10 | and all will fall




π’π“π€π‘πŠπ„π—ππŽΒ 


π“π€πˆππ„πˆ, π“π€πˆπ–π€π


TONY


β–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒβ–ƒ






'We've lost contact with Miss Preece. I will run a region-wide search for compatible signals to reconnect to her.'


'Yeah, I caught on to that.'Β 


Tony breathed out, facing the phone with a disgruntled look. He slumped over nothing, exhaling deeply and searching the dim-lit room for anyone familiar to him. The party was on aΒ full swing, with a coalition of laughter traversing from either end of the hall. It was not typical to see Tony Stark standing alone at the side of the dance floor, not fancying himself in the audience. Some part of him spurred strongly as the idea of Eleanor snatched again raided his mind. He couldn't help but wonder why it wasn't as easier than the customary. Of course, the angels were not on his side that night and bringing him head-on with the first-hand dilemma.


'Right under your nose,' Zeke said in a forlorn tone, pocketing his fists into his suit. It was strange for him to stand with no regrets, his face resembling the late Obadiah Stane in every way. The balding head, the cold smirk on his lips and sharp intent in his eyes.Β 


'It feels weird, doesn't it?'


'Not anything new,' Tony shrugged, not prepared to show any sign of weakness. Elle had warned him that this psycho practically ran on vulnerable links, making him bridle a bit.


'I don't think we've been formally introduced, Mr Starkβ€”'


'I hate formalities,' Tony butted in, moving closer to engage dominance. 'And it sort of lines up with the fact that you took the one thing that mattered to me the most and dumpster-dived the heck out of my retro-tech. Killed a hundred in that process.'


'Eleanor tattled on me?' He grunted and cracked the tension on his collars, the widespread smirk on his face growing. 'You were bound to know anyway.'


'I can't disagree,' he shared a petulant stare with Zeke, levelling the field. 'I know your MO, Stane. You want Elle and you want me dead. I'm ready to hash out whatever. It's your turn to choose.'


'None of your gimmicks in business, Stark. I'll get what I want.'


'Nah uh, you can't have both,' Tony tilted his head, looking up defiantly. He knew Zeke's fatherly sentiment overpowered his attraction towards Elle. If he managed to get Elle back, everything else was a piece of cake. With Elle in the mix, he had a faulted contingency.Β 


'What's it gonna be, McGrabby? Elle or revenge?'


'Eleanor and I have something you'll never have,' Zeke derided. 'History. You know, Tony, Pops loved the concept of us. He was set to come to London and get me engaged to the woman I couldn't love moreβ€”walk her down the aisle, even. In one night, I lost everything.'


'Jeez, must've been hard.'


'Oh, it was,' Zeke bared his teeth and Tony bubbling with satisfaction that his job had been done: to piss off the dilemma. 'All these years, I had one motive in my mind and you gave it to me. A gift, more like. You see, fear aspires you to achieve.'


'I haven't heard that before,' Tony said dryly. He brought himself back to the reality of the situation, growing riled up as the seconds passed. 'Come on, man. We can work this out.'


'Unfortunately,' Zeke clucked his tongue. 'I can't. I have a woman to get back to while you sit back and enjoy the show.'


'Really, Stane? Just going to show your belly?'


He heard his AI's voice spring up in his ear.Β 'Multiple electromagnetic surges detected in the room, sir.'


'It was nice meeting you, Mr Stark,' Zeke smiled knowingly, turning towards the exit in all dramatism.


'They energy anomalies are spiking unnaturally. Mark L has been activated for the launch sequence.'


As if on cue, the red-and-gold suit of armour started to coagulate itself over him and inciting the growth of nanotech particles past his chest and fitting the building helmet over his head, focusing on everything and anything. He was He had his blasters were on online, glowing a bright gold as he aimed it for the commotion in the room. A shrill scream echoes from the side, the exit still barricaded in the uproar.


'Short term out, JARVIS, get the Stark satellites online. Let's see what Slim Shady's up to.'


