Yall asked for a fanfiction, and I’m in an angst sort of mood so…
Mantis knew pain. She knew all types of pain. She knew the guilty, age-worn pain that plagued Peter from his mother’s death. She knew the angry, brittle pain Drax wore from the slaughter of his family. She knew the twisted, confused pain from Gamora’s hatred of her father. She knew the blinding, rage-fueled pain of Rocket’s own making.
Mantis knew pain too well, for someone who was lucky enough not to experience too much of her own. At least in comparison to others, anyway.
She knew everyone felt pain. It was hard to compare who felt more than others, even impossible in some cases. Pain, pain was different. It was felt in a multitude of ways, impossibly hard to quantify. Everyone experienced pain differently. But they always felt it. Pain was simply a part of life. A twisted part that burrowed it’s way into a soul to take and take.
Mantis grew to expect pain when she touched others. Especially warriors. Fighters, the soldiers on the front line, they felt it worse than others. Mantis knew that was what made a hero. Someone who forged their pain into something else. Something of a battle cry, Mantis supposed.
Tony Stark was a man of troubles. He was a man with skin worn with battle scars, eyes worn with troubles, a past worn with loss. Mantis only knew of him from what others told, but she still knew enough to piece together an awful tragedy. A tragedy of a man whose entire life seemed to be defined by pain. A man who knew pain so well it would be a piece of his very soul.
Mantis didn’t want to touch him. She was afraid. Afraid of feeling so much pain all at once. She didn’t think she’d be able to handle it.
So when Mantis brushed sides with Tony Stark, she doubted herself.
There was nothing. No pain, no anger, no happiness. No emotion at all. Simply nothing.
Mantis was so startled, so doubting of her own ability, she’d grabbed his arm.
There wasn’t even so much of a glint of confusion as he glanced at her.
Tony Stark felt nothing. Had nothing.
Mantis was stunned. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she knew she was stunned. But that didn’t lessen her reaction. Nor her understanding. Realization crashed down on Mantis, nearly suffocating her.
Tony Stark might not have pain. But what he had was so much worse.
“You’re dead.” Mantis had barely been able to force the words out with her heart in her throat. Tony Stark said something, but she didn’t quite hear it over the static building in her ears.
Life had taken and taken from Tony Stark. It had taken until he simply had no more to give. It had taken until his pain didn’t register anymore. And in losing his pain, he lost everything else. Life took his most precious thing.
Tony Stark was his machinery more than he’d ever know. He was a machine, only going through rote motions that his brain told him to. He fought, and he marched on, forcing himself through a life he barely registered anymore. Fueled by and living on logic and nothing more.
He had nothing more to live on.
But all machines broke. Mantis knew that she’d seen it with her own two eyes. Machines broke. They always broke.
And Mantis didn’t want to be there when it happened. She didn’t want to be touching him, didn’t want to even be near him when it happened.
Tony Stark would break. And when he did, he would take the universe with him.
@socialtendancies here you go, come enjoy my pain
