𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗞 𝗦𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗘 | 𝗧𝗪𝗜𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗫 𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗩𝗘𝗟

𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗚𝗨𝗘

The living room was silent, the occupants still as statues and the only sound coming from the TV their attention was on.

The news had been peacefully covering something about children when suddenly the screen had flicked over to another image. A bomb flying straight for Toni Stark's Malibu Mansion.

The bomb had hit the center of it, the footage continuing to show as more bombs flew at it and it crumbled, parts of the structure falling off and tumbling down the cliff into the ocean churning below.

The footage had only stopped when a small missile had flown from the house straight at the helicopter taking the footage and firing the shots. Then there had been an explosion and the footage had glitched as its vision was clouded by fire and smoke before it fell into the water below and fizzled off.

Since then the TV had ticked back onto the news, which was now in chaos as it floundered about as it tried to find out what was going on. The crew already in the Malibu area had gotten as close as they could to the ruins of the house, the police already there.

For the next few minutes, the reporters tried to find out what was going on, Pepper Potts and another woman - not Toni - still on the ground outside the house in tears.

And so Toni Stark was pronounced dead.

Another example of someone who had died too young.

~

When she'd programmed JARVIS to have the suit take her somewhere safe if she was unconscious and in trouble, she didn't mean in the middle of a forest.

She'd stumbled out of the now useless suit and onto the cold forest floor. She could tell her at least some of her ribs had broken, and she wasn't certain she didn't have a concussion. Her throat was sore and dry from swallowing the salty water before the suit had rescued her, and her body was covered in wounds, some deeper than others.

She wasn't sure how she managed to half stumble, half crawl her way away from the suit to try and find help, but by the time she couldn't go any further, she was well and truly lost, not even knowing what direction the suit was in.

She shivered, arms around herself as she huddled in the middle of a small clearing, her senses seemed dulled, and she didn't even notice that she wasn't alone until she saw booted feet right in front of her.

The prospect of help gave her the strength to lift her head up, but she soon wished she didn't.

The man in front of her wore ratty clothing despite his inhumanly immaculate looks, but the most disturbing was his blood red eyes the same colour as the blood that dripped down his chin.

As she watched he bent down and keeping eye contact, wiped a bit of blood from one of the gashes on her face, making her wince at both the contact to the open wound and his icy hands, before lifting the bloody finger to his lips and licking the blood off.

His lips spread into a chilling grin, and she didn't even have time to think about scrambling back before he had a strong grip around her throat, using it to throw her across the clearing into a tree.

She let out an involuntary shriek as she felt her back collide with the hard trunk and felt something crack. When she crashed to the ground, the man was in front of her again, despite her not seeing him move and crouched down, pulling her up to lean against him, and forcefully tilted her head away as he brought his lips to her neck.

She didn't feel the bite so much as the fire that started there, but quickly spread, racing through her body.

And as he continued to hold her in place, tears streaming down her face, she screamed.