Chapter Text
The steps descending to the observation room felt steeper than they ever had in the past. They burned tight knots into Tony’s calves as he sank deeper below Stark Industries, far below the ground. Obadiah had ordered the room custom built, and he’d certainly had the time to add every needed detail—for Obie hadn’t expected it to take this long to get his hands on a specimen, Tony knew. Everything had always seemed to come easy to Obie, but not this.
The hard work had been worth it, though.
Because after months, years of scouring the ocean and setting up traps, Stark Industries was now in possession of something that had not even been believed to exist for centuries.
Sightings used to be common, of course, as such things often had been when the sea was unforgiving, when men lived by the sweat of their brows and survived only through knowledge of unpredictable winds. Men told tales of sirens calling in alluring song from ravenous rocks, of maidens with shining fins and gnashing teeth, of damsels waiting in the depths to drown the desperate. But as time passed and collective imaginations looked away from the sea to turn instead to the stars, the tales fell forgotten. The stories had turned to legends and legends had turned to myths, passed off as the drunken ramblings of sun-sickened sailors.
But no one had ever mapped the ocean floor to the same extent as Howard Stark, in his unyielding search for a man long gone. And Howard had returned evidence that Obadiah had simply been unable to ignore.
Cold sweat dripped down Tony’s neck as he took the last two steps, as his fingers curled around the knob of the heavy door. Despite having seen the evidence, despite knowing that they truly held their prize… it still almost didn’t feel real.
These creatures belonged in story books, in movies about swashbuckling pirates and children who flew with the power of pixies. That they held one in a tank below Tony’s company was almost incomprehensible.
He swallowed, hard.
The creature had been trapped for a purpose, to study how it had remained undetected for so long—and how they might be able to utilise that ability for military means. Perhaps once they had managed that, they would make their find public. Tony knew that Obie would enjoy the press that would come with it. That decision would depend upon what they learned about the creature, however.
And if Tony wanted to have any part in the discoveries to come… then he would need to go inside.
He’d never been one to put stock in myths and stories. He lived by what he could see, by what he could make. The creature in the tank was merely that—a creature, which had shown little evidence of sentient thought. Tony had seen the video, the dark tail thrashing through foaming water, scales flashing in the light of the mechanical trap. It had fought on instinct, like a shark in a net. The fact that it had some humanlike features was irrelevant.
It was a fish, a creature to study. Certainly nothing to be intimidated by. Tony wouldn’t feel any different if he had been going in to examine a blue whale.
Finally pushing open the door, Tony stepped into the light of the observation room, bright in comparison to the stairwell. The room was an impressive feat, regardless of the large amount of time it had taken to install. There was a bank of screens taking up most of the space, using the most state of the art holographic technology Stark Industries had developed. The holo-table in the middle was already busy running scans, flashes of blue sparking periodically as it made a new observation. Scientists bustled around them all, chattering between each other excitedly, the level of conversation far higher than Tony ever would have been able to tolerate in his own workspace.
But in that moment, the noise barely even registered. For his eyes were drawn immediately to the right-hand side of the room, and the tank which occupied the entire wall in the style of an aquarium.
In contrast to the rest of the room, the tank itself was dark, the water swirling like ink against the thickened glass. The long, stringy leaves of deep-water plants brushed up against it periodically, breaking the blackness with short splashes of deep green.
“It likes to hide.”
Tony almost jumped as Obadiah came up behind him—likely would have, if Obie’s need to always be the biggest presence in the room wasn’t something Tony had long since grown used to.
“You were right to suggest the plants, Tony,” Obie continued, his hand falling heavy on Tony’s shoulder. “While it is making it difficult for us to observe visually, it did seem to make the specimen more comfortable.”
“And that’s important?” Tony asked, his question almost offhand as he continued to stare into the darkened tank.
“Of course,” Obie replied. “If we want to know how this thing works, we need it to be alive. It’s not one of your machines, Tony.”
Tony nodded, and barely turned his head as he asked his next question. “So, has anyone seen it since you put it in the tank?”
Obie shrugged, and his lips twisted into a lopsided smile. “Not yet,” he said. “I wanted you to be one of the first. This is just as much your project as it is mine, after all. Howard would have wanted it this way.”
In another time, in another place, something about the way Obadiah had worded that might have caught against Tony’s caution. But in that moment, he was still staring. The flash of green weeds against the glass, the mesmerising darkness of the water… it was hard to look away from.
“Francis!”
One of the scientists hurried forward, almost tripping over his stereotypical white coat in his rush. “Yes, Mr Stane?”
