Day 49
Anthony Edward Stark had many different armors. They all protected him from dangers that his skin could not, but they’re were some dangers that the man could not face with a metal suit of missile totting armor. Sometimes the man required something more subtle. Something he could slip on and off, in and out of a pocket. Quickly. Quietly. Unnoticed.
The sunglasses of Anthony Edward Stark had hidden many things. They hid things that the man did not want the world to see. They hid his tears. They hid his sorrow. They hid his pain. They hid him in some small way from the anger of the world, for if the world could not look into his eyes than it could not know what it had done. If the world did not know what it had done, it could not revel in his pain. The sunglasses did their job well.
The sunglasses of Tony Stark had seen many things. They had looked on as a beautiful blond challenged him and his company, his ethics, his very being. They had seen soldiers in Afghanistan laughing and then they had witnessed death, and they crumbled away to nothing. Shattered glass on the ground of a battle field strewn with bodies.
When the sunglasses of Anthony Stark came back into the realm of existence they were only put to use for a very short amount of time before Anthony did not need his armor anymore. No armor was needed when he was with the woman of his dreams. He had no need to hide himself from her.
The sunglasses hid him away from the world, and witnessed, as poison spread through his body. They hid the pain in the dying man’s eyes from the world, and even the people he usually did not hid things from. They watched from a shelf as he saved himself.
For a time the sunglasses became nothing more than what they were intended for. Things to block the sun, not the world. They were there in his pocket as he was dragged into a war. After the war he needed them again. After the war he needed to hide.
The sunglasses of Anthony Edward Stark became armor again and hid his fear and sorrow as he watched over his friend who had been injured so severely that he may never wake again.
They hid his shame and fear, when his night mare became a reality, and the reality created a monster, and the monster murdered thousands.
The sunglasses hid him more than ever before as a man with white mustache approached him about a new set of laws.They watched from a table as Anthony Stark argued and fought with someone who had once been his friend. They had watched the two men try and fail to reach an understanding. A compromise. They watched as one man left the other in a fit of anger. Then they had been placed back upon Anthony’s face to serve their purpose once again. To shield him. To protect him. To make him feel safe.
The sunglasses had witnessed many a joy as well, or rather they had been swept away to reveal through an untinted gaze the joys that the life still held. There were some things that they did not need to keep Tony safe from. They had been swept away from his face to clear his gaze so he could look unhindered upon his son. They had remained away as he proposed to the love of his life. For a long time the man did not need his armor.
A war came… again, and the man placed his armor upon his face, perhaps for the last time.
The sunglasses of Anthony Edward Stark became his armor as two aliens approached him. They were taken from his face, and for brief moment before the nanotech bots closed a mask around his eyes Anthony Edward Stark’s fear was open to the world, but only for a second.
The sunglasses were no longer sunglasses. They were part of his armor. They were part of his metal protection. They witnessed from a new perspective as Tony Stark launched himself into space to face the root of his fear.
They witnessed him fight a monster.
They witnessed as a moon crushed him.
The sunglasses, or the particles that had once been the sunglasses, were put to their final use as Anthony Stark struggled under the weight of the mighty Titan Thanos’s fist. They joined the man’s last reserves of tech in forming a sword. They formed the tip. They had always been his first wall of defense. Now was no different, or at least it should have been no different.
They failed to do the one job they had always been so good at. For the the first time ever they did not protect him. No instead they stabbed through him. They broke through every level of armor the man had ever had. They rendered him broken and defeated.