Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐊𝐄.

𝐀𝐋𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐅 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐑𝐈𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐄, 𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐘?

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

∞

𝐎𝐗𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐄, 𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Something was unusual.

If I woke up on any other day, it would be hasty and panicked with jump-leads. Only today, I was waking up to the sounds of mooing cows, the tea kettle in the kitchen being concocted and a yawn on my lips. I was welcomed with the harsh afternoon sunshine with the windows thrown wide open, my core and lungs expanding. The scent of grass invaded my nostrils first, my hands stretching out to block the tickling rays. As I did, I spotted a familiar dresser and my gaze traversing to the old blue eiderdown of my duvet that I would've had a memory loss and still could recognize. Which unmistakably meant that this wasn't California.

'Hol-ee...'

I was back at my home. Home-home. My mother's home in England: the last area I expected to wake up. No wonder it was so silent. This place was like a ghost town; no one ever came nor left. Outside, the gravel-path was stranded and the grassland beyond, as far as the eye could see, still seeming brownish as always. I remembered running through it with my arms wide open, playing tag with the breeze.

I moved as if it were an emergency, my motions stiff and terse. My limbs ached as if they had gone forgotten, my brain's gears still moving to lock my recollections in place. Tony running. Zeke falling. Blood on my hands. A knife.

My head spun with the lack of motion and the wave of memories, a nauseous sensation settling in my gut as I continued to roam aimlessly. I stumbled like a child learning how to walk when I trod my way out the door. I caught my reflection on the hallway mirror, my breath hitching at the haywire sight. 

My once neatly-trimmed bangs had grown out and downed into my eyes obstructively. My ideal rust-coloured hair fell past my chest in short waves. Blue eyes sunken in, lips chapped and skin pallid—what the heck had happened to the thing in my chest? Instead of the energy-core, an annular-shaped cratering scar was left behind, fish-bone structured burn cicatrixes bled out like tributaries from the scar. I let my fingers touch it, hoping to feel pain but beat. The skin didn't burn or irritate—how long was I asleep?

Eager to obtain answers, I shuffled down the stairways to the familiar open-themed kitchen that I had grown in and about all while ignoring the pain in my bones. Brass pots and pans were neatly stacked up in the corner above the sink, the stove heating a whistling teapot and the smell of old ale shifting through the air. The front door was locked in, the lifeless fireplace sending soot up to the chimney in the quaint living room. Mum hated television sets hence the lack of it, replacing the former. A radio faraway hummed an old hit song and my ears suddenly gleaning the quiet sound of chirping crickets.

'Yes, yes, yes,' I heard my mother laugh from outside. I didn't detect anyone else so I figured she was on the phone. 'The daisies still seem a wee bit parched, dear.'

I moved past the dining table to the back door that led into our airport-sized backyard. Fences closed the space in a neat square, pots of flowers lined in consecutive rows. Some of them were new and some of them I had tended to with my own hands. Some of them had names that I couldn't recall and amid the swarming aroma of fruitiness, Madeline Preece stood hunched over a stool. She balanced the phone between her shoulder and ear. 

'You wouldn't know,' she laughed again, pushing her blonde hair behind her ear as she plucked another stray weed away. 'Young man, you grew up with nuts and bolts. Fickle things, innit?'

I could not decide whether to cut in and remind her of my presence or, just walk away and wait. I stood there, frozen for what felt like an eternity until she bid adieu to her caller and turned to shake the dirt off her lap. Her blue eyes did a double-take when I twitched my lips into a smile, her gaze brimming with a thin sheen of tears. She palmed her mouth to muffle a sob, my confusion growing by the second.

'Hi, mum.' The words felt weird coming out of me, my voice hoarse and unclear. I swallowed tightly to rid off the irritation.

I felt my eyes gradually fill with tears when I took her inviting smile in, which had slowly morphed to shock. Before I knew it, my hands had lobbed around her for a might tight hug. Her embrace was like rain after a drought; I had missed her too much. I pressed my nose into her hair, closing my eyes and welcoming the maternal warmth. My face buckled and the tears started to roll down uncontrollably, all the emotions about reuniting with my mother and leaving behind the one thing that mattered to me acting on my tear ducts. Her warm voice quieted me down a notch, whispering just the words I wanted to hear.

'Hi,' she whispered. 'Hey, I'm here.'

She led me back into the house in easy strides, nudging the door shut behind her and seating me on the first flight of stairs to help me unwind. Her arms never left my shoulder, holding me close until she felt my breath slow down. The weary guilt in me was tying me down that I couldn't come to accept the warmth she was offering. I pushed myself out of her arms, struggling to wipe the tears out of my face.

'Len,' she said in a soft voice, kneading her hand into my shoulder. I faced her with reddened eyes, tear tracks washing a path down to my chin. She only smiled sadly, caressing the back of my head. 'Oh, my sweetheart,' she sniffed. 'I missed you.'

