Hearing.

[quigonejinn]

One day, Tony has a visitor. A man in a blue suit. He stops in the middle of a word when he catches sight of you, wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, and then, he whips around and stares at Tony, whose face has gone stiff. Tony did not like the idea of the man coming in the first place, and now, he grips his friend by the shoulder, and they go into another room to argue.

" -- tell Fury, see if I don't."

" -- ahead. Have fun with that."

You could hear more of their conversation, you suspect, if you asked Jarvis to relay it to you, but you decide against it. In fact, it is such a long time before either comes back out that you fall asleep on the couch.

...

There seem to be only three actual persons in the world, though: you and Tony, of course. Jarvis seems human, though without a body, but it has been explained to you that he is only lines of writing inside a box. Like the robots in the shop that help Tony, he seems alive, but is not. Also, there are the anchors on CNN, but they do not feel real even as much as Jarvis or the robots do.

So yes, the third person in your world is Pepper.

...

After a while, the friend comes out of the room, and he sits down next to you. He has a curious hat in his hands, and he turns it around and around while. You study the way it looks in his hands, trying to recall where you've seen it before. Surely, you have. It looks so familiar. Even the shade of blue seems familiar. It ought to be right on the tip of your tongue.

"How're you doing?" he says.

You stop frowning long enough to give him the wide, content smile that satisfies Tony, but it doesn't satisfy this man.

"I'm Rhodey," he adds, and holds his hand out. You look at his hand, then back up at his face. What does he want you to do with it?

Tony comes and stands behind the couch. His voice is tight and strange-sounding, and you can see his hands curled up over the edges of the couch. "I didn't want you to come in the first place, Rhodey, so you should go now. While we're still friends."

Rhodey looks up at Tony then, with a look you've never quite seen on anybody before -- he almost seems sad, in fact -- and Tony smiles in a way that you've never seen before, either.

...

So yes, Pepper. You and Tony watch a movie one night, and the story is something about a girl in the city, who has a very complicated life. It is hard to follow the story, and it is, curiously enough, all in black and grey. You lie down on the couch and put your head on Tony's knee; he has a glass of whiskey in which he lets the ice cubes melt, and he works on something out of one of his electronic books from which he can draw out figures in three dimensions.

Halfway through the movie, you become aware that he is holding the notebook, but is mostly looking at you.

His hand rests on the side of your face, and out of curiosity, more than anything else, you press your lips against his fingers.

Tony goes absolutely still, and to see if you can get that response again, you kiss him again, a little higher, on the inside of the wrist. And then higher after that, to the crook of his elbow. Through his shirt, you touch your mouth to the edges of the arc reactor. Then to his neck. Then to the side of of his face. You take the notebook out of his hand, set it to the side, and climb into his lap and put your mouth against his mouth, and at that point, it abruptly stops being about seeing how he will react and more for the pleasure of having his mouth on yours because you have never imagined that Tony's mouth could have a taste to it, like something that could be drunk.

"Here," you say and turn your head so that his mouth brushes against your neck, and then you slide your hands underneath his shirt.

By that point, he's panting, and so are you. The only thing part of him really moving, though, are his eyes, wide and dark. They look from one side of your face to the other, not quite sure what to make of this, so you take his hand behind your head, then lean in and put your mouth on his: even that isn't quite right, though. It's nice, but somehow, not quite what you want.

You have, in fact, no idea what you want until he slides his hand underneath your dress, between your legs and underneath the fabric. His mouth is half-open, and he watches your face as he runs one finger along your body there.

...

"Did you do that with her?"

So yes, Pepper. Tony is pleased when you act like her, but he gives you so little information about her that it is hard to please. He likes it when you organize things and make them tidy. He takes a strange pleasure in having you tell him what to do so that he can ignore it or, on those occasions when he does what you suggest, act very pleased with himself.

The morning after the movie, though, Tony is strange, and you do not know what to make of his behavior. He seems to be taking efforts to keep from touching you. Over and over, he asks you what you would like to do today, whether you would like something else for breakfast, and while he is taking a blood sample from your arm to put into the machine for analysis and his records, you say, "Did you do that with her?"

He turns his head and looks at you. It is another expression that you don't have a name for, and a great deal of time passes before Tony says, "Not exactly."

...

You barely remember the beginning. There must have been a laboratory, you suppose, or something like that. Your first real memory is of being in a car next to Tony. The car is now in the garage, and the countryside that you passed through with Tony was somewhere else. He has other houses, you know. One in the mountains. Two by the sea. This one has neither mountains nor a sea, but it has you.

