Sting Characters: Tony and Mystique Setting: Manhattan, early morning after Halloween. Content:Lies. Summary: Raven hasn't exactly been honest with Tony. What do we even do with the truth?
It was still dark in Raven's bedroom. The streetlights cast a piss-yellow glow through the window blinds, stretching long lines of light and shadow across the ceiling to see by in the dark hour before the sun rose. Tony stared blankly at the pattern, trying to quantify the occasional flutter in it from a bird or debris darting in front of the lamp on the street below as something more than random happenstance. The paramedics were untrustworthy, the hospital was unsafe, S.H.I.E.L.D. was a downright threat and even the Night Nurse wasn't allowed to lay eyes on the fucking hole in Raven's chest. It was up to Tony to abandon the Avengers without a word before the crisis had even been contained and fly Raven out of the danger zone himself. How was he even supposed to explain that to them? The communications link with his team and S.H.I.E.L.D. had been cut off so he didn't have to listen to them constantly insisting that he report back, please respond, say something, HE-LLO, Iron Man? His helmet sat on the dresser now, its eyes dead in the dark. Dead, Raven should have been dead by now. It wasn't like Tony was qualified to save someone from a bullet to the heart, but he wasn't touching her, either. Even at his most profoundly self-absorbed, he had never convinced himself that he could perform complex operations on life-threatening field wounds, but Raven didn't seem too daunted by the task.
She wasn't human. That was easy enough to figure out. The problem was, why the charade? Why not let S.H.I.E.L.D. know, and if there was an issue there, why not at least tell Tony? He wasn't some kind of backstabbing gossip, he had never suggested he was some Friends of Humanity hate monger, he funded a whole team of questionable, superpowered individuals who had seen a surprising number of ex-convicts and downright terrorists amongst their ranks. This was bad. This was so bad.