revivalproject | Paranoia

Entry tags:

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.

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Again, Tony was ready to argue, because it couldn't wait forever, they were going to have to eat eventually and he wasn't about to start hunting rats. And again, all of that fight was drained out of him as he drew his hands back to fold together protectively. What Ed was saying did sound logical, the system was clearly infected and had not been built efficiently enough to isolate the problem, but Tony also really did not want the answer when he echoed, "Dealt with?"

"Dealt with," Ed confirmed with a pointed look, taking his knife from his hip and toying with the tip of the blade. He hummed and offered more bluntly- "Cut away, before it infects the rest."

He spoke with a casual air, like this sort of thing happened all the time. Mildly inconvenient. Which wasn't far off honestly, apart from the cause.

The elaboration wasn't all that necessary while Tony eyed the knife, which looked about as blunt and brutal as Ed's choice of words. The truth was, though, Tony had been through worse, under worse conditions--opening his chest hadn't exactly been a delicate surgery. And it was only going to get worse. Not just his hands, but this building, not designed to survive the weather, windows already rattling and the catwalk shivering ominously, it wasn't going to keep them safe if they just kept waiting like Ed thought.

"Okay," Tony suddenly said, though his hands were still clutched anxiously, just as even and casual. Not that he seemed able to articulate much more than that. He had to untangle his fingers to then second guess whether Ed was offering the knife, or just using it as a convenient illustration. Tony did have his own tools, after all, to do his own sordid work.

"..." Ed nodded, reluctant to actually do the deed despite his casual attitude a moment earlier, but Stark could hardly be expected to hack his own fingers off. At least not once he'd finished the first hand. "...Should get it over with then," he encouraged, still not moving, and it took another beat before he finally pushed himself to gesture for Tony to move towards a work bench.

"Got anything to drink in this place?" he asked hopefully, setting one of tools inside the fire for later.

To Tony, this looked like impatience with his own cowardice, setting his teeth on edge and sending him stalking toward the workbench with his fingers flexing. He could feel the pull of the skin around them, like a pair of gloves, detached and unfamiliar. "Help yourself," he encouraged irritably, not eager to play host at the moment and flicking a hand back over his shoulder toward the motley collection of bottles that had been braced up on the wall, on display. They all had something in them, though Tony couldn't confidently say what exactly, pilfered from Cayde's bar. It was about time someone actually tried them instead of staring intently at them.

Meanwhile, a laser would have done the job before him cleanly and quickly, and Tony was reduced to glaring at the scattered scales of the Iron Man for this new betrayal. Scissors, maybe? He grabbed at tools from where they hung over the bench, not entirely sure what was in his hand as he did.

Ed went to fetch a bottle, sniffing at the contents and deciding it would work well enough, before he finally took notice of Tony's interpretation.

He set the bottle down heavily on the workbench and smacked at that hand to drop whatever nonsense he was considering, fixing him with a hard look. "Fuck you think you're doing?" he admonished, expression softening some as he pushed the bottle towards him.

"Drink," he instructed, pulling stool closer with the toe of his boot and pushing Tony's shoulder to encourage him to sit. "Get you good and dosed before I do it. You won't remember a thing."

It was never worth doing what he was told, and this time Tony didn't even know what his argument was, the only response on loop in his head and ready to spit, "Getting us out of here!" That argument would have to wait, though, because he raised both hands in something like surrender as the bottle came closer, just short of a full recoil as he drew inward and away from it, the tension all in his chest and leaving him easy to fold into the seat at Ed's nudge.

"Can't," he said, keeping his darting focus somewhere among the tools still hanging on the workbench. "The patient requests no anaesthetic."

That...was an interesting reaction, and any other time Ed might have found it in him to be more understanding. He knew of a few men who abstained because they couldn't handle their drink...and a good few more who should've.

"Mm, well, unless you've got any opium hanging about, it's this or a good whack to the head, mate," he encouraged, "From the way people carry on I don't imagine this is something you're going to want to remember."

This was not an argument that Tony wanted, or even thought he should have to be subjected to. "You can take as many whacks as you need to get through this, mate," he encouraged irritably, hand spreading to shove that decision back where it came from to leave him with his own. He had made the call already, he was pretty sure he got that luxury when he was going to be the one down a pound of flesh after this. He was agitated enough that he almost missed Ed's suggestion, so it took him by surprise to suddenly be asking, "You've done this before?"

"Mm. More for ah-...persuasive purposes, but yeah," Ed acknowledged casually, toying with the edge of the blade, "Seen plenty of folks lose bits to all sort of things though. Not much of a science to it at this point beyond removing them and making sure you don't bleed out."

