Chapter Text
cold. that was all tony could feel.
cold and pain and grief.
after a few hours they all blended together until all he could feel was cold.
he kept the cold close to his chest, it was all he had left.
friendships lost, trust broken, body dying.
his bones felt brittle, his blood was frozen and he couldn’t sense anything anymore.
all he had was the cold.
it’s been more than 10 hours and he’s sure the arc reactor is killing him again.
(a vibranium shield to the chest apparently works just as well as a bomb to create shrapnel)
he imagined he could feel the slowly advancing pieces of his metallic heart destroying his organic one.
proof that tony stark has a heart.
proof that tony stark would always die because of love.
love for the world, love for his friends, love for his little made family, love of love.
imagined he felt his veins on fire, so cold they burned.
that he could see brilliant gold roiling under his skin like flames.
imagined the sizzling of his skin, numb to pain.
stark men are made of iron. like a dying star, shining so bright just one last time before it kills everything in its way.
he’s sure he’s imagined it all until the cold recedes and makes itself at home in his bones, leaving only the burning of his own self, and the pain of his remaking, his rebirth, recoding himself into existence, into being once more.
now his bones are cold but there’s fire in his veins,
stark men are made of iron, and now there’s a galaxy in his chest.