aka Tony Stark

IMAGINE HAVING A SUPER ARTISTIC SOULMATE WHO DRAWS FLOWERS AND DESIGNS AND REALLY BEAUTIFUL PATTERNS ALL OVER THEIR ARMS AND PERSON 2 JUST SITS THERE AND WATCHES THE LITTLE LINES APPEAR ON THEIR ARMS AND THEY CAN’T STOP SMILING AND IT’S THEIR FAVORITE PART OF THE DAY

IMAGINE PERSON 1 BEING SUPER FORGETFUL SO THEY SCRIBBLE DOWN ALL THE PLACES THEIR APPOINTMENTS ARE AND PERSON 2 TRIES TO DECIPHER THEM AND FIGURE OUT WHERE THEY’RE AT AND THEY MEET AND THEY SEE THEIR WRITING ON THEIR HAND FROM ACROSS THE WAITING ROOM/ COFFEE SHOP/ ETC. AND THEY SCRAMBLE TO FIND A PEN AND WRITE ‘FOUND YOU’ ON THE BACK OF THEIR HAND AND PERSON 1 SEES IT AND THEY LOCK EYES AND

@hulk-whisperer

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND IRON MAN DATING? Is the First Avenger Now Waving a STARK Spangled Banner? (pg. 10)

Bruce read the headline once. Read it again. Put down the tabloid and walked around the room several times while taking deep breaths. Picked it up again and reread it once more before examining the photograph that went with it.

Clearly the photo hadn’t been taken by either Tony or Steve’s consent considering both the angle and the slight blurriness, but it was close enough in range to show the Iron Man t-shirt that Steve was wearing, slightly too small on him as most of his shirts were (Bruce couldn’t help but wonder if it was on purpose or not). Steve was clearly engaged in some kind of serious conversation with Tony as both of them seemed to be in the middle of making hand gestures but more importantly, they were standing just too closely together to just look casual. All of it was perfect fuel for the fires that the tabloids seemed keen on igniting.

Bruce normally wouldn’t have cared about that, except that when he looked at the damn magazine he felt a lurch in his chest that suggested he was much more invested in the subject matter than he should be. Which, yes, he’d had a- not a crush, that sounded so… juvenile- an infatuation with Tony for a long time now, but Bruce had thought he had gotten it under control. But right now as he looked down at the offending photo he realized he’d never had control of it in the first place. And that was… concerning, to say the very least.

Tony woke up with a startled snore, his cheek pressed against the surface of the metal workbench where he apparently had fallen asleep after having been awake for about 74 consecutive hours. He blinked, staring right at the soldering machine that was resting about an inch from his nose and silently thanked whatever deity was trendy this week that he never moved much in his sleep, only to realize that JARVIS would have shut it down before he could have hurt himself, anyway.

Then, he processed what his AI had said and he shot up, exhaustion completely forgotten. “JARVIS, prepare the emergency room. Where is he? I-”

“Sir,” JARVIS interrupted him, “as of yet, it is not a Code Green. I do believe however that it is advised to check up on him.”

“Well, maybe start with that bit information next time,” Tony said with a groan and considered laying back down, but he could practically feel JARVIS judging him – never mind the fact the AI wasn’t even physically there – so he got up and stretched.

“Dummy, fix me some coffee; You, make a cup of that herbal tea that Banner likes. J, I just asked you where he is; are you ever gonna answer that?”

“Dr. Banner is currently on his way to his laboratory.”

“Right.” Well, where else would the doctor be. Even though the rest of the Avengers often hung out in the common room and his tower had more recreational facilities than your average village, Bruce tended to spend most of his time in the lab. Tony had learned not to take it personally and had stopped low-key forcing him to enjoy the gym, sauna and / or the cinema for a change a while ago, but it still didn’t sit completely right with Tony – even though he was aware that it might be a pot and kettle case. Whatever.

When the drinks were ready, he made his way to the elevator that’d take him to Bruce’s laboratory. Fortunately, whatever had upset the doctor hadn’t made him lock down the floor, so Tony could just walk in without having to bribe JARVIS or knock on the door like a sad puppy.

Although he didn’t want to sympathise for the man who had probably the most comfortable spot in the world in his lab, with good shelter, good food, etc. He did. Not only did he, but he pitied him as well. He rested on his palms on his knees. Before hissing at the fact when he moved his elbow there was a chunk of his skin taken out. It was shallow and he would be fine. The first time he had gotten bitten he remember waiting for it to happen. For him to turn. He had a knife and would plunge it into his heart at any time if there was even the smallest of sign.

By the way fear shone through the other man’s eyes as he desperately pushed the defeated zombie away, he knew he wasn’t like him. Was he really the only one like this though? Why him? He wanted to look to science for the answer. Too much deep thinking for a time like this, another wave of zombies caught drift of the fight and staggered their way over. “ I’m not leaving, I don’t know you, but you’re human and right now that’s enough for me.” He grunted stubbornly. The other didn’t really have a say in his stay. He could maybe figure out this variable. Though medicine wasn’t exactly his field of expertise he could still help with his knowledge, and if not that, maybe his strange resistant DNA.