...

Rhodey somehow gets a message to you through Jarvis. You're not quite sure whether Tony knows about it, but if he does, he doesn't say anything about it, at least not before you go meet Rhodey -- Rhodey says that if you come down to the edge of the property the day after tomorrow, the two of you can talk. Tony doesn't say anything about it, and you don't give him an explanation for why you leave the house alone.

"You're -- "

"I know," you say and lean back in the seat of the car. It's soft, but rough at the same time, and it feels utterly different than the seats that Tony has in his cars. "He told me. He showed me some of her hair."

Rhodey stares at you.

"I want you to tell me about Pepper," you say. "How did she die?"

....

After you get out of Rhodey's car, you walk back to the house with shoes off because you want to feel the ground underneath your feet, and you find that Tony is sitting on the steps that lead from the driveway. He looks a little pale, and there's a pair of binoculars next to him. You move them aside, then sit down and lean your head against his shoulder.

Slowly, as if not quite awake, he reaches up and puts his arm around your shoulders.

....

Tony is the beginning and end of things for you. Walking down to the edge of the property to meet Rhody and walking back tires you for an entire day, and generally, you find that you sleep more and more. More and more, you wake only when Tony comes into the room and touches your cheek or your shoulder to wake you.

...

"What was Afghanistan like?"

It is during the period when he almost seems afraid to touch you, so he is sitting at the very far end of the couch and is pretending to ignore you, but he knows that you have nothing else to do but talk to him or watch television or a movie, so he looks up and answers your question.

"Cold. I lived in a cave for three months. And made this and the first version of the suit in the shop." He taps his chest, where you can just see the arc reactor glowing through his shirt, and he's quiet for a moment. "I had a friend there who saved my life twice."

"Rhodey?" you say.

Tony's face tightens, and you can see that he does not want to talk about it anymore. Later that day, though, he does let you help him in the shop.

...

One night, you are with Tony again on the couch. CNN is on, and you're watching something about a country very, very far away. As far as you know, Tony is watching you, not the television; you have your head in his lap, and every once in a while, he touches on the arm or the shoulder, and you wonder about the chances of getting him to touch you between the legs again.

Eventually, you turn over to kiss his hand because that seems to be the way that these things start, and you find that he is already looking down at you.

Slowly and very deliberately, you kiss the knuckles of his hand -- they're curiously scarred, and there's a hard place on his palm, probably right where it fits under the light on the suit -- and he closes his eyes, then slides down on the couch. He puts his arm under your hips, so that you are lying on it, and some instinct makes you put your legs over his shoulders.

You're wearing a long dress that day, and Tony pushes it past your knees with his mouth. His beard tickles on your skin, and you look down at him. He looks back at you.

A moment passes, and it's strange. You can tell the shape of the beard from the way it feels against your skin, and with two fingers and a little cooperation from you, he works your underwear off. You settle your leg back on his shoulder, and you're about to ask him to touch you with his fingers like he did before when he leans his head down and breathes directly onto your skin.

Fingers don't come until later, when you've got your hand in his hair and you can't stop saying his name.

...

"Car crash," Rhodey had said that day in the car. "That's how Pepper died. I didn't even know they were -- they were -- "

One day, Tony has to leave. You go down to the shop and watch Jarvis help him into the suit, and when he's left, you go back upstairs and watch Tony on CNN. You're too tired to understand what, exactly is going on, and when you wake, Tony has come back. He's taken a shower, but you can still smell smoke and something else on him. It seems baked into his hands and skin.

He climbs onto the couch behind you and puts his arms around you; his hair is still wet from the shower.

It's the first night the two of you sleep together.

...

The bruises from the shots and blood sampling from the before haven't faded, and this makes Tony frown. You are tired all the time now, and you have to lean your face against the wall while he takes today's blood sample. Half the volume of the usual, he says, and kisses you on the cheek. He seems more comfortable with doing that now.

"When I'm gone, will you make another one?"

"There's not going to be another one," he says. "You're going to live forever.

The wall is cool underneath your cheek. "What if I don't live forever?"

He says, quietly, "There still won't be another one."

...

Rhodey had said that Pepper was funny, so you have Jarvis find an assortment of jokes. You'd like to learn one and be able to repeat it to him -- it is hard to keep anything in your mind for very long, and you try to keep it straight. A door, an aardvark. A million miles.

That afternoon, you lose consciousness while trying to walk from the kitchen to the terrace.

...

