Deus ex Machina
Chapter
Deus ex Machina
Judges 15:16
He awoke slowly, but cleanly. There was no residual grogginess or exhaustion — in fact, he felt better than he had in years. The hangover that he probably should have had was nowhere to be found. He felt incredible, like he was floating.
Actually, he was floating.
Below him, above him, around him, even through him was this heavy blackness. It shimmered rainbows when he turned his head like an oil slick. The air smelled like something he remembered at the corners of his mind. Chocolate chip cookies that he had once, perhaps, or the smell of batteries from when he had taken apart the T.V. remote at the age of five.
“Hello, Tony Stark.”
The voice sounded like his mother’s. Or was it his father’s? Maybe he was more disoriented than he had thought. He turned around, but there was nobody there. When he moved, his hair swirled around him like he was some chick in a shampoo commercial.
“You’re not looking. I’m right here.”
He blinked, and there was a figure standing in front of him. It looked like Pepper. The next moment, it looked like Vision. It shifted through various familiar forms — Steve, Natasha, Thor, Bruce, Clint, Loki, Nick, Ultron — before bleeding into a jumbled mess of everyone he had met in his life, and even some he had not.
“What are you?” He demanded of it.
“Why, Tony,” the being said with Tony’s voice and Tony’s face, “you’re offending me. I’ve always been with you.”
He broke out in a cold sweat. “Am I tripping? Oh, Jesus, I never should’ve tried that funky-smelling booze that Furry brought back from Brazil.”
“Hush. This is real.” Now it was his grandmother, peering over her half-moon glasses with kind, watery eyes as she patted his arm with a weathered hand. Never mind the fact that Granny had died over a decade ago. “Though you should lay off the liquor, but… well, that’s not why I called you here.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Who are you?”
“Hmm. I have many names.” It gave him Natasha’s coy smile, the one that hid who knows how many secrets behind red lipstick. “Frankly, I think I’m too old to care. Call me whatever you want.”
“Ooooookay,” he said. “So, Captain Cum-guzzler, what am I doing here?”
The being rolled its eyes as Bruce Banner. “Well, Private Perpetual Preteen, I usually don’t like to do this. See, you work with machines. Let’s say you build a clock. Now, do you want to have to fix the clock every few hours, or do you want it to run on its own without constant maintenance?”
“Uh, run on its own?”
“See, you get me!” It was… Peter Parker, now? Well, okay. “You make a clock, you want it to work without you. I make a universe, I want it to work without me. But I’m interfering right now, because what you need is an epiphany.”
He snorted. “What are you, God or something?”
“You could call me that,” it agreed. “You wouldn’t be the first. Or the billionth. Or something. Anyways — Tony Stark!”
“Wha?”
“Stalking Steve Rogers? Bugging his shower? Do you really think that you’re in the right, here?”
“Um,” he said.
“You’ve always been an asshole.” It held up a hand, Nick Furry’s hand, when he tried to interrupt. “Nuh-uh, don’t argue with me. You’re not an evil person or even a cruel one, but you’re an unbearable little shit at the best of times, and when you watched Steve Rogers shower? Not the best of times.”
“I didn’t think the Lord was supposed to cuss,” he said, because he could not think of anything better to say.
“Oh, yeah? Where does it say that in the Bible, hm?”
“Well —”
“It doesn’t, that’s what!” The being was Steve Rogers as it huffed, folding bulky arms over a broad chest. “I gave you humans ten rules, that’s all, none of this ‘seven deadly sins’ nonsense or anything. Don’t worship any other gods, don’t worship idols, don’t take my name in vain, be good on Sunday, honour your parents, don’t kill, don’t cheat on people, and stop drooling over other people’s possessions, homes, or loved ones. That’s it. You can cuss up a blue streak as long as you don’t use my name in it.”
He lifted a finger. “And where does it say ‘don’t watch a divine specimen of man shower’?”
“Don’t worship false gods,” it replied. “Or don’t worship idols. Take your pick. Or maybe I should add an eleventh commandment: don’t be a jerk.”
“How was I being a jerk?” Tony demanded, exasperated.
Now, it looked like that Deadpool guy Tony saw once or twice. For fuck’s sake, that guy was showing up everywhere. “Oh, that’s right. Invasions of privacy are ‘child’s play’ for you. Well, let me spell it out — or, better yet, how about I leak those dick pics you sent Pepper Potts when you were drunk? Send them to every tabloid, post them on Twitter?”
“What? No!” He gasped. “Wait… you have a Twitter?”
“Irrelevant,” it insisted as it took on the guise of Peter Parker again. “With great power comes great responsibility, and you need to step back on up on the responsibility front, you hear? I’m only doing this once.”
“I… think so,” said Tony, who still was not sure that this was not some bizarre drugged-up dream.
“Good.” With the face of everyone he knew and loved, the being smiled. “I hope it’ll be a long time until I see you again, Tony Stark. I love you.”
“Uh, love you too?” He answered bemusedly, and then everything went dark again.