He didn't look particularly worried about that at least.

"If you'd rather have one of the wee things at the hospital take a whack we can try and wait out the storm," he offered, look clearly implying which he thought the better option was.

Oh. That was a whole different problem that they were probably going to have to confront later, should the man who claimed to be a legendary pirate turn out to be very much a pirate and thus still prone to violent persuasions. It was possible that Tony should have taken the man in a motorcycle jacket with a New Zealand accent more seriously about the Blackbeard thing.

Later.

Immediately, he had told Tony that the rot needed to come off or it was going to get worse, and they did not have the time for it to get worse because they needed to be working fast to get out of here before the roof caved in. Tony went very rapidly from looking stricken, to snarling and snatching the knife away from Ed to slam hard enough down onto the table that it was buried in the scorched surface and forming a dam against the pool of blood from Tony's finger.

Edited 2023-02-27 05:51 (UTC)

"..." Ed blinked, annoyed, frustrated, (a little turned on), but all of it strangely overshadowed by a sort of amused admiration. It was the sort of bullheaded he expected of himself and found fascinating in others. So he gave the probably unexpected reaction of a surprised and breathless laugh, before heavy feet crossed the room to retrieve the red hot iron.

"You're a fucking lunatic, you know that?" he admonished fondly, looking for a glove or cloth to grab the thing with.

"Here we go-" he soothed, picking up Stark's wrist and pushing the red hot metal to the bloody flesh in one smooth motion before he could have the sense to pull away, grip holding fast and nose wrinkling at the smell.

In the time it took for Ed to venture to the fire and back, Tony still didn't seem to have properly processed what he just did. He had gotten as far as slowly picking his own hand up out of the mess to consider his new, strange, stunted appendage, staring at it with the same stunned detachment. His body, at least, seemed to have some idea that something had gone critically wrong, because he was definitely shaking when Ed took hold of him, but Tony had opened his mouth to report that he didn't actually think that it had hurt. In fact, he was so used to burning himself, too, that the familiar glowing red coming at him hardly phased him, until it actually touched flesh (far too much flesh), and whatever system had been failing this whole time was suddenly very, incredibly active. Instead of talking about how invincible he was, he made a sound like a ripcord and jerked violently away, throwing himself back off of the stool to get his butchered hand away from the burn.

Ed did his best to hold on, but let Tony pull free with a wince, setting the iron aside and showing Tony his palms.

"I know-" he soothed, like he was trying to calm a spooked horse, trying to assess through the blood and the char whether it had stopped the bleeding. "Hang on," he pressed, knee protesting as he crossed to briefly expose the chill of outside rush in, collecting some snow in a pan to help sooth the ache.

The pan went clattering when he returned to find an ill timed ghost in his path, shock and fear twisting his features where the bloodshed hadn't.

He'd finally fucking lost it. Or this really was hell, and it had taken the bastard this long to finally find him.

Ed shakily shoved the snow back into the pan and pointedly avoided looking at or acknowledging the visage of his father as he side stepped to return to the task at hand

"Look at me, boy," the man demanded, "You look at what you've done."

"Here- let's see now, quickly," Ed demanded briskly, motioning for Tony's hand.

It was a humiliatingly strong reaction to still wince when Ed raised his hands, sprawled on the floor with another ache from the fall to add to the growing collection of afflictions, and holding his wrist to cradle against his chest with his fingers twitching like he couldn't decide whether to curl them tightly to protect them or that wasn't worth the pain of stretching the tortured skin. Just because everything was hurting right now, didn't mean Ed was also going to hurt him. It was a relief then that Tony was given a moment to himself, still shaking but taking the time to try to firmly tell himself to man up, for god's sake--maybe that was still Howard--that he was made of iron, and wipe away any evidence of tears before Ed came back. The roll of icey wind across the floor was briefly soothing to every part of him that felt like it was on fire, then a stark reminder that they didn't have time for him to be so pathetic. Was that the walls that he could hear creaking under the weight of the snow already?

Ed was suddenly in front of him, startling Tony out of a void that he didn't realize was creeping at the edges of his vision. It was all on a delay, but he managed to process the sound first, a voice that he didn't recognize that definitely hadn't come out of Ed, whose face didn't look nearly so harsh. The cold, the door had opened, Tony realized, and instead of showing Ed the damage, he rasped, "Who the fuck is that?"

Someone else had gotten in.

"You can see him??" Ed looked from Tony back to the figure then with wide eyes, and shuffled to put Stark between them without thinking, chest tight.

"That's not possible..."

"Look at you," the apparition sneered, "More balls on you when you were a boy. We're so shy then. When you had the rope round my neck."

