It was supposed to be today. It would have been, had it not been for one thing…
Pariah Stark, Anthony “Pariah” Stark, was a dead man. Dead men don’t have birthdays. And even with wish being alive and well, that would make his birthday some time in March now, wouldn’t it?
Honestly, he’d prefer the former: Dead men don’t have birthdays. That would make things easier, wouldn’t it? After all there was nothing to celebrate, and there certainly would be anything to celebrate if he went through with all the ideas he had bouncing around in his head.
No, it would be easier if he were still dead, but here he was. Alive and well, though the definition of ‘well’ would have to be drawn into question, and all he could really do was watch the world keep spinning. That’s what dead men did, wasn’t it? Those who stuck around just kind of floated about, haunting the world and watching it spin on and on and on…
The ice in his glass clinked as it shifted and finally drew his attention from the view. He wasn’t supposed to be drinking out here in the first place, but dead men could do what they pleased. After all, they were dead. The laws that applied to the living did not apply to him anymore. He sat at his table at the little outdoor cafe, probably looking a sight all covered up on such a beautiful warm day. Drink in hand, eyes gazing ever upwards.
If he looked hard enough he could imagine the hole was still there, ripping the sky apart.
He took another sip of his drink.
Happy birthday indeed.
“I thought it was Christmas that was supposed to make people feel like that, not birthdays.” Summer approached from behind, deliberately. On-going joke, that: Tony, you need me as a bodyguard. She put her own drink down on the little table, then put her hands in her pockets, gazing up at the same spot he was.
“I won’t tell you to forget about it, but this isn’t helping,” she went on, softly.