Chapter Text
The cold on his neck didn't feel like the bitter cold he felt in Siberia, nor was it normal in any way. Even in Siberia, the cold felt harsh, painful. During his last moments there, the moments in which he still could feel at all, he felt like every inch of him was on fire, every cell screaming in united agony, like he wasn't in Siberia, but in hell, drowning somewhere in a cauldron of lava made specificially for him.
What was happening now didn't fall under any definition of cold he had felt in his life. Normal cold didn't fill this... strange. It stuck to his body like a dump, musty, thick blanket, clinging to every part of his pale skin, and, it seemed to Tony, that when the cold would retire, it would also shred half of his skin of him before leaving with it.
Everything felt incredibly heavy, his legs, his torso, arms, eyelids, even the air around him became too heavy to hold his neck upright confidently. His surroundings felt surreal, as if he was moving through thick syrup, as if the world around him had broken down into pieces of little tactile sensations and broken him along with it.
One of his fragments was cold, the other was burning up. One was sleeping, the other was wide awake. One was shaking, the other didn’t move at all, and all of them tried to wipe each other out of existence.
Was this all happening in his head? It felt too wrong, too faulty to be real.
For a moment Tony considered that none of this ever happened, and he was home, sitting on his sofa, watching a broken TV that could only show a black and white hive of bees flying chaotically on the screen.
That’s what it felt like.
He was there, but he wasn’t.
He was the only actor on the stage, the curtains pulled, all lights shone on him, everyone looked up at him in expectation, but he didn’t have a script which he could follow.
Tony felt like a snake. A snake that swallowed another animal, but not a normal one. It was rotten, addle and corrupt. So he was laying on his belly, trying to digest the nightmares, the insanity and the poisonous wildness that the creature was full of. And then he fell into a restless sleep to exceed the evil bursting him from the inside.
Some of his memories flashed in front of his eyes quickly.
Howard teaching him how to put together a car. Peggy giving him a gift on Christmas. His mother teaching him how to play the piano. Edwin Jarvis helping him tie his tie. Rhodey and him goofing around in their dorm. The day Pepper pepper sprayed her way into his office. Happy trying to protect him even when there was no danger. The creation of JARVIS.
And he realized.
None of them were recent.
Not a single warm and cozy memory in the last 10 years.
There were good ones, of course, but none of them had the special spark of friendship, love and happiness
Desperation creeped upon him unnoticed and started taking possession of him. Little by little. With no rush, like an infection. Everything was slowly going black, the greedy darkness swallowing everything it could reach, everything it could touch, spreading through the room with no one to stop it. And then there was darkness. Everything had been devoured by the bitter nothingness, and with the last shimmer of light, it seemed, the last bit of hope disappeared too.
Tony had seen darkness before, everyone had, but... not quite like this one. This was a darkness that robbed everyone of their strongest emotions and replaced them with paralyzing fear. It hung heavily in the air, penetrated his skin like moisture, threatening to soak his clothes.
In the dark one can only move by touch, and the world is made up of the little pieces of information that can be gained from the still active senses. That’s the problem of not being able to see. You are aware of the parts, but cannot define the whole. Too many mistakes. He knew that his eyes still existed only because he felt himself blink, even though he knew he didn’t have to, as he had no use for them, and it wasn’t like he could feel the sting caused by not blinking.
It was too alarming, too cold, too silent. The darkness was swallowing him, the voracious, rampant darkness. He could see his flesh darken, feel his thoughts go bleak, he could even feel his fate lour, and the worst part being that... he wasn't able to do anything.
He had no power, nothing to grab onto, no one to give him a hand and pull him out of the damned bog he was stuck in. Nobody to hear his screams, nobody to watch him beg.
Tony resisted, but the darkness seemed to be stronger. Sometimes he was ready to put up with it and dive into it with his head, to let it completely devour him with his bones, to grind and destroy him, but he shouldn’t give up.
Not now, not ever.
It felt like the first seconds of his awakening. He remembered when the darkness enveloped him, the nagging pain when it crawled into him, into his eyes, his mouth, ate away at him like an invisible beast, sticking its teeth in his flesh and feasting on his misery.
He needed something. Some reprieve, something to hold on. He needed someone to tell him that he was going to get out, to hear, to feel, to smell, to see.
But there was no one with him. He was alone. Terribly and utterly alone. Only darkness and cold to keep him company. He was stuck
He was never going to get out. Death tricked him, of course she would. He was a mass murderer, how could he believe that he would have a chance to do something good? That someone would want to give him hope?
Tony felt a tightness in his chest so pronounced that it actually felt like choking, dizziness so strong like he's been hanging upside down for hours. His thoughts were mixed up, irrational and sluggish, filled with anxiety and self-doubt.
HE WAS STUCK
STUCK
STUCK!
‘Okay, calm down!’
His mind screamed at him to slow down. This wasn’t the end of the world, he had to look at things more rationally.
‘Okay, take a breath’
His throat tried to comply, it really did, but it felt like he was trying to inhale a rock.
‘Calm down and think damn it!’
Tony was getting desperate, his mind running faster with every second. A little more and he may short out.
Death wouldn’t have gone all out and revived him if she was about to kill him again. (Maybe not kill, but make you suffer for a tortured eternity?)
Right?
There must be something he has to do.
