Short Iron Man Internal Monologue

[triedunture]

I think I'm making great progress. Much more clear-headed now. Watched the new Iron Man DVD all curled up with the last of the ginger ale. Man, that is a great movie. Anyway, I've been tinkering with a ton of Marvel fic ideas, so here is a prototype exercise for Tony Stark's POV. Just short and nothing special.

I am still working on Tony's one-sentence characterization (as I describe here). But I think it'll end up being: Tony Stark is a mathematics and engineering genius with an addictive personality who strives to do good despite his destructive (self- and otherwise) tendencies. Agree, y/n?

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This suit. It's fantastic. It's better than sex. Can't believe I'm saying that, can't believe I'm flying, can't believe I'm here, closed in tight, in this tiny few inches of space inside this helmet. Should feel trapped, locked down, but no. Everything in front of me, anything my eyes need or want to see, all the specs, all the data, everything.

Dad would laugh. Call me self-centered, literally self-centered, for building my masterpiece around myself. Around my own body, when I could build all the components independently, into separate parcels. Would be more logical, would be a better practice, than covering yourself with nearly five billion dollars' worth of hardware, I can hear his voice now.

Mom would be rightfully worried. For me. I think.

What time is it in Singapore?

What does it say about a man, dad would ask, when he crawls into a suit of armor and hides his face from the world? I can't think about dad; I have to think about thrusters and data streams and, oh, it's almost 2 a.m. in Singapore. Good to know. It would be too easy for dad, hell, for Pepper to tell me that this armor was just a physical manifestation of my psychological need for comfort, a safety mechanism that keeps my heart protected behind layers of metal. Now who's being literal?

This isn't a cry for help, this is what I was born to do, born to develop into. I've known, I've always known there was a reason that my mind goes faster, can turn loops and barrel rolls, why I was a freak brain trapped in a normal body. The IQ is willing, but the flesh...

The flesh needs upgrades.

But here, inside the helmet with everything flashing through my mind on my terms, at my speed, at the speed of Stark, I'm finally meeting in the middle. Moving through the air as fast as my mind is moving through the math. Now I understand transsexuals.

Follow the train here: I am finally achieving what I've been striving for, and I had to do it for myself without any help from my natural born, puny, restricted body. My arms and legs and muscles that can only hope for a certain threshold. Not enough, not nearly enough to accomplish the sorts of things my mind can dream. So yes, lift a semi above your head; yes, fly across an ocean in minutes; yes, go higher, go outside the atmosphere, go into space, fuck it, go to the moon. Yes, yes, yes. What God hasn't given me, I made happen on my own equipped with nothing but science. Kind of like trannies.

Always had a soft spot for shemales. Or whatever they're called these days.

Send a quick message to Pepper's handheld: what's the PC term for shemale?

She'll know.

Touching down just inside the Downtown Core, and it's all lit up with shining neon even now, even in the dead of night. Got to love a country that pushes the limits like this. Four official languages, eighteen thousand types of government parties, or at least it feels that way. Everything is electric, everything is on and humming and running and buzzing twenty-four, seven, three-sixty-five.

Just like me now.

God, I love this suit.



fin.

Comments

[jackpy.livejournal.com]

Damnit, I can't wait for the whole shebang.

Brilliant Stark in the monologue, I'd wager you've captured him rather well. This is really quite a tease. It's like going into an icecream shop and getting that tiny little free sample. Three scoops on a cone with gummy bears, plz.

The one-sent c. fits Tony to the bill.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Thanks, glad you like it. Though I hasten to add I am still working on Jeeves & Wooster with all the love in the world. Just, you know, sometimes I want to speak American again.

[theempress14.livejournal.com]

"The IQ is willing, but the flesh needs upgrades" is the most amazing sentence to ever grace the Iron Man universe. I want an icon and a t-shirt and a travel mug with tony's face and the phrase on it!

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Oh, goodness. Thank you.

I think, when starting to see a character early on, it's helpful to find the bits and pieces of them that are most relateable, and Tony's need to go beyond what is naturally possible, to recklessly push limits, well, I think most people can relate to that. Or maybe not?

At any rate, yay for travel mugs!

[theempress14.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely. It's a gernerally HUMAN desire to be frustrated when you can't do something you really want to do and to try to suprass your own limits!

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

"The IQ is willing, but the flesh needs upgrades" is the most amazing sentence to ever grace the Iron Man universe. I want an icon and a t-shirt and a travel mug with tony's face and the phrase on it!

Yes, this.

Just picked up a volume of Richard Feynman's memoirs, and I can see the same devotion to tinkering, the wish to push the envelope of knowledge and experience, filtering through here.