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It's quiet.
One would assume the world nearly at its end would be louder, rueing its sudden death with the cries of a million souls. Yet the wreckage of Star city remained silent. Neither a bang nor a whimper heard across the wasteland where denizens once roamed and pondered and lived. A building groaned, the decayed, crumbling foundation unable to withstand itself, as it sagged against a neighbour and collapsed.
Tony picked through the mess of shrapnel, a careful quiver in his fingers. He's been at it for days.
He doesn't know what he's looking for exactly.
Dark hair and cold yet loving eyes flash through his mind. He moves faster. Truth be told, Tony doesn't know how he's still alive. His old pal Qubit meant to banish him forever, his tiny scattered pieces strewn across the multiverse cutting floor. Somehow Qubit failed, his calculations perhaps incorrect. Tony is long past sweating the tiny details.
Sharp metal edges tear crimson stripes into his knuckles. Tony didn't bother to look as the familiar tingling sensation overtook his skin. A parting gift from his creators. At least these powers were finally good for something other than causing eventual pain and terror to those he loved.
Tony had time to ruminate on his actions through his digging. The desolate remains of his home watched as he tore through its mangled corpse, picking between its ribs for a clue, a guide, a hint- something to point him in the right direction.
Tony's search for him - Modeus - filled him with a desperate fervour. In this new world Tony felt unsure of his place, where he belonged. For so long his heroic spandex, his shield from the world a plea for love and affection, was his guiding star in the heavens. Even if it served a selfish purpose, protecting people became his purpose. His first stable home with that man, Tony's fingers dug deeper at the remembrance- never let him forget it. Perhaps even that love was conditional on his obedience.
Maybe that was why Modeus had the impact an orbital bombardment across the whole of Tony's being. A villain to his hero, a moon to his sun. The bullet to his brain. Always hovering, never touching like two similarly charged magnets. Even a week with no dastardly plans on the horizon filled him with dread.
The undeniable loss of his eternal counterpart worsened this feeling. Modeus not being there with him felt like an itch Tony couldn't scratch. A pull on Tony's mind.
He always stayed, just behind Tony's terror and worry and longing. A foreign yet comforting presence that was maddeningly teasing. He knew the depth of Modeus' obsession, no doubt like the entire former population of Star city did. He knew what Modeus had done for him - broke him from prison to say the least -and what he allowed Tony to do to him. Tony still remembered the first time his fist struck Modeus square in the jaw. Not hard enough to kill, back then Tony wore the Plutonian's skin and he cared for the opinions of those little insects that called themselves people. It changed him.
He recalled how complete he felt, how whole. Like the universe condensed itself into the palm of his hand. He wanted more.
He wanted to do it again.
And again.
And again, until Modeus's unnaturally grinning face shattered on impact like a china doll thrown from a fourth story window.
The Plutonian held off of course, to his chagrin, and as he repressed their growing bond behind photo-worthy grins and clenched fists his desires only grew. But he was a good little hero, and good little heroes don't maim their nemeses beyond human recognition, among other things.
Everything came to a head when the Plutonian crashed a hideout and discovered Modeus' pet project. Six bodies encased in tubes with golden hair and bulging muscles. A madman's depravity on full display with love etched into every follicle on his clone's head. And Modeus himself at the centre of it, curled up with something resembling horror in the curve of his brow.
It should have been disturbing.
He wanted to laugh. Tony grabbed Modeus by the throat instead.
Something uncurled inside Tony, his heart thrumming to the beat of Modeus's quickening pulse. The man in his grasp choked for breath, hands latching onto the ironclad grip, white pupils blown wide like twin black holes absorbing all light. His cheeks flushed from mankind's oldest struggle, never breaking gaze with the Plutonian before him.
Then Tony knew.
His grip slacked.
Modeus stopped struggling and sagged. His hands simply laid atop Tony's. Hero and villain stared at one another for one timeless moment in the void. Those pale eyes entranced him. A well of nothing but love, so deep a man could drown in it, only reflecting Tony and no one else. Nothing mattered, not his stupid suit or those hollow minded government officials, hell not even his girlfriend. Tony was struck by the sudden urge to shift one dark lock behind his ear. In a dreamlike trance, he did.
The hum of a machine returning to life and so did the Plutonian. Reverie broken and heart pounding, he threw Modeus to the floor and took off like a shot. In bed that night he vowed not to think of that moment, a perfect pocket of time, again.
