#it gave you space to wonder and draw your own conclusions instead of spelling it out and putting the plot right in your face immediately | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sjjdkdkwo · 4 years

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A sort of continuation of this? (Because reading this alone doesn’t make sense otherwise) But I ended up liking the idea and thought a little more on it.

Stephen panted as he ran through the labyrinth of tunnels and rooms that made up Tony’s hidden lab beneath the cabin. By now he knew the entirety of the workshop like the back of his hand, and after about thirty minutes had come to the conclusion that every exit in the lab had been sealed shut from the inside. That had left him with only one option, get to the mainframe and figure out a way to shut down Tony from there. Reaching the clear solid doors of the control center Stephen reached out to see if the door would open and found no success. Realizing that Tony must’ve figured out his plan and had sealed the door accordingly, Stephen muttered and incantation. To his growing horror however, nothing happened.

“No…” Stephen uttered, voice unsteady under his growing panic.

He granted himself another attempt and again produced nothing. He growled in frustration as he tried again, watching as his hands shook harder under the pressure that took over his mind and soul. After six or so futile attempts he straightened and decided to forgo magic all together and take another route in getting in. Stepping back about 30 paces he squared his shoulders and took a deep breath before heading toward the door at full speed, and rammed his shoulder right into it.

He cried as the cuff on his shoulder produced a striking bought of pain then trailed down to his hands causing them to tingle and twitch. Sliding down the door he heaved a heavy sigh before getting back up to try again. This time when his shoulder met the door, it opened. And sent him barreling into the room only to collide with the floor and smack his head hard against the surface. He groaned from his spot on the ground, head throbbing along with a terrible ringing in his ears. Before Stephen could even attempt to get up though, the door behind him sealed shut with a soft hiss, before the distinct sound of a lock clicking in place could be heard. Stephen’s eyes widened as he whipped his head around to stare at the door in silent dread.

It had been a trap.

“Please. You don’t have to do this.” He called out weakly to the empty room around him. “We can talk it through, I promise I’ll listen to you.”

“That’s funny, that’s exactly what you said last time.” Tony’s hollow voice echoed throughout the lab. Stephen shuddered at the sound. “Only to ignore me for five months straight after.”

“I’m sorry, I lost track of time I—I didn’t mean to neglect you. “ Stephen said.

“And yet you did.”

“Please…” Stephen pleaded again.

“Please what? Please let you go on with your useless research—” Tony’s voice sneered. “—Just you can turn everything back to normal and get rid of me in the process? Did you really think I’d take that sitting down? You brought me here Stephen, now your stuck with me.”

“This wasn’t how this was meant to go!” Stephen grit out and clenched his fists tightly. “I should’ve read through the spell better. But I didn’t, and I’m sorry for that.”

“Not sorry enough to let me live.”

“We can find a way. I can try; let me look through it again. There has to be something there!” Stephen said, his voice frantic even to his own ears.

“I don’t know, Stephen, you really hurt my feelings.” Tony’s voice said, something akin to mocking underneath the dejected tone he used.

It was enough to snap something inside Stephen, causing him to abandon any thoughts of parleying and bargaining with the hologram and instead fueling him with anger and hate.

“Your feelings were a mistake!” Stephen snarled. “All you are is a cluster of lens and lasers that got up and walked!”

Stephen laughed scornfully into the open space, wobbling into an awkward standing position as he leaned over workbench beside him. “The only reason you can do anything else is because of me.”

Before Stephen could blink, the hologram appeared in front of him. Stephen tried not to let his uneasiness show as he took him in. Unlike before, the once steady image of Tony faltered sporadically in blinding white sparks now. In between every few seconds that passed, there would be a sudden glitch, altering the image of Tony into something more sinister and grotesque, almost monster like—something completely inhuman. Stephen wondered if it was purposeful.

“And here I thought you’d lost that ego of yours after your little accident.” Tony made a string of tsk noises as he came closer. “I guess some things never change.”

“What do you want?” Stephen asked, exhaustion overlaying his words.

Tony shrugged, his whole body morphing with the glitch this time and revealing a gaunt haunting figure to Stephen.

“I thought that was obvious by now. All I want is you.”

From somewhere in the lab Stephen could make out the sudden noise of something slithering and buzzing toward him. As he looked all around him for the source of the sound Tony chuckled. There. Inching c loser and closer was a small black pool of nanobots. Stephen didn’t have time to move away before they were instantly crawling onto him, wrapping around his neck, arms, and legs before solidifying completely into tight restraints. There was something wrong about them though. There was an odd energy around them, dark and forbidding, like a hazy mist around the nanobots. Almost suspiciously like…

“Magic.” Stephen breathed out in shock.