She pulled back, wiping the tears out of her eyes and getting grime over her cheek. I let out a small laugh, grabbing the rag that hung from the hoops of her dungaree and passing it to her. She dusted her hands and face. 

'How're you feeling?' She asked softly while doing so. 'Anything hurts?'

'Not at all,' I shook my head, sniffling again. 'I just feel a... bit out of place?'

She smiled sadly back at me, treading her hands down my hair and sighing as if readying herself to reveal the worst. 'They said it could take months for you to wake. Years, even.'

My mouth worked faster than my brain, already connecting the dots. 'A coma,' I figured. A beat later, I asked under my breath and preparing for the worst. 'How long was I asleep?'

'Six months.'

'Six months?' I voiced out, kneading the region between my temples feeling an oncoming headache. I wondered what happened to my job, my foremost concern. I didn't imagine I'd be able to get one after whatever had chanced. 'What happened since then?'

My mother's doe eyes went vacant at my question, her jugular bouncing down harshly. In a sudden action, she waved her hands indignantly and led me back into the house. I furrowed my brows as she mumbled to herself under her breath, grabbing mugs from a nearby cupboard and switching off the stove.

'Mum.'

She continued to hustle around, lending me a deaf ear.

'Mum, what happened?'

'Nothing happened!' She blew out and banged her hands over the clutter of instruments she had retrieved, turning to face me helplessly. 'Alright? The doctors said that the only way to wake you up was to put you to rest.'

I stayed silent, knowing she would elaborate upon my reticence. And she did.

'Assisted suicide,' she spoke from between her teeth. 'They were going to euthanize you.'

That would have been an alternative option. My health had failed, even under heavy morphine, I would not have been able to surrender to the pain. I realized that my feeding tube was taken out and only an intravenous stand resting beside my bed. My mother being herself, would have never agreed to it and hence the IV fluids. And never had been more grateful. 

Speaking of, I felt her squeeze my shoulder gently. When I looked up, she had an awed smile on her face, biting her chapped lips. 'I didn't lose faith,' she whispered. 'Neither did he.'

He. Of course, he wouldn't have. My throat clogged up at the vague mention of him, my hands going to my forehead to conceal the solemness on my face. If I started to tend towards a single thought in his direction, I was afraid it would never stop. All these insecurities and hassling thoughts had to end. I reminded myself of the love, the anger, the passion - we had so much together. I wished I wasn't forgotten. It had been a significant period of time. 

I hoped.

'Where...?'

'Oh, you know, obviously gutted like everyone else. He comes and he goes,' she shared as if speaking of a spirit. She seated herself atop the table, grappling my hand. 'Even after everything, the colonel and him somehow, always find the time to visit.'

'How is he doing?'

'There was this,' she sighed, 'situation with the Avengers. Gosh, he's miserable, Elle. Been coming here and staying in more than often. That couch in your room's worn out because of that bloke. I had to haul him to our old bedroom.'

'He stays in,' I quoted. 'That's odd. Doesn't seem like him.'

'Believe me, darling,' she laughed breathily. 'He helps me out with the flowers. Tended to the horses in the stable. Even fixed that awful old Chevy of your father's. The colonel's just as cheery as him.'

Not nostalgic, my ass.

'And,' I gulped before asking. 'Zeke?'

'Paralyzed waist down and hasn't said a word to the publishers since,' she clucked her tongue. 'Can you believe that lad? You know, Elle, I'm so happy you left that piece of muck. I can't imagine otherwise.'

She was bathing in lies. It made me raise my brows, wanting to know what tales the brain and the brawn had fed her. 'So how'd I go cataleptic?'

'The colonel said it was the electromagnet malfunctioning,' she mused. 'I don't know the specifics but never again, right?'

I smiled, desperate to end the conversation. 'Right.'

Without wasting another beat, she leaned her back into the table and looked me down with an excited grin. Her blonde hair was now piled into a topknot above her head and her blue eyes twinkling like she was hiding a large secret. I never realized how aged she had gotten with the web of wrinkles that rested underneath her cheek and the subtle hints of crow's feet under her eyes. But somehow with that smile of hers, she looked ten years younger. That was the thing about Madeline Preece—she was full of surprises.

'What?'

'He might come in this week,' she said, wiggling her eyebrows like a child. 'I could ring him for you.'

'Mum,' I sighed. 'You're hassling me.'

She let out a sigh of her own, letting her fingers tousle my already frizzed up hair. Her slender hands were warm against my skin and bringing forth an embrace of my own. I wrapped my arms around her midsection, pressing a cheek into it. She chuckled when I tightened my grip, feeling at ease.

'You are still the same to me, Len,' she murmured. 'Nothing's changed.'

