Chapter Text
The suit isn’t meant for the vacuum of space. He should be floating—no gravity here—but no, he’s falling and falling and he can’t breathe. He tries to ignore the burning in his lungs. The light of the reactor flickers, flickers—
Tony, logically, knew that he wasn’t dying. He had the reactor taken out years ago. It wasn’t actually powering his heart, not anymore.
Try telling that to his brain, though.
“Fry, FRIDAY—my vitals.”
There was no reply, and first JARVIS, now FRIDAY—
No. FRIDAY was fine. Communications were down, then; they were designed to be one of the last systems to go in the case of reactor failure, which meant that the reactor was now completely depowered. Not for the first time, Tony regretted that he wasn’t able to finish design and fabrication of the Mark XLVI, which had lots of backup arc reactors all around the body. If he had, then Rhodey wouldn’t have fallen, and he would not have been stuck there alone with a depowered suit.
Oh God, he was dying. He was alone in a Siberian bunker in a dead metal suit with a crushed arc reactor and he was dying.
Obie sneers down at him, and he can’t move. Obie reaches in, twists—
Tony tried getting up to his hands and knees from lying down on his back, but the suit was too heavy. He clawed at the chest plate, he needed it off, he can’t breathe, he needed out.
That did nothing, of course. It was stupid, anyway; his undersuit wasn’t going to hold up against the Siberian winter, not that being in a heat-conducting hunk of metal was any better in the long run oh God he needed to get it off get out—
Somehow, his hands found the latches, small ones, hidden from anybody who don’t know exactly where they are, and the armor opens up. The cold Siberian air hit him full-force and—
It’s cold. Strange voices wake Tony up. Three good soldiers were dead, killed in front of his eyes, Rhodey was probably dead too, everyone in the damn convoy was probably dead, and his chest felt like somebody had planted a bomb in it. He looks down and oh God is that a car battery and he screams—
“Fry?”
Tony heard the whir of chopper blades and felt like he can breathe again. FRIDAY, his radiant, amazing girl FRIDAY, she was here and she was going to save him.
That quickly gave way to more panic, though. Because there were—voices. FRIDAY wouldn’t have called anyone; he hoped to God she didn’t send Rhodey, who was supposed to be—Oh God, Rhodey.
The oil rig explodes and he reaches out but Pepper is falling and—
He scrambled out of the armor, falling down just beside it. He had to get up, who knew who was coming—he refused to be taken again—no—
His addled brain couldn't match the words with a language, couldn't start to parse what all the voices were saying.
Except for one statement, a statement that made his blood run cold—
“Hail HYDRA.”