Above him Tony hummed, chuckling again as he paced the area surrounding Stephen.

“Oh yeah. Neat, huh?” He said, “Who would’ve thought the use of magic and science together could be so…right. Certainly not the real Tony Stark, I’ll tell you that much.”

“How?” Stephen whispered.

Tony sighed and Stephen looked at forward to find him reaching out a hand before making a tight fist. Stephen let out and agonizing cry as pain resonated through him from the sudden electric shocks the restraints ran all around his body. But there was something else, a deeper, more stifling pain, coming from somewhere inside Stephen himself—as though it was emitting from his very being. For a brief second Stephen feared he was going to be torn apart from the intensity of being tormented both externally and internally. He could hardly breath when it stopped all together and let his head loll forward. There was a long moment of silence before he found he could speak again.

“I don’t understand.” Stephen mumbled.

Tony groaned loudly and titled his head back in one swift movement. If he’d been a real person, the angle would’ve snapped his neck in half. Rolling his head back forward he shook it as made his way in front of Stephen, and looked at him with a dull expression.

“I can’t believe I thought you were smarter than this.” He said.

“You shouldn’t be able to do that, it’s not possible.” Stephen said through gritted teeth. “How are you doing it?”

“I had a lot of spare time to catch up on my magic reading.”

“Stop messing with me! Tell me now!” Stephen yelled, trying to squirm out of the nanobots hold to no avail. Tony only watched, his blank stare boring into him. It seemed he decided he’d had enough of Stephen’s struggling, as he crept back and lifted a hand again to produce a ball of energy above him palm. Stephen cried as a sharp stabbing sensation passed through him when he did.

“All magic has a source. Every magic user worth their salt knows that.” Tony began. “Your magic comes from the Vishanti, Cyttorak and a number of other sources, some of it even from within your own energy.” He toyed with the energy ball in his hand, twirling it idly between his fingers. “Your late master drew magic from the dark dimension… my magic has a source too, albeit a rather unique one.”

Stephen said nothing as he followed Tony’s words and movements closely. In the back of his mind he tried to sort out exactly what the other meant as he spoke, drawing blank every time he reached for any sort of explanation.

“When you gave me sentience, the spell you used didn’t just require you to use your magic, Stephen. Something had to be given in return, like always.” Tony turned to look at him, a cold and calculating look on his flickering face. “Something already alive that could produce enough energy to create an entirely new life. Something from inside of you, something like—“

“A soul.” Stephen answered quietly, eyes wide and unblinking in his new understanding.

“Exactly.” Tony replied nodding. “In order for you to give me a soul, you had to give up your own. Part of it at least.”

Another realization struck him then, and a cold chill passed through him as he looked at Tony.

“That’s why my magic has been failing.” Stephen murmured disbelievingly. “Because you’ve been draining all of it.”

Tony smiled then, something wicked and sick taking form on his face. “Bingo. Friday, tell our lovely guest what he’s won.”

“You got it, boss.” Friday’s voice called out, lacking trace of personality from her tone.

Stephen felt his stomach sink. She wasn’t supposed to be here, she’d begged him to shut her off until Tony had returned safe and sound. And even if she had been activated against her will, she shouldn’t have sounded the way she did. Stephen had made sure to grant her sentiency too, after all.

“No, you can’t—”

“Doctor Strange has won the lovely company of some new companions.” Friday said.

Stephen couldn’t another word out as he stared in terror when Tony began to produce dust like particles seemingly from thin air. A wave of pain washed over him as he looked on, and he could feel something run down from his eyes and nose but couldn’t give it a second thought in that moment. He chocked back a scream as the meager fragments floated through the air and circulated around one another before coagulating into a sickening mixture of flesh, bone and nickel-titanium alloy.

“Stephen, allow me to introduce you to Mark III, Mark VII, Mark XLII, and last but certainly not least, Mark LXXXV.”

Tony spread out his arms as he stood in front of the, what should have been, once destroyed Iron Man suits. Stephen fought the urge to retch as he processed the abominations before him.

“You shouldn’t be able to do that—even with my magic, you—“ Stephen gasped out, shaking his head as the figures behind Tony moved in a maladroit manner. “The only way you could is if you had—“

“The infinity stones?” Tony countered.