I could not have changed. But, the world had. 

'I can only hope.'

∞

I read the news once. Twice. Thrice. 

Whatever that was typed out in the article was ephemeral against the chaotic onslaught of dilemmas Zeke had brought to the world. Sure, the writer had got the important parts levelled but so much had been edited out. On another news publishing company, I had read about a Philippines debacle where the modded-bomb candidates were eliminated with the electromagnetic impulse that Tony had set off. An Avenger, Thor, had assisted the Triumph Division with their event completion and it was a success. 

Putting two and two together, I could comprehend what I caused my catalepsy. The electromagnet that was once implanted into me had taken a hit from the EM single pulse, hence possibly frying to wires. And my exterminating hit at Zeke's Extremis based spine had ultimately paralyzed him neck-down, what I never wanted to achieve. I wanted him deceased.

My head spun with the information had gathered in the short measure of time. I was seated at the wooden bench at the farthest corner of our backyard, the newspapers spread out like unglued mache and a piping mug of coffee teetering on the edge of the plank.  Above me, the moon hung between the stars it married like a hacked toenail, the perfect crescent bathing barely enough light for me to perceive. Hence the oil lamp beside me as if I were some wandering damsel in the mid-seventeen hundreds. 

The laptop screen was illuminated as I tapped the mousepad, the document I was working on coming to life. Once again, I was left choked for words with a single cursor blinking blankly back at me. The more I stared at it, the more I wanted to bend the little band into an infinity knot. Think, Elle, think. You need this job back. 

And yet after the non-inspirational pep talk, I could only conjure up one sentence which I, even so, couldn't end. Tony Stark is a—force to be reckoned with? A man who puts his girlfriend in a coma after ignoring the consequences? Who honoured the sacrifice, regardless of who, over reputation? I fussed out loud, evidently giving up and slamming the laptop closed. I didn't have the mind to think too, losing heart as the moments ticked on. My fingers had started to cramp up with all the backspacing, the jumbled perceptions evoking jagged emotions. 

'This is probably a bad hour to come to visit.'

The visitor saw the shock register on my face before I could conceal it. His voice was mellow and warm, bringing a calming glow to my body. The trademarked smile played on his lips, my eyes blinking to fight off a trance. He still managed to get me under the Stark effect, as Rhodey had coined it, and since he gets that a lot. Of course Tony Stark would get that a lot, the society was his bee's knees. Besides, who wouldn't want to see the world's most intelligent mind standing between the growth of perennials at twilight?

Although, there was an estrangement in him. A vague, underlying complacency that I knew would be missing if I wasn't around. I was deeply moved when I spotted a sheen of glossiness around his soft brown eyes and equally concerned that the strongest man I knew was vulnerable at the sight of little old me. Deep curvatures decorated his under-eyes, making him look more tired than usual. He donned a fresh blemish near his temple, all thanks in favour of the criminals back in the States. Certainly, being Iron Man winning civilian hearts did not come easy.

I let a smile break out on my face, pushing the hair that curtained my face away to showcase my absolute satisfaction of his presence. Hopefully, he had caught on to the approval.

'The darkest hour is just before dawn, Mr Stark. I'm sure we're past that.'

'I forgot you had a way with words,' he mumbled lowly, erupting into a chuckle when I pulled my teeth into my lips. He rubbed an anxious hand at the back of his neck, looking around his periphery for a way to get to me. All his paths were obstructed.

 'This isn't—how do I—wow, totally wrecked our little moment.'

I had sidestepped the stout rose brambles, mentally slapping myself for wearing shorts on a night like this. I arrived by his downed self, planting my feet into the muck and looking up with a fixed leer, hoping to get him to make the first move. He did not budge.

'So the um,' he started with an apprehensive glimpse everywhere but me. 'The daisies do look dry.'

I blinked at him, truly at a loss for words. Why was he being so weird? Was there something I should be knowing? Unless, I gasped in my head and searched his ring finger. Did he put a ring on someone? Leave me to the past? Did he knock her up? I bet he let her move in, too. 

'I know what you're thinking,' he raised his hand to show me his bare fingers clearly. He wore a biting smirk. 'Stop thinking.'

I remained silent, looking away. 

'I mean,' he cleared his throat, prodding a finger at his bruise and wincing. Tony Stark never had the habit of mincing his talks and it was being a serious moment-wrecker. 'I don't think I could—I told myself I should move on but, I realized it's you. It's always been you. I knew you'd come back because you left too much of yourself here—and damn it, I didn't even—too much to—'

With zero resistance to my impulses, I crushed my lips against his and almost knocking all the wind from his lungs. It was a moment before he reacted with a sharp inhale, shifting his lips softly with mine in his own synchrony. Gently and every so comfortingly. That was when my misplaced self in the new world, truly felt home. And just like that, it all seemed so simple. Tony let his forehead rest against mine, clasping his hands on either side of my face. 