“We’re ready. Fire it up.”
The choice of words seemed a little over the top as Francis hurried back to flip a switch—but the result was indeed dramatic. For while all Obie had ordered was for the scientist to turn on the lights, the result was not only instantaneous, but also insane.
A bright light flooded the tank, reaching every corner of the glass box, chasing away the darkness and leaving not an inch unlit.
Immediately, Tony’s eyes were drawn to where something was twisting through the plants, a large, dark shape that was suddenly visible against the now white walls of the tank. It was thrashing, struggling, twisting itself into the greenery as best as it could as if it were trying to hide itself—but the long stems of the seaweed, while thicker than any variety Tony had ever seen, did not provide any kind of cover now that the tank was no longer bathed in shadows. The fluorescent lights reflected off black scales, flashes of almost gold dancing across the glass. From what Tony could see, it seemed that the creature’s skin was incredibly pale, almost green in the way it caught the light and in sharp contrast to the ebony of its tail. Surprisingly emerald fins might have blended into the weeds if not for the startling brightness of the hue, and as Tony shifted closer to the tank, his eyes widening in shocked interest, he could see human-shaped arms grasping at the plants, and a face that was twisted in anger.
“Incredible,” Obie said, still standing at Tony’s shoulder. His voice wasn’t awed, though, as Tony’s might have been were he able to find it. No, Obadiah sounded hungry. “Bioluminescence is certainly something we weren’t expecting.”
“It’s reacting negatively to the light, Mr Stane.” It wasn’t Francis who had spoken, but another scientist. “It was found in deep water, yes, but perhaps it had strayed. It’s possible that its natural habitat is even deeper than we thought.”
There was another tittering of conversation among the scientists, but one voice rose above the rest.
“This might explain why the creature went undiscovered for so long,” the person said. “You know, of course, that we have mapped less than ten per cent of the ocean floor—”
“No, not after how long we spent searching for it. There has to be something else,” Obie cut in. “Conduct all the necessary tests, do not leave a single stone unturned. We will find out what it does to keep itself hidden.”
Tony tuned the rest of it out, still watching the squirming creature which was still trying to twist into the weeds. Tony noted what the scientists meant—from what he could see of the thrashing thing, it was trying to hide its face more than anything, as if the light actually physically hurt it. It was entirely possible that it usually lived deep enough in the ocean to have never once seen the light of day.
The thought didn’t sit well with him. Sure, they had captured it for the purpose of experimentation, to develop technology that could protect Americans who were serving their country—but actively causing a creature pain to do so when it simply wasn’t necessary…
“Turn off the lights.” His words cut through the scientists’ chatter, sharp across their excited babbling.
There was only a second of silence.
“Tony,” Obadiah said, stretching the syllables in a way that Tony thought was probably meant to sound fond. “You know why it’s important that we—”
“Turn them off,” Tony snapped. “You can see that it doesn’t like this.” With anyone else, that would have been enough. That should have been enough. But Tony could see that Obie was still going argue, and in this… Tony just couldn’t. So, meeting Obie’s eyes, he stood firm. “If you want my support for this project, then you’ll treat this creature with due respect. I won’t ask again.”
Obadiah’s expression closed off. Tony knew the ploy was a dangerous one, and usually he wouldn’t have tried it. While he was the CEO of Stark Industries, this project was Obadiah’s operation, and he had enough support that he could make things difficult for Tony in the future. But they could study the creature without torturing it.
After a moment’s longer consideration, Obie finally relented. “Very well.” He nodded to the scientists, then turned back to Tony with a friendly smile. “There is no need to be worked up about it, Tony. It’s just a fish, and we’re using it to help save lives.”
“I know,” Tony said. He glanced back to the tank to watch as the lights finally dimmed, and as the water stilled once again. Once again, the inky darkness was broken only by the occasional ebb of a green weed pressing against the glass, as if the last few minutes had never happened.
Tony sighed.
“You’re the one who wanted me involved,” he said. “And I will be, if you still need it. But Obie, I can’t stand by unnecessary cruelty.”
“There won’t be any,” Obadiah promised. “You have my word. Now, why don’t we leave these fine people to what they do best, hmm? I think a celebration is in order. Pizza, perhaps?”
Tony smiled, and didn’t shrug off the arm that Obie lay across his shoulders. “Only if you’re buying.”
“I’d never allow anything else.”
As Obie guided him back towards the door, Tony couldn’t help but look back at the tank, at the swirling blackness that shrouded one of the most incredible things Tony had ever seen.