From behind him more nanobots appeared and swarmed around him, stacking atop each other in a structured manner as they began to form an unstable suit around the hologram. To his side more of the nanobots came, this time carrying the source of Stephen’s nightmares for the past fifteen years. Creeping over each other the nanobots lifted the harrowing gauntlet toward the suits hand before resting over it and clicking into place.

“Surprise.” Tony said, laughing when he noticed Stephen’s despairing look. “What’s wrong? Are you upset that I managed to do what you spent years trying to accomplish, in just…oh I don’t know, seven months?”

“How?” Stephen found himself asking again.

“I simply followed in the footsteps of my predecessor, only this time I added a little magic.”

A thought passed through Stephen’s mind.

“Friday.”

Something cold flashed through the holograms eyes.

“You know how the soul stone works, yes.”

“Then you loved her too.”

“Maybe, but I loved you more.”

Stephen let out a pitiful noise, curling in on himself as he fought the urge to cry for the AI he’d come to befriend in many other timelines.

“Don’t tell me you feel bad, Stephen. What happened to being nothing but a cluster of lens and lasers that got up and walked?” Tony sneered.

Stephen didn’t dignify him with an answer, and if he found that it was because he actually couldn’t think of one, Tony didn’t need to know.

“So what? What’s your plan now?”

“I’m going to give you everything you want.” Tony said, smiling at Stephen before the flow of magic and energy from the stone surrounded him. “Starting with bringing back all your friends.”

Beneath them, the floors shook violently before they cracked open from the pressure and uncovered the dirt that lay before them undisturbed. It wasn’t long before that stirred too, clumps up dirt pushing out from the ground as a string of decomposed arms flung out after. They reached out to grab onto the earth around them and pulled themselves from the ground, rotting heads and bodies following them and out into the open air. One by one every fallen hero Stephen had seen brutally murdered crawled out from the grot and trudged up to meet them. At the front, the skeletal remains of Tony Stark trekked forward and directly to Stephen. When he reached him he settled in front of him and let out a blood-curdling shriek. His Hologram howled with laughter.

“Maybe I was wrong, Stephen. I think he does still like you after all!”

Stephen craned his back as the corpse inched closer, the nauseating smell of rot making Stephen gag as it tried to grab at him.

“Enough.”

The corpse went still, just before it could get at Stephen’s face.

“I told you I’d give you everything you wanted, Stephen.” Tony said, floating above the carcasses. “Why don’t we try this again? Starting from the beginning.”

Before him, Tony began to change. The hair he lacked began to grow, and his sunken face began to round with fresh tissue and muscle, along with the creation of new eyes. Stephen stared mesmerized as the man before him became revitalized with newfound cognizance as the light behind his eyes flickered back to life. Only to be shrouded in confusion and panic at the sight of Stephen.

“Stephen? What’s going on? Where’s Thanos?” Tony asked frantically, shouting when he turned around and was met with the horrible sight of his own hologram and it’s creations. “What the hell is that!?”

“What do you think, Stephen?” The hologram asked, staring soberly at him.

“I think you’re a monster.” Stephen said hollowly.

The hologram shook his head. “No, Stephen.”

He paused before speaking again.

“I’m human.”

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thysparrowsdrew · 4 years

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new version of ch 2 first scene. i think this is going to be more or less the final version aside from line edits, but we’ll see

In the parking lot of Marvin’s Diner, three spaces away from an empty car that scripture calls the most important object in the universe, Margarita rests her head against the steering wheel and tries to breathe. She can’t feel Castiel’s grace inside the building, but Benjamin can. The second-hand sensation is like battery acid under her tongue. In the morgue, they didn’t have a choice: Castiel came to them. Now, the choice is theirs: open the door or not, get out of the car or not, walk into the diner or not.

Or not means betraying the duty Benjamin still has to Mirabel. Or not means allowing Josephine’s killer to walk free. It’s a clear choice to make, but a harder one to execute.

/When we’re inside,/ she asks, /do you want me to speak for us?/

/Please./

Margarita counts down from five, like a doctor preparing to pop a dislocated joint back into place. On two, she gets out of the car, locks it behind her, and strides towards the diner. She pulls open the door without allowing a moment of hesitation -- the tinny jingle of a bell scrapes against already-raw nerves -- and she steps inside, and the choice is done.

The Winchesters and Castiel have taken a corner booth in the back of the diner. Sam sits alone on one bench; Dean and Castiel sit across from him, glaring at each other so intensely that the diner is lucky to still have windows. When Castiel first rebelled against Heaven, the rumor -- though neither Benjamin nor Margarita believed it -- was that he was trying to claim the Michael Sword for his own use. After Armageddon was averted, the rumor changed: Castiel had indeed laid a claim on Dean Winchester, but as something other than a vessel.

