ataraxionlogs | (no subject)

CHARACTERS: Howard Stark and Bass
LOCATION: Away from the main corridors, in one of the forgotten hallways
WARNINGS: Gore, death
SUMMARY: Howard goes to test out some tech and Bass finds him in a bad way.
NOTES:

He went walking because he needed to clear his head and get away from the enormous mask staring down at him from his door like a nightmare; metal and cowled and with enormous teeth, like death. Howard doesn't like to think about that part of his job. How he's death, to a lot of people, his weapons. He's good at it, at building them, the army needed them, there's nothing wrong with it.

It glowed slightly, a radioactive sickness, a reminder. Eventually he would have to tell Tosh he helped build the bomb that leveled her country. Maybe that's why he's walking, too, the miniature arc reactor in his hand. He's almost got the thing working, he just needs to iron out some more elements, or that's what he tells himself because the other option, that he can't do it, isn't really an option. It's always on the precipice of working, he's a genius, a genius who admitted to the one person he's ever met that's smarter than he is that he was jealous, what kind of genius is that?

The bowels of the ship are dark and deep, and there's a certain amount of - Howard can't pinpoint what it is. He wanted privacy out here, and he's definitely gonna get it as he takes his tools out from his bag and begins the process of taking it apart again.

When he puts it back together, a new element added, it makes noise - not a little noise, but a lot of noise, the whirring of the moving elements in the middle loud against the walls, distorting against the metal halls. It's an eerie sound, Howard thinks, as the glow from the reactor spins blue then red. He had designed it that way.

He doesn't hear anyone else around.

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(It starts with silence.)

The energy shuts down, sinking the ship into cold tones and sharp temperatures.

Then a voice he heard once before calls again. Paranoia, loneliness, rage, louder yet more distant than any other passenger. It's a bad sign. It drives him away from the crowd, from those who could've needed his help. Instead he's surrounded by quiet hum of a dormant beast, the endless stretch of an accommodating darkness. He could be running from it - or he could be looking for it. He suddenly can't recall which one makes more sense. Should you run from something that doesn't want to be found?

(He stands in front of the door again. He's alone. He can't remember where he's been.)

The mask stares at him without eyes. Just skin and teeth, bare and ready, begging him to wrap it around his head and neck. Volatile as he feels, Bass takes it into the security of his hands and lets it cover his face. He waits. The darkness is a strange experiment that suddenly feels like too giant a leap, so he slips it off. He doesn't throw it away. It's here for him. It's here because he's here. It won't go away. Neither will he.

Time passes. Bass wears it three more times. Suddenly he can feel Bonnie next to him - his sister, lost somewhere where he can't reach her. With her is another man who keeps turning away, whose name he can never remember. His hands are shaking. Then it doesn't come back off, and he doesn't come back in.

(There's someone out there.)

The man's thoughts are heard before the noise, just barely, haunted by guilt, the responsibility of death. It's a new element in a growing list of abnormalities, the last piece that sets off everything else. It's an opportunity. A way out. It doesn't make him want to run, not anymore.

His face turns up, wheezing, slipping in to where Howard can find him. The lines under his eyes are dark and deep, even though the other man can't see them. The sweat trickling down his temple and neck are trembling with his pulse, even though he can't feel it. The monster in him is hissing with hunger and euphoria, even though he can't hear it. He's a figure in the dark, stepping into the light, nothing but a mask of skin and teeth wrapped around his head, muscles straining in his hands.

He wants to speak. No words come.

It's like a nightmare.

It's like a nightmare because Howard sees him, and then doesn't, and then sees him again, all in one flicking motion of his head. His adrenaline spikes, but he can't let that show. He can't let the fear show. He holds onto his arc reactor, the light pulsing red, then blue, then red again, and his brain moves too fast for him to catalog all the thoughts. Briefly he wonders if he should run. Why isn't he running?

Why didn't he bring a gun?

He doesn't know what's going on, then. He knows he tries to run, he knows he tries to strike. He knows he makes contact, at some point, the fear clogging his brain, his process. Howard's most powerful weapon was always his mind, and how he can't use it, he doesn't have a route out.

Tony'll laugh, he thinks.

At least someone will be happy. He has to get out of this but he can't see anything except that awful face (a monster's face) flashing in the beaming of the arc reactor. He must have dropped it, he hopes the core wasn't damaged, and there is a moment of irrational comedy. He hopes he doesn't damage the arc reactor.

The face is a mask, he thinks, and he tries to get his fingers around it, scrabbling, but what's behind the mask is worse.

He wouldn't know how to explain it, if anyone ever asked. Most hybrids have the same problem - those who still try to hold on to their humanity, that is - because they can think clearly and they know how dangerous and wrong this feels, but other things take over and mute everything else out. Suddenly you're not just doing what you can to stay safe, you're drowning in the screaming sensation that you won't survive unless something happens, and you can almost enjoy it. It's you or them, and choosing to die never comes cheap. That's what the mask knows about him, that's what the mask does to him, exacerbated by the paranoia that sunk its claws into his conscience and never really let go.

Bass doesn't need to run too far to catch up, doesn't flinch with Howard's attempts to fight him off. His strength is greater, his adrenaline louder, reactor dropping from helpless hands when he pushes his back against the nearest surface. The monster breathes, air scratching in his throat, hot and trapped. There's little notice when fingers manage to scrape the mask off, now fallen beside them.

It gives room to a man's face, a wide-eyed stare. He looks like he's been starved, pale and exhausted, skin picked by dirty nails. There is a twitch on his lips, possibly the ghost of a smile. It could be excitement, or something else entirely, breath picking up and faltering audibly as he watches, gaping, the tips of his teeth edging behind the circle of his mouth.

(He wants to speak. No words come.

It's you or them.)

Howard is cornered and Bass is ready to strike, only momentarily frozen by anticipation. He won't register those features. He won't remember how all of it happened. A life will be taken and he'll go on without ever really knowing what it meant. It's never stopped him before, and this won't be the exception. With a low sound any humanity he has left slips from his eyes and turns into black, mouth splitting with sharp teeth, and his throat tears open to sink teeth into flesh, snapping and breaking everything he touches until all that's left is a pool of blood.

There is nothing funny about this. In fact this is terrifying, in fact this is something Howard didn't want, in fact, in fact, in fact. The last moments that Howard can think he sees it, in perfect clarity: the arc reactor, how to make it work, how to make it his.

What a fucking bitch.

He doesn't have time to wonder if anyone will mourn him. If Tosh will cry, if Tony will be upset, if that nice Ms. Potts will weep. He doesn't have time to think about Barnes or Rogers, his old friends from home, the only people left from home, really.

All he thinks about is the pain of teeth, and the pulsing glow of the reactor in the dark, and then there's nothing.