"What? Of course I can see him," Tony hissed in return, words firing out quickly between grit teeth before Ed was entirely around him and leaving Tony to suddenly have to play host again now that he had been set up for so much success. He did his best to gather himself up, on his feet with his hand still clutched against his chest, and trying to push his shoulders back through the tight coil of tension still winding to pull him down into a protective ball, to put his full height between Ed and what he was trying to get away from.

"Hey, hi, I'm sure whatever this is you've got going on is really important, but we're going to have to talk about this later. My house, my stuff," he graciously welcomed, with a jerk of his head back over his shoulder to indicate what was included in the scope of his stuff under this roof.

It took Ed a good moment to weigh that in his mind and decide whether his confirmed sanity was worth more to him than the proof positive of some sort of afterlife. He thought at least he would be free of the man outside of his own memories.

He knew distantly it wasn't at all right or fair to cower behind a wounded man, but Stark's defensive posture against his father was about all that kept him from turning into an absolute sobbing mess. Again.

"Go back to hell and wait for me," Ed managed with a sniff, peering from behind Tony's shoulder like a child at his mother's apron strings. "Got more pressing shit here, Dad."

"Did you know he great Blackbeard killed his old man?" The ghost asked in a mocking tone, "Did you know that's the only life he's had the balls to take with his own hand?"

Dad? It took Tony a beat to make the full calculation, head twisted to glance between Ed and the uninvited guest--technically, neither of them had been invited, he realized, which really helped build that family resemblance that Tony was starting to pick out. This guy certainly was dressed more like Tony would assume from a 18th century pirate, which might have connected some dots, or just made Blackbeard's sartorial choices all the more sharply incongruous.

The fact was, there was an undeniable pattern that neither of these people could have orchestrated.

"Daddy issues, really?" Tony accused, still in a hiss directed at Ed. "Can't imagine what that's like." That was definitely not something that he was going to leave Ed to confront on his own, and while Tony would have preferred a joke an a distraction to keep from dwelling on something dark, that dark thing was a lot more corporeal than a sly remark would handle. He had to commit to a threatening step forward, pained hand still held against his chest but the other out to lay the deal flat between them as he proposed sharply, "You here for round two?"

All ready breathing heavily, Ed's brief glare at the joke was made less effective by the tears pooling in his eyes.

Daddy Issues galore, apparently. Ed wanted to run hide. He wanted Stede, and that kind reassurance. But Tony was a close substitute for now. Standing up to the ghost, down a finger and definitely in shock by now.

Father teach gave an amused huff, a familiar drunken sway to hi as he stepped forward, and Ed squeezed his eyes shut tight. He missed the moment the man disappeared, scrambling to shelter under one of the tables. It was a pitiful image, and not one he wanted witnessed again, muttering to himself under his breath.

This wasn't the time to be spiraling over a man who had been dead for decades.

At first, it was a relief to Tony that he didn't actually have to swing his balled fist, struck still as the threat suddenly vanished like it was never there at all. He continued to stare, like he might see through whatever illusion was there, then glanced around the workshop to make sure no other dads were lurking in the shadows and--where was Ed?

He bent over first, eyebrows raised to peer inquisitively under the table, then gathered in a frown as he crouched with his arms balanced on his knees with his wounded hand caged gingerly in the other. Now, he kind of would preferred being able to fight the problem, because that was a much easier equation than tears, and for a moment he just had some uncomfortable shuffling and an expression of pinched irritation as he tried to look anywhere else.

"Weird that we've had to talk about your balls more than once already," he finally produced.

Ed managed a teary laugh, and sniffed, glancing away in shame at the state he was in. Time was he would have gutted Tony then and there for seeing him in such a vulnerable state. (Or had Iz do it...) But Stede's...softened him.

"Can think of worse topics of conversation," he countered, wiping away tears with a rough hand, trying to collect himself, but not quite ready to come out from under the table just yet.

"You've got the biggest pair in this room, clearly," he added. Man cut off his own finger and challenged a god damn ghost to a fist fight.

There wasn't much energy left in the tank for Tony to laugh, only enough to get him to a wry smile and sharp exhale before even the expression had to drop. Taking a swing at a drunk didn't exactly merit the highest of honours, he thought, so he just gave a tip of his head and click of his tongue for that, and didn't really know how to follow up because the only other display in comparison seemed to be an ongoing problem that neither of them really wanted to acknowledge. Without anything else to focus on, the only sound left was the howl of the wind, and the crackle of the fire. Eventually, Tony had to let himself drop back onto the ground so he didn't start trembling on his perch on his heels, still looking anywhere else as he wondered, "Did you really do it? Kill your dad."