My heart fluttered arrhythmically when a grin graced his lips, breathing out my name. 'Elle.'

I grinned wider. 'Hi.'

'You're awake,' he said. His smile was full of relief, my hands going flat over his neck and feeling the quick pulse underneath. I laughed at the influence. 

'Already thinking of getting rid of me, Tony?'

He snorted. 'I'd be an idiot if that was true.'

I laughed, challenging him back and allowing my lips to hover over his. 'Who's the charmer, now?'

'Still debatable,' he mused, raising his brows. 'You clearly made the first move.'

'He says as he slides his hand over...' I stopped his palm from progressing further downwards and hitching it back over my waist. I shot him an amused look. 'How sexually deprived are you?'

'Honey, do you really want to go there,' he sniffed in irritation. 'Now? Whilst we're in a place I could truly sexually release myself?'

I shook my head, mildly disgusted. 'Nope.'

'...not even a little? Just a quickie.'

'Cut it out, sex-crazed.'

'So testy,' he said as he made a scissor-snapping motion with his fingers, signalling that he had ceased further conversation. He gave me a stare that lacked mobility, bordering on wonder when a hand palmed my cheek and my immediate instinct was to lean into the warmth. He laughed with disbelief.

'Your hair's gotten longer,' he commented, dragging a finger through it tenderly. With a gasp, I laid a hand over the top of my head and feeling the roughness of unwashed hair. 

'I need to cut it.'

'I like it,' he winked. I found it hard not to lean into his warmth and his fascination heightened when I did. 'You know, I never expected you to—' he shut his eyes while leaving his sentence unfinished, looking away. 'It's so weird.'

'Mum said they pulled the plug,' I whispered. 'Did you think I wouldn't make it?'

'Not once did I think that,' he denied fervently with a grit of his teeth. 'They said it was useless to run you a lifeline. I watched them start to... draw the strings and I booked it. I couldn't—'

'Hey,' I murmured, caressing his jaw softly. 'It's alright. I'm here.'

'Thank you,' he shook his head, 'I don't know why, but thank you for coming back to us.'

I laughed. 'You're welcome.'

'Not gonna lie, I'm blown away,' he shared, his expression mirroring his words. 'Rhodey and I were having a ball. And obviously, I got here first.'

I smiled cheekily, already knowing that he had taken the suit as his transport to get here. Just when I thought I could coo at him for his admirable gesture, I heard the sound of repulsors coming online from the stable a few meters away from the house and horses neighing loudly. I gasped when I saw glowing shadows in the barn, my legs leading me there. A hand latched over my waist and hauled me back effortlessly.

'No, no, Elle,' he pleaded under his breath. 'Don't go. I just got you back.'

'Since when did you embrace kitsch into your vocabulary?' I countered how much ever I swooned on the inside. My face gave everything away when I pouted, something that felt new, leaning forward to press my lips to his cheek. 'I missed you, too.'

'I really thought I could buy you flowers,' he drawled out and he waved his hands to the large patch of sweet-smelling blossoms around us with a knowing smile. 'But, then I realize this.'

'We've got to reconsider our inside-jokes, Tony. They're expensive.'

'For starters, it works every time,' he pointed out in all truth. 'You end up falling for it.'

I laughed. 'That is right! Who knew, huh?'

'I knew,' he quirked a brow. 'Exactly why I did it.'

'All right, mon chéri,' I rolled my eyes. 'Get inside before I bring out my horse.'

He was in awe at the little endearment I had uttered. Like the stars itself had taken residence in his eyes, he let out a breath. 'Oh my god, you have a nickname for me? And, in French!'

'It's called sweet-talking.'

His cheeks bunched under his eyes when he nudged my arm in a mood for mischief. 'I love it when women speak French.'

I blushed despite the irritation. I was not too shabby with the French language but it was artistic to use it. I ticked a reminder in my head, remembering to speak French next time Tony and I had an argument.

'Don't test me, Stark.'

He widened his eyes, tightening his grip over my waist. He shook his head, sceptical. 'Tu es devenu plus chaud, mon cœur—'

'Au-dedans, monsieur.'

'Right,' he grinned. 'To the bedroom?'

I quirked a brow when he formed a pleading expression on his face, folding his hands into his chest. Clasping my hands around his cheeks, I pressed a chaste kiss over his lips which he lengthened out with a soft moan when I tried to pull away.

'Oui,' I nodded against his lips, my voice heavy with need. 'The bedroom.'

∞

[w/n: by the way, the article there is from the comics, NOT MINE. and you know we've almost reached the end when there's a title reference... not entirely true. just to set the tone more formally - one more chapter, yay! you guys have no idea what's in store for your enjoyement...]