Tony Stark (in_extremis) wrote in oh_marvelous, @ 2011-10-31 14:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | z: om1: !complete, z: om1: character: tony stark, z: om1: character: wanda maximoff, z: om1: event: nightmares |
Shrapnel
Characters: Tony, open to all dreamers~
Setting: Tony's fantastic head, dream dimension?
Content: I'm going to go with a blanket trauma warning.
Summary: Tony's nightmares are a familiar place.
Of course it was dark. Tony could hear his breath. Flies buzzing, in short starts and stops. Yellow light from flashlights, upright like torches on tables. No windows, but he didn't have to see outside. The air was humid and thick and smelled like ammonia-- piss, it was dark and the walls were close and there was nothing outside except the burst of gunfire and the rumble that shook the flies from where they landed and vibrated the table underneath him even as the sound passed and faded. He stared at the ceiling. His whole body burned. His skin was flayed by shrapnel.
A lifetime later Tony opened his eyes. His dad was there. Other bodies crowded into the small room, tight. His dad's hand touched to his forehead, and for a second Tony thought it was tender and he would smooth Tony's hair back. His dad looked back once at the crowd behind him. He was holding Tony's head down with one hand, and for a second it was so quiet. The wet, thick, burping squelch around Howard's arm as he pushed his hand into the cavity of Tony's chest was louder than the war outside, and Tony opened his mouth as his dad searched the pit to scream because he couldn't move with Howard's knuckles against his back, inside, but he couldn't make a sound just felt his throat tighten and he choked. It felt like drowning. Another burst outside shook the whole hut. It knocked the dust from the ceiling to scatter across Tony's face. It muddied the blood and the gash of his opened chest. Tony squeezed his eyes shut against the burn of tears. Oozing and gurgling, the incredible pressure of the invasion was gone with a sucking pop, displaced blood that had spread down his belly with every probing shift of Howard's arm settling and cooling and above him Tony could hear his dad say, "Nothing," his head turned away to address his audience again and to laugh sardonically, all of them and the gunfire outside and the bursting shells that would shake the room and make the instruments scattered on the table shudder all silent. Howard was looking at Tony's face when he opened his eyes. The dirt. Tony's tears had cut a clean river through the smut. He started to shake his head, apologizing. Howard wasn't looking. His arm was black to the elbow with gore. He opened his hand, black and empty.
In the empty room, Tony sat up on the table. The flies were buzzing again. They landed on his face, his hands. His arms were black. The cavity in his chest gaped, ribs impacted and pressing against skin ragged around an empty hole that tore larger when Tony jerked to wave away a fly that landed on his stomach and curiously tasted the open sore. That wasn't his blood on his hands. Only some of it was fresh. The hut shook, showering dust, and a new, hot rivulet made its way between his knuckles, red against the black. The war outside was endless.