{"id":31601,"date":"2012-12-15T04:08:05","date_gmt":"2012-12-15T04:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2012\/12\/15\/gadgeteerphilanthropist-iamthefirechild-he\/"},"modified":"2012-12-15T04:08:05","modified_gmt":"2012-12-15T04:08:05","slug":"gadgeteerphilanthropist-iamthefirechild-he","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2012\/12\/15\/gadgeteerphilanthropist-iamthefirechild-he\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

gadgeteerphilanthropist<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

iamthefirechild<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cHe what?\u201d Summer gasped. Relief crowded up her throat. \u201cOh, thank god, I thought he was going to shoot himself again or something.\u201d She wrapped her arms around the pillow, crushing it to her chest, tears overflowing her eyes again. \u201cI \u2014 I lost my temper. It didn\u2019t start that way. I just went \u2014 I wanted to talk to him, get to know him. He\u2019s so closed in, so focussed on you, in the shop. I wanted \u2014 I told you, that day, I wanted to know all your loves. I do. I did,\u201d she stumbled.<\/p>\n

\u201cS-so I went to him, and I told him what you had told me \u2014 that he had asked you to marry him, and there were difficult things, and he\u2019d shot himself. And he said he\u2019d only asked if you would ever be willing to marry him permanently, and he wished he had died then. The bullet didn\u2019t work right, he said.\u201d Summer gulped against the memory of that, of the way he\u2019d sounded. \u201cI-I couldn\u2019t \u2014 I tried to tell him how much that would hurt you. If he tried to kill himself again.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd all he could say was that you were his everything, and he wasn\u2019t enough. That you didn\u2019t need him, because you had someone else. He \u2014 Dummy didn\u2019t know you meant me. And he walked away. And I \u2026 lost my temper. I said a lot of things, I took the door off its hinges, I told him he was selfish, and that if he really loved you like he said he did then he would want your happiness, that I was willing to give you up so that you could be happy or willing to love you both, and that he had promised to try and this wasn\u2019t trying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Summer stared at the pillow, not really seeing it, seeing that door and her fire. \u201cHe told me he didn\u2019t ever want to see me or be around me. That he hadn\u2019t known what you wanted, that you wanted that. He said it was being forced on him. And he didn\u2019t want it. He made it sound like it was your fault because you hadn\u2019t told him. So I \u2014 I said I\u2019d been first. Before he was human you loved me. It was wrong, I shouldn\u2019t\u2019ve said it. I just \u2014 I was so angry. You would do anything for him, you love him so much, and he just \u2026 as if the only thing that mattered was what he wanted.\u201d The final words left her limp and empty. She\u2019d finally, finally gotten past that space where she feared losing him, and now she wasn\u2019t even sure she could forgive herself for this.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tony stared in silence, his expression numbly closed off as he listened to her, gaze fixed on the wall.\u00a0 When she finished speaking, there was a long moment of silence as he continued to stare at the same point.\u00a0 \u201cI.\u201d\u00a0 It started and stopped quickly, barely even anything more than a syllable, before he simply decided he didn\u2019t want to talk.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t want to explain.<\/p>\n

Finally, he looked at her, quiet and blank and with none of his usual attitude.\u00a0 And then he turned, right hand still cradled to his chest, and headed for the balcony.\u00a0 He strolled along the landing strip, his armor forming around him as he walked, and without another word, he took off.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t actually sure how long he was in the air for.\u00a0 But one moment he was leaving Stark Tower in New York, and just like that, he was landing in the garage in the mansion in Malibu.<\/p>\n

Well.\u00a0 He had been thinking about a vacation, anyway.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Summer didn’t try to stop him. Didn’t anything. He was numb; she was numb. Dummy was … Dummy had left. Because of her.\u00a0Common sense began to reassert itself there, though.<\/p>\n

Because, truthfully, Dummy was always going to conflict with her, wasn’t he? He wanted Tony all to himself, and Tony had made it more than clear to her, if to no one else, that he didn’t want that to happen. That he wanted as much as they were both, or all, willing to give him, and wanted to share himself among them as much as they would let him.<\/p>\n

It would have been a problem eventually. Even she could see that, still castigating herself for her role in Dummy’s departure. So much of what she had said had been, if warped, truth. Cruel truth, wielded with an unkind tongue, but truth. Dummy would have forced Tony to choose.<\/p>\n

Summer drew a deep breath. “Jarvis, please let me know when he lands safely. Just text me. Otherwise I’ll worry. I guess you have protocols for locking down his living area when he’s not here? Is there anyone else here right now?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

gadgeteerphilanthropist: iamthefirechild: \u201cHe what?\u201d Summer gasped. Relief crowded up her throat. \u201cOh, thank god, I thought he was going to shoot himself again or something.\u201d She wrapped her arms around the pillow, crushing it to her chest, tears overflowing her eyes again. \u201cI \u2014 I lost my temper. It didn\u2019t start that way. I just … Continue reading <\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,3780,199],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31601"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}