Or... maybe there is really no way out of this one.
It felt like the atmosphere was sucking out every once of hope he had somehow spared. Ate away at his emotions, leaving only the empty carcass to represent his body. It took his heart into its claws, squeezing it with the freezing touch of despair and annihilating every bit of life he had circulating through his veins.
‘STOP’
Tony closed his eyes and tried not to drown in the messy quagmire of thoughts. Everything was happening so rapidly that he didn’t even notice his body shaking.
‘It’s okay! It’s okay!’
His body shook with the tremors, and Tony felt like a leaf that fell from a tree.
‘It’s okay, breathe!’
How did breathing even feel like? The air entering his nostrils and then leaving or the opposite?
‘IT’S NOT OKAY’
It’s like a void! A dark, never ending void that consumes everything, so you’re left feeling nothing, only an empty plastic doll remains, so hollow that it can only lurk in the said void, avoiding human contact, because it’s emptiness is so big it can’t pretend to be ‘Okay.
‘NOTHING IS OKAY!.
Everyone walks around all day, smiling, laughing, pretending that everything is and will always be okay.
That happy face is so engrained on their faces that it can’t seem to come off.
They walk around him and they talk about nothing, nothing, nothing, but instead the talk loud, loud, loud!.
Every day of his existence on Earth was torture. People with paper faces, paper emotions and iron masks circling around him, trying to pick at him, manipulate him, seduce him, kill him, hurt him, use him.
And when they took the last bit of what he could give, when they took the last piece of faith, when the last scrap of humanity was taken, they went for his eyes.
Like vultures.
Picking at the corpse and still trying to gain something from it.
A silver needle pierced his brain and he came to a halt.
‘It’s not okay’
His emotions felt like a thick fire. He was burning, he was freezing. Inside he was fireworks, rage, frustration, fear.
‘It’s not okay’
People spitting on him and acting like they’re better than him.
‘It’s not okay’
Almost everyone turning their backs on him and abandoning him.
‘It’s not okay’
Him looking like a damn hedgehog with all the knives sticking out of his back.
‘It’s not okay’
People come and abuse you. People come and tear your heart out.
People come and use you. People come and go.
‘It’s not okay’
He could feel something rising up his wrists, entering his elbows then shoulders and jumping from one blade onto another, like an electrical discharge.
His hands became hungry, and his eyes did too, as if they had to look at something, at anything, at whatever there is.
He felt his jaw vibrate, his eyes dangle in their sockets.
To satisfy the hunger in his hands he covered his eyes with them, pressing equally on both eyeballs, as if trying to force them to be still.
A stupid empty man.
(And when did you manage to get empty? When did everything get scooped out?)
He felt something embracing him, like a cold winter fog. It was silent, the kind of silence that can be felt, because it followed you wherever you went, building up a kind of pressure behind your back. And Tony felt it, the pressure getting stronger with every minute.
He was being flown in to the void more and more. Each. Passing. Second.
He imagined himself, all of his body, face, eyes, mouth filled with darkness, and ears filled with silence.
Because when you spend so much time looking at darkness, it starts to look in answer.
But it didn’t burn him. It warmed him.
As if he was finally where he belonged. So comfortable and safe. Feelings he lost somewhere during his life.
And so there he was. Standing in the dark and looking at nothing. Waiting... even he didn’t know for what.
Darkness develops a sense of some kind of freedom, coupled with amazing vulnerability. And we allow all this to ourselves, because we know that it will certainly keep all our secrets. The darkness shrouding us from all sides is like a warm home blanket that promises warmth and protection.
The dark was wordless, but still all-understanding. It was calm and majestic, ready to explode into thousands of small fragments at any moment.
We instinctively fear the dark. We instinctively expect danger and death from it. We do not understand that death chooses time herself. Comes whenever she sees fit.
Maybe we should be scared of the light and not the dark.
Maybe we should be scared of our shine and not our dimness.
After all, it’s easier to be yourself in the dark.
Loneliness and Darkness, the only eternal, faithful companions, incapable of betrayal.
The lack of light that bothered him at first became normal. Comfortable even. The world was etched in charcoal. The once vibrant colors of the world only a vivid dream.
This was a strange, obscure and alien world. But at the same time it wasn’t scary at all.
This was a new page. A new book waiting to be written.
Once he had a life. One he had a choice. Once he had a chance. Once he had a family. He tried to protect the things he had, but in doing so, he himself became a threat.
A sudden surge of energy shook his body, thousand men screaming behind him in rage, ready to topple anyone standing on his way. He felt the raw power of darkness flow through him like ice, burning every vein, but still not causing him pain. It was disturbing, dark, powerful! Something vivid, something majestic, alive, new! It made him feel scared yet confident and fearless, because darkness won’t betray him, it won’t judge, it won’t leave. He knew it, he was sure of it.
Why? We ask.
Because he won’t betray himself
He and darkness aren’t separate entities, they’re one and the same. It’s not them, it’s him.
He’s a Merchant of Death
And at that moment the room regained its color. Everything becoming visible again. The columns, the carpet, the flags, the gonfalon, Death standing in front of him with someone he didn’t know.
She raised her hand, palm upwards, and pointed at him.
“Welcome to the team”
The man beside her smirked brightly and so did Tony.
Yeah.
He can work with this.