And just before he turned, Tony thought he saw another small flash of gold—but it was gone in an instant.
*
Tony was usually fairly good at distracting himself.
He was no stranger to intrusive thoughts, to niggling anxieties that refuse to dissipate no matter how sternly they’re ignored. But he was usually good at drowning them out, whether that be by burying himself in work, or diving into the bottom of a bottle.
That night, he chose a combination of the two, keeping a hard drink settled amongst the mess of his workbench. But no matter how many times he tried to focus on a new idea, no matter how loud he smashed his tools against metal, clanging louder and louder until the sound rang painfully in his mind—he could not force the image of the creature from behind his eyes.
He could tell that DUM-E was worried. Twice, he had looked up to see the bot attempting to swap his drink for a green smoothie, the soft whirr of concern almost enough to cause him to stop. But he knew that if he stopped trying to distract himself, he would probably end up doing something stupid.
Clearly, destroying his tools and mangling pieces of metal was not working.
Instead, he decided to focus on the problem itself, letting fire fight fire. He thought about the way the creature had thrashed amongst the weeds, the way that it had fought to hide from the bright fluorescent lights. He thought, he focused, and he fixed. This time, Tony allowed DUM-E to take the drink, and tried to keep his eyes entirely on the small detailed work of his fingers.
Tony wasn’t a biologist, and living things had never interested him as much as those made of metal and wire. But he’d learned enough about the human body to know how it worked – well enough to be able to stop it from working in a myriad of ways – and while the creature was certainly not human, its face had looked human enough.
Almost too human, if Tony was being honest.
But regardless of how close to a human it was, the way that it had acted in response to the light made one thing incredibly clear—if they were going to study it, they would either need to do so in the dark, or while making the creature uncomfortable.
Getting into SI’s servers was easy enough when you were the person who owned them, even those that were the most protected—and getting hold of the data Obie’s biologists had collected on the creature was just as simple as attaching the lightbulb to his finalised creation. He ignored most of their notes, most of their results, focusing only on the observed reactions of when Tony had visited, and the information they had gathered on the creature’s bioluminescence.
He did pause, however, at an image. The photograph was still, but even without the foaming water and thrashing limbs which existed in Tony’s memory, the contorted tail and twisted expression with eyes screwed shut was enough to give Tony pause. For despite the pale hue of its skin, the two bioluminescent antennae sprouting from its forehead – antennae only now made visible in the photograph, which he had barely been able to see in person due to the creature’s quick movements – not to mention the tail, made the creature seem like something from another planet. But that didn’t mean that it couldn’t feel, that it didn’t deserve respect.
The creature wasn’t human, but its pain was real. And as he turned his gaze to the lantern he had made, Tony knew that he couldn’t stand by without doing something about it.
*
There was no reason for Tony to feel as nervous as he did.
It wasn’t like earlier that day – or, the day before, he supposed, given that midnight had long since passed – since this time, he knew what to expect. He’d seen the creature now, he knew it was real, and there was nothing left to shock or surprise him.
And yet, as he stepped up to the tank, it felt like every breath was the tick of a clock, like every beat of his heart was counting toward something he didn’t yet know was coming.
His breath fogged the glass as he stepped closer, and in the blackness of the water he could see his own reflection staring back at him. He looked… awful. Oh, it wasn’t that he was particularly unkempt—his beard was as perfectly trimmed as always, and while his hair was far from lying flat it had that ruffled look which could mean he’d mussed it intentionally. But even in the dim light Tony could see the dark circles under his eyes, the pale sheen of his skin, the flatness to the shape of his lips. He looked… tired.
He couldn’t say why—there had been many a time that he’d spent many more hours in his workshop than he had that night, and yet come out of it looking far finer. But he hadn’t felt entirely right for a while.
There had been something of a weight pressing down on him for weeks now, as if the bars of a cage were closing in around him, as if he were drowning with no sense of escape.
Slowly, Tony lifted a hand and allowed his fingers to press into the cool glass, tracing the shape of his sunken eyes before refocusing on the movement of the weeds behind the distorted picture of his face. He was being silly—the creature was the one who was trapped, locked in a glass cage and watched every moment of the day. Tony, meanwhile, was as free to do what he wanted as he always had been.
He was just tired.
“I wonder if you can hear me,” Tony said, speaking softly, his fingers still sliding over the cool surface as he stared into the darkness. “They say that fish can hear shit from inside their tanks, right? Well. I made something for you, something that I think might help.” He glanced down to the lantern he held in his hand—he wanted to test it before he suggested similar contraptions be installed to replace the fluorescent lighting currently used in the tank.
