There was a man there. Grief was present in his whiskey brown eyes, but the cold indifference on hisface betrays the hidden emotion. He stood still, staring at the floor where blue, red, and white paint was muted by a sheen of frigid snow. A warm feeling slithered in his chest but the knowledge of what was to come seemed to diminished the warmth and replaced it with an alien blankness.
"I loved you."
A faint smile on his face, snow on his lashes, and heartbreak in his eyes.
(The slight fizz of soda rushed by his mouth. It was his turn to choose a movie and he picked another chick flick. It was only the two of them in the tower and without the others' presence, it was more silent than usual. They laughed at the funny scenes while they drank soda and tossed popcorn into their mouths.
It was perfect.)
"That doesn't matter anymore."
He clenches his fist and relaxes it, making a flower appear on his hand. It was a rose with black petals and a gold stem. Staring at it for a moment, he drops the flower on a horribly mangled red and gold suit.
The sobs that escaped from his lips racked throughout his body like the nightmares that plagued every God damned moment of the hell he calls his life whether it be awake or asleep.
(Blue eyes. Pale skin. Crimson blood.
"You could've… saved us…)
He covered his mouth with his left hand, barely muffling his cries of solitude and hopelessness. His right was too numb to wipe away the tears streaming across his pale cheeks.
("He's my friend."
I want to be so much more than that, he thought. But he could never tell.
"So was I."
It wouldn't have mattered, anyway.)
The last of his tears fell as heavy footfalls scattered through the abandoned bunker. The groan and grind of heavy metal armor became clearer as blinding rays of light brightened the hallways of his incubo vivente. The sounds stopped as a titan stood near the entrance, waves of radiant light emmiting from his left hand.
(It was a rainy day in October as he rested on the couch while nesting an oversized mug of coffee in his hands as he suddenly blurted out a question.
"Would you always be there to protect me?"
The other man turned his head, curled his lips into a smile and quipped his answer.
"Of course I will, Shellhead."
He has never heard another lie that pleasing to the ears.)
Gone was the weeping man with his sad brown eyes, replaced by the man with his broken reality, black sclera and golden eyes. He began to curtsy, the movements making the black and gold reactor on his chest spill light onto the floor. The sight made the titan smile with cruel warmth.
(All his life he has watched other people's smiles. He'd silently watch others as their faces lit up with delight or any other emotion that may make tiny little changes in their appearances.
There were some he loved, like his mother's, like the Jarvises', like his family's, like Steve's. There were some that were rare, like Howard's, or like Vision's.
This man's smile was one of the only ones that he loathed.)
"Thanos." The man's voice was robotic, like how he wanted to be as of this moment alone. Like how he has to be.
"Let us go, Anthony," Thanos' voice rings through the room, his deep tone rumbling through the deafening silence of Siberia.
(He hates it every time Thanos refers to him like that.)
Tony Stark's lips purse slightly in discomfort. He doesn't say anything.
(He would never dare to.)
"Yes, my lord."