shadow_vector | Verses

Rating: PG-13
Continuity: IDW
Characters: Verity Carlo, Ironfist
Warnings: Spoiler for LSOTW, ref to canon character death, angst, salty language
For

tf_rare_pairing New Beginnings challenge. Which I totally missed the spirit of, but.....

“Hey, Fizzy,” Verity said, holding up an energon feed line. “Ready for chow?”

He shook his head. It was humiliating, the fact that he was too far gone to trust himself to fuel, and even as he burned under that shame, he could feel the weak tremor in his lipplates that would guarantee failure. All he could do anymore was lie like a useless pile of scrap, and talk.

And his world was becoming still and dark, but the only thing moving, the only thing alive and bright, was Verity.

“Come on. You have to eat.”

“Verity.” He paused, trying to gather himself. “There’s no point.”

“Fuck that,” she said, the dark wings of her eyebrows swooping toward each other. “There’s always a point.” Still, she held off, holding the metal catheter in her hand, not moving toward the port in his wrist. Arguing, but respecting, listening.

“I’m dying,” Ironfist said, and the word still hurt, though instead of being sharp as glass in his throat now, it was heavy and smooth, like a large, waterworn stone. The weight of truth, he thought. “Nothing’s going to change that.”

Her eyes glistened, suddenly, and he saw her lashes, sweep down, catch the tears in their strands, where the medibay’s light seemed to glitter in them like crystal. “You don’t know that. There’s always a chance.”

“There is no chance, Verity.” He tried a movement, his hand twitching faintly toward her. “If I think about it, I can probably calculate how long I have left.” If he ate. If he didn’t he might succumb sooner. It didn’t matter, a few cycles of emptiness and pain.

“Don’t fragging think about it, then,” she said, her cheeks taking on a splotchy red. He couldn’t decipher if it was anger or what. “And don’t talk like that. You have to fight it, Ironfist.” He missed the nickname. Fizzy was affectionate, teasing. Ironfist seemed so…formal from her.

“I’m not a fighter. If nothing else, I’ve learned that about myself.”

“Then what are you?” Challenge in her voice. She was a fighter, every moment of her life, fierce and fearless. He envied her that, in a way, though he felt, dimly, that it made her life a series of battles. He wasn’t one for battles, or glory, or bravery or any of that. His whole life had been chasing after something he could never be, collecting their bits, collecting their stories, as though trying to fit into their lives, like donning their adventures like armor.

He didn’t know what he was—labels seemed to slip and spatter away from him, like when he tried to drink, dribbling and messy. But he knew that much: he’d had a taste of violence and had gagged on it.

“Coward,” he said, finally. It hurt, but then again, everything did, except talking.

“Bullshit.” Verity plopped down between his arm and his body. “Coward’s a name people call someone who doesn’t do what they want.”

“I am one.” It felt like a confession, really, stripping himself clean, baring himself before her. It was somehow less humiliating than having to be fed and cleaned and cared for. “And what’s worse, even like this, I’m afraid to die.”

What did he know, after all? Weapons, killing. Stories, he knew stories. He’d wrapped himself in them like a cocoon, his memories an intricate net of the memories of others. And when he died, where would his story go?

…to Verity.

“Everyone’s afraid to die,” Verity said, and made it like a matter of fact.

He gave a soft, hiccupping laugh. “I’m so stupid. Afraid to die, don’t want to live.” Pathetic. If Twin Twist were still here, he couldn’t imagine what scathing words he’d have. ‘Stupid pointless ways’ didn’t even begin to cover this.

Verity’s face went through one of those amazing, sweeping changes, about a dozen different configurations in the blink of an optic shutter, before she swung around, resting her shoulders against his chunky chassis. He could feel the warmth of her body, the slight give of the small muscle over her shoulderblades, and the few, sweeping little feathers of her glossy hair brushing his armor. For a moment, nothing, and she seemed a small constellation of warmth against him.

“Life piled on life/ Were all too little, and of one to me /Little remains...,” she murmured, her voice taking on a soft, singsongy tone.

“What’s that?” A flicker of interest, in spite of himself.

A shrug, the small bones moving against him. “Poetry. You’d be amazed the books people leave in bus stations.”

“What’s it about?”

“A guy who’s dying,” she said. “Some guy, I guess he’s famous. A king or something.”

“I guess dying as a king would be sad,” Ironfist said. It was something like a puzzle, some new thing to feed his mind, and he couldn’t help but take interest. A dying king would have a lot to lose: power, wealth, everything. He’d just lose…a bunch of hollow stories.

He was always a creature of stories, after all.

“I think dying as anyone would be sad.”

A pointed, poignant silence. “H-how’s the rest of it go?” He wasn’t a king, but he was dying, and he knew what that felt like, in those lines. Life piled on life? That’s what he’d done all his life, piling others’ lives and adventures and memories over himself, as though one life was just too small.

Especially his life.

Small and getting smaller with each friend he’d lost, till now, and he was the one being lost.

“I don’t remember it all. Just that bit and a little bit more.” Her voice changed to that singsong tone again. “’But every hour is saved / From that eternal silence, /Something more,
A bringer of new things….’” She gave another shrug, tossing her head. “And something about how much it sucks to sit around and do nothing.”

Ironfist gave a small nod, even though she couldn’t see it. “It does suck.”

“Point is,” Verity said, drowning out the sorrow building between them, “that whole every hour, every minute counts thing. Bringer of new things, and all that. Just gotta be, you know, open to them.” She turned her head, her hair sliding over his armor, and he caught a flash of her eyes, a blue so complicated and layered he could never hope to replicate it, her mouth, mobile and soft and expressive, even pulled into a tight trying-not-to-cry smile.

“New things,” he said, softly, wishing he could trust his hand to brush down her hair. And he wasn’t a fighter and he wasn’t a king and he was probably still a coward, but he felt a magnitude of loss that he bet would rival this poem’s king, at the thought of losing any minute, any instant with her. “Verity, “ he gave a trembling little smile, “I think I’d like to refuel now.”