To All Those Brave and Lovely

Tony

She's burning.

It almost hurts to hold her, with how hot her skin has become, and even thought Tony knew this was going to happen, he was not prepared for it, could not understand how her skin was not smoldering, why she was not burning before his very eyes with the amount of heat growing within her.

He knew, even when she began screaming, that this was a good thing. Her pain meant the sensors had come online, all of them kicked into action all at once instead of under her direction, giving her no time to acclimate. He had warned her of the pain, but she would not have imagined it could feel like this.

Even he couldn't imagine the extent of it. He was trying to hold her, but the heat rising up from her was scalding his hands, burning him in a way it was not her. Every inch of her was lit up like the glow of a neon sign, her veins showing up in shadows and her bones lit up inside her like bones. He can see the shape of her ribs shining through her shirt.

"Help me!" He lets her go and switches to pounding on the door instead, hitting it so hard it would bruise his fists. Tony would find out later that he had fractured the bones instead, but at the moment he only cared about getting that door opened, finding someone who would help, because he couldn't. For the first time in his life, he had no idea what to do. "Somebody, please!"

The door is thrown open so hard that it bangs into the wall, putting indents in the plaster. Janus (Tony had found his name out from Nora) was standing there, still looking like he had stepped right out of fashion magazine even though it was two in the morning.

He spots Nora before Tony can think to start explaining, which is good, because Tony didn't have the words for what was happening. All he can do is watch as Janus kneels on the ground beside her, watch as he gathers her in his arms, smooths the hair away from her face and does his best to calm the shaking.

It must be burning him. His clothes are smoldering, smoke rising off of the fabric, but he hangs on, and Nora arches up towards him, towards his touch and his voice, like she knew he would be able to make it better.

"It's alright." Janus just kept murming it to her, like he could make it true if he said it enough. He looks scared, but also calm, and when Nora goes limp in his arms without him even batting an eye, Tony has to wonder how many people he had seen die. "You're going to be alright."

(Not, of course, that Nora is dying. She's going to live, they'd gone over the design enough times for Tony to know that there isn't going to any lasting damage. The pain would even go away once her body adjusts. But there was no way for Janus to know that, so he probably thinks one of his charges is dying, which now that Tony stops to think about it, is probably really bad for him. The only reason no one touched Tony was because Janus wanted to keep Nora happy.)

Janus stood. As he stared down at her, it was the first time that Tony had seen him be completely still. No twisting his ring, no snapping orders. Just calm.

"What did you do?" He says, in a voice so low and controlled that Tony knows that this boy is not new to the game, that he has seen stranger things than a girl bursting into light in the middle of his home. Janus turns to Tony and grabs at the collor of his shirt, tearing the expensive fabric as he shakes him, once, twice, like he thought that would be enough to make him talk. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," Tony said, and knew from the look in Janus eyes that he could tell it was the truth. "This was all her."

We've won, He could have said, and that would have been true, too. Do you see her, do you really know what this means? This means that people are coming for you, all of you, and they're bringing hell with them.