Even as those dark eyes haunted his dreams for days to come.
He acted as if it never even happened, barely spared Modeus an extra thought. He even almost believed it.
Tony didn't realize how much he needed Modeus to function, how he truly relied on his constant presence, until he went to a place far beyond his reach.
See, it was the absence that shook Tony to his core. Without Modeus to prop up his self worth he felt hollow, like a wind-up toy with no key. It was Modeus who filled the emptiness inside, Modeus who he threw his desperate rage at, Modeus who understood him unlike no other living being. And the man accepted this, all of this, with that manic grin Tony missed like a limb. Without his moderating presence, Tony felt carved open, his organs ripped from his chest and left wheezing through a torn windpipe.
A chill ran through his bones when he came to his realization. He ripped at the metal under his fingertips. Modeus became everything, and without everything Tony was nothing.
Tony tore at the scrap until, knuckles bleeding and bone white, he hit solid ground. His shuddering breaths broke the silence.
He knew he approached his goal. So close he could scream.
Finally, after wrangling a wire beam into a pretzel, he found it.
Her
But not really her
Sure it carried the illusion of the woman he once loved and thought he adored. Her skin covered in lacerations and far past blooming bruises.
But Tony knew the truth.
Behind her pale rotting cheek, lay the remaining pieces of his Modeus. He was tempted, oh so tempted, to rip through her face and find the man he so desperately missed. But he knew that wouldn't work.
Bette's perfect eyes lay closed. Good. Tony loathed to recall the lack of milky white behind her lids.
He gently guided her limp body from the rubble and into his arms. Her head lolled against his chest, her arm slid out from his embrace to hang loosely at his side.
If he closed his eyes it would be so easy to pretend this is him, that it was Modeus who dangled in his grasp.
Tony swept upwards into the sky. He used to love the feeling of being in the air when he was young. Open orange skies at the onset of day beckoned to him with open arms, the only ones he knew came with no conditions. It was the only solace he could find even as a young adult.Over time, those blue spaces lost their appeal and became the equivalent of morning traffic the Plutonian traversed for his day job.
Boring and with baggage.
Tony clutched Modeus closer to his chest. His fingers played with the hairs at his nape.
Usually he would reason with himself that this closeness had a purpose, but Tony had no reason to lie to himself any longer. Modeus in his arms was all he wanted since the clone incident.Those eyes caught on his soul and with each passing day, reeled him further into orbit. Every bloody nose and thrown punch a step in their elaborate waltz, only known to the two of them. He destroyed every technological monstrosity thrust at him by his enemy with the tenderness of a lover's kiss. He couldn't help it. Tony was intrigued he wanted to know more. He needed to know more. To push Modeus further than anyone ever had before.
And maybe, if in stolen moments, he dreamed of a different warm body next to his every night bursting with unwavering ardour, then it was a secret the two of them could keep to the grave. But those were the dreams of a younger man.
To Tony's distaste he had reached his destination. As he landed he looked out once again on the spot he had chosen
It was green space with sparse flowering, one of the only left of its kind in the wasteland. Blades of the grass rustled in the breeze. Only the best for his Modeus. He stumbled to the hole he had dug previously, spade still stuck in the upturned earth. He glanced at the chilled body clutched in his arms.
One of her eyes flew opened mid flight. Some part of him Tony had thought long dead had sprung to life with hope. Maybe it was him. Maybe he was back for more time to share with Tony. More hot blood coursing through his veins and on his tongue as they continued their dance.
Yet there was no blue glow to her pupils.
Tony gingerly lowered the body into the grave. He wished he could've gotten a coffin, something, anything. But he knew the longer he waited the worse the body would become. Tony couldn't let his final image of Modeus to be a bloated, half rotten corpse.
He at least thought his greatest enemy deserved a proper burial. Especially after all the man had come to mean to him. The meaning Modeus would never know. Tony wondered if after all their time together Modeus had ever wondered if he reciprocated.
Did Modeus stay up late to ponder these feelings? Did he wait for a confession with bated breath? Tony hoped he didn't. The thought of disappointing another important person in his life felt like a blow to the solar plexus.
With this he began to fill in dirt with the shovel over Modeus' body.
Soon enough the earth covered his beloved nemesis until he faded from sight.