better to burn out

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MCU Tony Stark || Ask/RP Blog A B S O L U T E L Y canon divergent  Est. Nov. 1, 2012

Affectionately defamed by Jaime ♥ 30+, she/her, tumblr veteran of too long probably I enjoy everything from multi-para to one-liner icon dialogue

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Well shit, Tony thought, staring again at the inconvertible proof of his mortality.

It had been several days since he got the results back, and Tony had remained silent, struggling with the choices that he knew had to be made now. He obviously had resources that many people in this situation didn't have access to, but he was going to have to make up his mind sooner rather than later. Very soon, if the growth projections were accurate, and he was confident that they were.

Allowing his mental condition to deteriorate was the last thing he'd accept, and the prospect was leading him towards some very experimental options he knew not everyone in his life would support.

How in the hell was he was going to tell Loki about this?

He didn't know. He didn't know how to tell any of them. The incredible fucking irony of it all...to live through the end of the world, only to have something as mundane as a tumor finally take him out.

Waiting for when they saw each other that evening, Tony reluctantly spoke up, knowing he literally couldn't wait one more day. He didn't have the time.

"So, kid. I hear it's your birthday?"

And this wasn't even really a question...Tony already knew the score. Peter had ratted him out, not wanting a friend to spend his — god, fourteenth, he was a baby — birthday away from home and without some kind of party.

It seemed like forever since he'd seen Darcy in person, back at the Tower when occasionally Jane would fly in to visit Thor, and she would tag along for the ride.

Good times, honestly. The best. They'd had such a solid chemistry back then (before everything had gone directly to hell in an Ultron-shaped handbasket), and Tony had fond memories of chaotic group dinners, movie marathons and game nights that he knew he'd always value, no matter how dark things had ended up. Darcy had always been on team chill the fuck out, teasing people and cracking jokes when the stress got to them all and the mood got tense.

And now, she was back. In a professional capacity, at least. He'd followed up on her winding progress through academia, read the research she'd published, and once he'd been made aware that she was looking for a position, Tony had snapped her up. They could always use another scientist with a sense of humor, especially one with experience saving the world.

Interns were a staple at Stark Industries, and the positions were, unsurprisingly, highly sought after. People that made it through their program could usually pick their position at companies all over the world, after all, if they didn't decide to just stay on and continue their career route at SI more officially.

With the demand far outpacing the need, even with the generous number of intern opportunities, they usually either held competitions or had lotteries to determine who was accepted (minus a few gifted hand-picked applicants), but by and large, the positions were highly sought after and literally no one, ever, had turned one down once it had been offered.

Which was why this guy stood out like a sore thumb.

Jace Strickland. Tony read his profile again, shaking his head in absent disbelief. The project he'd submitted had been, frankly, brilliant. That alone might not have caught Tony's attention immediately, but the fact that he'd promptly turned down the internship that he'd won, and then stopped returning calls had definitely thrown up enough red flags to draw his eye.

The additional element of his age — he wasn't a kid like the vast majority of the other applicants — was also a curiosity, and Tony found himself invested enough to have FRIDAY run a more thorough than usual background check on their missing intern as he bypassed the usual channels to dig up the man's unlisted personal cell number.

It wasn't often Tony was on this side of town, especially undercover.

Flamboyance was in his nature, and most of the time that very extravagance was diversion as well as armor, rendering him into a walking statement piece regardless of what suit he wore. People had expectations, and he was here to give them what they wanted. Or that was usually his game.

Today, he was under the radar, as it were. Jeans, a hoodie...a ball cap pulled low over his eyes and the prerequisite sunglasses completed his ensemble. Ideally, he was going to figure out what the hell was up with Peter...without using tech, since the Spiderling was canny enough to ask him — and FRIDAY — to respect his privacy.

And he did respect it. He respected it so much, he was down here in person, worried as hell, trying to figure out if the kid was in trouble or not. His own dad couldn't have cared less what he did when he was a teenager, as long as he kept it out of the news, and Tony would do damn near anything to prevent Peter from ever feeling the crushing weight of that terrible apathy from someone that should have loved him.

Anyway. It was a whole thing, and the kid was supposed to be here right about now, out with Ned and some other friends, but instead Tony was left cooling his heels on a bench in Coney Island, with not even his phone out to distract him.

Peoplewatching was some consolation and Tony almost immediately found his eyes following a guy in what looked like an oversized military surplus jacket, his short spiky blond hair ruffling in the breeze like a flag of challenge. He looked grim, pacing from the pier and back several times before Tony allowed his curiosity to win this skirmish, approaching and resting his elbows on the wooden railing a few feet away the next time the stranger paused to look out towards the water.