"Leave Out All The Rest" - Linkin Park
In the end, Virginia “Pepper” Potts-Stark was forced to drag the remaining Avenger’s down to her late husband’s workshop to watch the video he’d left for them in case he died while out on the field. The two spyassassins were stoic but still broken inside as the day they were literally picked up by the team’s resident giant rage monster and carried home (and away from the danger) – said green rage monster was currently in human form but no less green. The doctor looked so physically ill, Colonel James Rhodes was lending a shoulder for support on while keeping a watchful eye on Pepper.
~*First Verse*~
~*Second Verse*~
She’d finally told him – Tony’d wanted to do it, but Tony wasn’t there anymore, so she’d done it… and now he was mother-henning her to death. None of the other Avenger’s had noticed yet. Thor was physically dragging the leader of their merry band of misfits. Captain Rogers didn’t want to see the video – Thor didn’t want to dishonor his Shield Brother. She didn’t want to watch it… but without her and Rhodey… the Avenger’s wouldn’t be able to get into the workshop. As soon as the two codes were put in and the doors slid open, the blue holoscreen opened in the middle of the workshop… and the video started.
~*Chorus*~
“Hey guys, you have no idea how good, just how fucking great it is to see you all alive and well here and now. I know you have questions, don’t bother asking them, I can’t hear or see you… I’m just a video recording, I just know that you’re all here, safe and sound… and I’m not. See, there’s more than one video that could have played when Pep and Rhodey put their codes in… J.A.R.V.I.S. did a scan of the room and he found that every single member of the Avengers was here and God, fucking, damn it, you don’t know how good that is for me.”
There were tears in Tony’s eyes as he stared at the camera and Barton had to wonder to himself what it must have been like… making multiple goodbye videos – and coming up with contingencies where he wasn’t the only causality. What must that had done to his mental stability?
“All of the other videos were wiped the minute these started playing, so don’t go getting weird and trying to find all my goodbyes… this is the only one you’re going to get. And that’s what this is guys. This is goodbye.”
~*Third Verse*~
“There are things that I never talk about – things that I always thought I would take to my grave.” Tony pauses here to give a dry chuckle. “Well, I’m dead, and the only one I ever told about this was J.A.R.V.I.S. when I was alive – so that counts for something right? Anyway, Pepper knows all of this by now – but I wanted to let you all know about Afghanistan – about what drives me…” The late Tony Stark trailed off on the screen, like he was gathering his strength for the fight to come. The Avenger’s were simply crushed – all their Man of Iron was
doing was driving in the fact that he was gone – and there’d been nothing they could have done to stop it.
~*Fourth Verse*~
“Afghanistan was just supposed to be a simple routine demonstration of Stark Industries newest Big Bad – the Jericho. Everybody knows that the convoy got hit and I went missing for three months… what most people don’t know is that my Godfather, Obidiah Stane put a hit out on me – and all those men and women that died in that convoy? They were killed with Stark Industry weapons.” The Tony on the screen had to pause for the hard shudder that ran through him. “I took shrapnel to the chest – hence the Arc Reactor – and I spent the next three months in the company of a man by name of Ho Yinsen. He’s the only reason I survived shrapnel – the terrorists forced him to work on me… the man that built the bombs that killed his family… I don’t think I’ll ever meet another man as inherently good as Yinsen.” Again, Tony was forced to pause. It was killing him to tell his teammates – his friends – his family, these things – as much was it was them to watch. “He died during the escape – he ran out with a rifle pointed to the ceiling so that the Mach 1 suit could have the time it needed to boot.”
~*Chorus*~
The remaining Avengers along with Pepper and Rhodey can only watch as Tony Stark shudders on the screen. They can tell that this conversation is hurting him as much as its hurting them. He’s talking about the three months he spent in hell at the hands of the Ten Rings, but at the same time he’s telling them goodbye. There wasn’t a dry eye in the lab – off screen or on.
~*Fifth Verse*~
“When we’d first met in the cave, he’d asked me if I had a family and I told him no. He knew damn near everything about me and told me something that hit me dead in the face. I was the man with ‘everything, yet nothing at all’. Guys, you’ve become my family and I cannot ever tell you how greatful I am for that. I did everything in my power to make sure you guys were taken care of. And I know you’re probably wondering about the self-destruct sequence in the suit… I couldn’t be the one responsible for losing one of you guys. It was my fault Yinsen died… I couldn’t live with myself if… if…” on the screen he trailed off. He was no longer looking at the camera but out into the workshop.
~*Chorus*~
Tony seemed to pull himself together and look to the camera once more. “The plain and simple fact is that I cannot live with myself if I were to have lost you guys. You’re all survivors, I’m not. I can’t be who you are. I only ask that you take care of Pepper and Rhodey-Bear. They mean the world to me and I will never regret giving up everything I am for them. Never doubt that I loved you guys. Now, I’ll leave you to it, I’ve gotta go…” the screen started to fade to black when suddenly Tony cut back on.
“Hey guys? Pepper is kinda prego with my mini-me? I nominate you all God Parents!” he threw a peace sign and was gone.
~*Chorus*~