As you deteriorate, you become too weak to walk, and you have difficulty staying awake for any length of time. Tony knows that you like hearing his voice, though, so he spends hours telling you things. He talks about his company and about SHIELD. He talks about Rhodey, how they met and how much they used to work together, and he even starts telling you a little about his parents -- Tony doesn't like talking about them, but he tells you about the day his his father took him sailing on Long Island Sound and they talked about the next generation of capacitors.

It's a happy memory for him, and after Tony is done telling you about it, you ask for water.

He goes and gets you one, and when he comes back with water for you and whiskey for him, you've opened up one of the hidden workspaces he keeps on Jarvis. The sheet is in your lap, and a three-dimensional model rises above it. A pair of spiral ladders, spinning very, very slowly, and you look at him, then a the model, then back again.

"This is the one, isn't it? The one after me."

Incision points are marked with arrows, and you watch the structure turn and turn. In fact, for the first time in your two month life, your eyes aren't fixed on Tony as he walks across the room. You keep your eyes on the ladders, the red and green and blue and yellow, even as he comes and sits and puts his face in your hair and doesn't say anything for a long, long time.

...

Tony had meant it, you think, when he said that there wouldn't be another one.

...

As you deteriorate, you become too weak to walk. Tony tries to save you, goes to great lengths to do it, in fact, but you have difficulty staying awake for any length of time. Your appetite, which had never been great, disappears. You remember the days when you grew so rapidly that you would wear a too-large shirt in the morning and have your wrists sticking out of it by afternoon, and to keep you at a healthy weight during it, Tony would bribe your week-old self with promises of ice cream. You didn't know what ice cream was, but you ate to please him, and you ate the ice cream, too, because you had the vague thought that the first Pepper had liked ice cream.

Would the first Pepper have been angry that he made clones to replace her?

Near the end, you cannot see anymore -- something about the muscles that work your eyelids, and you cannot speak well, either, so Tony stays by you constantly, holding your hand, talking to you. You sleep with your head on his chest, and the sound of the arc reactor fills your last hours. The newest version is almost silent, but hums just loud enough to cover his heartbeat: you live the span of your days with Tony Stark.

You die without ever hearing another person's heartbeat.

...

Some years later, Tony and Brigadier General Jim Rhodes are together. There's a grip-and-greet photo op to announce a new aspect of the cooperation between SHIELD and various government organizations, and Tony's hand feels clammy in Jim's. Tony doesn't look good, either, and this is the first time in years they've actually stood next to each other. It blows by. The speed, the flash of photographer's bulbs, and Rhodey swears that out of the corner of his eye, he sees a red-haired woman in black, waiting for Tony.





So yeah, I don't think it has the same HOLY SHIT SO THAT'S WHAT HE'S DOING element, but I'm happier with how this talks more directly about the clone and is less explicit about Tony's manpain. And works in the job of Iron Man better.

Written while listening to the Peaches remix of The Bird & the Bee "Fucking Boyfriend." I mean, this is the cover that goes with it on Amazon. In my head, this is the knock-knock joke clone-Pepper learns:

Who's there?
Aardvark.
Aardvark who?
Aardvark a million miles for one of your smiles.

Comments

[dafnap.livejournal.com]

Oh my god.

Jesus.

I'm...I'm all teary? At work? Like, wow. Seriously, I know you mentioned in an earlier post that you were afraid of it veering into original fic mode, but god, this reminds me of the stories I used to read in Asimov's, the good kind that deal with science fiction on a human level rather than a "gee whiz things FLY" one, and this is it. This is painfully, undeniably human. Tony, who can learn and become an expert on pretty much anything he puts his mind to, utterly fails at grief, and watching him struggle through the eyes of said failure really fricking kicks you in the gut.

Speaking of "you," god does the second-person narrative work so well here.

You stop frowning long enough to give him the wide, content smile that satisfies Tony, but it doesn't satisfy this man.

There's something so heartbreaking about that, about how she catalogues the world and the people in it only in terms of what pleases/doesn't please Tony.

--shit, staff meeting. I'll be back with epic "HEY WOW, YOU'RE KIND OF GOOD AT THIS WRITING THING" squee later, because oh, my gut is just in knots over this.

