starkroads:

iamthefirechild:

starkroads:

iamthefirechild:

“You can’t possibly want him to stay!” she exclaimed. “It’s your life, your very body he’s taken! Damn near your soul!” She stepped forward, hands outstretched. “I want you to be able to be the man you were before he came along.”

“No, my soul is still mine,” Tony replied, deliberately missing the point.  He took two steps back, once again pointing the knife at her, his arm steadier now than when he had first pulled the blade out.  “See, I don’t really like that man.  Maybe you do, but that’s why you have your own.  I belong to someone else, Sunshine.”

“Don’t call me that!” She didn’t mean to say that out loud, but something about this space seemed to share her thoughts even as she was thinking them. “You don’t like who you were, so you’re going to give yourself over to someone worse? That’s stupid. He — that — the demon can’t save you. Only you can save yourself. And you’ve given up trying.”

If you’re going to bring him up, my gadgeteer — he never gives up trying to be better. No matter what, he doesn’t — and you just — you’d rather just lie down and let this thing destroy.”

Tony shrugged dispassionately, as if he had gotten bored with this discussion of morals and ethics.  “Maybe you’ve got a point,” he offered, though it wasn’t much of a concession.  “But I’m still not your gadgeteer, and while my demon won’t save me, he’s never claimed he would.”

The knife lowered, though he didn’t close it yet.  “Besides, he makes me feel better, and I’m willing to settle for that.”  He smiled, an unexpectedly soft expression for a moment.  “What can I say?”  The expression shifted, just slightly, as if he thought his next words might do something horrible and he couldn’t wait to see what.  “I love him.”

Summer staggered back a step, unconsciously. “You can’t,” she blurted, despite every sense confirming his words. “You can’t. There’s nothing /to/ love. You’re lost, you’re blinded, it’s okay. It’s Stockholm syndrome, that’s all.” Once again, words were spilling out of her mouth that she would have managed not to say in the real world, but this weird space seemed to strip out any filters.

“What has he done to you?”