When he looked back up, he frowned.
There was something different about the scene before him. Where earlier he had seen lengths of shifting weeds peeking through the darkness, now there was nothing but black, as if the tank had somehow grown darker. Tony leaned closer, so that his nose was almost pressed to the glass, his eyes narrowing as he tried to focus, tried to see more clearly. It was almost like there was a large, black shape sitting directly in front of him—
Then the tank flooded with light, a yellow glow illuminating the sight of twisted lips, angry obsidian eyes, a large black tail fanned out with green and gold blocking the sight of the weeds—and snapping, gnashing teeth mere inches from Tony’s face.
Tony lurched backward with an ungentlemanly yelp, scurrying away as quickly as he could, his heart in his throat and his feet stumbling in fear.
The door slammed loudly behind him.
*
What.
An.
Idiot.
The thought was one that ran though Tony’s mind all through the rest of the night, and well into the next morning. He hadn’t been able to get a wink of sleep, as every moment his eyes closed he could see only those sharpened teeth, and those eyes which were as black and angry as a shark’s.
But. Tony knew that the glass was thick enough to stop a bullet – there was no way that a creature not much larger than a person would be able to work up enough force to even crack it, let alone get out. There had been no need to run away like a child scared of the lion at the zoo. It couldn’t hurt him, it couldn’t even get to him. It was a trapped animal, so of course it had tried to attack him.
He’d gone in trying to help. And he couldn’t just let this one little set back get in the way.
Still… there had been something about those black eyes which dug down deep into his mind, latching on and refusing to let him go. They were haunting.
He went through the motions that morning, trying to ignore the deep exhaustion settling into his bones. The number of coffees he consumed could not have been healthy, but they kept him going, and kept Pepper off his back as he fulfilled at least some of his responsibilities for the day.
It was around lunch time that his phone lit up with Obie’s number, and Tony had to force himself to wait a few moments before picking it up, answering with a causal quip rather than getting directly to the matter he so wanted to discuss. Obie had the usual to talk about, board meeting proceedings and upcoming contracts, and it was a fight to wait until the end of the call. But Tony managed it.
“Before you go, how goes the research?” Tony asked, trying his best to sound disinterested. “Turned the lights back on yet?”
“Not yet,” Obie replied. “We haven’t had the need. We’re just observing through the scanners for now, getting down the basics before we try anything more elaborate.”
Tony tried to ignore the relief that flooded through him. He was glad that his cowardice and therefore delay in testing the lantern hadn’t cost the creature more pain.
“Keep me in the loop,” Tony said. “I want to be ready if you need me again.” His tone was almost teasing, and Obie matched it—but his words gave Tony pause.
“There’s no need for that, Tony. We both know you’re more than capable of getting your hands on any information you want without my help. But please, keep your late night visits to a minimum. You know how biologists are, they’ll get upset and think that you’re trying to cut them out of the discovery.”
Tony tasted something like bile on his tongue, but he kept his smile in place in the hopes that his discomfort wouldn’t echo through his voice. “You know about that, huh?”
“The creature truly is remarkable, very… startling. If we could weaponise it… well, I think we could create something far more effective than the dolphin programs.” Tony heard a disdainful chuckle. “I don’t blame you, Tony. We’re all curious. Just try to keep it to business hours, will you?”
“You know me, Obie, I never work more than I have to.”
Obadiah laughed again. “I’ll see you round, Tony. So much to do in so little time, you know how it is. I am interested in that lantern of yours though, good work with that one. Send R&D the specs, we’ll have them tested and installed in no time.”
Tony’s mind was whirring before the call had even disconnected, plans falling into place. He wasn’t usually one to go behind Obadiah’s back, but this was for the best. He didn’t want to cut into Obie’s research or undermine his authority with the scientists, so he would just need to be a little sneakier.
“JARVIS,” Tony said, his fingers tapping lightly on his chin. “Let me know when SI is as cleared as it’s ever going to be, will you? And make sure Obie doesn’t find out about my visit.”
“I will wipe any footage, Sir,” JARVIS replied. “But you will still have to make sure you are not seen.”
Tony expected that. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I have a plan.”
*
It was almost embarrassingly easy to get into SI as someone other than himself. Sure, he had JARVIS’ help with wiping the entry logs so that he could use his own security card on the doors, as well as a very intimate knowledge of the layout of the place. JARVIS was also able to warn him when someone was about to come around the corner.
