Word Count: 1,313

The Cold that Creeps

Tony remembers meeting Jack Frost, it was when he was captured in Afghanistan. Heart being barely protected by a shoddy car battery that Yinsen had crafted together with a prayer and a dollop of luck. It had been cold, so cold that Tony still feels the chill in his bones. (It's why he still owns the house in Malibu, because the cold get's too much sometimes, and he just needs to leave. To get somewhere where the cold can't reach him, can't touch him.) The cold had crept up on him when he was distracted with gulping in air when his captors wrenched his head up, allowing him to breath for a mere moment that was never long enough. It had seeped into his bones and made him curse, because his hands were shaking and he couldn't focus.

His hands still have scars from that time, when his hands shook so much that he accidentally cut his palm lengthwise almost an inch deep, they ache when the cold really sets in; when Jack shows up, that is. Because Jack pops by every once in a while, saying that he's merely checking on an investment. Making sure that the one adult that's still alive because Yinsen had believed, hell, he was the one to get Tony to believe that believes in him is safe. Tony thinks that Jack's excuse is shit, because Jack knows that Tony is never safe, that he's never secure when Jack's around.

When Jack settles in and the cold surrounds the tower, that's when Tony leaves for Malibu. Because Jack only brings back flashes of a time that Tony would like to forget, a time where fear ruled his world and Yinsen helped create the arc reactor, the machine that keeps his greedy heart beating.

But Jack, ever selfish Jack (and of course he's selfish, self-centered, self-seeking, self-interested, he's something that Tony could call a friend. And god only knows that Tony can only be friends with someone like himself, a person who knows the bitter reality of being surrounded by people but still being completely alone. A person that is so used to being their own company that when someone comes along that finally understands, well, they hold on tight and never let go. They're selfish.) ignores the fact that Tony is in pain and sidles up close and talks.

He doesn't talk to Tony, oh no, he talks at Tony. Telling him all about what he's seen, and sometimes Tony comments, because how can he not? When Jack is talking about watching Einstein figure out his ground breaking equation, being there as Darwin systematically classifies all the creatures in the world, watching as Trinity blew up with radioactive waves coursing from it, and seeing Newton in the last throws of life. Tony can't help but say something, because what Jack is talking about is amazing. The teen had been present for some of the most remarkable events in science. So yes, Tony commented sometimes.

Tony wouldn't call what they have something as mundane or common as 'friendship', because what's between them is more complicated. At times they're friends, talking about how they've been and what's happened in their lives, and in other moments they're something else. Where Tony is shaking from the memories and pain and cold and Jack is smiling dully, a cruel edge to his usual grin as he watches Tony fall into himself. Losing his shields and masks one by one as the cold makes it's way to the arc reactor. In those moments Tony's never quite sure if Jack is a friend, enemy, or a force of nature that was never meant to be forced into the shape of what was once a mortal seventeen year old boy.

Jack blew into his life (literally blew, as in, flew in on a gust of wind with a laugh that was slightly off somehow) on the twentieth day that he was awake after being captured. At that point he was desperate, because the shocks, the stress, the constant threat of death was getting to him. Because while he may of had a thousand plus ways to defend himself (hey pa, look, I learned something from you after all!) his defenses were being stripped away with every dunk, every lost breath, and every spark of pain as the car battery that was keeping him alive short circuited for a moment and allowed the shrapnel to dig in deeper. He was at a all time low and Yinsen, Yinsen had been coping by going over some story or another. Something about Guardians of Childhood, but Tony didn't hear that last part, oh no. He only heard the single word, Guardian.

After hearing that one word Tony listened more closely; committing to memory the five beings that fought fear (and surely terrorists qualified as fear somehow) and kept the world safe. He listened so closely, that somewhere in his heart, somewhere in the dark chasm that had become his center, he believed.

That belief is what proved to be both his salvation and his downfall. Because when Jack came rolling in, feeling the strange sensation of someone older then twelve actually believe in him, Tony was able to see him. He was able to make out a blue sweatshirt that was covered in veins of ice and the ripped khakis and snow white hair and eyes that omitted cold. Jack had been startled to say the least, and when Jack was startled, things got cold. Fast.

Ice crept up the caves walls and the temperature dove in a matter of moments. All of a sudden the tunnels that had been baking hot were ice cold. And the car battery, the car battery that was keeping Tony alive? Well, it was still wet on that first meeting, and the water crystallized into ice in mere seconds. Ice that stopped the car battery from working allowed the shrapnel to dig in deeper.

His world went black for a while after that, and when he woke up Jack was gone and he needed to get out. Because it was far from safe, the people that were fear were still there and the person that was supposed to help had almost killed him. He couldn't wait and see if any of the other Guardians could help, he needed to escape.

And so he did.

He built the arc reactor and the first Iron Man suit and blasted his way out of the cave that was still frigid with cold. He left behind the pain and torment and cold, at least, he thought he had. The pain and torment were gone, but the cold never left. It lingered and it took Tony almost dying to figure out that Jack had left his mark on him somehow. That Frost had left a bit of his cold behind.

It was that cold that helped him in the end though, that gave him the strength to crawl to his spare arc reactor and save his own life after Obi tried to take it. Because it was the sliver of cold that Jack had left that told the teen that Tony was fading, and Jack couldn't have that. He couldn't. He had found someone who could maybe understand him, he had seen the news and read the papers, Stark was just as alone as he was, and he wasn't going to allow the business tycoon go. So Jack rode the winds to Tony and he silently made things easier somehow, he made it possible for Tony to move those needed feet and reach the spare arc reactor.

Tony isn't sure what Jack did and Jack won't say, but in his Center Jack whispers that he didn't do anything. That it was all Tony, that Tony had saved himself. But he won't tell Tony that, after all, he's selfish.