Ed's gaze wavered, flicking to the ground and he nodded. "...Bastard deserved it," he muttered with a shrug, but he couldn't quite shake that frown. "...I was just a slip of a thing then," he added, "But with that much drink in him it wasn't hard."

He attempted to harden his gaze back up, blinking a few times, and crawling out from under the table to look reach for Tony's wrist. "He always did have shit timing," he muttered, examining the damage with a sigh. "Not sure how you're still standing, man. Let alone ready to fend off the undead."

Tony couldn't think of a situation where someone deserved to die. Where it was necessary, sometimes, or where it couldn't be helped, but as Ed came crawling closer, Tony watched him, inquisitive and bleak, trying to make sense of that particular choice of phrase. He gave a grimace as Ed took his wrist, more for the gruesome display it made, and for the shaking he thought he had managed to hide by grounding himself more and wasn't so easy to conceal as it vibrated under his skin. He had to try to shrug it off, casting around for something else to focus on. "Mine was always the most frightening when he was that drunk," wasn't a massive improvement. The defence of the position only felt worse as Tony tried to fill the space, "Unstoppable, you know, couldn't be talked out of anything, get his mind on something and get angry about it and that was it until he was out, so, listen, that's like taking a car crash head on, for a kid, he was right about the balls."

Ed was silent a beat, but cast his eyes down and nodded his understanding, his posture shifting some with the knowledge that Tony intimately understood. Most dad's were shit as far as Ed could tell, but there was a certain only threshold a boy could take before it was too much.

"...wouldn't've cared so much if he just bothered with me. But he was always on her. About everything. And then he'd go to spend money we didn't have on more drink." He distanced himself from delving too deep into the memory with his observations of Tony, rough fingers trying to soothe that tremor. "Yours isn't going to visit us too, is he?"

Tony didn't have a lot of context for how much worse some of his childhood experience would be without the money--most of the time, he thought it was the money that had controlled the form of it, given his dad the power to behave as he did, the reason to resent Tony for not deserving it, and the means to keep as much distance between them as possible. It was something of a mercy, maybe, that he didn't really know what his parents' relationship was like, never seeing them enough alone. And at least Howard's habits didn't threaten the bottom line. Maybe he could kind of understand what Ed meant by deserved then.

The shiver wasn't really going away, worse maybe as Tony blinked and cleared his throat before he could shrug it off and and mutter, "Don't worry, you missed him." If the ghost really was his dad, and it gave a very convincing performance, then it didn't want to be here, either.

"Heh-" Ed gave a weak laugh at their shared past, and after a final breath, seemed to draw up his strength again, giving a nod to steady himself.

"...let's not draw this out longer than we need to, mm?" he said finally, nodding back towards the bloody table top.

Dwelling on this unexpected camaraderie was about as excruciating to Tony as cutting off his limbs, or at least he thought as much as he raised his eyebrows and resigned to pulling himself back up onto his feet by the table. It was only when he was back up and could see the blood at the bit of finger that used to be very attached to him that he wavered, literally, and had to blink and take a deep breath to come up with a good joke to dispel any doubts about his constitution as he kept himself balanced on the worktop; "Eugh." Not his best work. Something, something, drawing out, foreplay maybe--Tony waved his free hand in the air, for Ed to extrapolate that inspired take from his grunt.

Ed drew in a breath through his teeth, swatting the bit of finger, and pulling free his knife with a nod. 'Eugh' indeed.

"This is why we drink," he reminded with a tut, pressing down on Tony's wrist so he could jerk away, and swiftly cutting off the next bit of blackened flesh with a grimace. "Theeeere we are." A spurt of blood sprayed across his cheek, and Ed looked only mildly annoyed rather than utterly horrified, sticking the knife in the table so he could teach for the heated tool again.

That time it did definitely hurt. It might have hurt the first time, too, Tony was realizing, very belatedly, because it still hurt in a constant, throbbing, too much to think about kind of way, and trying to escape from that assault by clawing his fingers back only made both of them hurt more as the skin tore and the panic made the blood streak across the table. And Ed. Tony tried to complain, maybe even make a joke again, distract them both, but what came out of his mouth was a breathy whimper, and he thought if he kept trying what came out next might be a mess. He swallowed thickly to try to push that bile back down, blinking rapidly to clear his vision just in time to see Ed reach for that searing iron again. His heart was in his throat then, just for a second. Luckily, in the next second, he was crumpling bonelessly to the floor.

Edited (jazz hands) 2023-04-07 17:42 (UTC)

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Paranoia

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CW: blood

CW: blood, amputation, etc (be warned)

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sorry tony <3

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