rhodey continued, as the mother and son entered the room. "They will not be taking any questions." Stepping back, Rhodey allowed Maria to step forward and assume command of the conference. He lined up against the wall, almost behind her and directly next to Tony, squeezing the genius's clammy hand as Maria started to explain their version of events to the press.
All too soon, Maria was done, and Tony was the one stepping up. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Been awhile since you've heard from me. Guess I won't do anything drastic." The crowd chuckled appreciatively. "Anyway, there's been speculation that I've been involved in the events that occurred on the rooftop and the freeway -"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark," a reporter - Carrie Everlong again? - interrupted, "but you honestly expect us to believe that that was a remote suit that conveniently appeared -"
"I know that it's confusing," Tony interrupted in turn, daring to look up from the cards while Maria shook her head in frustration in the background. "It is one thing to question the official story, and another thing entirely to make wild accusations, or insinuate that I'm a superhero."
Carrie - or was it Christine? - cocked her head and responded, "I never said you were a superhero."
Oh. Shit. "Didn't? Well, good, because that would be outlandish and fantastic." God, he was only screwing up more… "I'm just not the hero type. Clearly…"
Rhodey leaned forward before he could blunder more and whispered, "Stick to the cards, man."
Cards. Right. Just the cards. "OK, I was not involved. I was in D.C, as my mother already told you. The 'Iron Man', as you have taken to calling it," or how he had made them call it (haha), "is still Stark Industries property, and…"
It was going to go under wraps again?
That wasn't right.
If he had the capacity to help, shouldn't he be helping in any way he could?
He couldn't just let SHIELD tell him to stop being Iron Man. He needed to make sure the Iron Man would be around, helping people against their demons like it had helped him.
He needed to help people against their demons like he had helped himself.
Now how to go about that?
He had two seconds, tops.
He could always just blurt out "I am Iron Man", but no. That wouldn't work.
Taking a deep breath, Tony continued with, "And, he will be available to help anyone who needs it, at any time, no matter what. Iron Man was created to help people, and you can guarantee he will be doing that."
The reporters stood up, shouting out questions. Rhodey stared at him, with equal parts exasperation and pride evident in his gaze. Maria was almost ballistic that he had screwed up another press conference. Ms. Dowe was probably worried that he was going to put himself in even more danger. Coulson was going to kill him slowly.
Pepper was going to kill him quickly, then resurrect him to kill him again.
All Tony could think, as the reporters screamed, as his heart thumped in fear against his ARC reactor, was -
What the fuck did I get myself into?
That last thought is seriously what RDJ's face looks like in that last scene though, below the yup i just did that screw secret identities face.
So, yeah. That's it for Iron Man.
Aw, who am I kidding? I'm probs gonna do some IM2 chappies, don't worry!
Or, worry...
I like Iron Man too much.
~Horseluv
P.S. The other day in English, we were writing an alternative storyline for Tom Sawyer for a project and I was throwing out all of these ideas, and one of the guys I was working with was like, "do you write fanfiction or something?"
I'm like, "um no" because it would be considered not normal to write fanfiction in my school
Inside, I'm like "OH MY GOD DOES IT REALLY SHOW THAT MUCH?"