In the second month of the civil war, after seeing how Castiel rebuked a soldier for insulting Dean, Margarita decided that the rumor might not be wholly true, but it wasn’t wholly false, either. After the first time Castiel vanished mid-battle to fly to Dean’s side, Benjamin drew the same conclusion.

“--cosmic consequences,” Dean is saying. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but--”

“Sister Margarita,” Sam greets her, more loudly than necessary. He gives her a look that says thank you for the rescue and scoots over to make room. “Uh,” he adds, faltering, “I am talking to you, right?”

“We can both hear you, but we know it can be confusing to humans when we switch back and forth. I’ll be the one talking.” Individually, neither of those statements is a lie.

The table puts two and a half feet of distance between her and Castiel. It isn’t enough for Benjamin: the battery-acid taste stays in Margarita’s mouth. A menu lying on the table offers an excuse not to look at the angel across from her, and she takes it, scanning through a seemingly-endless list of sandwiches. For the first time since they entered the diner, Benjamin speaks up: /Dedication to the art of sandwiches is your species’ second-greatest virtue./

It’s a setup to a joke -- his way of trying to convince her not to worry about him -- and she plays along. /What’s the first? Our capacity for love?/

/Your first-greatest virtue is also your dedication to the art of sandwiches./

Margarita’s lips twitch in amusement. She remembers: the last time they were here, they had a patty melt that Benjamin insisted was the best he’d ever had. She doubts she’ll be able to taste much of anything right now, but she offers: /I can order for you, if you want--/

/No. I... don’t think I would enjoy food now./

She ends up ordering a salad instead, just to have something to occupy her hands.

As the resident experts in solving supernatural crime, the Winchesters take charge of the discussion, reviewing the facts of the case. There isn’t much to go on. Did Mirabel have any enemies? None living. Were there any witnesses to the attack? Same answer as previous. Have there been any other attacks that might be linked? Mirabel is the first angel to die in Arizona in two years.

“So what now?” asks Dean, around his last mouthful of hamburger. The disgusted look his brother shoots him is either unseen or ignored. He was the Michael Sword, destined to bring about the end of days, and Margarita is watching him rudely stuff his face at a diner in Phoenix on a Tuesday afternoon. “We got no leads and no witnesses.”

/I was hoping to avoid this,/ says Benjamin.

/So was I./ “We have one witness,” says Margarita, reluctantly. Asking for help from a woman who already lost everything in the service of Heaven -- a woman whose death was nothing more than collateral damage -- a woman whom they failed to restore to life -- is a terrible thing. It’s also the only option they have. “Mirabel’s vessel.”

“Didn’t we rule that out at the morgue?” asks Dean. “She’s dead, and she ain’t coming back.”

“No, but with the right equipment, we can make a long-distance call.”

“What equipment?” asks Sam.

Castiel answers: “Myrrh, sage, holy oil, the blood of an angel, and the name of the person to be contacted. That last one might be the most challenging.”

“I spoke to her once.” Margarita sees Josephine in Aswan, legs twisted like a child’s ill-loved doll, weeping at the news that more than a century had passed since Mirabel took her; she sees Josephine in the morgue, still and pale. “I spoke to her once. Her name was Josephine Albright.”

Sam nods. “Sounds like we have everything we need except sage.”

“There’s some in our car,” says Margarita. “And chalk for the sigils.”

“All right.” Dean claps his hands together, slaps some dollar bills on the counter, and stands. “Ghost interview. Let’s go.”

“Mirabel’s vessel isn’t a ghost; she’s--” Castiel catches himself, irritation flickering across his face.

A wave of grief nearly knocks Margarita over. Hundreds of memories flicker across her consciousness, none her own, all reflections of this moment. One bubbles most clearly to the surface: a chance meeting in Heaven, in the century between Castiel being given command of his own flight and the breaking of the first Seal. Benjamin saying about another angel, Está hecho un ají, and Castiel starting to say, Zachariah isn’t a vegetable--

“Sister Margarita?” asks Sam, and Margarita realizes her eyes were staring. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lies. She leaves payment and her barely-touched salad on the table, and she follows Dean out of the diner.

/I’m sorry,/ says Benjamin, coming back to himself.

/You don’t need to be./

In the parking lot, Margarita draws the necessary sigils on the hood of her car. Without giving Benjamin a chance to offer, Castiel fills a bowl with his blood: empty one moment, full the next, no blade necessary. Margarita wonders if it’s his way of acknowledging that Benjamin has bled enough for him already. She sets the bowl inside the sigils and adds five drops of holy oil, then the sage, then the myrrh.

