tony stark knows suffering.
it is iron and stardust, blood and money.
iron is forged from pain and weighted by loss.
stardust tastes like ash and burning defeat.
blood stains the innocent and tastes like copper.
money fosters greed and breeds corruption.
they all smell like rust and feel like fire.
tony stark wears iron armor, he sheds copper blood. he spends corrupt money and chokes on burning stardust.
he fears the empty expanse of space and longs for happiness.
dust and blood terrify him.
iron and money protect him.
stardust tastes like ash.
blood tastes like copper.
iron rusts.
money bleeds.
people break.
the world burns.
over and over again.
the universe is lost and then revived and then lost again.
people die.
planets collide.
stars flicker and burn out.
fire dances and then dies.
the universe implodes.
and then it comes back again.
heroes fight futilely.
blood is shed.
they protect and battle and bleed and die.
monsters are willing to sacrifice, humans aren’t.
villains cut their losses, heroes are in denial.
demons rise and angels fall.
evil prevails and good does not.
villains win and heroes lose.
titans snap their fingers and people disappear.
half the universe.
the price is too high, the cost too great.
the innocent fade along with the guilty.
there is no justice in death, only certainty and permanence.
from ashes to ashes.
from dust to dust.
ashes, ashes ..
we all fall down.
a flip of a coin.
a snap of fingers.
from dust we come and to dust we must return.
iron rusts and stardust burns.
blood is shed and money is worthless.
warm flesh disintegrates into cold dust.
armor splinters and cracks and then falls apart.
heartbeats falter and then stop.
heroes make empty proclaimations into empty air.
they say this is no place to die and then they die anyways.
they beg not to go and then they are gone.
children are sent to war and don’t return.
child soldiers turn into child corpses.
parents grieve and generals mourn.
they all blame themselves.
heroes shatter.
tony stark abandons his armor and clings to the dust left behind.
the empty impression in thin air.
blood runs and iron rusts.
his child is stardust and no money in the world is enough to save him.
iron crumbles.
money empties.
blood drips.
only dust prevails.
the universe burns.