“I appreciate the thought, but I tried everything,” Tony replied grimly. “The world is fucked and there’s nothing I can do. At this point I’m as useless –” His words were broken off when the other guy suddenly doubled over and puked. Tony grimaced, and remembered the first few days he had wandered around in this fucked up, new hell of a world, and how many times he had vomited out the sparse contents of his stomach after saving himself from yet another horde of gory zombies. He praised himself lucky that at this point he had nothing left in his stomach to hurl up, and that his senses were fairly numbed by pure exhaustion.

He pushed himself away from the tree and threw the zombie that was clawing at the other man’s shirt a left hook that his bodyguard Happy would’ve been proud of, successfully holding the monster off for another second so that he could kill another corpse with the knife. His vision was blurring however and he had to blink multiple times before he felt somewhat stable again; he was reaching his limits, or had maybe even surpassed them already, and he knew it. He grabbed the guys jacket and yanked him a few steps back.

 He was a quick learner. He picked up the skill and aimed for the cranium now. He was quick to notice too that the man’s face was awfully familiar. Could he really be the man all over the tv? He mentally confirmed that was him by focusing on his features. Yep. Ironic how he was still alive.

 “Should have known that you would know a lot about them since you created them,” he said slighly irked due to the others tone as he grunted and pulled his sword out of a skull. Blood spattering on both of them.

 From scientist to scientist though, no one ever intends to create these kinds of things. So he didn’t blame the other too much. His words might of been a little too rough. But the battle field wasn’t a good spot for pardoning himself. It also wasn’t a problem to focus on right now as a zombie was nibbling on his hand. He kicked the dead away from him. He looked over and saw that the celebrity was holding his own.

“I didn’t create them,” he snapped in reply while he struggled with getting his knife out of the head of his latest victim. “It was an anomaly. Couldn’t be predicted. It…”

He couldn’t focus. Even though the speech he had wanted to release on either of the press conferences was still somewhere in the back of his mind, his brain, deprived of nourishment and rest for far too long under far too stressful circumstances, didn’t want to cooperate. And even if he could find the right words to express how this all wasn’t exactly his fault, he didn’t know if he could still believe himself. So he stopped trying.

“I stayed in my labs,” he chose to answer the man’s question instead. “Trying to find a solution for this damn mess, but I couldn’t… I was missing one,” he kicked off the zombie, “goddamn variable. Fuck!”

It was a long journey to the city, he didn’t know what he was looking for there. People, shelter, cure. But he hoped it would have something for him. Stops along the way to make camp for the night had ben necessary and Trees supplied an uncomfortable but safe place.

Bruce had been sleeping in a tree. Above all the zombies that lingered below. Although they didn’t kill him- their bites where still quite painful. The groaning of the dead grew quiet though. The absence of this background noise made him wake up. They seemed to be going all in one direction. They were heading to an easier dinner. A human. He crawled down the trunk of the tree and chased after them hoping to get to the person before they did.

It quickly spiralled downwards from there. The first batch of the medicine had already shipped out before the side effects on patient zero had manifested, and now new cases of this strange mutation were appearing all over the world. The man who had initiated the project, former weapon manufacturer Tony Stark, was demanded through every single news channel to explain what was happening, how it even had happened and what he was going to do to put a stop to whatever was happening right now.

After a press conference that was prematurely stopped because of a failed assassination attempt on Stark, another conference was planned, this time stopped by a blearing alarm and soon after evacuated; the dead had started to rise and chaos ensued.

So that, basically, is how and when the world as we all knew it went to shit.

Of course, Tony could have stayed locked down in the absolute safety of his tower, and that’s what he did for the first two months after all means of communication – television, radio, internet – had lost their function. But in the same time, not knowing what was happening in the outside world and the immense feeling of guilt that was eating away at him, made him slowly but surely lose his mind. At first, he converted this restless energy into spending days and nights researching a possible cure for this infestation, but after finding out that there was literally nothing he could do, he… lost it.

In the depths of a certain night, he left his tower and its inhabitants behind, intending to experience the new world first hand. Shops and streets and houses were ravaged, dead and undead corpses were everywhere and on that moment, Tony knew there was no way back, no way he could redeem himself. The world was lost and he did not deserve to go back to his tower and live in safety while he was the sole reason the girl behind his favourite coffee shop’s counter was currently trying to take a bite from his neck. So he bashed her skull in and ran.

He should have just let her take that bite, he thought more than once while he made his way out of New York City, as there was nothing to live for anyway. But every time a new occasion presented itself, he did what he did best – he ran. At least, he did until he had gone without sleep and food for a good five days; which wasn’t unnormal in the daily life of Tony Stark, when he let himself get carried away by new projects and such. But this wasn’t a project. This was physical and mental exhaustion in a world that was barely recognizable as the one it was a year ago. He had trouble breathing, his vision blurred and failed at times and he kept on stumbling over the branches in the forest; he knew his clumsy sounds attracted the zombies, but even though he tried, he no longer could bring himself to care.

He heard them before he saw them. Groaning, growling,  moaning. Tony lifted his head to see the rotten corpses stagger towards him, their hands reaching out for his living body. He took a shaky breath, closed his eyes, and kept on walking.

That was when the sound of running footsteps and the familiar thump of bodies made him look back again. The silhouette of a man – a living person, nonetheless – was seen, slicing the throats of some of the zombies, making them fall down. And he was shouting. Tony stopped walking for a second; the words took a while before they were actually processed but when they were, Tony took the man’s advice and ran. Well, he ran towards the man and shove him out of the way of the zombie that had crawled up again and was currently trying to bury its teeth in his neck.