Tony Stark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
in_extremis) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
revivalproject2023-02-10 09:18 pm
in_extremis) wrote in revivalproject2023-02-10 09:18 pm
Paranoia
WHO: Ed'n'Tony
WHERE: The Forge
WHAT: Surviving the blizzard
WHEN: During the storm
WARNINGS: CW: Blood, amputation, alcoholism, parental abuse, the horrors
The problem was that Tony was stupid.
In another life, he had managed to make a remarkable iron suit that could withstand bullets and a walk across a country with a trash can lid and a car battery. Now, he had pickled his brain, regressed, probably should have stayed out in the snow where he belonged instead of being such a coward. The suit that he had come here in, in dazzling red and gold that streaked effortlessly over the rooftops of the city, felt like it had been made by someone else, someone that actually understood basic electromagnetism, someone who could probably start it with a pair of jumper cables to make it at least functional enough to walk back through the snow. This Tony, the one that apparently couldn't build anything in the very same workshop, had tried to make that walk in desperation without it, instead wrapped only in a dusty curtain. Without Extremis, he didn't even have the nanoweb. Without Extremis, when the cold started deadening his skin, when it started to prickle with phantom heat instead, he knew he could only go so far before that skin wasn't going to heal.
It had been slow going in the battering of the storm, and then he stopped, staring ahead into an unforgiving blanket of white, not even completely sure of the direction he was facing, and tried to ignore the pooling acid of guilt in his chest as he looked back over his shoulder, toward the forge and its perpetual fire.
By the time he had made it back to the heavy, iron door, it was heaped with snow that he had to dig out with his numb hands, not even feeling the burn anymore, trying not to look too closely at them.
His blackened fingertips made him slow and clumsy to work, made him shake with frustration with every minute that passed and he was still here, and every obsessive attempt to reconnect to the network felt like a void growing bigger in his brain with every tap. If Jon went out into the snow, like he had wandered out into the fog, he wouldn't know how to get back. If the suit had failed, so had the generator in the hospital. If Omega and Echo were out patrolling, their footsteps would be filling with snow faster than they could retrace them.
The fire at his back burned hot enough to melt metal into a wonderful, useless pile of junk, but Tony shivered.
WHERE: The Forge
WHAT: Surviving the blizzard
WHEN: During the storm
WARNINGS: CW: Blood, amputation, alcoholism, parental abuse, the horrors
The problem was that Tony was stupid.
In another life, he had managed to make a remarkable iron suit that could withstand bullets and a walk across a country with a trash can lid and a car battery. Now, he had pickled his brain, regressed, probably should have stayed out in the snow where he belonged instead of being such a coward. The suit that he had come here in, in dazzling red and gold that streaked effortlessly over the rooftops of the city, felt like it had been made by someone else, someone that actually understood basic electromagnetism, someone who could probably start it with a pair of jumper cables to make it at least functional enough to walk back through the snow. This Tony, the one that apparently couldn't build anything in the very same workshop, had tried to make that walk in desperation without it, instead wrapped only in a dusty curtain. Without Extremis, he didn't even have the nanoweb. Without Extremis, when the cold started deadening his skin, when it started to prickle with phantom heat instead, he knew he could only go so far before that skin wasn't going to heal.
It had been slow going in the battering of the storm, and then he stopped, staring ahead into an unforgiving blanket of white, not even completely sure of the direction he was facing, and tried to ignore the pooling acid of guilt in his chest as he looked back over his shoulder, toward the forge and its perpetual fire.
By the time he had made it back to the heavy, iron door, it was heaped with snow that he had to dig out with his numb hands, not even feeling the burn anymore, trying not to look too closely at them.
His blackened fingertips made him slow and clumsy to work, made him shake with frustration with every minute that passed and he was still here, and every obsessive attempt to reconnect to the network felt like a void growing bigger in his brain with every tap. If Jon went out into the snow, like he had wandered out into the fog, he wouldn't know how to get back. If the suit had failed, so had the generator in the hospital. If Omega and Echo were out patrolling, their footsteps would be filling with snow faster than they could retrace them.
The fire at his back burned hot enough to melt metal into a wonderful, useless pile of junk, but Tony shivered.