'It appears to be a clump of electromagnetic obstructions. I believe Miss Preece was right about her theory.'


'What's the range on those reactors?' Tony insisted immediately. 'Can I fly them up high?


He rose off the ground in a short hover, using his repulsor to blow the emergency door right off its hinges to render a way to the startled visitors. People fought and pulled their way out the door. Tony approached the next situation at handβ€”the walking time-bombs.


'Oh-kay,' he puffed out. 'They're glowing, now. JARVIS, that's bad, right?'


'Indeed, sir. The range is a calculated five hundred meter diameters. Feasibility rate is low. Evacuation is the only way out.'


They appeared to be shouting something heinous and related to the Almighty and his multiple faces, power, and strength, cursing out slangs out with their fists pumping with anger. Their chests glowed a bright blue from their undershirts, climbing in fervour with every second.Β 


'There are too many of them, sir. It would be best to vacate the premises to decrease fatalities. Estimated time of detonation is five minutes and thirty seconds.'


'Run a floor-by-floor thermal scan of the compound, I want all emergency exit sequences initiated for use,' he commanded, soaring past the almost empty ballroom and ignoring the glowing people who had started to wreck the tables into pieces over the tiling.Β 


'Two hundred and thirty-seven civilians on the fifty-floors of assumed impact,' the AI said ominously, all the significant dots flickering in the miniature floor plan inside the holographic screen under of his helmet.Β 'They're being escorted through the outlets. Casualties are to be expected.'


'Wistful thinking works, bud,' he murmured drily under his breath. 'Sometimes I hate my own mind.'


'The suit will be able to withstand impact. If you must know, sir, you have an incoming call from Miss Preece.'


'Put her through!'


When her voice hit his ears, he could feel his heart rate start to calm, his insights unscrambling. He hovered mid-air, floors below and watching as the civilians rushed out the front doors and sprinting to safe housing. His AI was unable to locate her signal from the interference behind him, the hologram distorting.Β 


'Tony?' Elle's fearful voice crackled with a bad interface. 'What's going on? There are people racing out the frontβ€”'


'Honey, I got this. Tell me where youβ€”Elle?β€”'Β 


The signal split and cutting him short. Tony craned his gaze to the street hundred floors down, the most oblong vehicleΒ parked out the front and a marksman circle straining over it. JARVIS had picked out three heat signatures, around the long cab and a single one on the inside.Β 


'They've got me in the limo, parked on the street,' she replied, smart enough to catch on. Elle was clearly cross and her tone was getting deeper as the seconds passed. 'Get out of there, pleaseβ€”I swear if anything happensβ€”'


'No, you need to get out of here first,' he cut in, his breaths getting hasty. 'Look, the rubble could swallow you. I need you toβ€”Elle?'


'T-tonyβ€”I can'tβ€”' Their interface stressfully crackled, both their voices swallowed in a humdrum drone of electricity. Despite the loss of signal, Tony continued to persist.


'Elle, can youβ€”JARVIS, what the hell is up with the comms?'Β 


'Behind you, boss!'


It was then that Tony heard the thunderous roar of a thousand jet planes and rattling his senses. His armour had managed to fight off the fearful blow of the one after the other explosions, exuding himself among the heap of frightening sensations. A fist of amber flares punched through the upper half of the Starkdynamics tower, the noise of glass shattering and the sudden gulf whirlpool of horror around him. Tony felt the swarming heat of two-hundred fifty centigrade surrounded him next, the squealing sounds of metal grinding against another as he watched the construction tilt abnormally along the axis. It was like watching an apocalypse under the trainwreck principle; two hundred people in the party, in a swift second, dissolved to ashes and he could do nothing but watch on.


'Zeke,' he mumbled with what's left of his voice. 'He'sβ€”'


In the distance, he swore he heard Zeke's dark laughter as his empire crumbled to a bleak conclusion. It was the creepiest thing ever and he had fought a mania-ridden Hulk.


'I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. There are no survivors.'