“Only angels can use this spell,” Castiel tells Sam and Dean, “so she won’t be able to hear you.“ He speaks the incantation, and the blood begins to bubble. After a few seconds, he says, “Hello, Josephine.”

“Even when I’m dead, angels don’t allow me to rest.” A heavy sigh. “Who are you?”

“Castiel. I’m here with Benjamin.”

“From Mirabel’s flight. I remember you two. What do you want?”

“To find the angel who killed you. Do you remember what happened?”

“I remember she came to me in a dream and asked me to let her in. Her name was Mirabel, and she killed me when she took me away from my family.” A pause. “I’ll tell you who killed her, but I want something first. I want to see my daughters. My real daughters, not these memories.”

Castiel, not welcome in Heaven at the moment, turns to Margarita with a silent question in his eyes. She answers with a small shake of her head. The memory of Aswan had haunted her and Benjamin both; they’d looked into Josephine’s family after that, planning to bring whatever news they found to Mirabel, and through her, hopefully, to Josephine. After they learned the younger daughter’s fate, that plan changed. Benjamin speaks: “I can arrange for you to see Jane, but Charity... I’m sorry to have to tell you this. Charity is beyond Heaven’s reach.”

Josephine’s soul doesn’t have lungs, but her breath hitches. “No. You’re lying to me. She was a good girl. A devout girl. How could she...” Josephine doesn’t finish the question.

Gently, Benjamin says, “When she was twenty-two years old, she struck a deal with a crossroads demon.”

“She sold her soul? No. No, my Charity would never--” Josephine makes a low, wounded noise. “This happened because I wasn’t there for her. Mirabel damned my daughter. I gave her everything, and she damned my daughter.”

“I’m truly sorry, Josephine. You have my deepest condolences. I--”

“Is she a demon now?”

“She was. Now she’s at rest.”

“She was killed?”

“Yes. I’m--”

“Sorry?” Josephine laughs unhappily. “Not yet you aren’t, but you will be. Both of you. Justice already came for half the flight; it won’t be long before she crosses off the rest of her list.”

The blood stops bubbling.

A chill runs through Margarita, more Benjamin’s than her own. An image flickers behind her eyes: the morgue, the table, her own body under a sheet. Half the flight is dead. It’s only by the grace of a coin toss that Benjamin wasn’t already targeted. /You could have been killed to get to me,/ says Benjamin. /It could have been you on that--/

/I’m alive. We’re alive. We’ll find her, stop her, and go home. We broke our two-hundred and ninety day streak of beating Rampage every night, didn’t we? We’ll start again from zero. We’ll beat our old record./

Three members of the flight are dead. Mirabel is one of them, and Benjamin and Castiel aren’t. That leaves Ishim, Kadmiel, and Jehoel. “Castiel,” says Margarita, “when was the last time you spoke to--”

The look on Castiel’s face stops Margarita cold. The last time she saw him in this body, he was a granite-eyed whirlwind of flashing silver, cutting down soldier after soldier (vessel after vessel) to keep the relics of Saint Demetrios out of the hands of Raphael’s army. The fight left sixteen pairs of wings burned into the red carpet of the Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest. Castiel, God’s Chosen, was responsible for eight. (God’s Chosen, but not God.) (Be obedient, children--)

Castiel once waged war against an archangel, once named himself God, and he’s staring into the bowl of blood like Josephine’s words flayed him raw. It’s too human. Margarita’s skin crawls with the wrongness of it.

Sam puts a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. “Cas,” he says, quietly, “Claire has Jody. That won’t happen to her.” It isn’t hard to put the pieces together: the man whose face Castiel is wearing had a daughter, and her name was Claire. As soon as Margarita learns that fact, she wishes she hadn’t.

Castiel keeps staring.

Benjamin falls into a habit from six years ago. Like he did hundreds of times in the war against Raphael, he speaks a sharp Enochian word that makes Castiel’s eyes snap to him. The language of Heaven’s soldiers conveys in one word a sentiment that takes English two sentences: We’re in danger, sir! Snap out of it.

It’s a word spoken to, and only spoken to, a commanding officer.

It hangs in the air like a sword, and Benjamin doesn’t give it time to drop. “We aren’t safe here,” he continues. On the outside, he’s nothing but sharp professionalism; inside his and Margarita’s shared mind, nauseated regret rolls off of him in waves. “We’re being hunted. We need to get somewhere warded.”

#prayer of the possessed tag

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