Chapter 1
Anthony Edward Stark died at a young age of six, during one of his father Howard's drunken rampages when he shoved the boy too hard.
Howard was drunk and frustrated when he shoved the boy's tiny body backwards, accidentally causing young Anthony to crash into one of his desks in the workshop. The drunk inventor smashed and trashed his workshop, shouting how he couldn't have one single moment of peace with his boy bothering him all the time and how worthless he thought of his son. This was something that happened often in this household. He yelled at his butler to get rid of his son already and at the young boy for him to get up and leave.
It was then when Howard realised that his boy had remained unusually quiet and motionless with his eyes unfocused, and a large amount of blood slowly oozing out from the back of his head.
Later at the hospital when the doctors came out from the operation room shaking their heads, his butler and his long term friend Peggy Carter begrudgingly told him the reason why Anthony went to the workshop that evening, handing him a wrapped gift box with a small card, stained with a bit of blood, attached on top. Howard teared up when he saw the childish yet tidy writing that wrote happy birthday.
The both of them never forgave him for what happened and neither quite did he.
＿
Anthony Edward Stark took his own life at the age of sixteen, by drinking too much alcohol and overdosing on sleeping pills and painkillers.
Not that he was actively pursuing his death though, it was more of him not giving a damn about what’s going on anymore. He didn’t really care if he lived or died by being this stupid, he knows it’s dangerous taking this much alcohol and this much pills, but he just wanted to numb himself by drowning himself in alcohol and pills.
It had been a hard day, and feeling nothing, feeling numb? Was blissful.
The constant neglect and abuse he received from Howard was enough already, he didn’t need him to come in during his demonstration and berate him on front of his peers, in front of his whole school. It’s humiliating. His dad sure did put on a show for the media to scandal about. Maybe it’d be easier if he just give up seeking approval from his father, just give up and don’t care anymore. Maybe that way he’d move on with his life. But right now it seemed impossible to do so and it just hurts so much to think how he can never get Howard to like him. To love him.
It’s seemed easier for him to just numb himself and not feel anything right now instead of trying to give up something that can never be achieved.
Not feeling anything was nice.
He can still feel someone dragging him up and shouting at him angrily though. Someone, he thinks it’s Rhodey, was yelling at him for being a stupid asshole and to wake up. He guess he’s dying, that’s why Rhodey is angry at him.
Not that he’d care, whether he’ll live or die was the least of his concerns in that moment.
＿
Anthony Edward Stark was murdered at a young age of twenty-one, just one night after the tragic evening of his parent’s car accident.
Obadiah found him in his workshop already drinking his life away by himself mourning his parents death when he checked on him that evening. He held the broken boy in his arms while listening to his quiet drunk whimpers and watched the youth's vulnerable defenseless form slowly fall asleep, when he suddenly decided this was probably the perfect time to finally get rid of this brat that he had never like in the beginning once and for all.
Wrapping his hands around Tony's neck, he slowly choked the life out of the young Stark while the boy woke and began to struggled. He watched the boy sobbed his name in confusion and begged for him to stop, desperately trying to push his godfather away but was too weak to do so due to the excessive alcohol in his system. Obadiah only smiled gently and tightened his grip on the boy’s neck upon hearing his pleas.
It didn’t take long for the body beneath him to finally become limp and lifeless.
He spent the rest of the night trying to cover his crime and framing the murder into suicide, and he sure did a good job because afterwards no one really questioned the story of how the young billionaire took his own life out of grief.
Except one royal butler who refused to believe that his young master would end his life so easily, but Obadiah took care of him not soon after too.
＿
Anthony Edward Stark didn’t make it past the age of thirty-eight, and died while being held captive by the terrorist group The Ten Rings.
He pulled the miniature arc reactor that was keeping him alive out of his chest himself actually.
Tony could feel the shrapnels slowly tearing his heart apart during the last minutes of his life. It wasn’t a pleasant, peaceful death for sure, but he had gladly chosen to go out this way. He felt sorry that after all the effort the good doctor did to keep him alive, he was now killing himself. But he did so because he knew he going to die soon anyway even with the arc reactor in his chest. The infection in his chest wasn’t going to allow him to make it in the first place and it was only getting worse and worse each day. His health was declining rapidly.
He only just accelerated the rate of his death a bit faster, so he can piss his captors off, by removing the arc reactor.
Yinsen’s death though, was the last straw the made him do it. Those idiots might have thought that killing Yinsen as a warning will pressure him and scare him to build that damn missile for them, but it only did quite the opposite.
He remembers to destroy the miniature arc reactor thoroughly so the bastards won’t get anything useful out of him.
As his consciousness slowly descended into darkness, he couldn’t help but be thankful that there’d be no more water, no more torture.
＿
Anthony Edward Stark never made it out of the wormhole. It was a one way trip after all.
Some of them had secretly kept their hopes high expecting some sort of miracle to happen when the portal was closing, but nothing happened and Iron man just never came back and was forever lost in the unknown.
They spent a long time mourning his death. Many of them never quite recovered from this sudden loss. But eventually they moved on.
What they didn’t know was that even though the billionaire had already prepared himself to face his fate, death didn’t happened immediately, and the slow wait for death to come broke whatever determination he had in mind bit by bit. Lost in space alone and slowly suffocating as the oxygen in his suit ran out a small amount at a time, was unbearable and drove him to near madness moments before he loses his consciousness and was finally able to embrace death.
＿
Anthony Edward Stark felt himself being dragged out of water and opened his eyes.