Oh, the irony. Just as JARVIS had finished constructing his sentence, a lonely red dot blinked on the screen, his eyes examining the destination as the triple-axis narrowed with his line of sight. It was on the roadside, where a hundred floors had been dropped on the street and estimating no heat signatures. The debris of extensive sized cement, a deadly rainfall of steel glass and a few pedestrians already screaming in terror as the smoke settled into a continual tunnel to the sky. Some were pointing at his armour, some were on their phones and others were helping push the rubble away in order to save the estranged citizens.


'What's that?' He couldn't realize his own voice, hoarse and guilty. He didn't realize his own eyes had reddened as he began his descent to the ground faster than necessary, his hands thrusting forward to increase velocity. He wasn't fast enough.


'Miss Preece's receiver beacon.'


Tony granted himself one split second of gratitude before soaring faster. Elle was down there, she could be alive. He was relentless in his conquest to save her, the single gleaming hope on his screen the sign of her evident survival. He knew Elle was a survivor by nature, even a hundred-floor drop on her not managing to bring her down. Elle was a stubborn one and he was obliged.


'Engage all defences, JARVIS. I'm going in.'


I'll never forgive myself. Neverβ€”


'As you wish, sir.'


Find her, find her, find herβ€”


The repulsor's golden shine was enough to provide the ken for his eyes, only steel and rocks as far as the eye could see. The beacon in his screen glowed faintly, starting to grow in fervour as he plunged beyond the rubble that started to converge into thin spaces below. Using his armour's strength as an upper hand, he pushed theΒ three meters wide part of the sunbeam roof with a single tug of his hand. Underneath was the smooth top of a car, his heart pounding racing than inevitable.Β 


'Single thermal signature detected. The receiver beacon is sustained.'


His repulsors whirred to life, coming back online. Sharpening it down to a centimetre long ray, he allowed the rays to cut through the dented metal roof of the limoΒ to provide him access to the inside. He moulded the clunky metal apart, peering on the inside.


'Elle.'


Tony spotted a tuft of dark hair askew on the destroyed leather seats, glass shards littering around her like a halo. Elle's face was hidden from sight, his tough breaths turning to ease when he heard the stuttering beats of her heart and the heartline developing itself over his screen. Fear had clamped a vice grip around his heart, making it hard for him to intake any breaths


'Elle?' He tried again, using a metal finger to push the hair of her face.Β 


A soft cough that managed to part the tresses of hair from her face, a groan in her voice. He nearly cried out with relief, when hooded blue eyes exposed to the sharp light of his suit and the helmet retracting to the back of his neck to display his face to her.Β 


'Hey,' he whispered, his voice softer. 'Can you hear me, honey?'


Elle laid stiller than a corpse, beneath pain that could have ranged from unmanageable to torture. He saw wetness accumulate in the corner of her eyes drip down the side of her face without a cry if pain.


He spoke to JARVIS, next. 'How fragile is she?'


'Too fragile, sir. Her internal injuries are extensive, it's a miracle to see her conscious.'


'The brain or isβ€”is it the spine?'Β 


Neither, sir. I suppose it's the heart.


Careful to be gentle, he moved her shoulder to rest against the cushion and moving the hair away from her face. He had to bite his tongue to not gasp out loud. Grotesque welts of pink flesh decorated her pale face, her bleak gaze coming to a focus on his.Β A dark red gash went down the plumpness of her lip and a surge of blood pouring out her lips as she spoke.Β 


He was astonished when he noticed a tweak on her lips. She feebly muttered his name, a sign to show that she wasn't all too clueless about the contingency stress her body was under. Tony shook his head in desolation.


He would never forgive himself.






∞






[w/n: oh no, is Elle going to be okay? Zeke's a little bitch, isn't he - that sad fuck. I tried to make this as Stark-ish as possible, hope it turned out fine.Β how was this one? ]


[ update (17.01.2020): every timeΒ i read this chapter, i cry. i don't know why, maybe it's because i just HATE seeing Elle hurt. grrrr, ngl Zeke's haha-might-commit-genocide-later vibes are just plain assholeryΒ ]




Comment