18 - In Between
Time was a blur.
The sickness still clung to Tony along with the ache, stained his mind and filled it completely. It was hard to think of anything, really, as he lay there face down on the couch he had just been taken on.
His mind also refused to acknowledge the r-word. The last sweet sanctum of denial. He pulled back into it, as he rolled to lie on his side, drew his knees against his chest and closed his eyes to the world.
Loki was pacing the big window front in a purposeful strut. That gait of a mad god, animalistic ferocity barely contained in that royal posture of his.
And then he was talking.
"You have to understand this about your kind, Tony. They call me liesmith, but never have I seen beings, who are in such basic denial about the simplest matters of life, as you mortals are. It is understandable, by all meands! If my life was but a blimp, a flimmer in all of existence, I might cry out and point accuse aswell. Yet of all the lies you tell yourself to feel better about your pathetic little life you defend the one in particular: The base sentiment of uniqueness.
"You huddle together on a dark day, your whole planet nothing but a speck of dust, a glimpse of the all-being and yet you flatter yourselves with such thoughts as every little one of you being one of a kind. It is a sickness, like that awful sense of freedom you defend so readily. Were you like Ants, recognizing your status and acting on it, how much you could achieve. Instead you struggle blindly, mindlessly, each and every one of you as ineffective as possible, and call that choice.
It is not choice, it is nothing that would give your existence any more meaning than it holds. How could you of all races understand the concept of greater purpose, if one lifespan of yours is nothing but a flash of a pain, a meek struggle against chains you do not even see, and then you'd be gone in a second, gone with the wind and nothing but dust in the earth."
The voice had closed in on him, and then there were unhumanly strong arms that picked him up like a doll, carried him a bit and then set him down to stand on his own two feet, facing Loki, whose face was contorted in a freak show of loving concern. His hand cupped Tony's cheek and brought him closer, cooing soothing sounds into his ear. Tony felt the mockery, the wrongness in it, but he could not help but be affected and so he leaned into the touch.
"You unique little snowflake." A low chuckle. "Oh, you are so unique, surely. Tony Stark, man like no other. You sure feel different, do you not? Well you are a smart man, Tony, tell me. How do they feel? All those other megalomaniacal ants? All those pretty little snowflakes? There might be differences, I grant you that. But in the end you all look the same, slight anomalties only seen under the best of microscopes. And when it comes down to it? The creation of you all follows exactly the same old pattern, there is nothing sacred about pure randomness. Don't flatter yourself."
Loki held him closer and Tony was threatening to drown in the smell of leather and dark rain on wet earth, and then he was spun around, the armor a small press against his back, and he could see outside.
"Oh, look! Your friends."
It had begun to snow. Thousands of little white flakes littered the sky and he could not help but look for it, that fabled uniqueness he knew to lie within. He could not let Loki's words get to him, but having one's own existence derogaded this way, it did something to him.
"You bore me. Go fly with them, then."
And just like that Loki shoved him, the force of it catapulting him hard against the window front, breaking it, and then there was free fall.
He heard JARVIS utter some words, but they held no meaning to him, he did not listen. This was it, then. You bore me. Funny, how that stung him more deeply than the fact, that he was falling to meet his end.
At least he'd have peace now, his mind provided the easy answer, but he dismissed it. That wasn't him, was it? Tony Stark was full of life, always. But here he was, longing for the sweet serenety that might await him and he smiled a near invisible smile at the thought of his guts splattered on the freshly fallen snow. One last show of beauty.
Then there was something behind him. Loki, his mind provided, but it was proven wrong quickly by a flash of red. And there was the suit, unraveling in all its mechanical beauty as it wrapped itself around him like a guardian angel and he took the chance at life he was granted and pushed his boosters in the very last second. He was alive.
He would stay that way and screw Loki for taking away his spirit. No one takes Tony Stark's spirit. Empty words that shot through an empty brain. Did a brain have something akin to muscle memory? Must have, he thought, but the tiny struggle against that invisible chain, that lay so heavily around his neck, filled him with as much grand purpose as any human should ever need, and then he flew.
He liked to think JARVIS chose his path for him, much like the AI had taken it upon himself to activate the emergency protocol in that case of 'freaking free fall out of a window' just now.
He knew it not to be true, though.
As much as part of him wanted to switch to autopilot and let himself drift, he knew he couldn't.
In addition to the things he had to do he needed the feeling of control back. He needed to hold on to it, so he did.
He switched off most of those convenient little gadgets that made flying so easy a two year old could do it. If a two year old could fit into his suit, that is.
He barked booster percentage levels as he saw fit, still wary of the sound of his own voice. It did not betray him though, and he managed a small smile of victory.
He was not broken. Right at this moment he functioned, and it was all he could have hoped for.
His flight took him to the only man he could count on to help him now. Pride aside, fear and trauma aside, he needed to see Nick Fury.
