shatterverse | (no subject)

[Pre-shatterverse - warning for spoilers for Iron Man]

It starts in the sky, several hundred feet up. There's a light and a bang, and something appears.

It's metal (though not actually iron), and roughly man-sized (and -shaped), and its colouring is a bright mixture of gold (an alloy, actually) and red (hot rod). It's also falling.

And shouting. "JARVIS–!"

As it tumbles towards the Earth various rockets and stabilizers fire and misfire, with pfft! pfft! sounds like fireworks going off. They do very little – something's been knocked about, jumbled. Internal systems are scrambling to pick up navigational landmarks, satellite signals, air traffic transmissions, anything that would give a clue as to where here is and how far down is down. But there's nothing to pick up. It's like the whole world's gone radio-silent.

Locked in an uncontrolled spin, something within the metal man shouts, "Stabilize, damn it, stabilize!" It throws its arms up to fire palm-mounted boosters: coupled with flaring back-mounted spoilers, these halt the spin, but not the fall. Which means that the metal man now has a really good view of the ground that is rushing up to meet his face.

This is going to hurt.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's not exactly possible to blink confusedly at someone when your face is covered by several layers of advanced technology wrapped in a gold-titanium alloy, but Tony manages somehow.

"What kind of –? It's my name. I'm not a – a superhero." His tone changes. "Unless you want to call me one. I wouldn't complain."

"Then why wear such a suit?" His eyes narrow further. If this were the comics, this would be the panel where you see dotted lines coming from his eyes, and two little circular cutouts where you can see what his x-ray vision is showing him.

"And what's wrong with your heart?"

"Well, so I can beat up bad guys and protect people. Okay, yeah, seeing your point maybe –"

Clark may be about to learn the hard way that Tony doesn't like to wear underwear under his flight suit.

It's a chafing issue.

Until then, Tony is the one who is feeling unsettled. "How did you know about my heart?"

"I can see it. It's connected to a weird little machine-" the few brain cells in Clarks head race to catch up, striking an idea. "Is it a bomb? Are you wired to explode, is that why you're in the suit? Don't worry, I'll cute you out of there, no problem!"

And his eyes begin to glow red.

"What – no! No no no no!"

Tony throws his hands out in defense, simultaneously charging up his palm-mounted thrust jets, just in case.

"It's keeping my heart going! I'll die without it! Seriously, no cutting, no cutting!"

"Oh." Sounding more then a little disapointed, as his eyes fade back to blue. "I thought pacemakers were supposed to be internal?" Medical science, you're doing it wrong.

Similarly, the high-pitched whine from the armour's gauntlets fades as Tony lowers his arms.

"Yeah. Right. Well, it's not exactly a pacemaker, since they're designed to actually, y'know, keep up the pace of your heart, whereas this one just prevents other things from stopping it."

He taps the bright glowing blue circle that is mounted on his chestplate.

"I've got shrapnel in there. If it actually entered my heart I'd die, so this electromagnet is here to hold it back."

Because the science there is much more accurate.

Clark ponders that for a moment, working it out in his head. "Wouldn't an electromagnet pulls out all the shards, leaving no reason for it to stay there?"

Sure, the guy who fires lasers from his eyes has an issue with comic book science.

"Well that would mean pulling them out through layers of skin and organs and stuff that I probably need, so, no." He leans forwards slightly, and adds in a reassuring whisper, "It's very precise."

"Huh." Clark scratches his head a moment. "I, uh, see?" He doesn't, but he'll let it go. "Where were you flying too?"