Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first impression he had of his new reactor was the taste of the coconut on his tongue and the crack of sheer /power/ running through his veins where there was nothing before.

Or, nothing compared to the initial surge of the Ark’s energy burning its way not only to the magnet that kept the magnet powered – and him, alive, but through every inch of Tony’s body. Whereas the palladium core was like a zing of cold once one swallowed a mouthful of cool water after a run, the new element was closer to the sharp, hallucination-inducing yet sweet in taste absinth. And much as Tony liked alcohol, he was not unaware of the addictiveness of what he drunk - nor of the repercussions of enjoying something like absinth too much. But fast as it had come, it left: leaving behind a quiet thrum that almost – almost – sounded like whispers (something the engineer pointedly ignored)

It wasn’t as though it mattered much at the time. Vanko and his suit (and letting everyone whom did know that he was dying that the dying part was temporarily postponed) took precedence. And by the time things had calmed down, he was by far too used to it (the hum was too natural now, and if it grew in pitch or tempo sometimes, when he was making something – well, it goes without saying that the magnet works differently depending on his body’s condition, which was, in turn, affected by his sentiment)

It never stung until Tony (and the rest of Fury’s rag-tag team under the rather uncreative title of ‘Avengers’ – which, by the way, he still wasn’t qualified for) got to the Hellicarrier. It was brief – just like the moment when he first placed it in his chest after the upgrade – and then… It did not settle. The whispers grew louder, more insistent (though still indistinguishable). That alone was enough for Tony to give the spear a wide berth. Odd as it might have looked to an outsider’s perspective – but he did his best to put at least something (in most cases ‘it’ being either a table or a person. The engineer wasn’t very picky at this point). Good idea, apparently – too bad Loki didn’t get the memo that Tony wasn’t too fond of his glowstick of destiny.

It all came to a crescendo when the Trickster tried to – posses? Enslave? It probably wasn’t the best moment, but wonder the human did – Tony. The engineer could have sworn there was a protesting screech in his head and then… Nothing. His brain was still his own, even after try number two and hell, was it making Loki pissed (innuendo-filled comments aside)

Once everything was said and done, and they were sending Thor and his bag-of-cats brother back home – Tony could have sworn he could feel the Tesseract hum (and something within him, no longer as quiet as it once was – hummed in return)

And later, when Tony finally had the time to consider it… Perhaps it did. The notes, the glow – when one actually started to look, one found out where the idea for the element came from in the first place. And if the Ark, in its own way, was reverse-engineered from the Tesseract? He did not know nearly enough about the original – the Tesseract – to make definite statements. But if the Tesseract could show things, could display a certain amount of sentiency – who was to say that the Ark couldn’t, made as it was to resemble the Cube?

One thing Tony knew for certain: when and if the opportunity came to remove the reactor – he wouldn’t.

(And perhaps, one day, he would stop wondering if it was, indeed, his own conviction that made him swear it to himself)

/p