Project: Find a Purpose

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: Really, kid?  Come on, you might as well have said 'be useful'.  We're working overtime on getting the suit together, just hang in there, we'll make it through, you and I.  I'll be pissed if you manage to get yourself killed before we have a chance to legitimately meet. -Tony
Word Count: 365
Rating: Gen

         They turn him away.  Again.  It strikes at old wounds, the fact that they don’t think him capable without the suit.  Which he still has yet to figure out how to make.  To be honest, he’s probably more useful than Willow.  She’s barely focused on offensive spells, while he has wards and shielding spells he could cast in his sleep, UV blasts and energy rays Stark would confuse for Repulsor tech.
         He doesn’t argue.  Who says that I don’t have shrapnel heading for my heart? he wonders, amused by his own dark humor.  He leaves.
         He doesn’t enjoy being with Faith.  Not that he doesn’t like the sex.  He does, and it’s pretty much as Tony remembers it, but there’s a caveat: he’s used to being, uhm, a more active participant.  He’d had fantasies about the way it’d gone.  Maybe he’s lazy.  It’s not how he thought it would be, and he immediately discards all of those fantasies.
         See, it’s nice to have an active partner taking care of your needs, but with Faith, she didn’t care about him at all, which kind of ruins the whole thing.
         For a few absurd moments he wonders whether that’s how all of Stark’s girlfriends felt, but the point is moot.  Maybe it’s a blow to his ego, being the one thrown out of the apartment holding his clothes, but if that’s how any of them felt he’ll never know unless their minds somehow download themselves, too.  PTB forbid.
         It’s got him in a reckless mood.  A mood where he’s hurting so bad it doesn’t matter what he does with himself, because anything’s better than the pain.
         And it should say something that he never feels more heroic than without his suit, refusing to move until the guy disarms the bomb.  He might be able to disarm it himself, but it’s lower tech than anything he tends to work with and he doesn’t feel like fighting the odds.  Not when his friends’ lives are at stake.  If all else fails he might be able to contain the blast with a shielding spell, though it honestly might kill him in the process.
         Might as well go down swinging, right?