starkroads:

iamthefirechild:

“I don’t know how we got /in/ here; I can’t get us out!” She frowned, folded her arms. “No, look, forget that for the moment. What is wrong with your hand, and what in the world is wrong with your mind?” Her eyes flared, and she slapped one hand over her mouth. Even then, her own voice said, “That’s not how I meant to say that.”

His eyes narrowed sharply, and he held his hand all the closer to his chest.  But then he sort of smiled, and somehow it was even less Tony than any of Anthony’s manic, face-splitting grins.  “If you’re so curious, fine,” he ground out, and used his teeth to peel the glove off of his left hand, rather than put the knife away.

If anyone ever asked Anthony why he wore the glove, he deftly lied and said he hurt himself in the workshop and used the glove to preserve his pristine image.  He had, however, taken pains (literally) to make it convincing in case anyone wanted proof.  Patches of the skin had that faintly shiny look of scar tissue, with a deep, rope-like scar along the palm and between the index finger and thumb, so thick it looked like it had nearly severed the thumb.  The pinky finger was a strange, pale, shriveled thing, fixed in a claw.  It looked like his hand had gotten caught in a piece of the workshop’s more violent machinery.

“He’s better at using it as an actual hand than I am,” he informed her mildly, as he flexed the fingers as far apart as he could, which wasn’t much.  “But the nerves are all pretty much fried, so it doesn’t bother me all that much.”

It wasn’t the way his hand looked that brought her to flinch back; it was the sheer cruel joy he so clearly took in showing her. It literally shaded the air about him. Swallowing hard, she said, “Well, now that he’s gone, you could get it repaired, or I suppose build yourself a new one. It should be easier than the arc, yes?” She didn’t like the way he held on to the knife, either. “Please, I’m no threat to you.”