[dafnap.livejournal.com]

Okay back, and UM. TONY. AND RHODEY. RHODEY LETTING HIM DO THIS. Trying to show this new Pepper that there is a world out there, that this isn't it, but they only ever reach the edge of the property, with Tony always watching and oh, how Rhodey never really forgives him, and Tony never really forgives himself for what happened to Pepper even though it was never really his fault in the first place. I love (and by "love" I mean I'm utterly heartbroken, but, you know) that the original Pepper's death was never tied to him, never tied to Iron Man, but because he cared about her, because he acknowledged it, he thinks it's his fault anyway, because when Tony loves something, it always ends up getting destroyed, like his parents, like Obie, like Pepper. He almost wants it to be his fault, so he can pretend like he had some sort of control in the first place, rather than ever acknowledge that there are some things he'll never know (like death, like grief).

Meta about Tony aside (because this fic makes me want to do that till the cows come home, but, wow, we've done that enough for a few days, haven't we?) this was gorgeous and a little wrong at the same time, like:

His hand rests on the side of your face, and out of curiosity, more than anything else, you press your lips against his fingers.

That makes me shiver. It's like Lolita and A.I. all rolled into one, disturbing package. Because he's her parent, but his love is far from platonic, no matter how much he wants it to be and oh is it terrifying to think of the rest of the world, of Rhodey, of Fury, letting him do this, letting him keep falling, because he's easier to control when he's trying to save one person, than when he's trying to save the world, and that is terrifying.

Gah. Is this finished? Can I rec this?

[gabby-silang.livejournal.com]

Who's there?
Aardvark.
Aardvark who?
Aardvark a million miles for one of your smiles.

I WASN'T CRYING UNTIL YOU SAID THAT YOU HOR.

Dafna(p) is totally on with the Asimov, and I would raise her a Bradbury. The quiet of it, it's like this long sigh, her last little sigh, all wrapped up here oh god you've made me an awful cheeseball and I am hopelessly in love with your clones. What the hell.

He looks a little pale, and there's a pair of binoculars next to him. You move them aside, then sit down and lean your head against his shoulder.

Slowly, as if not quite awake, he reaches up and puts his arm around your shoulders.

Just beautiful. I love that the whole thing is contained in her whole little world, and framed in her awareness that there are only three real people for her, because among those people, since one of them is dead and cannot lodge an objection, this is actually okay. Hard and slow and sort of sickly and but it's home, in a strange way, its a fortress where their alien world can survive for a little while at a time.

And her, and HER.

NOW I WANT TO WRITE STORIES ABOUT YOUR CLONES. WHAT THE HELL FANDOM WITHIN FANDOM.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

I WASN'T CRYING UNTIL YOU SAID THAT YOU HOR.

AHAHAH. I AM SORRY. BUT SHE WOULD, YOU KNOW. ONLY SHE'S CRIPPLED. BECAUSE TONY MADE HER THAT WAY :((((((((((

And yeah, there's something just absolutely fascinating about writing form the POV of the clones. I think it's because they're a direct, intimate look into Tony's crazypants in a way that's really hard to get with the usual through-the-eyes-of-a-stranger route, but they're so weird. And removed. And don't know how to shake hands or what velour is Zsince Tony, clearly, only has leather in his cars) or why they should like ice cream.

[heidi-wiggin.livejournal.com]

So I know absolutely nothing about Iron Man canon, but I don't care. This is beautiful.

*is going to have lovely dreams about RDJ*

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Mmmm. The man is very good at facilitating those. Did you ever see a clip from that short film he did a year or two ago, where he's feeling up a girl in the kitchen?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Just saw these stories thanks to dafnap's rec., they're beautiful. Thanks for posting!

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Glad that you enjoyed them. :D

[besyd.livejournal.com]

OMG. I'm broken. I've just friended you, and you've broken me. (And I'm trying to catch up with fic - in reverse, but sometimes that's a good thing - and discourses over an insanely slow satellite Internet link, am just playing all kinds of hooky from work, and now feel the urge to flail).

This is ... exquisitely painful. Exquisitely! Holy jeez.

Rhodey looks up at Tony then, with a look you've never quite seen on anybody before -- he almost seems sad, in fact -- and Tony smiles in a way that you've never seen before, either.

Now that is painting a picture. Quite a talent. And it's not a one-shot.

Tony goes absolutely still

And so did I. Stopped breathing and all. You yanked me right into your story, and my reality vanished. Also, not a one-shot.

He takes a strange pleasure in having you tell him what to do so that he can ignore it or, on those occasions when he does what you suggest, act very pleased with himself.

This made me smile and want to cry, all at the same time. I think this is where pieces of me started falling on the floor.

you find that Tony is sitting on the steps that lead from the driveway

He always knows what's going on ... especially after Obediah. And he's always afraid of being left alone. This whole little section is so perfect.

