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Author's Note: placeholder

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 13); MC4A
Individual Challenges: Zed Era; New Fandom Smell; Marvelous Cinema; In a Flash; Bucket Listing
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 13 – Assignment
Subject (Task No.): n/a
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Insane Prompt Challenge [596](Acceptance); 365 [04](Accord); Herbology Club [3-4](Tidsoptimist); Auction [13-2](Stranded AU); Back to School Shopping [Uniform](Cold Weather);
Other MC4A Challenges: AU [3B](Afterlife); Chim [Deke](Laughing); Fire [Hard](Adventure Tales); Garden [Word Song](Everything)
Representation(s): Tony Stark & the Avengers
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Abandoned Ship; Rock of Ages
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: T3 (Terse); SN (Rail); O3 (Oust); War (Sanctuary; Ennui)
Word Count: 616

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A Cut Strand
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Tony was cold. He was the sort of cold now where he was actually started to feel warm again. He knew that was a bit not good. The squishier sciences weren't his strong suit, but he was at least eighty-seven percent sure that feeling warm without actually warming up was actually a sign of severe frostbite.

Which, you know, was a thing that tended to happen when one was stranded in a drafty enemy base that had hopefully been completely abandoned. Though judging by the fact that there had been five super soldiers stashed on ice here, it was probably only mostly abandoned.

With the way Tony's luck was going the last few days, it was even odds on whether he was going to freeze to death right where Captain America had left him or if Hydra would pop up one of their very ugly heads to bite him in the ass.

If that happened, the best case scenario was that they would kill him. Even if they did it slowly, it would be better than being turned into one of their operative, nothing more than puppet dancing to their tune. Tesla's balls, the things that Hydra was able to do with just knock-offs of his tech was worrisome. If they could get him to create for them, there would be no stopping them.

Tony let out a bitter and exhausted laugh at the idea of it. Captain America who had always stood as the symbol of the fight against Hydra may have just handed them the very thing they had always craved. Of course, it wasn't like Steve hadn't already be riding a rather fine line. He had accepted Wanda without even batting an eye, despite her lack of remorse for working with first Hydra and then Ultron.

Lying there as he slowly froze to death—or maybe the internal injuries would get him first; it wasn't like he could really categorize what injuries had sustained—it had become abundantly clear to him where exactly he had gone wrong. He should have stuck to his initial guns, for one thing.

Opportunities weren't given. They were created.

Big talk for a man not twelve hours out from having told the whole world that he was Iron Man. He should have stayed by his lonesome, working under General Turner and making a nuisance of himself to terrorists and American military brass with questionable histories respecting human rights. He could have still saved the world but with at least a third less abuse and manipulation.

Even if he had had to join forces during the Invasion, he should have backed off when it became clear (which was immediately) that not one of the Avengers and no one at SHIELD wanted to actually do anything to prevent a recurrence. Considering how Thor had lit up Greenwich not a full year later, Tony had been right to think that there were going to be more.

Earth was vulnerable and no one seemed to care about that.

Hopefully, there would be someone out there who would care enough to step up.

Tony slumped in his dead armor. Vision and Peter were all that there was left, and they were both babies regardless of how powerful they were. Steve had taken off for parts unknown. Natasha had well. The rest of the Avengers had been arrested for breaking international laws, never mind anything about the numerous treaties they had broken before even touching on the Accords issue. When they arraigned on Monday, they was probably going to be held without bail, given the skill sets that most of them had.

He closed his eyes.

The Avengers were done.

And so was he.