Everything I've done, everything I'll do today, everything I'll ever do, I do to protect this world. When I put on this armor, I took on more power than any human was ever intended to have... and maybe more responsibility than my heart can truly bear. But today... I will do my job. I will protect you. No matter what it takes...
There was no discomfort, no pain -- no memory of nightmares that must have been playing behind his lids when he finally found consciousness. There was nothing. Just a calm and warm numbness. Selfishly, Tony embraces it. Slowly clearing vision focused on the ceiling over head as he sends signals of cooperation to each of his fingers and toes, with every submissive tap or wriggle, Tony begins to test himself. One of his arms shift cautiously and though Stark doesn't glance to watch it, he knows the muscles in his forearms were tensing -- straining to do something as simple as lift his hand into view. It creeps in, obstructing his perception and dark brown eyes stare up at it as if each of the digits and elevated knuckle was foreign to him. With the slightest tilt of his head, he begins to turn his hand, technological orbs -- aided by years of personal experimentation, digest and drink in every line, curve and dip of his palm-- before his fingers begin curling in. A tight, hard fist created. For whatever reason, this felt more natural -- more like him. A voice in the back of his mind swore that it was, that he was a fighter, built on bruised knuckles and bloodied hands. Brows crease in, he could see himself using them. Punching again and again and again until his hands wore the evidence of his brutality and violence, covered in his and his victim's blood -- cutting up, shredded. Tony turns his weapon though and he finds no evidence of the violence he was imagining.
His hands weren't just clean, they were perfect. There was absolutely no sign he'd ever been in a fight his entire life; no dark discolored bruises, up-ridged scars or open wounds. Angling his fist, he allows his fingers a moment to loosen, hand flattening where it hovered over his face -- promising the exact same thing. This was wrong. Not just because he knows he was meant to wear the scars of his battles, but because he had always had hard, calloused hands. While he could see the tension in the pads of his fingers and palm, the abrasions from handling his machinery and working endless hours in his "Church" were almost completely gone and healed.
Though they were far from a soft man's hands. They weren't his.
Carefully, still feeling weak -- numb, like his entire body had been in suspended animation for some time, Tony turns onto his side and rolls off the bed he was laid out across. It takes a moment, the press of his bare feet against the cold wooden flooring under them, but he does manage to push himself up and start moving. Inwardly, he knows he should be feeling something.. Anything more than he was. Panic was the most logical of emotions. He doesn't know where he is or what he'd doing here -- and his memory... He knows who he is, Anthony Edward Stark, born to Howard and M--.. no, born to S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Amanda Armstrong and H.Y.D.R.A. operative Jude.
Iron Man. Avenger. Billionaire -- playboy philanthropist.
He could remember the specifics, could even see himself as a child watching Howard in his lab; learning through a thirst to be just like him. He could see Maria, that warm smile on her face as she reached for him and ran a comforting hand across the apple of his cheek, then moving in to kiss it. More than those memories though, of his would-be parents. Tony could remember becoming an Avenger, fighting alongside his team, taking hit after hit for --- and then from them. Their downfall, their rise... And inevitable fall all over again. It was all there but his? It was missing and he knew it. There was cloud over -- time itself. He couldn't begin to comprehend how much he missing or why. So, he focuses forward -- on where his feet were taking him as electric, motion-detecting doors opened along with his stride and he unloaded out into a chrome hallway. It wasn't long before he found himself approaching a door with some of the answers he was looking for. It was almost entirely bare but there was a cradle in the middle of it, a number of machines hooked up to it -- computers wired through it's consoles. Glancing back over his shoulder, half expecting to find a small army of drones or HYDRA --- AIM agents ready to take him down... When he finds nothing, he continues toward the closest console. To his complete surprise, access was granted the instant he touched the technical keyboard. A HELLO, TONY STARK written in bright green letters across the monitor.
This probably should have deterred him. The curiosity in him though pushes on.
It doesn't take him long to find the weekly progress reports gathered on the comatose subject that once laid dormant in the cradle. Reading through the patient's body chemistry -- structure-- and the virus that had kept him alive to begin with... Tony begins to realize that it was his body that had been poked and prodded over the last few months.
Months.
Breath hitched in his throat, he turns the keyboard out to try to bring up it's more basic uses.
The internet answers all the questions he didn't even know he had in article after article surrounding The DEATH OF TONY STARK.
Honestly, he wasn't sure what was worse; finding out it was Carol Danvers that threw a fist so hard through his suit she'd killed him --- or, that it happened over three years ago.
