System Error: Identity Manager (part V)

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Iron Man Crossover (Self-Made Hero)
Summary: Despite how it might look, the transition isn't easy.  There's only so long the destabilized situation can continue before something's gotta give...
MCU!Tony.
Word Count: 1315
Rating: Gen

          He wakes in a cold sweat, stifling a half-strangled yell.  Hopefully he hasn’t woken Pepper.  He already put her through so much.  Not that any of it was his fault, but still.  He survived.  He survived and Jesse died in the cave.  And he didn’t deserve it.  Jesse didn’t deserve to die, not like that, and he didn’t deserve to live.  He wasn’t that great of a guy, so why did it have to happen like this?
          He gets up and pads to the bathroom.  He’d head to the kitchen, but the last he’d seen, Miss Potts was working in the living room and he didn’t feel like disturbing her would repay any of her hard work.  She’d made a habit of working until late and falling asleep on the couch, lately.  Probably to make sure he was still there, still existed.  That his return home hadn’t been a dream.
          That’s okay.  He’s still looking for the same reassurance, so it only makes sense.
          He doesn’t feel the pull of alcohol, not tonight.  Sometimes it was nice; helped bury the memories.  It feels like, tonight, it’ll just wake them instead.
          And wake Pepp, too, since she was probably in the living room.
          The water tastes like the best water he’s ever had.  The best drink he’s ever had, better even than the most expensive booze a man with incredibly good taste and incredibly full coffers could afford.  At some point, he suspects, his taste buds will become jaded again, but for now he’ll just appreciate what he had taken for granted, before all this.
          And then he glances in the mirror, and stifles a strangled yelp.  His appearance is all wrong.
          For one thing, he’s young.  Ridiculously young, with out of control hair that he could’ve gotten to look good if he’d actually put in any effort.  At least the facial structure looks pretty much the same.  He’s missing the facial hair.  Probably a side effect of looking young, but—
          Seriously, is this it?  Is this the psychotic break that everyone around him has been looking for, staring with predatory eyes, waiting for him to lose it?
          And then the headache strikes, like someone’s stabbing into his brain with a long, jagged metal tool, and he falls back, clutching at his face like it’ll somehow help.
          He’s promised Yinsin the vampires would pay.  They were evil, so they’d hurt other people, but he’d be there to stop it.  An Iron Avenger.
          And then he falls to his knees, clutching at his head.  If anything, the headache had gotten worse.  There’s no such thing as vampires.  They belong in the annals of disturbing or really cheesy fiction.  It should be certain.  It’s just logic.  Magic and monsters don’t exist.  So why does his utterly convincing logical words sound anything but sure?
          This isn’t working.  That’s his voice, which is doing a good job convincing him that this isn’t real and he’s had a psychotic break.  It’s frustrated and strong and sounds a whole lot more real than anything.  Even him.
          I don’t want to die, adds another voice.  It sounds like him.  It sounds nothing like him.  He really is losing it.
          You’re not insane, and if you continue denying this is happening, you will be killing yourself, his voice responds.  Again.  If you’re anything like me, you don’t care what happens to yourself, but—what will happen to the boy once you’re gone?  He can’t think of any other way to respond, so he’s silent.  He still doesn’t understand.
          Do you remember Loki?  That alien bastard, if he—
          He stops.  He can’t possibly remember that.  He hasn’t gotten there yet.  Which means.
          Which means that his memory’s been messed with, by magic. Which actually probably means Loki’s involved.
          No, actually.  A human mage with the same sort of delusions of chaos.
          Still, this makes a great deal more sense than it would have, if he had actually been pre-Mark 2, even.
          I’m glad you’re dealing with this, because this next part is a little more…difficult to believe.  There’s a pause.  Chaos mage turned people into their costumes, and a kid with good taste dressed up as you.
          He smirks a little.  Well, you’re right about that, kid’s got taste.  He blinks.  Kid in the mirror?  Who is he?
          He feels a split second of embarrassment that is and is not his own.  That’s the part that’s hard to explain.  As opposed to everything else?
          You are Tony Stark, yes.  But you are also Xander Harris.  That’s…that’s impossible.  He’s…he’s clearly….
          If you are not, then explain who Jesse and Yinsin are.  You should only know one of those names.
          Jesse is…his best friend.  No, no, wait, that’s wrong, because if Jesse is, then Rhodey…
          Can I talk to the kid? he asks finally, because there’s something definitely scrambled in his memories.
          You are the kid, and Tony.  You’re not one or the other.  But I suppose you can talk to yourself, in the mirror.
          He looks back up at the mirror and sees the kid grinning hopefully out of it.  He waves, shyly, and Tony smirks and waves.  “This feels stupid,” he announces to it, and earns a goofy smile in return.
          “Yeah, but that’s no reason not to keep doing it,” his counterpart in the mirror mouths back.  “Though I don’t know why you’re asking me questions.  You just have to think about it and you already know the answer.”
          He realizes that the kid’s right.  Like, he just has to think about it and he knows who Jesse is.  And then there’s the question of what’s wrong—they’re here because they’re dying.
          “Okay, then, if you’re me and I’m you, who’s the other voice?” he asks carefully.
          “Oh, that’s the Sorceror one.  He’s trying to fix the whole ‘we’re dying’ situation.”  The kid almost sounds cheerful, which leads him to quirk an eyebrow.  “Hey, it’s working.  So far.  So yeah, sure, I’m happy.”
          “There’s more of us?” he asks, and then feels the hint of a headache lurking on the horizon.  Like that’s something he’s not supposed to be thinking about.
          “That’s kind of the problem, yeah,” his reflection agrees.  “Human brains aren’t meant to deal with that, I guess?  But, I mean, it’s not unheard of.  I’ve watched shows and people have schizophrenia, so, I mean, it’s possible?”
          “Yeah, but they’re not loaded all at once,” he argues at the mirror.  “It’s more like…choosing which OS at boot.”
          His reflection blinks.  “Uh, yeah.  It’s weird that I actually understood that.”
          My magic is fixing that, making it more nuanced.  The kid—because it’s actually his body—is going to be the OS, and the rest of us are extremely sophisticated programs enhancing the experience.  And, no, I’m going to be one of the last ones incorporated, because I’m the one holding this all together and preventing a fatal BSoD.
          “Right, okay.”  He winks at the mirror.  It winks back.  He supposes this is like VR, which he really should get around to inventing at some point or another because it’s seriously cool and he could do it.  It’s keeping him in an environment he understands, preventing him from freaking out in some sort of void.  He’s not going to push the boundaries—he likes living—but now that he thinks about it and hears the voice of the kid, it’s a kind of neat concept.
          “You know, I shouldn’t even be surprised.”  Pepper’s voice, behind him.  Oh, yeah, talking to a mirror and winking at himself.  Right.
          “You know, I thought this was the point in the night when all good little PAs should be snoozing,” he states with a smile.  Pepper might not be real—and that’s definitely a pang in his pressured heart—but that doesn’t mean he can’t interact with her anyway.
          She smiles at the normalcy.  His grin grows.