Happy Valentines! In honor of our lord and savior Guillermo del Toro can we get some more of F is for Frankenstein?
a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Pepper and Rhodey have apparently decided he's "going through something" and have come to the decision to leave him to hopefully work through it on his own since trying to pry the truth out of him hasn't worked. They've left JARVIS to watch over him in the meanwhile, hoping some space snaps him back into place and trusting the AI to keep him from going too far.
The irony isn't even a little lost on him.
They're making progress with the serum. Having Steve walking around the tower with the most advanced biometric scanners in existence helps. The info the JARVIS has gleamed from SHIELD's hacked servers helps, but not much. TONY isn't exactly surprised by that. They had access to his father's notes and video for decades and couldn't manage to figure out what he did in two days. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
There's a reason that even when Fury didn't want Tony as a superhero, he'd known that he'd need him as a consultant.
The new members of the tower are mostly ignorable. He talks to Bruce the most, bouncing ideas off him but not as much as he'd like. If anyone is going to figure him out, it's Bruce, so he has to be careful. It's too bad. If anyone could help him crack the secret of the serum and what it can do (and what it can't, including bringing a man who's now nearly two months dead back to life), it's Dr. Bruce Banner. But if Bruce found out the truth, he wouldn't help. He knows how badly messing around with the serum can go. Even if JARVIS would let TONY tell him, Bruce wouldn't keep the secret.
He runs into Steve sometimes because they both keep impossible hours and they got on well enough. Steve's restrained and polite enough with him that TONY sometimes wants to lift him up by his ankles and shake him until his real personality falls out. If he were really TONY and not just an incredibly expensive imitation, he'd probably have snapped and done that by now. But he's got more important things to worry about, like getting JARVIS to accept Tony's death before his body gets freezer burn.
Clint he barely sees and Natasha is even less than that. He admits that Rhodey has a point with that one. Inviting Natasha into his house is really just asking for her to stick her nose in and ruin - something, maybe everything, she's good at that. But it's not like he could invite everyone but her and he needs the smokescreen. Sometimes he catches her watching him like she's trying to figure out what makes him tick and it gives him the sensation of his hair standing on end even though his don't really do that.
The first time all of them are called out together again, it goes fine. Or at least it does up until the Hulk comes out to play. He sees the bad guy, he smashes, but instead of continuing to smash the bad guys or even turning that rage onto something less productive, he turns and runs.
It fits nothing that they know of the Hulk and TONY barely remembers to go, "You guys got this, right?" before going after him.
Finding him isn't hard.
He's in the middle of Central Park, hidden away along the trees. He's sitting down, his face is in his hands, and he's crying.
"Hey, big guy," he says softly, bewildered and concerned as he touches down next to him. "What's wrong? Got a thorn stuck in your paw?"
Hulk shakes his head. His voice is muffled by his hands and rougher than usual because of the tears, but TONY hears him just fine when he says, "Metal Man was good to us. Nice. Not afraid. I tried to save Metal Man but I didn't. Hulk tried."
He doesn't actually go cold because all the internal processes keeping him functioning means he maintains a toasty internal temperate of just below a hundred degrees, but he thinks he would if he could. "What are you talking about?"
Hulk lifts his head. His eyes are red and irritated. "You are not Metal Man. Metal Man dead. You are robot."
"Does Bruce know?" he asks, not bothering to deny it, because there's no point.
He shakes his head. "Hulk failed. Hulk is sorry. I liked him."
"We are trying to bring Sir back," JARVIS says from his suit's speaker, causing TONY to jump. "The serum can do it. Will you help us bring Metal Man back?"
Hulk looks hopeful. It's the saddest thing TONY's ever seen. "Metal Man can come back?"
He doesn't want to lie, but JARVIS won't let him tell the truth. "We're going to try."
And fail.
"Hulk help," he says proudly. "What need do?"
Later, after TONY's gotten a saliva sample from the Hulk and they've returned to fight and finished it off, he finds Bruce alone amongst the rubble of what was several cars. He's naked except for his pants which are barely hanging on, he's crouches with his head in his hands, and he's crying.
"Hey," TONY says, not sure whether he's relieved or not that no one had argued against him being the one to bring Bruce back to the tower. "Dust in your eye?"
He drops his hands. Tears are still leaking from his eyes. TONY had an uncomfortable feeling of deja vu. "Did something happen?"
"What do you mean?" he asks. It helps that he legitimately doesn't know what he's talking about.
"I was like this the last time too," he says, lips trembling as he wipes his arm over his eyes. "I just - I can't seem to stop - I don't understand." He looks at Tony, pleading and confused, scared in a way that Tony wishes desperately he could make go away. "I'm sad. I'm so sad, but I don't know why."
At the end of this, when JARVIS has given up and the truth of Tony's death comes out, Bruce will know why.
For now, TONY puts a hand on his shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. "That's okay. It's okay that you're sad."
Bruce leans into his hand and TONY tries and fails not to hate himself.