Not that it was necessary, really. Swiping a janitor’s uniform was as easy as pie, and no one, no one ever paid attention to the janitor. It was smooth sailing from the door to the stairwell.
There, however, Tony found himself pausing.
He could follow the route he’d taken several times now, all the way down to the observation room. But the glass was thick, and going down there didn’t seem like it would accomplish anything. And, you know, what was that saying? Only a fool does the same thing over and over while expecting a different result?
Deciding not to dwell on the fact that he still was not entirely sure of what he was hoping to accomplish in the first place, Tony redirected himself. Instead of going all the way down the stairs, he turned at a landing one floor above, and stepped through the equally heavy door. The locks opened smoothly, and he stepped through onto a hard concrete floor.
Compared to the tank’s observation room, this one was almost clinical, or perhaps industrial. It was a small space, as long as the room below but barely even half as wide. The walls and floor were both smooth concrete, broken only by the sheen of water down one side—the top of the creature’s tank, covered with a large metal grate. Most of the tank was under the wall, topped by concrete to allow for the pitch darkness. But this was how the creature had been placed inside, how it was fed, and how the tank could be cleaned.
The water was dark again, the light from the room filtering down to only the weeds, with no movement other than their soft undulation visible. Knowing that meant very little, Tony steeled himself before backing away from the tank and walking to the control pad located on the far wall. Just like the rest of the room, it was industrial looking, nothing like the holo-tables and screens the scientists had access to for their work downstairs—just a pad with several large buttons and switches. Tony found what he was looking for easily, and the moment his thumb pressed into the cool plastic, the grate over the tank slid smoothly to the side.
Tony drew in a breath.
This was a risk, he knew that. The creature had been nothing but hostile, and Tony didn’t know for sure how capable it would be of getting out of the water to attack. But he could only hope that by trying something different, he might get a better result.
Another press of a button had the lights lowering to darkness, and Tony turned on the small lantern he’d brought with him once again. He had designed it well for its purpose, and it was dim enough that he could barely see at all, his eyes adjusting at a painfully slow rate.
But they did adjust, and he took a careful step toward the edge of the tank. It was even more difficult to see inside now, and his light flickered like that of a candle across the surface.
“I know you’re there, though I don’t know how well you can hear me,” Tony said, trying to keep his voice soft and unthreatening. “I know that you’re angry, and scared. I know that you don’t want to be here. But I want to help.”
He paused, for a moment, watching. But there was nothing below him but darkness.
“Don’t worry, I won’t turn on the lights,” Tony said, his tone a little more conversational. Talking had always helped him relax, and it almost felt like he could be having a ‘conversation’ with DUM-E. “I know you don’t like them, so I made this, see?” He held up the lantern, as if the creature could indeed see it. “I based it off your own bioluminescence. From your antennae, though I didn’t know that you had antennae at the time. It shouldn’t hurt your eyes, I think.”
Tony sighed, and glanced around for something else he could use to try and get the creature’s attention. There was, after all, a chance that it didn’t even know he was there. Or, well. Perhaps it was sleeping?
There was a fridge to one side of the room, white against the concrete walls and placed beside a metal basin and tap. Inside, Tony found about what he had expected to—wrapped fish, dead and previously frozen, smelling a little gross. He pulled one out and unwrapped it, holding it by the tail and wrinkling his nose.
“I hope you appreciate this,” he said as he crossed the room once again, and wasted no time in crouching down and flicking the thing into the water. “God. I couldn’t live in the ocean. Not unless you have some kind of sea-pizza down there. Could you make pepperoni out of fish? Doubt it. Though I suppose you do have access… to anchovies…”
Tony’s voice trailed off as finally, finally, movement flickered down in the water below. Despite the tank only being fifteen or so feet deep, he really couldn’t see all the way to the bottom. But he could see the shift of the weeds, and as he watched—
It started only as a glimmer, a slight sheen of gold between the shoots of the plants. But then it grew brighter, bolder, a golden glow rising to the surface—
Then the creature’s head crested through the water, its glowing antennae lying back over its long, dark hair. Bright green eyes stared at Tony with something almost like intelligence, and its lips slid up into a dangerous smile.
“If you truly wish to help,” the creature said, “I would appreciate a more varied diet.” Its impossible voice was almost disdainful.
Tony stared, his brain struggling to comprehend what had just happened, barely even processing the creature’s expression because—
It had just talked.
Which meant it was sentient.
Well.
Fuck.