---------------------
He must have watched the video -- paused, rewound, fast-forwarded and replayed it a thousand times and he still couldn't believe what he was seeing. He fell, ropes of blood spinning out with his body and she just stayed where she was in the air. Carol Danvers. One of his best friends in the whole world -- his teammate, just watched as he fell. Instinct forced his gaze away from the file to his own body, seeing the fight unfold helped to bring it back. He could remember the darkness after his suit's power source was obliterated, the gush of light after he was forced through metal and steel panels. Though the suit knew him, tried to adapt and pull away as quickly as it could, it hadn't been fast enough. Thousands of little pieces of of shrapnel tore and ripped at him, more than one cutting straight through his back and out the front of his chest. It was hot and rapid. Over in less than a second but, extremis kept him awake and aware for almost every stray strip of his suit as it ruptured and bled him out. He should have looked like Frankenstein's monster. Even with Extremis and the years between then and now, he should have been riddled in scars. Arms, legs and chest were clear though.
-- Or, almost clear. He'd noticed when tapping the monitor off and turning it into a mirror that his chest was still a reflection of his past. Most of the damage was gone, healed over and seemingly forgotten. A deep scar still ringed at the center of his chest though. Tony hated it. More than anything. It was a reminder of who he was, what happened to him in Afghanistan, what he was forced to endure afterwards. More than all that, it was ugly. A cut into the perfect lie he liked to pretend he and his body represented. He'd considered a number of outlets over the years, synthetic skin coming up more than once. Stark had even gone as far as to purchase a cradle for himself. He scanned his body, climbed inside, saw all the precautionary procedures through to their end but he could never find it in himself to finishthe job. Something always "came up" or distracted him away. Doc Samson, during the few "sessions" Tony forced on him after first injecting himself with extremis, had plenty of psychological reasons for this. He believed and shared freely, that Tony was scared of fixing himself. -- Of reverting back to who he was, the drunken, thoughtless fool that took everything and everyone in his life for granted. His scar, like the Iron Man were shields to protect him from that backwards spiral.
They were also walls. Reasons to keep his distance.
They-- weren't important. The last three years were important.
Knocking on the screen again, he brings it back to life and starts to searching for his friends -- family. Fingers hesitate over the technological keyboard, Amanda caught in the search bar. Stark got halfway through her last name before he backslid over it and put feelers out for Riri instead. Nothing.
Searching... Iron Man....
Links found.
Most recent; THE INFAMOUS IRON MAN terrorizes another of Hydra's "RECONDITIONING CAMPS".
"Hydra..."
How had it gotten this bad? -- How had the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D. -- the general public let this happen?
They wouldn't have. They would have stood up against the mere inclination of Hydra's tyranny and they would have won. Thor, Carol, Steve-- they would have torn the organization to pieces. Nothing but death would have subdued them. Again, a sick feeling begins to build in the pit of his stomach and his fingers ghost over the keyboard.
"Steve" written in sharp, black letters. Space. R... -- Backslide.
He was dead. That was the only explanation.
The doors behind him roll open and Tony turns immediately, hands lifting from his sides -- pulling into tight, threatening fists -- ready to throw himself at whatever woke him up and left him to stew in the realizations of this new world. He's stopped though when his suit stood before him. The new paint job, the cloak draped over it's head and down it's shoulders. It was the same one from the news, the one tearing through Hydra facilities and freeing prisoners. Even before he spoke, Tony knew it was him. No one else would steal his armor and top it in such a way. Stark wants to be mad. He wants to launch at Doom, to demand he take the armor off -- that it didn't belong to him, that he didn't deserve to wear it. That's what he would have said before everything they'd gone through with Whitney ... And then the Inhumans and "Team Danvers". He hated to admit it, but apart of him had grown used to -- almost comfortable in Victor's company. It didn't help of course, that the world was once again turning on him, all his friends dropping like flies ---Banner...
Rhodes....
Victor was the only one truly on his side.
"Again." Tony starts, watching him approach. "That might be a bit more meaningful if you hadn't tried to kill me in Camelot and then leave me there."
There's a moment of silence, Tony's eyes obvious in the way they swept Victor's armored form, "Why'd you take my suit? I know it's mine. You switched a few things up but... That's my work." Honestly, there was no anger in his question, his hands were even beginning to relax -- tension in his forearms giving. It was curiosity. Victor Von Doom was one of the most brilliant men on Earth. -- Maybe throughout the galaxy. The Iron Man wasn't new anymore. It was still lightyears ahead of most, but not Doom. If he wanted to replicate it, build a suit for himself; he could have. He'd taken the time though to visit one of Tony's garages, to slip through it's security and pick through the various marks displayed. A feat much more impressive had Tony been conscious at the time -- but not easy by any means.
