Stranger in a Strange Land ||closed||
@ssprxmx
Of all the places Tony Stark thought he would die, he’d have to admit the cold wasteland of Siberia was definitely at the bottom of the list. But he really should’ve learned to subvert expectations long ago, because that was the exact situation he found himself in.
After beating each other bloody, Steve had done something Tony never expected him to do. He cracked that damn shield right across his arc reactor. The effect he felt was instantaneous, like a switch inside him being shut off. Shock came first, hearing the usual steady and even somewhat comforting hum of the reactor begin to sputter and die mixed with the usual steady presence that this thing was keeping him alive suddenly going quiet.
Pain was next. And Tony was no stranger to pain, but he could never get used to the slow crawling agony of the smallest metal shrapnel ebbing their way towards his frantically beating heart. It was like the sharpest, rustiest nails being forced under your skin at a horribly slow pace. His nerves were alight, screaming at him like voices inside his head.
The countdown to his end began.
Steve was gone, as was Barnes. Only his caved in helmet and Cap’s shield left behind, neither of which would do him any good now. His suit was dead and the shield only seemed to exist there to remind Tony that his choices and his failures were what ultimately led up to this.
He needed to focus. He needed to move. This bunker had to have some means of communication to the outside world that hadn’t been destroyed in the fight. He tried to move, but the suit was just dead weight now, too heavy for him to move an inch. Letting out a grunt of exertion and pain, he swung his arm around for the manual release, missing a couple time before he finally got it. The suit unfolded around him and the cold hit him like daggers. Every inch of himself was being stabbed, by cold, by pain, by guilt.
Reaching a hand out, he planted his palm on the snow covered stone, forcing his body to obey him and move. It was slow, too slow, taking almost a full 45 seconds to even turn to his belly. The edges of his opened armor dragged in harsh lines across his skin and his broken reactor as he dragged himself forward. If it was painful just lying still as he died, moving was hell. Every molecule of his being cried out for relief, some sort of peace he knew he wouldn’t find.
Somehow, this felt even worse than when Stane had left him to die nearly ten years ago. The pain should feel the same, the desperate struggle. But it was so much worse now. Because there wasn’t a spare heart waiting for him in his basement. His only salvation was to try and get out of here. Even then, he was probably dead.
Far too much time got wasted as he crawled across the icy floor. Seconds dragged onto minutes and Tony had only gotten to the ridge where the stone structure jutted sharply upwards. Breathing became a chore, the smallest of breaths choking out of him in pained coughs and desperate gasps. His fingers had gone from aching from the cold to completely numb and when he tried to grab on to some sort of purchase, they slipped off completely, sending him that short drop to the ground.
He tried to move, but couldn’t. His body had given up on him. For some reason, the words of an old, dead friend came flooding back to him in that moment, alone and seconds from death.
Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark?
‘Yeah, I guess it is, Yinsen,’ He thought to himself as his eyes began to close. ‘I guess it is.’