He climbs onto the couch behind you and puts his arms around you; his hair is still wet from the shower.

Beautiful.

and he closes his eyes, then slides down on the couch

Poor, poor Tony. He just wants Pepper back. More pieces of me falling on the floor.

and Rhodey swears that out of the corner of his eye, he sees a red-haired woman in black, waiting for Tony.

Wow. Just wow.

Also, just a couple of catches, in case you want ...

Walking down to the edge of the property to meet Rhody

Rhodey

and every once in a while, he touches on the arm or the shoulder

touches you on

And finally ... thank you for sharing!

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Oh dear God, that's a lot of FB. And hey, typo-spotting! Thanks. (Just to save you the annoyance of doing that in the future, by the way, there's no need to do that. XD I write all of my fics in the LJ web update window without spellcheck, so as long as I don't mis-spell shirt as "shit" or something like that, it's AOK. I spend too much time checking for typos anyways.)

Anyways, thanks for the wonderful FB. It's the best kind of writer reinforcement when somebody takes so much time to paste back the bits that she liked. Like, you know. Push the button, get pellet is for rats?

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

good lord, that hurts. I can totally see Tony going off the deep end like this, trying so hard. This was an amazing piece of fiction.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

He's basically there already, I swear, with his love for making programmed life forms that he talks to like they were real. And then I'm told that there's comic canon for his suit being sentient and obsessed him? Really, at that point, what's a little DNA and pipetting between friends?

[jamaillith.livejournal.com]

Just. Oh.

Oh. I want to repeat/second/underline what everyone's already said here. It's Asimov and Bradbury and Iron Man and everything all rolled together. Oh, man, I'm always a little skeptical about second person narration but you've made it work. It makes it more effective, that we-as-readers are there with her, seeing through her eyes even as she sees through someone else's, someone she doesn't know, and never knew (but someone whom we're very familiar with). I love the gradual revelation of the fact that it's a Pepper!clone- yes, as gabby_silang said, very Bradbury, to hold back on that sort of information until the final moments. Lovely, just lovely. And so heartbreaking.

This is what fandom is about. This kind of creativity, testing the walls and seams of the universe. Thank you so much!

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

I'm always a little skeptical about second person narration but you've made it work

Ahaha, oh god, I cannot lie. I love the second person. It's my default, in fact, because it's so good for selling readers on crack-faced premises. Drag a reader deep into a character's brain, right over the left eyeball, only let them see what you want them to see -- and heyyyy, I've slipped into second person again. XD But yeah, authoritative voice, strict control over the details, tight leash on the reader, etc, etc.

Anyways. I'm really, really glad this read as Iron Man to you. As dafnap mentioned up above, I had this horror of the fic reading like an original story with Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey nametags stuck on characters, so I really tried to take efforts to make them line up with canon points. Mostly, this consisted of Tony having whiskey around all the time, but uh. XD

And thank you so much for the rec on your LJ. I still re-read "Interview Process" every other day.

[obsession-inc.livejournal.com]

EEEEE. Okay, this is GREAT. Horrifying in so many ways, but so tender and gentle and full of so-close-but-no-cigar yearning that it's easy to forget just how very wrong it is. And oh, the clone is so delicate and sweet and you've perfectly encapsulates how small her world is, and how she doesn't mind that.

Oh, Tony. So goddamned broken, so tender, and so INSANE. And Rhodey!!!!!!! It really is perfect that you had Rhodey in that part; nobody else could do it. There is nobody else left who could.

[nolivingman.livejournal.com]

It's wrong how much the aardvark joke made me laugh. It could be the wine I had earlier, but really I'm just a sucker for puns.


The clone is so sweet she makes me sad. I found "When I'm gone, will you make another one?" just extraordinarily heartbreaking.

[th-esaurus.livejournal.com]

Really gorgeous, really sad, and oh! wonderful second person writing. Such a rarity.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

XD Awww. Poor maligned second person.

(And thanks for the lovely comment. :D)

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Hi, I completely heart your brand of crack, excuse me while I go friend you now.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Holy shit. Your icon blows my mind.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

This time I did cry. Another beautiful story.

[ghostrunner7.livejournal.com]

Aww, come on. Where would we be without Tony's manpain? Ha.

[tonpep1.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and heartbreaking.

[maquisleader.livejournal.com]

Damn good follow up! And I think, despite what he told her, he'd make another. And another. And another. Until he dies. He might feel guilty, but he'd do it.

[ninamazing.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is so good I don't really know what to do with myself. Thank you. ♥